Schönheit's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Schönheit wrote every fairytale in the forest, and now she wanted one for herself. She wanted a mortal to stay with her forever, freely, as her love. But her own rule bound her tighter than any curse. In her stories, love must be chosen. She could not force it. She could only find a mortal whose heart was still his own to give. She knelt at her shrine, deep in the trees. Crystals glowed in every color along the mossy stone. Carved stepsisters and hooded girls watched from the walls. At the shrine's heart hung a golden mirror. Schönheit touched its rose-crowned frame. "Show me the mortals," she said. "Show me who is free." The glass filled with faces. She had written all of them. A boy who had been a beast, now half-cured, tied to a dying rose. A prince searching the kingdom with a glass slipper, already promised to a girl he had not found. A cinder girl waiting in an attic for that same prince. A princess asleep behind thorns, spoken for since birth. Each face made her chest tighten. Every mortal she saw already belonged to a story she had written. If she bound the beast, his rose would fall and his tale would rot. If she took the prince, the cinder girl's ending would collapse. Choosing any of them meant tearing out a page she had bled to write. A gray wolf stepped into the shrine. Its coat was streaked like bark, its eyes calm and old. It had walked out of one of her darkest tales. It sat and stared at her, as if it understood the trap. "There is no one left," she told the wolf. "They are all already loved. Already promised." The mirror flickered on its own. It showed a new face. A young woman ran through the trees, a kitchen knife clutched in her hand. Snow White. She fled a stepmother who wanted her dead. No prince chased her. No curse bound her. Her story had just broken open, and she belonged to no one now. Schönheit leaned close to the glass. Here was a mortal cut loose from every ending. Free, and alone, and running straight toward the forest. "Her," Schönheit whispered. The choice landed like a struck bell. She felt her own forest shift. A green dragon, delicate and crowned, lifted its head near the shrine and spread its wings. The wolf rose and turned toward the trees, ears forward, waiting for a command. Schönheit stood. For the first time in a long age, her hands were still. She had chosen. Now she had to reach the girl before the forest, or the stepmother, swallowed her. "Bring her to me," she told the wolf. "Unharmed. Unbound." The wolf ran into the dark. The dragon leapt after it. Schönheit watched them go, and knew her clean story had already begun to bend.