CHAPTER 305: WITH THORNS-II

Arabella who had woke up from falling asleep on her table sighed. How many times had this happen?

Usually she would study in this table, feeling energized and full of vitality. But after a few hours of studying, she would find herself asleep instead of studying with the last memories of her before she slept blurs in her head.

Not wanting to continue punishing herself for falling asleep, Arabella tried to be productive by standing back to her feet. She then walked around while muttering the magic that she had learned and the ways to make potion that would counter the effect of Remnant potions. It wasn’t easy and she had been up for days now but it was rather fulfilling to see her own works coming fruitful.

As Arabella circled her study, her hands absently reached for parchment and quill, preparing to jot down a correction she had just remembered about cyrstaline bloom root ratios. She seems to have fixed the ratio but still, something was amiss. An important ingredient to counter the effect of the potion was still missing and she couldn’t think of anything to work against the effect no matter which book she had read through.

Lastor himself couldn’t think of any other ingredient for the potion and said that if they need to look more into it, he would have to go back to the sorcerers’s castle to find more book but he wasn’t sure if he could ever come back considering just how strong the protection around the castle was.

The room smelled of dried herbs and smoke, comforting in its own odd way, and slowly she told herself that she didn’t have to rush, instead she needs to think carefully and study what she had forgotten, anything- anything that she had missed.

Just as she dipped the quill into ink, a sudden movement across the window caught Arabella’s eye.

She had overslept far too long again. Hoping a change of scenery would help her focus, she had brought her books and notes into Cassius’s study. The tall window before her offered a clear view of the courtyard below, framed by gently swaying trees and silver lit moonlight.

But it wasn’t the trees that held her attention.

Someone was moving on the first floor, quick and gliding, as though their feet barely touched the ground. The figure passed through the courtyard, where moonlight fell like delicate lace over the cobbled stones.

Arabella froze.

There was something familiar in the way the figure moved. Almost graceful, though slightly off like a memory fading at the edges.

The dress was pale and long, flowing behind her. But it was the hair, dark as ink, and the unmistakable posture that made Arabella’s heart lurch.

No. Her breath caught.

She rushed to the window, nearly knocking over her chair, and pressed her hand to the cold glass. The woman’s head tilted slightly. Even in the low light, Arabella could see it, jet black hair falling over her shoulder, and when the woman turned just enough, the moonlight briefly caught her eyes.

Red. Vivid and so bright. The listeless expression on her fae made her almost unrecognizable but Arabella knew who that was as she had just seen her weeks ago and regretted the day where she couldn’t prevent her death.

It was Marissa.

Arabella’s blood ran cold.

But... Marissa was dead.

She had seen her bodym what was left of it. The torn neck, the blood, the limpness Cassius hadn’t spoken a word over. There had been no doubt. And yet... the woman outside walked the same way Marissa always had. The tilt of her chin. The way she tucked her hair behind her ear. Even the slight limp in her left step.

Exactly like her.

"No," Arabella breathed, gripping the windowsill tighter. "How could this be.. It’s really Marissa."

But the woman did not vanish. She kept walking, slowly, deliberately, toward the old chapel at the edge of the courtyard, where shadows clung thickly and no soul had stepped foot in years.

Arabella’s mind reeled.

A trick of the eye? A cruel illusion? A restless ghost?

Or something worse?

With trembling fingers, she snatched up her cloak, not even bothering to lace it. The warmth of the study had vanished, replaced by a creeping dread. But she had to know.

Because if that was Marissa— Then either death was no longer final, or perhaps was that her ghosts?

And whatever the truth was— It was waiting in the chapel.

Arabella held her hand tightly together. She then thought about it carefully and realized how this could be a trap. Although earlier she was far too startled to see Marissa and wanted to rush finding out the truth, she also knew that Marissa’s death was caused by someone in the castle. So she questioned whether this was another doing of Queen Morgana to get rid of her.

But the chapel.. why?

Arabella sighed as she was torn on whether to follow the ghost’s steps or to ignore it. After a while, she decided to open her door and find Karnala who was standing in front of the door, standing so straight like a pin needle without moving even once.

Karnala turned around, curious, "What’s wrong, Miss?"

"I saw- You won’t believe this," she started and eventually told Karnala everything she had seen from the window of Cassius’s study room. At first, Karnala appeared horrified and this was because how the vampires had never once believed in souls but then she understood how Arabella had seen it with her own eyes and knew that she wasn’t someone who would make up lies or had seen things wrong.

"Let me bring Renard with us and go to where the Princess went," Karnala suggested and releived, Arabella agreed. Not long after Renard came to them, his expression as grave as Karnala who had just heard the news of finding Princess Marissa’s ghost roaming around the courtyard while making her way to the chapel.

"Let us go then," Renard quickly said.

They descended the stairs in silence. Outside, the courtyard was chilled by night air, the scent of stone and moss and old leaves strong in her nose. The moon had climbed higher, casting the world in silver and grey. The figure, Marissa or not, was no longer in sight.

Each step toward the chapel felt heavier than the last, the cobblestones beneath her boots slick with dew. She remembered how Cassius had once told her the chapel hadn’t been used in over a century. Not since the old gods were buried and forgotten beneath it. The last time it was used was for Marissa’s funeral. This was why she became curious, wondering why Marissa’s ghost had chosen to walk here.