I didn’t answer him. He was right after all, and more perceptive then he’d ever shown himself to be. We could have saved a lot of heartache if we’d only had this conversation a little earlier. Before he’d started to poison me.
“Once I saw the real you and knew what you’d done to trick me, I couldn’t ever let you bear my heir. I would never taint the royal lines with your blood. You crossed the line, Ella.”
“You never gave me a chance,” I protested.
“You didn’t deserve one,” he spat back.
“I would have earned it!” I snapped at him, temporarily losing the cool I was forcing myself to maintain. “I have earned it,” I added much softer.
“How? What could you have possibly done?” the prince rolled his eyes disdainfully. “Anyway, once I was set on that I thought to get rid of you altogether, but there was no way to do so without angering the people. I could have lived with my decision until I’d figured something out, but the people just wouldn’t let it go. All that CinderElla nonsense, and those monuments to you—”
“—that you never told me about,” I cut in.
“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction,” the king retorted. “And they had to be stopped. The people believed that if it could happen to you, it could happen to any one of them, and that’s dangerous thinking, because most of them will never know anything other than their petty, little lives. I began to resent you, and it surprised me how quickly that can turn into hatred. I just didn’t want you to live anymore.”
“You would have made a martyr of me,” I told him.
The prince shrugged. “Maybe. But I would have made such a tragic figure, mourning my true love taken from me, ever after cut short before we had the chance to grow old together. No one would question me or anything I did next.” He gave me a devilish grin I would have once thought irresistible. “Even Sir Percival couldn’t write a better story.”
“Sir Percival would never try to kill me,” I rejoined.
He waved away my comment as if it didn’t make a difference. “I got the bloodapple and mixed some with wine so you wouldn’t be able to fall pregnant. The idea was always there, but I never dared take the next step until the coronation, when I would have to make some important decisions for my kingdom. And you, you see, were a bad decision that needed fixing. A constant reminder of my weakness.” He eyed me carefully, seeing me not as a person, but as a specimen for him to dissect.
“What did she do to you?” I whispered in horror.
“My mother?” The prince snorted. “She really was something. Never loved anyone but herself, not even my father who would do anything for her. She loved the crown and the powers that came with it, though I could believe she wanted the best for me.” He paused a moment before continuing, his voice laced with scorn. “It was her idea to send me to the Academy, her idea to pull me out and stick me on the frontlines when those blasted wars began. Perhaps she feared I would be as weak as my father. Well, she wanted her son to be a man, and she got one, one she carved from stone herself.”
It was right then, that look on his face that told me all I needed to know. I actually had the urge to vomit thinking of how well he’d hidden his true self from all of us, his wife, his captain, his cousin. I hadn’t truly believed I would have to go through with my last resort until that very moment.
“Anyway, when your faery godmother stepped in with her magic again, she slowed my progress for a while. Of course, when she left, you were so distraught, you almost finished the job for me yourself,” the man ended with a smug smile.
“Did you know that I was the servant girl who gave you water from the well the day the masquerade was announced?” I asked.
He blinked. He didn’t know. Worse, he didn’t remember. He never cared to. The moment that had meant so much to me could just as well have not happened for him.
“We can’t go on like this,” I said. “It isn’t good for the kingdom either.”
Alexander sneered again. “We most certainly will not go on at all. And I’ll take care of Laurendale. It’s not your concern.”
I knew he only meant one thing by that. Despite the calm I’d maintained until then, at that point, I could hardly see him clearly as I fought away the tears threatening to blur my vision.
“So this is it?” It wasn’t really a question.
“This is it,” he confirmed.
I thought of the man he’d ordered executed, even when possible salvation was just footsteps away. I thought of the malice in his eyes, the compassion he’d decisively pushed away. I couldn’t leave him the kingdom. This was no longer just about me.
I handed my once charming prince the glass of wine. “It’s only right we toast the future together,” I suggested.
He seemed to hesitate in putting the wine to his lips, but I shifted my grip on the still raised sword and he complied.
“To the future,” I repeated, taking a sip of wine, twirling it around my tongue, finally tasting the cherries, which were delicious.
The prince’s eyes widened as he drank from the glass I’d given him. From the first sip, he knew what I’d done, especially as I had no cinnamon to hide it with. He sputtered and tried to spit it out, but my sword was at his hand, pushing into it as it pushed the cup back to his lips.
“Finish it,” I commanded, looking him straight in the eyes. “It’s quicker and less painful.”
As he slowly choked down the wine, I stood as tall as I could manage, but by then I understood that I didn’t need height to raise myself up.
“Do you know what year this wine is from?” I asked calmly, forcing myself not to drop my sword, forcing myself to be brave, for my people. “It’s from the year that my kingdom was reborn. Do you taste the hope? The tingle of promise?”
The prince didn’t answer. His face had already paled with the knowledge of what was about to happen to him. He leaned back into his pillows heaving shallow breaths.
I pressed closer to the bed and peered into his terrified face. “You made a mistake not having an heir with me,” I told him, my heart breaking from his deception. “For now I will start a new line of kings, untainted by your evil blood.”
The prince choked in response. I didn’t know anything about measurements. I had simply dumped the rest of the packet into his cup and prayed it really was strong enough to kill an animal. I couldn’t let him live after this. And slitting his throat would raise too many questions.
I watched over him as he lay back and closed his eyes, but only because no man should die alone. I watched the hours tick toward dawn and watched still as the life drained from his beautiful face, as the swell of the sea left his enrapturing blue eyes, as the glint of gold faded from his sandy hair.
And when it was done, and he had breathed his last, I took the glass from his lifeless hand, smashed it into the fire, and left the room.
I still don’t know if I made the right decision, but even now I can think of no other way out of the corner I was forced into. The prince hated me enough to kill me, and there was nowhere I could go to be safe from him.
I tried to leave that night behind me as I walked away from his rooms, but I couldn’t. It would be a long, long time before I could think of his final moments in their entirety without dissolving into gut-wrenching tears.
After Ever After
No one ever found out the truth of what had happened to the king in his final hours, and no one was ever meant to. Honestly, no one even bothered to ask, and I realized then how easy it would have been for the prince to get rid of me as the kingdom rallied around me in my sorrow. He was right: My supposed despair at true love cut short made for a story that even Sir Percival couldn’t have written any better.
There were two full weeks of mourning leading up to his burial to allow nobility, dignitaries, and commoners to pay their respects to him and the grieving widow he left behind. Only once it was all over could I finally begin to fix the kingdom.
Princess Lyla came for a few days to say farew
ell to her cousin, and to make sure I was really recovering.
“Did you ever make peace with Alex, before he—” She choked in middle of her question, unable to get the rest of the words out.
I thought back to that last night together, of the cruel honesty of a conversation that had come too late to save either of us from what came next.
“Yes,” I told her. “Yes, I did.”
She smiled and squeezed my hand, not understanding, never to know all that was held in my answer.
Despite her sorrow, Lyla looked wonderful, much better than I’d ever seen her since the day we met almost five years ago. What’s more, she seemed almost content. I found out why the day she left, when after we’d said our goodbyes, she caught my hand and placed it on her stomach.
“If it’s a girl, we’ll name her Ella.”
She laughed when my lips floundered soundlessly as every word escaped me. She then left a thick paper in my hand, in which was pressed a large orange-and-yellow lily. It made me smile to think that perhaps, with enough time, with enough work, with enough perseverance, she’d finally find real happiness in her ever after.
I genuinely mourned the king with the rest of the kingdom, and not just because he had done some good for me after all.
For one, he’d given me a new life.
For two, he’d given me a crown.
For three, he’d given me a kingdom.
For four, he’d forced me to take control of my life for the first time since my mother died.
In addition to all that, I mourned a man who’d turned his heart to stone. I mourned even more for what could have been.
There came one day when the captain found me in my newly planted garden, the pear tree having been dug up and replaced, the pond filled with new fish, the glass slipper remaining untouched. I was sitting on a bench I’d requested installed as I would not climb the new tree to sit in. By my leave, the captain sat beside me and placed something in the space between us.
I glanced down and saw a small bundle of dead flowers. I didn’t understand its meaning until I looked closer and recognized it for the small bouquet of yellow flowers my stepsisters had given me on that long-ago night when I thought I would never see the palace again. The same bouquet I left with the captain when I had collided with then spun away from him in my final retreat from the prince.
There were a number of things he could have been saying by showing me he still had it after all these years. I wondered if it had anything to do with his brother’s enigmatic remarks from the afternoon we spent at his family’s estate, when he’d told me how his brother had changed in the time since I’d come to the palace. I wondered if it had anything to do with how I’d been given an invitation to the masquerade that had started all this.
Unsure, I didn’t say anything, waiting for the captain to speak first.
He broke the silence with, “I would have done it.”
I never doubted that he would figure it out. “I know,” is all I replied.
“I would have accepted the punishment for my crime,” he added.
“I know,” I said again. “But it had to be me.”
He nodded and without looking, as if not wanting to bear witness to what his body was about to do, his hand reached out to take mine and I gave it a small squeeze in return, so he’d know I’d be all right. I was scared of what lay ahead, but I was ready, too. He should know that. He never thought I was too small for anything Heaven sent my way.
I can’t say that everything suddenly changed now that I was the only one sitting on the throne. It wasn’t easy trying to rule a kingdom as I was still so fairly new to a title that others trained for from birth. I also began to understand Alexander’s view that there were times that harsher lessons had to be taught, though I always, always tried to temper mine with some compassion.
I tried my best to work with Sir Percival and from his mutterings it seemed I had some ideas that were worthwhile. I wasn’t deterred, though. With enough time, with enough work, with enough perseverance, I would become a queen worthy of the gift of my kingdom.
Magic was warmly welcomed again, but it trickled back slowly, the faery folk hesitant to come back right away. That was all right by me. I didn’t need someone else’s magic anymore. And I wouldn’t let it rule me either. I would create my own, in the kindnesses I did for others, in the kindnesses they would do for someone else in turn. And when I did have children, there would be magic in their smiles, in our shared joys, in the good things they accomplished, in our lives together.
About half a year after Alexander was buried and my kingdom began to take form, a new normal began to take over our lives. One quiet afternoon, I was leaning over my maps, now pleasantly dotted with multiple spots for new schools, when the captain was announced to my rooms.
“Your Majesty,” he kneeled before me.
I studied him there a moment, not yet giving him permission to rise.
“CinderElla,” I decided. “From now, I shall be called Queen CinderElla.”
The captain peeked up at me and his cheeks rose in a smile. “I think it a wonderful idea, Your Highness.”
“And do you think, Captain, when they tell CinderElla’s story, when they tell tales of my kingdom, will they remember everything that was? Not just the faery tale clouding the beginning, but the truth of what occurred?”
“They will, Your Majesty,” he replied confidently.
“You don’t know that,” I said, “but your faith is encouraging.”
A twinkle shone in his eyes, and all at once I saw him clearly, saw the man he’d always been and not just the parts I’d never bothered to piece together. From that first day at the well, a succession of images flashed before my mind, the basket of bread he’d bought me to give the poor, the time he’d dried my tears, the afternoons he’d sat with me in the tree, the nights he’d stayed by my side when I was sick, the moment he set my rejected crown back upon my head.
I had long thought the stars danced in the prince’s eyes, but all this time there was a guiding North Star burning much brighter, more constant before me.
“Rise, Captain,” I finally allowed, and as he stood I held my hand out to him.
We’d been through a lot and we had a way still to go, but I knew, somehow, we would get there together. I thought of what my life was, of what my life had been. I clearly saw every piece that had made me, the parts of goodness I’d received from my mother and Marie, the pieces charred by pain from Madame, the prince’s blackness I fought to keep from tainting others.
I thought I had tumbled out of paradise, but it was never really mine. However, I could build my own, every day I lived for my people, every day I ruled with a kind and fair hand. I could not see the future, could not see what my life would become, but I did know what I did not want it to be. I didn’t want my life to be dark, I didn’t want it to be bleak no matter who tried to block the sunlight from streaming in. I never wanted to stop seeking happiness, hoping that one day, somehow, someway, I would find it, create it, again. I needed to heal, but before me was someone who would help me along the path I’d choose, someone who encouraged a caged girl with stunted wings to fly.
“You needn’t bow before me anymore, Matteus,” I added, returning his name to him.
He smiled knowingly, and the twinkle that began in his eye sparked, as sharp and potent as the magic from a faery godmother’s wand.
In that one instant, that flash of time when dream and reality, hope and ambition, potential and possibility converge, in that one moment, however fragile, however brief, I believed once more in happily ever after.
* * *
THE END
The faery tales continue in
Lies of Golden Straw
Available November 27, 2018
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LIES OF GOLDEN STRAW
Sneak Peek
Ever After
Once upon a time, I was naught but the miller’s daughter. That time is over and no one will ever call me such again. I have a new name now, a name I took the day I left my past at the mill and agreed to a future with the king.
Since then, I have seen much of the world, not just the lives of my citizens, but the kingdoms across the realms. I have met queens and princesses far more beautiful than I, met men with tales far taller than the ones Father used to tell, and I have seen magic far greater than any a young magical I once knew could yield.
Was it worth it?
When once the glint of my future was only bright enough to light the forest around the mill, the present shine is dazzling enough to illuminate an entire kingdom. I don’t think much on the life that could have been, of the possibilities I refused the day I stepped into my new name. Yet there is a man, once a boy with a bright, lavender gaze that lit up when he saw me, who would say the cost was not worth the gain, no matter that jewels instead of straw now adorn my hair. No matter that the price for such riches was but a few simple words to shade the truth.
For the story of how I came here unfolded in ways that prove truth is much stranger, much more dizzying, much more dangerous than fiction. For unlike others, I wasn’t made queen for my beauty, my courage, my wisdom, or my lands and title. Rather, ludicrous as it may seem, I became queen because of my magical ability to spin straw into gold.
Except I can’t.
I became queen on a lie, and it wasn’t even the biggest or grandest one ever told. It was simply the one that changed my life for good.
A Cinderella Retelling Page 28