The forgotten bride
Chapter One
Darkness had always been Elisha’s resting place.
Not a gentle dark, not the kind that came with sleep and soft dreams, but the heavy, suffocating void that followed years of hunger, betrayal, and quiet suffering. She had died with the taste of bitterness on her tongue and the echo of a life unlived in her heart.
So when light pierced through her eyelids, her first thought was simple.
Am I being punished again?
Her lashes trembled open.
Above her stretched an unfamiliar canopy, embroidered with silver threads that shimmered faintly in the morning glow. The scent in the air was not the sharp staleness of her old room nor the dust of the alleyways she had once called home. This was lavender and polished wood — rich, clean, noble.
Her breath hitched.
She tried to move, and a sharp ache bloomed across her skull. A weak gasp slipped from her lips, soft and unfamiliar.
“Lady Camila!”
The voice was frantic. Footsteps hurried, skirts rustled, and suddenly, a young maid’s tear-streaked face came into view.
“You’re awake! Praise the heavens, you’re finally awake!”
Camila?
Elisha frowned, her mind struggling to grasp the words. Her reflection caught the edge of a silver mirror beside the bed, and for a second, the world tilted.
The girl staring back was pale, fragile, exquisitely beautiful — with soft chestnut curls and wide, with dull red eyes filled with lingering sorrow.
That was not her face.
Panic clawed at her chest, but before she could speak, a flood of foreign memories crashed into her consciousness.
A grand staircase. Cold marble. Laughter echoes like knives. A small, delicate hand shoving her from behind. The horrifying rush of air as her body tumbled, bones cracking against each unforgiving step…
Camila Everhart’s life played behind her eyes like a tragedy too cruel to forget.
“My lady…?” the maid whispered, worry etched deep in her expression.
Elisha swallowed slowly. No… She was not Elisha anymore.
She was Camila.
The betrayed noble girl. The discarded fiancée. The sister who had been pushed aside — quite literally — for a prettier lie with sharper ambition.
Two years.
Two years, Camila had lain in this bed, her soul fading while the world moved on without her. While her parents turned away. Her sister stole her place beside Prince Fredrick, as though Camila had never existed at all.
A cold calm settled in Elisha’s chest, smoothing the remnants of fear into something darker… something calculated.
So this was her second life.
And they had dared to waste it.
“Leave me,” she whispered, her voice softer than silk but edged with command.
The maid blinked in confusion. “But, my lady—”
“I said leave me.”
The authority in her tone surprised even herself. After a hesitant bow, the girl stepped back and hurried out, closing the door behind her.
Alone again.
Camila’s weak heart had surrendered to despair. But Elisha’s had been forged in fire. Her suffering had never allowed her the luxury of gentleness — and she would not start now.
Slowly, she pushed herself upright, ignoring the burning pulse of her still-healing body. Her gaze drifted once more to the mirror.
“So this is what they destroyed,” she murmured." At least she's a beauty,"
A faint smile tugged at her lips — not of joy, but of promise.
“They threw you away like you were nothing, Camila… but I am not as kind as you were.”
Her fingers curled into the silk sheets.
“Every slight. Every whisper. Every hand that hurt you…” Her eyes hardened, glacial and resolute. “I will remember .”
Sighing, Elisha put a hand to her face .Her life was way worse than this noble lady but she promised to make all those that hurt camila pay.
A knock interrupted the silence, sharp and authoritative.
“Lady Everhart,” a deep, unfamiliar voice called from the other side of the door. “His Grace requests an audience.”
His Grace?
The memories supplied the answer unbidden.
Duke Adrian Blackwell.
The man the court feared. The noble who smiled rarely and judged mercilessly. A storm wrapped in silk and aristocratic cruelty.A once royal night who earned his position in the hierarchy of society, a force even the emperor fears.The man had many secrets.
What business does he have with Camila?
Interesting.
Elisha — now Camila — lifted her chin, a glint of daring awakening in her new eyes.
“Let him enter,” she replied.
The door opened, and the presence that stepped into the room altered the very air around her.
Dark hair like that of chilling night,at the edge of his nose a sliver glasses, stood firmly.
Tall. Imposing, a frightening aura. Cloaked in dark nobility. His sharp gaze, like cold steel, settled upon her with careful scrutiny — as though he were not looking at a fragile invalid, but at a puzzle he intended to unravel.
Their eyes met.
And in that silent moment, something shifted.
Not pity. Not discomfort.
Curiosity.
His lips parted slightly, as if he, too, sensed that the Camila he knew was gone… replaced by something far more dangerous.
Elisha held his gaze without flinching.
In those stranger’s eyes, she saw it clearly.
The beginning of a war. The spark of a connection. And the first whisper of a fate that refused to stay quiet
