Chapter 1
Loosely based off of Grimm brothers Cinderella. This may be very long and take some time to complete, so enjoy.
The king brushed his coarse fingertips across his wife's glistening face, removing a lock of brown curl from her brow. She smiled up at him with eyes the color of chocolate, bright underneath the buckets of sweat that shimmered on her translucent skin. His wife had always been a tragic beauty, but now… Now she was positively radiant.
She brought the newborn up to her lips and bestowed a gentle kiss on her daughter's forehead. "I have thought of a name." Her voice was like the coo of a dove. Her husband tilted his strong jaw, gristly with stubble, urging her to continue. "Sycill. Sycill Candor." She laughed, the tinkling of a bell. "Sycill Candor. Don't you like it?"
"Sycill Francis Candor." The king nodded, a grin on his young face. "Sounds a fine name."
Francis looked up at him in wonder. A child, a future monarch bearing her name seemed an impossibility to the woman who only two years prior had been a lowly chamber maid, whisked away to a life of indulgence and politics on the wings of love. Most queens were traded between kingdoms, trained from birth in the ways of courtly etiquette, but Elizhearth appeared to be the land dreams were made of.
"Sycill Francis Candor," Francis whispered, gazing into her daughter's eyes, green as croquet field grass.