Chapter 74: Bella

Chapter 74

The mist beneath her feet didn’t give way as Isabella descended, the wind tore at her, savage and cold.

She wore nothing but Lucian’s oversized black silk shirt, the fabric snapping violently against her thighs.

Every gust threatened to sweep her off the narrow, ethereal bridge, yet she remained impossibly steady.

It was as if the smoke itself was reaching up to wrap around her ankles, holding her to the path.

Down she went, leaving the window of her prison behind. The higher she had been, the more the creature looked like a monster; the closer she got, the more it felt like a mirror.

When her bare feet finally touched the damp grass of the lawn, a soft exhale of vapor escaped the staircase, and it began to dissolve into the night air behind her.

Isabella stood still, shivering—not from the cold, but from the proximity. The creature loomed just yards away.

Up close, it was a towering vortex of charcoal and ash, its form shifting restlessly as if it were struggling to remain in this dimension.

The deep red eyes were level with hers now, burning with a quiet, devastating relief. “What are you?” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the rustle of the trees.

The smoky man didn’t answer with words at first. Instead, a tendril of mist—delicate as a finger—rose and hovered just an inch from her cheek.

“I am the truth they buried beneath the stone,” the voice rumbled in her mind. “Why should I tell you, my love, when I can show you?”

“Show me,” she demanded, her amber eyes defiant even as she trembled. Before the final syllable could leave her lips, the creature surged.

Isabella gasped as the smoke didn’t just touch her—it swallowed her. The world turned into a claustrophobic swirl of grey and black.

She panicked, her lungs searching for air, but the suffocating darkness lasted only a heartbeat.

Then, the pressure vanished. Isabella blinked, the stinging cold of the night replaced by a sudden, unnatural warmth.

The sound of the wind was gone, replaced by the melodic trickle of water and the heavy, sweet scent of blooming jasmine.

She wasn’t in the Unholy Kingdom anymore. She stood in a garden so vibrant it hurt to look at.

The sky above wasn’t black or gray; it was a deep blue, dusted with stars that seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat.

White roses the size of dinner plates climbed marble trellises, and the grass beneath her feet was a lush, glowing emerald.

It was a sanctuary. It was the place from her dreams, but vivid—sharpened into reality. “Hello?” she called out, spinning around.

The smoky man was gone. There was no shadow, no red eyes, no looming thing. She was utterly alone in the silence of the blooms.

“Is this a trick?” she shouted, her voice echoing off the high stone walls that hemmed the garden in. “Where are you?”

No reply came. Only the rustle of leaves.

Isabella walked deeper into the garden, her bare feet pressing into the soft earth.

At the far end of the clearing, she saw it: a heavy, ornate wooden door set into a wall of ivy.

It was the only way out of the paradise. She walked toward it, her hand reaching for the iron ring of the handle.

As she moved, she realized her own reflection in a nearby fountain had changed. She was no longer wearing Lucian’s shirt. She was draped in a gown of white gossamer, the gold in her hair now glowing with a light that rivaled the stars.

She reached the door and pulled. Immediately Isabella’s breath hitched as she stumbled across the threshold, the lush garden vanishing like a popped bubble.

The quiet scent of jasmine was instantly replaced by the sharp tang of floor wax and the heavy musk of burning tallow candles.

She wasn’t in a garden anymore. She was in a corridor of cold, grey stone, wide enough for a carriage to pass through.

The sound was what hit her first—a frantic, rhythmic shick-shick-shick of heavy skirts. Maids in stiff, charcoal-colored dresses and white aprons hurried past her.

Their faces were blurred by speed, their eyes downcast. “Hey! Wait!” Isabella reached out, her fingers brushing the wool of a passing sleeve, but her hand slipped through the fabric as if she were touching smoke.

The maids didn’t even flinch. They marched right through the space Isabella occupied, their shoulders passing through Isabella’s chest with a sickening, ghostly chill.

Isabella spun around, gasping, her back hitting the stone wall—or at least, she expected it to.Instead, she felt a strange, magnetic resistance, like she was pinned to the present by a thread.

Then, she saw her.

Walking at the back of the line, carrying a heavy basin of steaming water, was a girl with Isabella’s exact jawline, the same golden tilt to her eyes, and the same whites in her hair. But this girl’s shoulders were hunched, her chin so low to her chest, her gaze fixed on the floor in a mask of practiced invisibility.

Isabella looked down at herself. The white silky gown she’d gained in the garden flow around her ankles.

The skirts were massive, blooming around her in a bell shape that should have made it impossible to move unnoticed.

“Why am I dressed for a ball while she’s carrying water?” Isabella whispered, her voice echoing only in her own ears.

Curiosity, sharper than her fear, propelled her forward. She followed the trail of maids, passing guards in iron breastplates who stood like statues.

Their eyes remained fixed forward, seeing through her as if she were nothing more than a trick of the light.

Everything here felt ancient—the air was thick with the dust of centuries, yet the tapestries on the walls were vibrant, depicting wars and crowns Isabella didn’t recognize.

The maids stopped at a towering oak door guarded by two men with halberds. The doors swung open, and the heat of a massive hearth spilled out.

Inside, the room was a masterpiece of velvet and gold. Seated on the edge of a canopy bed was a girl who looked like a portrait come to life.

Her hair was a rich brown, piled high in intricate curls, and her skin was the color of cream.

Princess Selena. The name settled into Isabella’s mind without being spoken, a fragment of a memory that wasn’t hers. Selena? as in my fucking twin?

The maids dropped into synchronized curtsies. Isabella’s doppelgänger remained at the back, her head bowed so low her chin touched her collarbone.

Selena didn’t look at the head maid. She didn’t look at the steaming water. Her eyes, cold and dark locked onto the girl with Isabella’s face.

“Lift your head, bella,” Selena commanded. Her voice was like silk wrapped around a blade.

The doppelgänger—Bella, my shortened name- trembled, the water in her basin sloshing dangerously close to the rim.

She looked up, and Isabella felt a pang of pain in her own heart. The resemblance was haunting, yet there was a subtle softness in Bella that Selena lacked.

Selena stood, her silk skirts hissing against the rug. She walked toward Bella, circling her like a predator.

“The seamstresses have finished the gala gown,” Selena said, reaching out to mockingly flick a stray strand of white hair from Bella’s forehead.

“It is a masterpiece of light. They say it will make me look like a goddess descended from the heavens.”

She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a cruel, intimate hiss that vibrated through the room.

“It is a pity, truly. We share the same father and the same blood, yet it seems the gods gave me the crown and left you with only the face of a servant. When I wear that dress tonight, I shall shine so brightly that no one will even notice the ’sister’ scrubbing the soot from my fireplace. You aren’t a princess, Bella. You are merely the shadow I cast when the light hits me.”

Bella flinched as if she’d been struck, her knuckles turning white around the brass handles of the basin.

Isabella stood just inches away, her heart hammering against her ribs. Sisters? The word felt like a lightning strike. How could one be a royal and the other a slave?

“Is this why I’m here?” Isabella reached out to touch Bella shaking shoulder. “Is this me?”

Suddenly, The whole scene seemed to vanish and Isabella was standing next to a large table filled with people.

The air in the room grew heavy, saturated with the smell of roasted pheasant and spiced wine. Isabella stood at the periphery of a grand dining hall, her white gown shimmering like moonlight against the dark, wood-paneled walls.

No one saw her. Not the servants pouring wine, nor the royals seated at the long, candlelit table.

Isabella’s eyes swept the room, her breath hitching as she processed the faces before her.

At the center sat Princess Selena, her brown curls adorned with pearls and her face painted with such precision it looked like a porcelain mask.

She was laughing—a high, tinkling sound that didn’t reach her cold eyes—as she adjusted a heavy gold necklace.

At the head of the table sat a man Isabella didn’t recognize, though his power was undeniable.

He wore a crown, his face etched with the harsh lines of a ruler who had seen too many winters.

Beside Selena sat another man, Older and broader, wearing a crown of gold too —a king and Selena’s father maybe, his gaze fixed on Selena with a kind of softness that felt more political than fatherly

But when Isabella’s eyes wandered to the far side of the table, her heart stopped.

“Lucian?” she whispered. It was him, yet it wasn’t. This man was younger, his face lacked the weary cynicism of the King she knew, and his dark hair was cut shorter, grazing his collar instead of flowing down his back.

He sat directly opposite Selena, his expression a wall of polite indifference. Every time Selena cast a shy, fluttering smile his way, he merely nodded, his fingers tapping a restless rhythm against the stem of his wine glass.

Isabella felt a sickening jolt of realization. This wasn’t just a dinner; it was an alliance. A marriage arrangement between two kingdoms, with her doppelgänger’s sister as the prize.

What about me? Isabella thought frantically. Where am I in this world? The thought hadn’t fully formed when the heavy double doors at the end of the hall groaned open.

A man entered, his presence so commanding that the chatter at the table died instantly. He was tall, dressed in high-collared black leather, and moved with a grace that felt dangerously familiar to Isabella.

And walking three steps behind him, her head bowed and her hands clasped in front of her charcoal maid’s dress, was Bella.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep