The coven had come together and debated the matter at length and, at times, with great ardor. After much discussion, the three witches decided they had enough of the Prince and it was time for a lady to show him his place.

Who to send, though? The witches were elderly and preferred to spend their time reading and in quiet contemplation. The Prince, however, had committed too many crimes to be ignored, so they examined his wrongs for a suitable subject. 

Among his philandering, plundering, payoffs, and seizures of property, the sisters found a young lady, once happy on her family’s farm. Taken from it by the Prince when he had confiscated the land she, like the rest of the house, was separated and sold into slavery. Since then, the back-breaking and dirty work she was ordered to do hid her grace and beauty. Her true name had even been lost in the brutal transaction of her bondage, her new owners only calling her Ash for the perpetual dirt that now covered her. In short, for the coven’s purposes, she was perfect.

The three witches began visiting her at night and, while she was frightened at first, she came to view them as surrogate parents, for they taught her so many things. They reminded her how to sing and dance, to charm, and taught her how to read and write, of magic and alchemy. All of them, together, spent a year in preparation, the magic of her new godparents keeping all of this secret from the women who held her in slavery.

Then one day close to a royal ball celebrating the Prince’s conquests, they provided her with a final gift, an outfit of grandeur as beautiful and durable as Ash herself. The illusion of the formal dress hid many things besides Ash’s identity; a bandoleer of flintlocks and daggers, many pockets with vials of explosives and noxious agents. Her shoes, as exquisite and shining as a crystal goblet, gripped the floor like a spider and their heels struck with as much venom.

Between its radiance and Ash’s beauty, no one questioned her presence at the ball. She waltzed in, alone and unannounced, and the servants made way for her. And who could blame them? She carried herself with the calm confidence of any noble. Any courtier who saw her was quickly charmed. She was light on her feet, an exquisite dancer, a fluid conversationalist, well-read and well-spoken, so no one suspected she was one of the kingdom’s many slaves. 

The witches’ gifts, and all of the training and learning done in secret, would have been for naught though without the will to wield them. Once at the ball, with its grandeur and splendor, dancing with the Prince’s charming sycophants, Ash herself could have been lost in the illusion. The woman she had become, though, remembered the girl she had been and held the Prince in her mind’s eye. She remembered the evening that he roughly awakened her, hands pulling her from her bed, while the burning of her family’s farm lit the scene through her bedroom window. 

The Prince, having done such many times, did not recognize the girl he had sold into slavery, but only saw a beautiful stranger ripe for the taking.  She demurred at first when his seneschal delivered the Prince’s desire for a dance, saying she was not worthy. But when she saw the hungry look in this eyes, she agreed.

Once close to the Prince on the ballroom floor she fluttered her eyes coquettishly, giggled modestly at his compliments, danced him out into the center of the gallery, and slid the first dagger between his ribs. When the red of his blood stained the floor, all realized the assassination and gasps echoed forth. Ash only smiled a razor grin. After all, the now screaming nobles had sworn fealty to the Prince, were the power structure that allowed such a man to rule. They were, of course, the reason she had brought all those explosives.

The next day, in the burned remains of the castle, amongst the crumbled stone and charred wood, the kingdom’s constable, Inspector Pleasling, only found one clue. It told him nothing about how such destruction had been wrought. It was a small, miraculously unbroken, glass shoe.

See the author’s published work here.

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