The Queen was found dead with the heel of a lady’s shoe plunged through her heart. The shoe was made entirely of glass and glinted with the reflected flames from the sconces on the Queen’s chamber walls. A high-pitched, distraught wail carried across the grounds of the castle, tearing through the deep clanging of the clock tower announcing the hour of midnight. The guards outside who had been standing at attention whipped their heads toward the direction of the scream. They hurried across the grounds, following the anguished echoes. The one who had found the Queen sat quaking in a corner when the guards arrived on the scene. It was one of the younger chambermaids, newly hired and at service for only twenty-three days. “What happened here?” demanded one of the guards, rushing to the Queen’s prostrate form. The upper half of her body lay on the velvet duvet while her legs hung limply over the edge of the bed. “No—I—“ stammered the young maid, rising shakily onto her feet. “I found her. Like this. I don’t…” She quieted and raised a trembling hand to her mouth. Tears sprung in her eyes. “My Queen…” she whispered faintly as her eyes fell on the silver, staring eyes of the woman. No longer matriarch nor mother—merely a cold collapse of flesh. “Did you see anyone leave the room?” asked the same guard. “Anyone along the hallway?” The maid looked at him with the blank eyes of one searching her memory. “No one. No face, but…” “But what?” prompted another guard. “Quickly.” He turned to the guard by the door. “Tell the men no one is to leave the grounds. Station at every exit and every 10 meters of the perimeter.” “I didn’t see her face, but I saw her skirt,” continued the maid. “She was rushing around the corner. Her skirt was shimmering blue. See-through. Blue as the sky and light as air. Her leg was pale. Slender.” The guard nodded, committing her description to memory. “Anything else?” “Well…” The maid wrung her hands. “She was barefoot.” * The head of the Royal Guard watched with great discomfort as the Prince collapsed onto his seat in the dining chamber. The Prince’s royal composure kept him seated upright, but the Head Guard could see he was close to collapse. The young man’s eyes, quivering with shining tears, betrayed his grief. “You’re sure,” the Prince asked, meeting the guard’s eye, “that she is dead?” “With great sadness, Your Highness,” the guard responded. “Her Majesty was beyond saving. I asked the nurse to check her myself. She was…” The Prince prompted him to continue. “She was already cold,” the guard finished softly. The Prince pursed his lips and stood up from his seat. The Head Guard saw resolute anger rise within him. “And the shoe,” the Prince inquired. “Do we know whose it is? Do I know the beast?” “I can only tell you for certain that it was a woman, Sir.” “That comes as no surprise,” the Prince snapped. “It was a woman’s shoe. Have you found nothing useful?” “Yes.” The Head Guard cleared his throat. “It was a woman, Your Highness, with a fair complexion. She was wearing a dress made of shimmering material, translucent and blue as the sky. She was barefoot, I gather, because she had used her shoe to kill the Queen—a glass shoe.” A flash of alarm briefly lit the Prince’s face before his expression darkened. “My suspicion, Sir,” the guard began, “is that one of the visitors to tonight’s Grand Ball decided to tread where she does not belong.” The Prince frowned and kept his eyes fixed at a point on the far wall. “If I may, Your Highness. Do you recall seeing a lady of such a description?” “Well, of course,” the Prince replied. “Fair-skinned in a blue dress? There were at least a dozen of them waltzing around the ballroom. Did you not see her face? The color of her hair?” “I am afraid it was not I who saw her, Sir,” replied the guard. “It was the youngest maid who caught a glimpse of her. I am merely her messenger." The Prince released a loud breath of air. “All right,” he stated measuredly. “I would like to see my mother one last time before they take her away. Tell the maid to meet me in the Queen’s chambers. I wish to question her myself.” “Of course, Your Highness.” The Head Guard bowed and, when he straightened, the Prince was gone. * The youngest maid entered the Queen’s room with much trepidation. The image of Her Majesty’s bloodless face and lifeless eyes had barely begun to fade from her mind, and she was not inclined to emboss it permanently there. If she allowed it, she knew it would forever linger just behind her eyes, a hiding apparition that would disrupt her life and degrade her soul. Head bowed, the maid stepped quietly onto the plum-colored carpet that cushioned the expanse of the Royal bedchamber. The dark silhouette of the Prince was framed in fire as he stood gazing into the fireplace. “Y–Your Highness,” the maid stammered, quiet as a whisper. The Prince straightened his neck. His body stiffened into the regal pose he had been made to practice since childhood. It came naturally to him now and imbued his being with a tangible power. He felt the force build in his spine, flowing up into his shoulders, through his chest, and down into his palms. “Leave us,” the Prince commanded. The maid was confused. Had she been summoned just to be sent away? She jerked in surprise when a figure stepped out of a shadowed corner, clad in the uniform of the royal guard. She recalled someone had been stationed in the Queen’s room to watch the body until it was to be taken away. The guard strode out the door and shut it behind him. This was the first time the maid had been alone with the Prince since she began service. She never imagined it would feel this cold, even with a fire blazing at the hearth. She did not know whether it was the Prince's demeanor or the presence of the dead Queen that caused the eerie chill. "You know how to bide your time." The Prince's voice was quiet, but he was clearly addressing the maid this time. "Pardon, Sire?" she asked. The Prince chuckled darkly and shook his head. "My mother was not mistaken when she advised me to forget you. Never address me as 'Sire' again if you truly wish to disguise the ignorance of one at your rank. Although," he added, turning, "I suppose there won't be much time for you to learn anything more after tonight." The maid clutched at her skirts nervously. She stayed silent, studying the Prince's cruel expression. "You dare to commit an act of treachery and now you won't even speak!" The Prince's livid face glowed with a demonic fire. "You are a horrendous liar, you know. Although I shouldn't be surprised, considering where you come from." The maid took a step away from the Prince whose words struck her with a literal force. "You said," the Prince continued, "that you witnessed a fair woman leaving the Queen's chambers. She wore a sheer dress, blue as the sky. Her weapon—a glass shoe." He looked at her as someone who knew her intimately, not distanced by rank but connected by a shared confidence. "I thought—" the maid started. "You thought what?" the Prince demanded. "That I would be happy after this? You thought that you would... take her place?" The Prince hissed his final words before ripping the maid's bonnet from her head, sending her golden hair tumbling down. "Ashputtel," he spat her name as if it were poison. "Returned for an act of revenge." "No!" Ashputtel cried. "It was an act of love! You must see that, my Prince. I saw the sheen in your eyes that night, the gentleness of your touch… You must have felt me as I felt you," she pleaded. The Prince only stared, his gaze barren of compassion and emotion. "You cannot tell me it was all a ruse," she continued in frantic whispers. "It was in your letter. You said that your mother would not stand for us. That even if we ran away, she would find us. You said that… unless she were to leave this Earth… we would have no opportunity for peace. The Prince shook his head. "Do not deny it! I have your letters." She plucked a thick bundle of paper from a pocket near her chest. "I keep them close to my heart, where, even from ink and paper, I can feel the strength of your ardor." "Those are not mine," the Prince stated simply. "You have fooled yourself. Driven mad by a frail mind and a reckless heart." "I am not a fool!" Ashputtel exclaimed, throwing the letters at the Prince's feet. "See them written in your own hand!" However offput the Prince was by her hysteria, he was curious. He bent down and picked up the sheaf of papers, unfurling them as he did so. Immediately, he recognized the handwriting. It was not his—he had been truthful when he said the letters had not been from him. He had never sent any and, in fact, would not know where to send them had he wished to. "The person who wrote this was not I," the Prince told Ashputtel, "but my mother." He watched her wretched face pass into bewilderment. She grabbed the letters from his grasp, rifling through them feverishly as if searching for the Queen's essence in the coal-black ink. "It appears," the Prince continued, "that yours is not the only betrayal enacted tonight. "My mother was a true Queen. A lady of great intelligence and cunning. Briefly, I did love you. Or I believed I did. When you fled that night, I ran after you. I reached you at the steps and witnessed you turn. I saw... who you really are. The Queen saw who you are not. "'Not a Princess,' she’d said. 'Nor a lady. A commoner. She has no place in our lives.' "She wouldn't have it, so I let it go. I let you go. I refused to fall into the prison of hope I sensed was forming around me—the same prison you willingly built for yourself. "I had no idea that she would send you letters. I suppose she thought she was building an assurance that you would never return. She never dreamed that she would die by her own hand partnered with that of a commoner.” "Is that all you see me as?" Ashputtel asked, gripping the accursed letters tightly. "That night, I was a lady in your arms. Worthy to speak, to dance... worthy to lie with you. What has changed?" "You have changed," came the Prince's immediate response. "You are correct. You are not a commoner. You’re a criminal. A sinner." Ashputtel quailed at his words. "In attempting to rise above your station, you only served to lower yourself.“ Asputtel shook her head wildly from side to side. "That was not my intention! You must believe me. Where your mother's heart is cold, mine is true! True not to your wealth or your power, but to you. You alone." "Your heart may be true," the Prince conceded, "but it is also black. Rotted like only a murderer's heart can rot. The moment you lifted that shoe, the devil placed his mark on you." He grabbed Ashputtel's wrist, dragging her to the fireplace. "And the mark of evil,” he continued savagely, “is cleared only with fire." Moments later, a high-pitched, distraught wail carried across the grounds of the castle, tearing through the deep clanging of the clock tower accompanying the first light of dawn.