Chapter 17 - THE YEARS CINDERELLA GAVE AWAY
The royal physician compared Ella’s pulse to the magical countdown. Each day Ella remained embodied, Cinderella’s sleeping body aged one year beyond the Moon Door.
Eight days had passed since the wedding was canceled.
If the pattern continued until the eclipse, Cinderella could awaken old or die without ever returning.
Ella demanded that Orren dissolve her body immediately.
“If my life is made from hers, give it back.”
Orren warned that destruction might release nothing. A life transformed was not necessarily a life stored.
Adrian searched the seventh tablet for the erased clause. Helena finally confessed she possessed a rubbing made before Aurelia removed it. The clause said mortality became independent if the created being was loved under her true name.
That explained Aurelia’s strategy. She needed Adrian to crown Ella falsely as Cinderella, completing the royal debt. But if someone loved Ella as herself, the transformation might stabilize without consuming Cinderella.
Ella laughed bitterly. “Convenient. The prince must love the right woman before the moon changes.”
“The tablet says someone,” Adrian replied. “Not the prince.”
Mara realized Cinderella’s love might be enough—if they could restore the forbidden name.
Lady Tremaine burned most childhood objects that mentioned Ella’s invisible companion. One survived: a wooden box from Cinderella’s father, held in probate by the village church.
Inside was a child’s drawing of two girls beside a hearth. One had dark hair. The other was made of gold.
May you like
The name beneath the golden girl had been cut away with a knife.
On the back, Cinderella’s father had written: Ask the ashes what my daughter called the light.
