The last place I was supposed to be was inside a stranger's bath.
Especially not a very angry stranger's bath.
Especially not a stranger wearing gold, staring at me like I had personally insulted his ancestors.
I surfaced choking.
Warm water flooded my mouth, my nose, my ears. My lungs burned as I flailed, instinct screaming louder than thought. Stone scraped against my palms as I grabbed the edge of something solid and hauled myself upward, coughing so hard my ribs hurt.
Steam hung thick in the air.
Not the gentle mist of a shower.
Heavy. Scented. Carrying something unfamiliar—herbs, oils, heat, smoke.
I blinked water from my eyes.
This was not my lab.
This was not any bathroom I had ever seen.
Stone pillars rose around a massive pool, carved with patterns too precise to be random and too old to be decorative nonsense. Torches burned in wall niches. Gold gleamed. Actual gold.
And standing knee-deep in the water a few feet away from me was a man who looked like he had stepped straight out of a very expensive history painting.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Clothes soaked and clinging to him, dark fabric heavy with water. Gold bands at his arms. A thick collar at his neck. Long black hair tied back, damp strands sticking to sharp cheekbones.
His expression?
Murder.
Pure, undiluted murder.
Around him—men.
Many men.
All armed.
Swords.
Spears.
Armor.
A horrifying amount of sharp metal pointed directly at my general existence.
My brain did what it always did in emergencies.
It provided absolutely nothing useful.
I was very aware of three things:
1. I was soaking wet.
2. I was surrounded.
3. I was either hallucinating or about to die in an extremely undignified way.
The man in front of me said something.
I had no idea what language it was.
That felt important.
His voice was deep. Controlled. Dangerous in the quiet way that doesn't need to shout.
Every weapon shifted slightly closer.
Oh.
This was not a dream.
Because dreams never bothered with this level of detail.
The heat on my skin felt real.
The stone under my fingers felt real.
The way my heart tried to escape my chest felt aggressively real.
I slowly raised my hands.
"Okay," I croaked.
No one reacted.
Good.
Great.
Fantastic.
Language barrier plus execution squad.
My favorite combo.
I tried again, louder.
"Hi."
Still nothing.
One of the armed men barked something sharply.
Two others stepped closer.
The man—clearly the most important man here, because everyone else kept glancing at him like he controlled oxygen—did not move.
He simply watched me.
Not like a man looking at a woman.
Like a man looking at a problem.
My brain finally rebooted just enough to form a single coherent thought:
If I was going to die, I did not want my last moments to be silent and pathetic.
So I did what I always did when terrified.
I opened my mouth.
"I swear," I said hoarsely, "I was not trying to break into anyone's royal bathtub."
Silence.
Absolute.
Total.
The kind of silence that feels like the universe itself has paused to stare at you.
I immediately knew I had made a mistake.
Because every single weapon lifted.
And the man in front of me narrowed his eyes.
Very slowly.
Oh.
They definitely did not have sarcasm where I had landed.
That was the last coherent thought I had before several large men grabbed my arms and yanked me out of the water.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, a hysterical little voice screamed:
This is not my life.
---
Chapter One
I was asleep.
Not a dramatic, prophetic, destiny-altering sleep.
The uncomfortable kind.
Face pressed against my desk. One arm folded under my head. The other hanging uselessly toward the floor.
My neck hurt.
My mouth tasted like regret and cold instant noodles.
Someone poked my shoulder.
"Riva."
I groaned.
"Riva."
I did not move.
"Riva, if you drool on the schematics, I'm going to report you to yourself."
I peeled one eye open.
Avni stood in front of me, arms crossed, coffee in one hand, judgement in both eyes.
"Why are you awake?" I mumbled.
"Because I work here."
"That feels unnecessary."
She kicked my chair lightly.
"Go home. You've been here for sixteen hours."
I straightened slowly, rubbing my face with both hands.
"I need a coffee."
"You need several life choices."
"I'll start with coffee."
I stumbled to my feet and shuffled toward the small lab kitchenette, my brain already drifting back to the only thing it cared about.
The device.
The stupid, impossible, beautiful device that refused to behave.
I poured water into the kettle.
Mind drifting.
The temporal stabilizer kept collapsing after twelve seconds.
The energy feedback loop spiked unpredictably.
The containment field refused to stay symmetrical no matter how many times I recalibrated it.
Every equation worked in theory.
Reality, unfortunately, did not care about theory.
The kettle clicked off.
I dumped coffee into a mug, added water, stirred absently.
My reflection stared back at me from the dark surface.
Messy hair.
Dark circles.
A woman who had definitely not slept enough and absolutely refused to stop.
I took a sip.
Burned my tongue.
Deserved it.
I set the mug aside and went back to my workstation.
The device sat in the center of the table.
Metal framework.
Exposed wiring.
Coils.
Plates etched with equations.
A half-finished miracle.
I swapped out two wires.
Adjusted a capacitor.
Pulled up the simulation.
"No feedback loop," I muttered. "No oscillation. Just… behave."
I rewrote three equations.
Rechecked the numbers.
Held my breath.
And activated the device.
At first…
Nothing.
Then the hum started.
Low.
Unstable.
Wrong.
The framework began to vibrate.
Not the smooth vibration I had been aiming for.
The angry kind.
"Oh no."
Lights flickered.
Numbers spiked.
The hum rose into a whine.
I lunged for the shutdown switch.
The device sparked.
My hand froze inches away.
Because the air in front of me…
rippled.
And the world very abruptly decided to stop making sense.