Once upon a time, the glass slipper fit—just not the right girl.

When the prince arrived at the Tremaine estate, slipper in hand, Lady Tremaine knew the moment had come. Cinderella had been locked in the attic since the ball, her protests muffled behind old wardrobes and rusted bolts. The prince knocked. The slipper glinted like fate in the morning light.

The eldest stepsister, Drizella, had carved away a piece of her heel that morning. Blood soaked her silk stocking, but her smile didn’t waver. The shoe slipped on, snug enough for a deluded man in love.

The prince, desperate to match a name to the face haunting his dreams, saw a semblance of beauty in Drizella’s painted cheeks. He ignored the limp and the crimson trail along the palace floor. A royal wedding was declared.

Cinderella watched from the attic window as doves scattered in the sky and carriages rolled away. Her tears turned to steam on the glass.

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Year One

Drizella became queen. And the kingdom began to rot.

She was vain, cruel, and paranoid. Her insecurity grew as whispers spread—"The true bride is still in the cinders." Every mirror became an enemy. Every courtier a traitor. Taxes rose to fund her beauty elixirs. Dissenters vanished.

The prince, once hopeful and brave, found no kindness in his queen. But the blood on her slipper was a contract he couldn’t break. And Lady Tremaine, now Duchess Regent, ruled from the shadows.

Cinderella, meanwhile, had escaped the attic—but not the memory. She fled into the Black Forest, where witches whispered and time twisted like vines.

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Year Five

The kingdom was dying. Crops failed. Rivers dried. The castle walls darkened with creeping mold no spell could cleanse. Drizella, bloated with envy, had aged before her time. The prince spent his days in the old tower library, searching histories and heresies for the name of the girl who’d once danced with him. A girl who might never have existed at all.

But in the forest, something stirred.

Cinderella had changed.

The fairy godmother who once turned pumpkins into coaches was gone—burned by decree of the queen. But the forest gave Cinderella a new kind of magic: older, colder, and fed by pain. She no longer needed a gown to be seen. She no longer needed love to feel whole.

She only needed justice.

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The Return

On the fifth anniversary of the false queen’s coronation, a great storm swept through the land. Lightning split the skies. Animals fled the woods.

And from the trees came a woman in a cloak of black feathers, carrying a rusted slipper in her hand.

She entered the throne room unchallenged. The guards had vanished in the night. The prince looked up—and saw the face he had forgotten but never stopped loving.

Cinderella smiled—but not kindly.

Drizella screamed and tried to run, but the slipper flew from Cinderella’s hand, cutting the air like a blade. It struck Drizella’s temple with a sickening crack. She crumpled to the floor, her other shoe falling off.

It didn’t fit either.

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Ever After

The kingdom mourned its queen—briefly. Then it rebuilt. Slowly, green returned to the hills and laughter to the markets.

But Cinderella did not stay.

She gave the prince a kiss on the cheek, gentle and distant.

“I was never meant to be yours,” she said. “Not anymore.”

She returned to the forest, where she became a legend of ash and thorns—neither princess nor witch, but something in between.

And every child born after knew this:

A single lie can poison a kingdom.

And a slipper can cut as well as it fits.