So This is Love (Disney Twisted Tales) - Elizabeth Lim Page 0,98

to wake. It was an ordinary day to everyone else.

Everyone but her.

Finally, she released the bars, her fingers so stiff it hurt to move them.

Three mice nipped at the frayed remains of a rope snaking across her cell. She knelt beside them, taking solace in their company. In the weeks since she’d fled her stepmother’s house, Cinderella had tried to forget her past life, but she suddenly missed the little friends she’d left behind.

A faint but familiar pang of loneliness touched her heart, and Cinderella pulled her legs to her chest, hugging herself close. It was cold in her cell, the gossamer sleeves of her gown clinging to the goose bumps that’d risen on her arms.

Just as she closed her eyes, trying to summon a happy thought that might relieve the heaviness in her chest, the sound of a key turning in the prison door made her lurch.

She shot to her feet. Dared she hope it was Charles? Or the duchess, perhaps—

Alas, it was the duke. His tall, wiry figure emerged from behind the prison door, a frigid breeze accompanying him and jostling the blue tassels hanging from his shoulders.

“Get!” He stomped on the floor, trying to scare the mice away. When they disappeared into the holes of the walls, he exhaled with relief and finally greeted her.

“I thought you’d like to know that preparations are being made for your departure.”

“I am not a sorceress,” she said defiantly, “and you know it.”

“I am quite aware of that. If you were, you would not still be in your prison cell, obviously, and we would have taken no chances with your punishment, which would have been far more severe.”

His response surprised her. “Then why am I here?”

The duke heaved a sigh, the corners of his mouth turning downward. If not for the gleam in his eye he might have actually looked like he pitied her. “My role as adviser to the king is not an easy one. I take no joy in uprooting your life and causing the prince distress.”

“Then let me go,” Cinderella said. “There’s still time for you to do the right thing—”

“You don’t seem to understand. Anyhow, things are more complicated now. . . .” The duke paused deliberately. “Especially since the king is dying.”

Cinderella stilled. Duchess Genevieve had mentioned the king taking a turn for the worse, but hearing it from the Grand Duke’s lips confirmed her fear. “Dying?”

“Yes, he collapsed last night, not long after the ball ended. The physicians blame it on the stress caused by the scandal revolving around the true identity of a certain mystery princess.”

“He collapsed?” Cinderella staggered back, putting space between herself and the duke. “How is he now? How is Charles?”

Ferdinand ignored her questions. “Imagine how aghast the king was when he learned that his son was planning to marry a maidservant! You, Cinderella—you’re to blame for this.”

“Me?” More than ever, Cinderella was certain something wasn’t right here. The Grand Duke didn’t seem to be worried at all about the king. But too much was happening at once, and Cinderella couldn’t make sense of it all as her head swam with the duke’s accusations and the news that the king was ill.

“In fact,” he went on, “Charles has already conceded to the king’s demand that he marry a princess of our neighboring kingdom.”

“No,” she whispered.

“Yes, I’m afraid it is so. You see, he chose duty over love, just as I expected.”

“How is Charles?” she asked, her voice but a pale whisper. After four years, he had only just returned home. She couldn’t imagine how distraught he must be to find his father gravely ill.

“The prince will be fine. No need for tears, my dear.”

“And the king?” she whispered.

The duke leaned closer to her, and the smirk that had rested on his face in the ballroom returned. “His Majesty’s health is none of your concern.”

“How can you be so—” Her hands flew to her mouth as realization hit her. The vial she had found in the nobleman’s pocket, the smirk the duke had been wearing as the king coughed. “The king isn’t ill, is he?” Cinderella’s distress over the king’s health curdled into horror. “You . . . you poisoned him!”

A smile spread across Ferdinand’s face. “Poison is such an unpleasant word. Indeed, I have been tipping the scales for months now. Only a little at first, mostly as a precaution, but once I realized my influence on the crown was, well, waning, something had to be done. But worry not. I