The world didn’t hate Nyra Wren—it simply didn’t notice her.

She drifted through life the way background characters did in novels. Silently. Softly. One face among millions in a gray city that pulsed with noise, neon, and forgotten dreams. Her small apartment buzzed with old electricity, and her window faced a brick wall that never changed, no matter the season.

Most days blurred into the next: wake, work, wait, repeat. Some nights she sat in the back of a dusty university library she no longer attended, pretending she still belonged there. Books were the only places that remembered her. Paper gave her what people did not—attention, purpose, escape.

And then came the book.

She didn’t know where it came from. It wasn’t catalogued in the library’s system. No author’s name. No barcode. Just a cracked leather cover with a silver-etched title:

A Crown of Silver and Flame.

Something about it called to her. The way it smelled of ink and ancient things, or the way the gold-tipped pages shone like they held more than just words. She read it in one night, breathless beneath her blanket as the characters unfolded like memories she had somehow forgotten.

The brave and kind heroine, Elira Solvenne Althear.

The noble, duty-bound prince, Cian Rathmore Elwynn.

The misunderstood villain cloaked in shadow, Lucien Vale Drayven.

And the world—lavender skies, spired castles, courts that glittered and cut.

She’d wept when the final page turned.

But something lingered. Something odd.

There was a passage she didn’t remember being there the first time. A single line, faintly inked at the margin of chapter thirty-one:

> “Nyra Caelith Veilborne—she was never meant to survive the story.”

Nyra’s breath caught.

It wasn’t just the name. It was the way it had been written: like a memory bleeding through the page. She reread the book, page by page, and discovered brief mentions of a girl—noble-born, unimportant, erased before the plot began. A name crossed out in red.

Nyra.

Her name.

Her name, but not.

In the silence of her apartment, heart pounding, she whispered to herself, “What kind of story forgets its own characters?”

No one answered.

But something in the book did.

The lights flickered. Her vision blurred. And as sleep pulled her under, she thought she saw the ink begin to move.

She woke to sunlight, silken sheets, and perfume on the air.

She was not in her apartment anymore.

And when the maid entered, curtsied, and softly said, “Good morning, Lady Nyra,” she understood one terrible truth:

She hadn’t just read the story.

She had become part of it.

Questions starts running through her head.

Where am I?

Why does this room feels familiar?

This can't be real... right?

Isn't this.. from the book?

Did I fall asleep reading? Am I imaging this?

Am I still Nyra Wren? Or am I... Nyra Veilborne now?

Why would anyone bring me to this world.... especially as her?

She was shocked to know that she has transmigrated into her favorite novel but was angry that she came as The Nyra Veilborne.

Nyra Caelith Veilborne was not supposed to be alive.

The moment her eyes fluttered open, bathed in pale morning light that filtered through gauzy lilac curtains, she knew something was wrong. The bed beneath her was too soft, the sheets too luxurious, and the scent in the air—sweet florals and fresh parchment—was not her own. She sat upright slowly, heart thudding in her chest as she took in her surroundings.

She wasn’t in her apartment. This room was far too large, adorned with velvet drapes, polished furniture, and a chandelier strung with crystal droplets that shimmered like starlight. There was no hum of traffic. No sirens. No distant neighbors stomping overhead.

She was somewhere else.

Somewhere impossible.

Nyra rose from the bed on shaking legs, approaching the full-length mirror framed in silver and carved ivy. Her reflection blinked back at her—same eyes, same face, but… softer. Brighter. Her long dark hair was brushed into glossy waves, and the silken nightgown she wore clung to a figure that seemed too elegant to belong to a college dropout who once survived on instant noodles and secondhand paperbacks.

The realization hit her slowly. Not like thunder. Like snow. Cold and creeping.

She had seen this room before.

Not in life, but in fiction.

This was the exact chamber described in A Crown of Silver and Flame, a novel she’d read—no, devoured—a hundred times over. And if this room was real, then so was the name the servant had murmured earlier when she brought in tea:

Lady Nyra Caelith Veilborne.

A minor noble. A background character. A girl whose only role was to get swept into the hero’s path, say three lines, and die by poison in chapter three.

Except… she wasn’t dead.

She was standing here.

Breathing.

Remembering everything.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” she whispered, her fingers brushing the vanity’s cracked mirror. “This isn’t my story.”

But something had changed.

Somehow, she’d been placed into the world of the book—not as the heroine, not as the villain, not even as someone meant to survive. A forgotten name. A discarded footnote.

Why?

She dressed slowly in the violet gown left out for her, fingers trembling as she did up the clasps. Her heart pounded louder with every breath. If she remembered the story right, the royal academy awaited. The golden heroine, Elira Solvenne Althear, would soon make her entrance. The crown prince—Cian Rathmore Elwynn—would rise to his role. And the villain, Lucien Vale Drayven, would enter the shadows, plotting a downfall that was never truly his.

But something was already different.

She should not exist.

And if she wasn’t careful, the story might come for her again—to erase her, like it tried to do the first time.

Exploring the room, Nyra finds a small leather-bound journal. It's blank—except for torn edges, as if someone ripped out entries. But a faint imprint of erased ink remains, and on the back page, a symbol is scrawled in blood or ink.

This could tie into her forgotten identity and hint at an erased history.

A sudden wave of vertigo hits. For a second, she’s not in the room—she sees flashes of a great library burning, a woman screaming her name, and a voice whispering:

> “You were meant to guide the story—not be erased from it.”

Nyra kept her movements steady, but her thoughts whirled like a storm behind her eyes.

The gown clung too tightly, the corset felt unnatural, and the corridor outside her room was a gilded nightmare of symmetry and silence. Velvet carpets muffled her footsteps as she wandered, pretending to know where she was going. Every passing servant bowed or curtsied with rehearsed precision. No one questioned her presence—not yet.

But she questioned it.

She didn’t belong here. She was supposed to be dead.

In A Crown of Silver and Flame, the character Nyra Veilborne had a single scene at a royal luncheon—quiet, forgettable, poisoned by accident when a cup meant for the heroine had been misdelivered. Her death sparked a series of protective measures around Elira, the beloved protagonist. No one mourned Nyra. No one remembered her.

She had read that chapter three times to be sure. There had been no ambiguity.

But here she was, alive, and worse—she could feel the weight of existence in this place. The marble underfoot. The dry scent of ancient books behind the closed doors. The faintest pull, as if the world was testing her, trying to decide if it should accept her.

A knock at her door earlier had brought with it a maid named Alis, who, although polite, seemed almost unnerved by her presence.

"You’re… feeling better today, my lady?" she had asked hesitantly.

Nyra had nodded, unsure how the original Nyra Veilborne behaved. “I believe so.”

Alis’ eyes darted away. “That’s… good. The steward will be expecting you in the south drawing room shortly.”

“Why?”

Alis had hesitated. “To discuss your travel arrangements. You’re due at the Royal Academy in two days.”

The blood drained from Nyra’s face. The Academy? In the book, she never made it that far. She died before the carriage ever left the estate.

She was already off-script.

Now, walking through the manor’s vast hallways, she tried to recall the book’s layout. The Veilborne estate had only been mentioned once, briefly. No map, no detailed description. Just vague references to an old bloodline fallen from favor. A noble house no longer politically relevant.

So why am I still alive?

She turned a corner and found herself in a dim hallway where sunlight broke through stained glass, casting fractured colors onto the stone. A mirror hung on the far wall—one she hadn’t seen before.

Her reflection stared back, but something was wrong.

Just for a breath of a moment, the image flickered. Her own face blurred, and another took its place: older, prouder, silver runes curling over pale skin like ink come alive. A woman she had never seen before—but felt like she knew.

Her breath caught.

And then the reflection returned to normal.

She reached out with trembling fingers, touching cool glass. “Who am I really?” she whispered. “And why did they erase me?”

No one answered.

But somewhere deep in the house, a grandfather clock struck once—loud, echoing, final.