Free Monstrous Beauty by Marie Brennan Page B

by horses black as night. They find no sign of the lady or her escort: only footprints on the palace steps, the muddy tracks of bare feet, that carry an odd smell.
    The prince will not be deterred. The marks are measured for length and width, shoes made that will fit such feet. Tiny as the shoes are, few women could wear them. A dozen pairs go out, royal servants sent to find their match. And one by one, the kingdom’s ladies try them all, and one by one they fail.
    Next they turn to the merchants and housewives; they even try the servants and char-women. No woman living within the kingdom’s borders can fit into the shoes.
    The prince will not listen to reason. No other lady will he accept: only the dark-haired stranger in the crimson dress. So a third ball is convened, at ruinous expense. The nobles and their daughters come once more, filling the hall with their silks and gems, but everyone knows this time is not the same.
    As the night draws on, the woman appears again, and dances with the prince. Her silk whispers against his legs as they waltz, and around them the others observe.
    The dance concludes. And, as she has done before, she tries to slip away.
    But the doors are locked, and guards stand by them; the windows are too high to reach. The light of a thousand candles burns pitilessly as the guests draw back, watching events unfold.
    The prince speaks from the dais, making his offer to her. She has no reason to fear. He loves her, only her, and he will make her his bride.
    The palace bells begin tolling midnight.
    The horses vanish first, outside, where only a few guards and hostlers are present to see. They fade into nothingness, and behind them the carriage drops to the ground, nothing more than a plain pine box.
    Her shoes go next, leaving her barefoot on the polished floor, her feet trailing something that is not mud.
    Then the dress. Its liquid shine sheets down her body, flowing and puddling on the floor, red-black as venous blood.
    Last the mask. Silver fades, lifeless and dull, the sickly grey of a corpse’s skin, and then it slips loose and falls, releasing a stench that permeates the hall.
    The doors are locked, and the guards cannot find their keys quickly enough. Some climb for the windows, trying to escape the creature the prince should have let go, the thing that looked so beautiful in its gown of blood and mask of skin, this horror that was once a living woman. She leaves tiny footprints of rotted slime on the floor as she approaches the prince where he stands, transfixed, on the dais.
    He has made his offer, and cannot take it back. The mouth that would scream denial, repudiation, is robbed of its ability to speak.
    Tongueless, she cannot voice her acceptance, but as the last stroke of midnight tolls she kneels at his feet and presses her putrid lips to his hand. And so those present, prince and court and all, are drawn away into the realms of the dead, and when the palace servants come the next morning, tremulous with fear, all they find is a trail of footprints, that climb the dais and vanish.
    Notes on “Footprints”

Shadows’ Bride
    Their laughter is the silence of empty rooms, the hush of dust lying decades thick. Their smiles leer from metal reflections marred by tarnish and rust. Their jest has entertained them for many a year.
    They wait for the light, and the man who will bring it. He will wake his bride, and take her, and her body will swell with the passing moons; he will believe the child his own.
    But others have been in the tower before him.
    He will think his bride a virgin, and see the blood as proof; he will not realize the truth. The shadows have had her a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, as she lies in her sleep that is so like death, and that is why they laugh.
    Though unwed, she is the shadows’ bride, and when the light comes, their child will awaken to be born.
    Notes on “Shadows’ Bride”

Tower in Moonlight
    The hart leads