Chapter 23 Vanity Shattered #2
Hunter lunged. Jacob blocked, but Hunter’s weight bore down on him, locking their blades at the hilts. They stood nose to nose, grunting with exertion. “She will die,” Hunter hissed, his spit flying into Jacob’s face. “And I will bring her heart to the queen!”
With a roar, Hunter struck Jacob. The Prince stumbled back, dazed, blood pouring from his nose. He fell to one knee, his sword clattering a few feet away.
“Jacob!” Shay cried out from the balcony, the words cracking with terror.
Hunter loomed over the fallen Prince, raising his sword for the killing stroke. The sun glinted off the steel. Time seemed to slow. Dax and Silas rushed forward, but they were too far away.
Jacob looked up. Through the haze of pain, he saw Shay gripping the balcony rail, her face white with fear. Not today, Jacob thought. I just found her.
As Hunter brought the sword down, Jacob didn't try to block. He rolled forward, diving inside Hunter’s guard.
He tackled the swordsman around the waist, driving him back with a desperate surge of adrenaline.
They crashed to the ground, a tangle of limbs.
Hunter dropped his sword, forced to resort to his fists, raining heavy blows onto Jacob’s ribs.
Jacob took them, gritting his teeth, and scrambled for a loose dagger at Hunter’s own belt.
Hunter’s eyes were rabid. His hands found Jacob’s throat, squeezing, crushing the windpipe. Jacob’s vision was spotted with black. He couldn't breathe. The sounds of the courtyard faded. Shay.
With a final, explosive effort, Jacob ripped the dagger free. He didn't have the angle for the heart. He drove the blade upward, jamming it under Hunter’s ribs, into the soft vulnerability of the gut, and twisted.
Everyone froze. Hunter froze. His grip on Jacob’s throat slackened.
His eyes went wide, the madness in them dimming into shock.
Jacob shoved him off, gasping for air, coughing violently.
He scrambled back, retrieved his sword, and stood over the assassin.
Hunter curled on the stones, clutching his side, coughing blood.
He looked up at Jacob, then past him, toward the East. Toward Liora.
“She...” Hunter wheezed. “She will... never... love you...” He slumped forward, the light leaving his eyes.
The courtyard was silent, save for the ragged sound of Jacob’s breathing.
He stood there, bruised, bleeding, his pristine white coat stained with blood and dirt, his face swelling—but victorious.
He dropped his sword. He didn't look at the crowd.
He turned immediately to the miners. “Gage,” he rasped, stumbling toward the wounded man.
Shay was already there. She had flown down the stairs, ignoring the danger, ignoring the blood. She fell to her knees beside Gage, her hands pressing over Drew’s on the wound in his side. “You idiot,” she sobbed, looking at Gage’s pale face. “You stupid, brave idiot.”
Gage managed a weak, bloody grin. “Told you,” he wheezed. “No knight errant. Just us.”
“Is he...?” Shay looked up at Dax, terrified.
Dax knelt, checking the wound with hands that still shook from the fight. “It missed the vitals,” Dax said. “He's lost some blood, but he's as stubborn as the mountain stone. He'll live.”
“Okay, you lot. Enough fussing. Bandage me up and let’s be done with it,” Gage ordered.
Shay turned and threw herself into Jacob's arms, her tears mingling with his sweat and blood. He held her tightly, his breathing ragged but his heart full.
She inhaled him—his scent, the sweat, the blood he shed for her. “I thought I lost you. When you had only just been found,” she cried.
“I wish I had found you sooner. Your mother, the queen, never allowed me through the gate, though I tried many times. I… I just…” Jacob paused, adrenaline subsiding, reality returning.
“May I court you, properly?” Jacob asked softly, his voice full of reverence.
“Even if it’s complicated?” he added as he looked at the six men.
His touch was innocent, his hands gentle as they cradled her face, but it aroused her more than any previous touch in her life.
There was purity in his affection, honesty in his desire, and the knowledge that she had genuine romantic love for him made every contact electric.
She had longed for him for so many years, dreamed of this moment, and now it was real.
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice filled with wonder. “Please.” But then she pulled back, her hands resting on his chest, her eyes darting to the six battered, bloody men who stood in a protective ring around them.
Gage was wiping blood from his lip; Bennett was watching her with terrified hope. “But you must know,” Shay said, trembling but firm, “I am not the girl in the stable anymore. I have been loved by these men. They are part of me now. I cannot walk away from them.”
The courtyard went silent. The miners held their breath, waiting for the Prince to recoil, to demand she choose.
Jacob looked at the six men. He saw the way Gage watched the perimeter, the way Harry was ready to catch her if she fell, the way their hands lingered on their weapons, ready to kill for her.
He looked back at Shay and saw the fierce loyalty burning in her eyes.
Jacob was silent for a long moment. He looked at the men again—really looked this time—at their bruises, their blood, the way they never took their eyes off her.
“I won’t pretend I understand this yet,” he said finally.
Shay’s heart stuttered. “But I know one thing,” he went on.
“You didn’t survive by accident. And I won’t insult you by asking you to erase your past. What do you want? ”
She took a deep breath, afraid her next words would condemn her. “I had a dream of just you, once, but I have a new dream now. I want them with me. And I want you with me.”
“Then it shall be,” he replied. And he kissed her deeply, passion and love swelling from both of their hearts.
Liora stood before her mirror, waiting for the confirmation of her victory.
But instead of her own triumphant reflection, the mirror's surface rippled like a pond disturbed by a stone.
The dark glass swirled, clearing to reveal a scene that made her breath hitch in her throat.
Shay and Prince Jacob, kissing tenderly in the courtyard, the six miners standing proudly behind.
“No,” Liora whispered, her hand trembling as she reached toward the glass.
“It cannot be! She is dead. I fed her the fruit. I watched her fall!” The image in the glass did not fade.
It grew brighter, taunting her with the one thing she could not poison: love.
“Stop it!” Liora shrieked. “Show me! Show me who is fairest!”
The image of the courtyard faded. In its place, her own reflection returned. Liora let out a sigh of relief, leaning in close to admire the smooth line of her jaw, the dark fire in her eyes.
But then, the reflection blinked.
The woman in the glass smiled, but it was not Liora’s smile. It was a rictus of decay.
As Liora watched, paralyzed with horror, the reflection began to change.
The smooth, alabaster skin she had oiled and pampered for four decades began to gray and thin, sucking tight against the skull.
Her midnight hair, her pride and joy, turned the color of dirty ash and fell out in clumps, drifting to the bottom of the frame.
Her teeth yellowed and lengthened; her posture curled into a question mark.
Liora gasped, clutching her own face. Her fingers met not smooth skin, but deep, dry furrows. She looked down at her hands—they were spotted and withered, the hands of a crone.
“What is this?” she croaked, her voice a rusted hinge. “What are you doing to me?”
The mirror seemed to hum, a low vibration that shook the teeth in her head.
The poison she had ingested earlier—the single bite of the apple—suddenly roared to life in her blood.
It didn't put her to sleep. It accelerated the time she had stolen.
Decades crashed into her in seconds. Her bones cracked and bowed under the weight of sudden age. Her heart fluttered like a dying moth.
“Stop it, dark magic! I am the Queen!” she screamed at the glass, raising a withered fist. “I am the fairest! I am Liora!”
She struck the glass with her fist in a fury of rage.
It did not just crack—it exploded. With a sound like a thunderclap, the great mirror shattered outward.
A thousand shards of silver glass—bright as diamonds, sharp as daggers—erupted into the room.
They flew at her like a swarm of angry bees, driven by a magic that was finally done serving her.
Liora fell back, pierced by the jagged fragments of her own vanity.
She landed hard on the cold stone floor.
She tried to crawl, to reach the door, but her limbs were suddenly too frail, too old.
She rolled onto her back, her breath rattling in her chest. All around her lay the shards of the mirror.
In every single pointed piece, she saw a reflection.
A thousand tiny, withered hags stared back at her, their eyes wide with terror, dying alone in the dark.
She reached up, trying to shield her face, trying to hide the ruin of her beauty one last time. But her hand was too heavy.
“Fairest...” she wheezed, the word dissolving into a dry rattle.
And there, amidst the wreckage of her obsession, Queen Liora took her last breath—alone, quiet, and flayed by the truth she had spent a lifetime avoiding.
Back in the western castle, Shay rested in Jacob's arms, feeling safer than she had in years.
The threat was gone, the future shining with possibility.
She had found her protectors, her prince, and most importantly, herself.
Two futures shimmer before her. One born of devotion.
One born of desire. Shay whispered to herself, “Once upon a time, a princess lived happily ever after.”
The End