"She rules alone, with hands so bare...a shattered heart beyond repair."
The ballroom was cold now.
Where once lanterns floated like stars and violins sang sweet sonatas, only broken chandeliers hung, their crystals clinking like ghostly wind chimes in a draft that never ceased.
The walls, once draped in royal blue and gold, were now faded to silver ash. Every mirror was shattered... 0some purposefully, others from time and sorrow. And across the marble floor stretched a trail of glittering fragments.
At its center stood a throne.
Not one of wood or gold, but of glass... twisted and sharp, crafted from the very slipper that once promised a future. Its edges shimmered with frost, its arms jagged as regret.
Upon it sat the Queen.
Her name had been Ella, once.
Now, they only called her "The Queen of Glass".
The Ball
It had begun like all stories do.
A wish. A dream. A spark of magic spun from desperation.
She had danced beneath chandeliers of starlight, her heart weightless, her soul lifted by strings of hope. The prince...beautiful, kind, with eyes like dawn...had seen her. 'Really' seen her.
He had said her name like it was a vow.
They twirled as if the world had vanished beyond the ballroom walls.
But when midnight struck...
The dream fractured.
The slipper slipped. The dress unraveled into cinders. The magic, bound by rules too cruel for hearts, dissolved like mist.
And so she fled.
A glass slipper left behind.
A symbol of fragile hope.
The Lie
He searched for her.
At least, that's what they say.
But the kingdom whispered of a prince grown colder after the ball. A prince more concerned with power than passion. His advisors urged him to marry quickly, to solidify his rule.
So when the girl with the slipper appeared...dirty, trembling, with ash in her hair...they dressed her in silks and lies.
"You are the chosen one," they said.
"You will be queen."
They did not ask if she loved him.
They did not ask if she still 'believed'.
They placed a crown of silver atop her head and led her to a throne already cracked.
The Marriage
The wedding was a spectacle. Doves, trumpets, golden goblets filled with rosewater.
But the prince never smiled the way he did at the ball.
Not once.
His eyes drifted. His hand trembled in hers. When they danced the first waltz as man and wife, she saw him flinch when her heel grazed his slipper's twin.
She tried to pretend.
She smiled until her lips cracked.
She laughed when they toasted her.
But inside, she waited.
Waited for the magic to return.
Waited for the feeling.
It never did.
Instead, she heard a crack.
Not of bone.
Of soul.
The Fracture
The first mirror broke on the fifth night.
She stood alone in the dressing chamber, her gown heavy with pearls, her hair piled high like a crown of thorns. She looked into the mirror, seeking the girl from the ball... the radiant flame that once burned in her eyes.
But she saw only glass.
Thin, empty, ready to shatter.
So she did what any cursed girl would do.
She threw her slipper at it.
It hit the mirror like a scream and split the reflection in two.
That was when she heard the whisper:
"You do not belong in this story."
It came from nowhere.
And everywhere.
She thought it was madness. Grief. Loneliness.
But then it came again.
"You are the shard they tried to hide."
The Isolation
He left her soon after.
The prince, citing war, rode away with banners of silver and blue.
But no war followed. No news. No letters.
Some said he vanished into the northern fog.
Others said he found another... a woman of fire and song.
Ella didn't care.
She stopped caring the night she locked the ballroom doors and burned the royal wedding scrolls in the hearth.
She ruled from shadows.
She stopped attending court.
She wore gowns of crystal and silence.
She forbade mirrors in the palace.
But the whispers continued... now louder, clearer.
"Break the spell."
"Find the other shoe."
"Finish the dance."
The Mirror of Truth
One night, as frost crept across the windows and her tears turned to ice before hitting the floor, she wandered into the ruins of the old ballroom.
There, beneath a broken chandelier, she saw it.
A mirror.
Not one of reflection.
But of memory.
The Mirror of Truth.
An ancient relic hidden behind silk curtains and illusion, once sealed away by kings who feared what truth might show.
She stood before it, trembling.
And looked.
Not at herself.
But at the girl she used to be.
The one in rags.
The one with hope.
The one who 'believed.'
Then she saw the night of the ball... again and again, the memory replaying with each breath.
But this time...
She noticed something new.
The prince... he never looked at her face.
Only her feet.
Only the slippers.
The magic had not shown him 'her heart'... only the spell.
And in that moment, Ella realized the truth:
He never loved her.
He loved the idea.
He loved the enchantment.
He loved the slipper.
The Shattering
She screamed.
The sound cracked the ceiling. Shattered the floor.
But more than anything...
It shattered 'her.'
Her skin turned translucent.
Her hair froze into strands of crystal.
Her blood slowed into frost.
And her heart?
It split clean in two.
From the shards of her pain, she crafted a throne.
From the remnants of her slippers, she forged a crown.
From her tears, she built a kingdom of glass.
She became something no one could ignore.
No longer a girl.
No longer a wife.
Only "The Queen of Glass*"...
Ruler of the ballroom of echoes.
The Curse
Now, she rules alone.
Her castle is silent but not still. It hums with forgotten dances. It weeps in waltz time.
Visitors who wander too close are drawn into illusions... visions of the ball, of laughter, of love. They dance until their legs give out. They waltz until their hearts forget the beat.
Some say the Queen weeps when she sees them.
Others say she watches silently, her hand resting on the jagged arm of her throne, waiting for someone... 'anyone'... to ask:
"Are you alright?"
But no one ever does.
They're too busy chasing magic that never loved them back.
The Final Waltz
In the deepest hall of her palace, one slipper remains.
Unbroken.
Untouched.
She placed it beneath a bell jar of ice.
Every year on the anniversary of the ball, she descends alone, lifts the jar, and holds the slipper.
She doesn't cry anymore.
She doesn't hope.
But she remembers.
And memory, for the cursed, is the cruelest dance of all.
Next - Chapter 4: Jack's Endless Fall (The Fall of Jack and Jill)