"There is no reason to see her." The pompous madame tried to stop me. She was agitated and her curvy hair moved and revealed more of the chubby face beneath. "She is dirty and stinky, you shouldn't waste your time this way, Your Majesty!"

"Are you really trying to tell your crowned prince what he should and what he shouldn't do?" Her face turned white matching the colour of her dress. "Lady Tremaine, I believe the kings decree requested to see every girl in this house. Obstructing me now is a serious crime." The more time I passed within this walls the more I hated the owner of the house and her two daughters. Despite living here for years they still spoke with a french accent and their attempts to flirt
with me were incredibly annoying. Not that they were the first, today was a really busy day.

Showering me in thousands of excuses the lady of the house led me to a small cramped room in the back. We went inside and I saw her. A frail figure dressed in simple village clothes, her wheaten hair were dirty and covered with a kerchief, she looked at me and a strand of hair fell across her face. One could still see the beauty of the face despite a layer of cinders covering it,
something so beautiful couldn't be hidden so easily, it served only to underline her most marvellous asset, a pair of resolute blue eyes. Those eyes were as intriguing as an ice weave, hard as a sapphire, for the rest of my life I will never forget that gaze. A typhoon of emotions was stirring inside me, I was barely taking notice of what lady Tremaine was saying as she introduced us, I only picked up  that she had a strange degrading nickname. I recognized those eyes, I was sure she was the one, but I had to to suppress my emotions and double check, it would be too unfair for the girl if I was wrong.

"Please try this crystal shoe on." She was hiding it well but I could tell she was slightly shaking. I took out a handkerchief and started softly cleaning the cinders from her face and revealing the marble white skin underneath. She flinched when I touched her face but didn't try to move away.

"I'm sorry for being dirty Your Majesty. I just haven't, I didn't expect, I just..."

"Do not worry, it is all right."

She took the glass slipper and started putting it on her slender leg. I watched as her delicate fingers, so unusual for a servant girl, moved with a mesmerizing grace.

The slipper didn't fit

"I'm sorry. This menial girl is sorry for having hoped to become the spouse of a prince." She kept apologizing and bowing at the same time.

"Do not worry, this slipper belonged to my sister, it is just a novelty item never meant to be worn on a human foot. Yes, the same sister that died two days ago."

"What? Princess Matilda did...  I...  I'm so sorry for your loss!" I eyed her expressions: surprise, fear, grief. Everything as it is expected to be, exactly, too exactly.

"At the annual ball I meet an unfamiliar girl and the same night my dear sister dies with terrible and strange stomach pains. And no one seems to know who was that unfamiliar girl was nor how she was able to enter. And her I am, after two days of searches, with a girl who have supposedly lived all her life covered in cinders, imbuing in her skin, and yet a single touch reveals clean white skin underneath, a girl whose fingers lack the the roughness acquired with continuous houseworks. What
should I think, menial girl?"

"I don't understand! I would never..."

"Do you really think I haven't recognized you? Would you rather talk to the palace torturer then me?!" Now the typhoon of rage started surfacing through my voice. "Let's start again. Where did a servant girl found such an expensive dress?"

She straightened her back and looked me directly in the eyes, her shivers were gone and a sad smile touched her lips.
"Maybe a fairy Godmother brought it to her? You tell me what you think, Your Majesty."

"All right, I will tell you what I think! I think someone had to infiltrate this kingdom. Ours is a small land and any foreigners would be noticed instantly. Living in the woods would leave enough traces to track you down. You had to bride a family to hide you. You couldn't just hide in their home. This is a small village, people would notice something strange and probably see glimpses of you. No you took a place of servant girl. A girl that had no friends, whose face was
always covered in cinders. No one cared enough for that poor soul to recognize the exchange. Did lady Tremaine do it for money or for loyalty to her former homeland?"

"Well, I guess you found me. And here I hoped that that dance would be the last time I ever saw you. But why the whole charade with the 'searching a bride through a glass slipper'? Why not do the search while telling the truth? And why coming personaly?" Her face was that of a queen who understood her sentence but was still heading to the scaffold with her head
held high. As she spoke I could see a glimpse of an orange berry at the tip of her tongue.

"Do you have any idea how more tedious it would be to check every girl in the kingdom if they feared accusations? This way every time I arrive at a village I already find the girls waiting in line and only 2-3 hiding ones left to check. As for my presence I regard you too professional of an assassin to be taken alive, and I wanted to see the face of the one who
killed my sister.”  I exhaled “And to give you an offer! Tell me the name of the one who sent you and I will let you live. " At this point my grip was white around the handle of my sword. "Your death would be pointless, I will still get a name from the lady Tremaine and her two daughters. People start being very talkative when you cut their toes and heels, or let the birds
devour their eyes."

"Unfortunately in my profession I would never be able to trust your wo..."

"I have a priest waiting outside. I want to see you suffer, but even I would not keep your soul from the chance of a last confession."

"And trust my secrets to the word of a priest? I killed too many holy men to believe in God. Good bye, it was nice seeing someone as handsome as you before dying."

And then she swallowed.