The air was wrong.
Bella stepped carefully across the field of ash, the weight of her bare feet sinking slightly into the powdery earth. It was soft, like snow—but it didn't melt. It clung to her skin, staining her ankles a ghostly gray.
The sky above her shimmered with pale violet hues, as if someone had shattered twilight into pieces and glued them back together. There were stars—dozens of them—but they didn't twinkle. They pulsed, slow and steady, like dying hearts.
She didn't remember arriving.
She didn't remember leaving.
She didn't remember… much at all.
Only her name. And even that felt hollow on her tongue.
Bella.
Was that who she was?
The wind whispered through the dead trees, their branches stretching like skeletal fingers toward the glass dome above. Each tree was blackened, their bark cracked with glowing veins—some red, some silver, some deep, haunting blue.
The silence pressed in on her like a second skin.
Until it broke.
A whisper. No… a voice. Low and melodic. It didn't echo—it slipped into her mind like silk soaked in venom.
"You came," it said.
Bella turned.
Atop the highest branch of the nearest tree stood the woman. Cloaked in flowing crimson robes that shifted like flame. Her face was pale, almost translucent, and her eyes gleamed like onyx carved from starlight.
She smiled, and the ash at Bella's feet stirred in response.
"I've waited so long," the woman said, voice like lullabies and graves. "You always come here eventually."
"Where is this?" Bella asked, her voice hoarse.
The woman tilted her head.
"This is the place where broken queens remember who they were," she said. "Or forget entirely."
Bella's fingers curled into fists.
"I don't understand."
"You will," the woman said, dropping lightly from the tree. She didn't fall—she floated. And when her feet touched the ground, the ash turned black beneath her.
She approached slowly, her presence cold and heavy.
"Do you feel it?" she asked softly. "The crack inside you?"
Bella hesitated. There was something. A split—not in her body, but in her being. Like she was made of two truths pulling in opposite directions.
"What did I lose?" she whispered.
The woman reached out and gently placed a hand on Bella's chest.
"You lost the luxury of choice," she said. "And the burden of weakness."
At her touch, the mark that had once blazed over Bella's heart flared again—only for a second. Then vanished.
The woman's smile widened.
"There is a crown buried beneath this ash," she whispered. "If you dig it up, it will give you everything. Power. Clarity. Memory."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you will wander here forever," the woman said, brushing ash from Bella's cheek. "Nameless. Loveless. Forgotten."
Bella took a step back. "Why are you helping me?"
The woman's expression turned strangely wistful.
"Because I wore the crown before you," she said. "And I broke."
A sharp wind cut across the field. It carried with it a scream—not loud, but distant, warped by time and space.
Bella turned instinctively, her heart skipping.
That voice.
It was faint.
But it was real.
Kael.
She didn't know how she knew.
She just did.
"You heard him," the woman said, her voice tightening. "Didn't you?"
Bella's pulse quickened.
"Where is he?" she asked.
The woman's smile faltered. "He doesn't belong here. He follows you through madness. If he finds you before you're ready... you'll destroy him."
Bella's throat tightened. "Why?"
"Because love has no place in a world built on ashes," the woman said. "And you're not his salvation anymore."
Bella stepped away.
Her mind was screaming. Every instinct told her to run toward the voice. Toward him. But the crack inside her… it pulsed harder.
"I need to find him," she said.
The woman sighed.
"Then dig," she said coldly, vanishing into smoke.
At Bella's feet, the ash began to tremble.
A dark shape slowly emerged from the ground—sharp, metallic, rusted at the edges. A crown. Black and burning cold.
Bella knelt.
She reached out.
Her fingers brushed the metal.
And the moment she touched it—
The world split.
Images slammed into her skull.
Fire. Blood. Screams. Power.
Kael on his knees.
A blade through his chest.
Her own voice, cold and distant, whispering a name she didn't recognize—but knew she would become.
Lilith.
Bella screamed—
And the ash swallowed her whole.