Enjoy this fairy-tale inspired short story, which recently won an Honorable Mention from Elegant Literature (September 2023). This magazine features upcoming authors in all genres, challenging them with a prompt each month. The story below had to feature a mirror and a theme of monsters in the darkness.
Hope you love it!
“You know the price,” her reflection said, its silvery voice no more than a whisper. “A sacrifice…”
The queen nodded at her still likeness; the reflection did not nod back, merely waiting for her response with an eternal, disconcerting patience. “One of blood, I gladly give,” the queen intoned, pricking her finger with the tip of her belt knife. She pressed it against the glass, and rather than leaving a crimson streak, her finger came away with a metallic sheen. It coalesced into the cut, a gleaming line that pulled the edges of her skin back together, then disappeared with a crackle.
“One of silver, that I live,” the mirror replied.
The gleaming surface darkened, as though the room’s candelabras had all blown out, and the embroidered curtains loosed from their hooks, and the moon itself were hidden by storm clouds.
Yet, when the queen turned, the curtains were drawn, and the stars winked as they wheeled across the night sky, and the crescent moon shone. Magic pervaded her body. The silver traveled up her arm to her shoulder, and an icy tingle spread across her chest where she had been kicked by the stag. The bruising receded into the pale flesh of her breast, and the laceration closed. She sighed with relief.
A knock on the door startled her heart into a quick patter, which eased at the soft voice without.
“Mother, are you alright?”
“Come in, sweetheart. I’m fine now.” She smiled as the princess entered.
Her stepdaughter, Gwyneth, wore a pink gossamer nightgown over bare feet. At first tiptoeing, she rushed forward for a hug. “I heard you got hurt on tonight’s hunt. Humbert said so.”
“And what were you doing in the stables so late?”
“Waiting for you to all return from the hunt,” Gwyn replied disingenuously.
The queen waited, and Gwyn blushed. “And teasing the stableboy.”
“That’s what I thought.” The queen’s smile widened. “You know, he is the eldest son of Duke Calandre, and not a poor choice.”
“Mother!” Gwyn’s cheeks rarely colored, her skin was so fair, but at this moment they burned scarlet to match her nightdress.
The queen chuckled and sent her out, then slipped into the adjacent royal bedroom.
The king awaited, eyeing her doubtfully as she approached. “I heard you were struck before the stag fell to my arrow.”
She tried not to cower as he scanned her for imperfections. Although he had chosen her, plucked her from the peasantry for her raven hair and narrow waist, she couldn’t help but doubt his affection. After all, he had discarded the first consort—Gwyneth’s mother–with little thought or hesitation. The secret magical mirror had healed all of her scars from her years as a huntswoman, and still she flustered at his scrutiny.
With a smooth smile and a touch, she assured him. “Gwyneth has a crush on Thomas Calandre,” she murmured as she nestled into his shoulder.
The king’s chest jolted with a derisive snort. “Calandre has naught but woodland and a few villages.”
She wondered at his reaction. “Thomas is a fine young man.”
“Not as fine as Everhart or Warren.”
“Those boys are half her age.”
“Their fathers, foolish woman.”
Aghast, she raised her head and looked at him in the moonlight. He was serious about both widowed dukes. Both stingy men of wealthy duchies, both comrades-in-arms from the last war, both drunkards besotted with women far younger than they. She grimaced. “My love, I don’t—”
“You don’t have anything to say about it.” The corners of his lips turned down in a scowl. “Do you?”
She shook her head as he continued. “Gwyneth has her womanhood. Looks like her mother, before her mother let herself go.”
He licked his lips, and a sickening nausea arose in the queen’s throat. But she held her tongue and swallowed her bile along with her fears, and lay her head down to sleep.
***
Despite her worries for sweet Thomas Calandre and Gwyneth’s blossoming figure, the queen could change very little in the events that followed. Gwyn was called more and more frequently to social gatherings attended by Everhart and Warren. Her corsets were tightened, her dress cuts adjusted, and her parading as an eligible young lady made apparent. Despite her soft-spoken nature, she was far from shy, and her bubbly personality lent an iridescent sheen to every conversation. Before long, the entire kingdom seemed to speak of her flawless and innocent beauty, her gossamer black trusses, her ruby-like lips. The queen regretted teaching the girl about rouge, for it only garnered more attention to the woman Gwyn was becoming.
The dismaying sense of wrongness never departed the queen once it had settled in her stomach, and yet she could do nothing, until one evening, at an absurdly ornate garden gala, the debauchery became too much.
The dukes drank themselves senseless, the dance was in full swing, and the music pounded its rhythm across the courtyard. The queen found herself without a partner, for the king had wandered away on the shoulders of Everhart and Warren. Her face fell as she scanned the open courtyard, for Gwyn was also missing. She found herself suddenly in the arms of Duke Calandre, and he spun her methodically around with a thin, tight smile.
Leaning forward, he whispered. “Might I suggest you get some fresh air in the east gardens, Your Majesty?”
Concern riddled her brow. “And who suggests this?”
“Thomas.”
She spied the young man, a leaner version of his father, watching them. When she caught his eye, he jutted his chin toward one of the garden paths, implying urgency. She broke away from the duke as politely as possible and curtsied. “I thank you, Calandre, and I thank your son.”
She hitched her skirts up and hurried down the path, ears attuned to the raucous chortles of drunk men. What absurdities were these noble fools up to now? Had they not endured enough headaches during the last hunt? Hardly a man had been able to stay in his saddle, let alone shoot straight. The dogs had done all the work.
She skidded to a halt as another sound came to her ears, a timid complaint at rude treatment.
The queen stormed toward the open glade ahead, intent upon the voice. Gwyneth.
“You both want her,” came the king’s slurred voice. “How about a contest?”
“A duel,” Warren declared. Several voices laughed.
“I’d rather teach her how to handle a—” Everhart hiccupped. “—a sword.” More laughter.
The queen broke into the worst scene imaginable. Gwyneth was being shoved from man to man, inspected like a trussed pig on a silver platter, until she managed to collect herself enough to hide behind her father. Tears coursed down her pale cheeks. Her princess’s crown was awry, her yellow ribbons torn from her hair.
But the king grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward once again. He turned her this way and that, then gave a lascivious grin to his men. “She’s the prize. Whoever pays the most gets to keep her.”
“Can we try her out first?” Warren suggested. “I need to know how many cattle she’s worth.”
Gwyneth shrieked and wrenched away from them, but the king held fast as he roared with drunken laughter. Then he snarled. “You’ll do as I say, Gwynnie. These are both good men I approve of. Which one do you pick?”
“I like Thomas,” she managed, leaning away from his liquor stench.
“I like Thomas,” the king repeated, tripping over his tongue as he teased. Then he yanked her arm harder, and a loud crack rent the air.
Gwyneth screamed.
“Enough!” The queen shoved each duke aside as she clambered toward her stepdaughter. She pushed her toward the path. “Get to my chamber and lock the door.”
Holding her limp arm, Gwyneth sobbed and disappeared, and the queen spun to face the king and his men.
Warren still chuckled, but the king wore a dangerous look as he evaluated her. “Perhaps we should pass you around instead, huntress. You woodspeople like that sort of thing, don’t you?”
She slapped him.
She doubted he felt it. He seemed to feel very little when he drank this much. Not love, not affection, and certainly not mercy.
And to think, she had once believed he loved her.
***
The queen dragged herself into her private chamber through a secret passageway. Her limp was partly a terrible aching from the king’s abuse, and partly the loss of a heeled shoe. He had beaten her in front of his men, then retired with her to the bedroom. She had never felt such a wretched feeling as she did now, like she was filthy from her own husband’s hands.
Gwyneth lay on a long couch, the velvet arm darkened from her tears. She sat up with a groan, but stifled it when she spied the queen’s condition. “Mother? I did what you asked, but I think my shoulder is displaced. I wanted to call the doctor but was afraid.”
“Go to the mirror, sweetheart,” the queen managed between painful breaths. “Mirror, can you help her?”
Gwyneth gasped as the mirror sparked with light and hissed.
“You know the price…a sacrifice.”
The queen plucked a pin from her hair and pricked Gwyn’s finger, then pushed it against the glass. “Repeat after me: ‘One of blood, I gladly give.’”
“One of blood, I gladly give.”
“One of silver, that I live,” the mirror responded.
Gwyneth’s mouth, smeared now with red rouge, dropped open as her shoulder clicked into place. The fingermarks on her upper arm faded, and she marveled as fresh tears streamed black liner down her face. “But Mother, you’re hurt too.”
The queen could only nod, unable to express how deep her injury truly was and unwilling to share such ugliness with her beloved stepdaughter. “Mirror?”
“Certain hurts are deeper than a simple bruise or broken hand,” the mirror answered. “Certain hurts are deeper still, and I can never make them heal.”
The mirror had never said that before. Terror coursed through the queen.
If she had not gone to the gardens, she may not have been able to help Gwyneth heal from the incident. She gripped the edges of the mirror. “Please, I thought your magic could heal anything.”
“Very little heals the soul, the price is thus a heavy toll.”
Eyes wide with fear, Gwyneth wrapped her arms around the queen and stared at the shadow-filled mirror. “Mother?”
Her concern echoed hollow in the queen’s ears, for all she could hear was her own heartbeat, thudding faster and louder every moment. She couldn’t save Gwyn from her own father, a callous and inconsiderate monster who saw her only as chattel to be traded for wealth. She slammed the mirror against the wall. “What is the toll?”
“Isolation is the only way, that is all I wish to say.”
“Then do it. Whatever that means, do it,” the queen cried.
“No…no…no…” The mirror’s resistance reverberated through the room, shaking wax from the candelabras. Tapestries fell from their pegs on the wall, and items scattered across the floor from the mantle.
Fury overwhelmed her. Fury at her own pain, fury at her inability to protect Gwyn from such evil, fury at the mirror’s refusal.
“Do it!” she shrieked, retrieving a candlestick from the floor and bashing the glass. Shards flew everywhere, and thunder shattered the air.
In the stillness that followed, the silver shards at her feet began to shiver, then creep across the carpet, drawn to her. They crept up her leg, slicing as they went, until she was covered in silver and blood. It pulsed with one last brilliant shine, then seeped into her like frostbite.
“Are you alright, Mother?”
Drawing in an icy breath, the queen turned stiffly to Gwyneth. “I am now.”
“What are you going to do?”
The queen retrieved her knife; it crackled with the mirror’s cold power. She smiled.
“I’m going to fix everything.”