Dust and Glass: A Dark Retelling of Vanity
They mocked her in hushed tones, the courtiers and ladies who wove through her halls like painted phantoms, all hiding behind powdered faces and easy smiles. Even when she wore the crown that gave her command, their laughter followed Queen Adelaide like the cold air that haunted the stone passages of her castle.
They wondered, in whispers they thought she could not hear, how a queen so bold, who spoke with fire, could refuse to line her halls with mirrors. Why her chambers were bare of glass, her corridors absent of reflective silver, why the only mirror in the entire castle was hidden, draped in a sheer veil that dulled its honesty.
They called her vain, but Adelaide knew better. Vanity was born of a belief that you deserved to see yourself, to admire yourself. Adelaide had never been granted such belief.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” she whispered, her voice frail in the dark. A queen’s voice in the throne room, powerful and sharp, but here, in the solitude of her chamber, she was nothing but a frightened girl, clutching at the threads of her worth.
“Who is the fairest of them all?”
Smoke tumbled from the mirror’s edges, swirling like grey rivers across the cold floor. The frame was etched with shards of silver, a cruel reminder of the words once spoken to her by a father who had laughed when she ate a sweet cake, who taunted, “A moment on the lips, Adelaide, a lifetime on your waist.”
A father who had stolen the mirror’s promise before she had even understood her reflection.
The mirror answered, as it always did, with a voice smooth as water yet sharp as a blade, “You are, my queen.”
Adelaide’s eyes, dark and desperate, burned. “Liar,” she hissed, clutching the veil, but unable to tear it away.
Once, when she was just a girl, her mother had returned from a distant land with this mirror as a gift, telling her it would speak only the truth. On her eighteenth birthday, trembling with hope, Adelaide had asked it, “Who is the fairest in the castle?”
It had spoken the name of a servant girl from the kitchens, a girl who wore rags and scrubbed soot from the hearth. Adelaide had shattered the mirror, but the shards had drawn together, sealing themselves whole again.
“The truth will continue to be told,” it had whispered, “and it will hurt you, for truth is the sharpest gift you will ever hold.”
Years passed, and Adelaide’s reflection became her greatest torment. Each time the mirror whispered, she returned, craving the words even as they destroyed her. Her father’s taunts. Her sister’s perfect beauty. Her mother’s soft assurances that mirrors held no true power.
The mirror had proven them all wrong.
One night, as the moon bled silver across her chamber, Adelaide loosened her robe, letting it fall to the floor, the cold air biting at the softness of her skin. She forced herself to look, to see the body she despised: her hips too wide, her belly too soft, her jaw too round.
“Mirror, mirror,” she breathed, “how can I become the most beautiful of them all?”
“You are already beautiful,” it replied.
“Beyond these walls!” she snapped, desperation cracking her voice. “Beyond this castle, beyond the lands that know my name. How can I triumph in beauty?”
The smoke coiled tighter, as if the mirror sighed. “There is a tree, a blood-red tree that grows on an island beyond your borders. Its fruit will grant you one wish.”
A wish to be beautiful, to never again fear her reflection.
Adelaide smiled, a smile sharp enough to draw blood.
“Something festers within you, my queen, and it is not beautiful,” the mirror warned.
But Adelaide no longer listened.
The journey to the blood-red tree was cold, and each dawn found Adelaide thinner, her robes hanging loosely as she refused every meal offered by servants too frightened to question their queen. She would not feed the body she planned to change.
At the docks, a huntsman with calloused hands and dark, earnest eyes approached her. He did not recognize his queen without her jewels, seeing only a woman wrapped in a cloak, determined and pale.
“I’ve hunted beyond the borders of this kingdom,” he told her. “I know the blood-red tree you seek.”
She regarded him coolly. “Then take me to it.”
His name was Garrett. He was kind, too kind, and it made her uneasy. On the boat, under a blanket of stars, he offered her wine and laughter, and when he looked at her, it was as if she were something precious.
One night, drawn by wine and the softness in his eyes, she let him touch her. In his arms, for a fleeting moment, Adelaide forgot about mirrors and trees and wishes. But dawn came, and with it, the weight of her own self-loathing returned, heavier than before.
The apple was smaller than she had imagined, its skin dark as blood and pulsing with hidden power. As she cupped it in her palms, her heart thundered. She would be beautiful, finally, and the world would bow not only to her crown but to her face.
She returned to her hidden chamber, the mirror’s veil finally pulled aside. Adelaide saw herself, truly saw herself, and hated every inch.
She lifted the apple to her lips.
“I wish to bear the face of my sister, the beauty that commands love,” she whispered, and bit deeply.
The pain was immediate, ripping through her like fire. Her vision blurred, her screams echoing off the stone as her reflection melted and reformed. Her hair turned gold, her eyes blue as the sky, her lips soft and pale.
When it ended, Adelaide fell to the floor, trembling. She crawled to the mirror.
“Mirror, mirror,” she whispered, “who is the fairest of them all?”
The smoke coiled and parted.
“There is a girl at your court who now surpasses you,” it replied.
The girl was young, with raven hair and bright-red lips, and Adelaide knew her. She was the servant’s daughter, who had once been named the fairest in the castle. Now she was grown, radiant, standing in the arms of Garrett.
Adelaide’s hands curled into fists, nails biting into her palms until they bled. She had changed everything for beauty, but the world had moved on, crowning a new queen of beauty in the court she ruled.
No. She would not let it end like this.
She called Garrett to her, granting him the title of Head of the Hunt. She ordered him to bring the girl to her, and when he resisted, she whispered in his ear, reminding him of the night they had shared.
“You wanted to live in the land of the most beautiful queen,” she told him coldly, “and you will, but only if you obey.”
That night, Adelaide wept alone, holding the girl’s heart in her hands after Garrett returned with it. She consumed it, believing foolishly that beauty could be swallowed, that love could be devoured.
The next morning, the mirror showed her reflection, and it whispered, “You are now the fairest of them all.”
And for the first time in her life, Adelaide believed it.
Lesson / Moral:
Obsession with the world’s gaze can hollow the soul, and beauty gained through cruelty will never bring peace.
