Ella von Rosenfeld's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Ella pressed the golden slipper to her chest and waited for the bird to come. Nothing came. She stood alone in her chambers of Rosenfeld Castle, a princess now, wife to Prince Valentin. Months ago, a white dove had flown from her mother's grave tree and given her this slipper and a gold and silver gown. That dove had carried her out of the ashes and into a crown. Ella believed her dead mother held white magic. She needed to know if that same magic slept in her own blood. But she did not know how she had called the bird. Until she called it again, she could prove nothing. She closed her eyes and remembered the Salzmann Estate. She remembered kneeling in the dirt before the hazel tree. She had wept there until her tears soaked the roots. The dove had answered her tears, not her words. So Ella tried to weep now. She squeezed her eyes shut and strained for grief. No tears came. She only felt foolish, a grown woman begging her own eyes to cry. The door opened. Valentin stepped in, still wearing his dark traveling cloak. He had ridden in from court, where he argued against the Order of witch hunters before his mother the Queen. He saw the slipper in her hands and stopped. "You're trying to summon it," he said. He did not ask. He crossed the room and sat beside her. "I told you. I think the magic is in you, Ella. Not just your mother." "I can't make it come," she said. "I don't know what I did. If I can't prove this, then I'm nothing but a merchant's daughter who got lucky." Valentin took her hand. "You grew a tree from a dead branch with your crying. That isn't luck." He pressed her palm flat against the slipper. "Stop forcing the tears. What did you feel that day, under the tree?" Ella thought of the grave. She thought of her mother's cold body and the long nights by the hearth. The old ache opened in her chest, slow and real. Her eyes stung. One tear slid down and fell onto the golden slipper. The slipper warmed under her hand. A soft light rose from the gold. Then a white feather drifted down from the ceiling, though no window stood open. Ella caught it. It was warm, like a living thing. Beyond the stone walls, she heard wings. Valentin stood fast. "That's it. You called it." The wings grew louder, then faded. The light in the slipper died. The feather stayed in Ella's palm, proof she could hold. "The grief calls it," she whispered. "Not the words. The grief." She closed her fingers around the feather. Her magic was real. But now she knew the price. To wake it again, she would have to tear open her worst wound each time. And she did not know how many times a heart could bear that.