So This is Love (Disney Twisted Tales) - Elizabeth Lim Page 0,91
necklace. “Ask her where she got these beads. They’re my daughter’s.”
“No! They’re—”
“And the glass slipper, and the dress. They were stolen. A girl like her could never have afforded such fine clothes. Why else did I dismiss her from my home? She’s a thief and a liar!”
“No!” Cinderella exclaimed. “That isn’t true.”
“Then—how did you get this?” Lady Tremaine held up the green beads. “And the glass slippers? And the gown you wore? You have no friends, no family, no money.”
“Yes, child,” repeated the duke. “How did you get them?”
Cinderella was at a loss for words. Fearing for Lenore’s safety, she couldn’t very well reveal that it’d been her enchantments that had given her the dress and the glass slippers. Not when magic was forbidden in Aurelais.
“It doesn’t matter.” The prince’s tone was cool, his dark brown eyes focused coldly on Cinderella’s stepmother. “Lady Tremaine, you disrupt the happy occasion of my father meeting my future wife. Where Cinderella procured her garments is of no concern to you. As of tonight, she is no longer under your guardianship, and I would ask that you apologize to her for your accusations.”
“Apologize?” Lady Tremaine spluttered.
“Yes, then kindly leave. My guards will escort you and your daughters out.”
Anastasia and Drizella tugged on their mother’s sleeves. “Mother! Do something, Mother.”
Lady Tremaine gawked at the prince. “Your Highness,” she began, “I’m merely trying to save you from making a terrible mistake. I’ve known Cinderella ever since she was a child. She is a manipulative, horrible little—”
“That is not true!” Cinderella cried again. Taking a breath to calm herself, she explained, “For nine years after my father died, I did all that my stepmother asked. I would never steal from her, or lie to her. She was the only family I had left, and I treated her and her daughters with respect.”
“Even when Lady Tremaine made her a servant in her own father’s home,” added Charles, loud enough for all to hear.
A gasp came over the assembly, and Lady Tremaine whirled to deny the prince’s accusation. “Her father placed her under my care—”
“My lady,” interrupted the Grand Duke, his tone suddenly harsher than it’d been earlier. “I distinctly recall that when I visited your manor with the glass slipper, you said you only had two daughters. Where was Cinderella?”
Cinderella glanced at the duke, surprised he was taking her side.
Before them, Lady Tremaine pursed her lips into a thin line. “Come now, Your Grace, there must be a mistake. You cannot truly believe this—”
“There are records,” Ferdinand interjected. “Your Highness, if you’d like to see—I have proof that Lady Tremaine has flagrantly disobeyed the king’s proclamation to bring forth every eligible maiden in her household.”
“I’ve heard enough,” said the prince, raising a hand. “Guards, escort Lady Tremaine and her daughters from the palace. Come tomorrow morning, they are to leave Aurelais and never return.”
Anastasia’s and Drizella’s faces went ashen, and they glanced nervously at the disapproving crowd around them. Their looks were met with narrowed eyes and lips curled in contempt.
A chord of pity struck Cinderella as she remembered how Lenore and her kind had been similarly exiled from Aurelais. She placed a hand on the prince’s arm. “Don’t banish them. They’ve been humiliated enough as it is. For me, please.”
At her touch, Charles’s expression softened, and he turned to her stepmother and stepsisters sternly. “By the grace of our future princess, you and your daughters may remain in Aurelais, but you are never to set foot in this court ever again.”
“Guards!” called Ferdinand, motioning for them to resume escorting Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters away, but Lady Tremaine raised her chin.
“My girls and I will see ourselves out,” she declared to the guards, motioning for them to step aside. She lifted her skirts, and her daughters mimicked her, all three gathering their pride.
“Wait.”
Cinderella barely recognized her own voice. She sounded strong, firm—nothing like the girl she’d once been.
“Stepmother. Anastasia. Drizella.”
They halted in their step, turning slowly to face her. Cinderella caught her breath, not at all surprised by Lady Tremaine’s upturned nose and lifted chin. She used to fear that expression, used to fear displeasing her stepmother.
She no longer had that fear.
The crowds had gone silent, but even if they hadn’t, Cinderella wouldn’t have noticed the dozens of onlookers in the chamber. A strange sense of calm had flooded her; the words she was about to say were ones she’d never dared before, but she’d dreamed of them for years. No longer would they be fantasy.