Nieve flinched. Her spell was not holding the girl!
She watched in complete fear as the strange ballerina continued to dance her own steps, making the music grow louder.
Then, in a sudden instant, she changed. Her tutu transformed in a burst of pink and golden light to the likeness of a rose. Her hair turned platinum blonde, and the ice in the palace was melting.
The ice was melting.
Kalmia's magic was working. The shoes were working. Nieve screamed. No! The prophecy could not come true!
Even as she shouted, she disappeared in a cloud of white mist and her voice was silenced.
Albrecht and Hilarion pulled themselves up. They stared. The Snow Queen had vanished. Was she gone? Forever? Albrecht thought so, but Hilarion wasn't sure.
Down in the dungeons, the ice bars melted away. Kalmia and the two girls with her walked free. They took a side corridor and stepped out into the sun.
It was then that Odette noticed something.
"My curse…" she half-whispered. "It's broken!"
She let out a yelp of joy and did a pirouette with her hands high in the air.
Giselle turned her eyes towards a rose that had just bloomed. Kalmia smiled. That was when something else caught Giselle's eye.
"Kalmia!" she cried. "Look in a mirror or something!"
Kalmia stared into the ice that was melting on the gold. Upon her head was a beautiful crown of red kalmia flowers.
"You're the Queen now," Odette said. "The Flower Queen."
Kalmia opened her arms wide and faced the sun. The withering flowers on her gown bloomed. She then paused, turned, and strode into the palace.
Giselle did not know it, but the curse on her had also been broken with Nieve's defeat. She smiled and took Odette's hand, and the two followed the new queen into a palace that was transforming into what it had been before Nieve's reign. Out if its doors stepped about a thousand citizens of Katerenni once frozen, and snow and flower faeries held hands once more. Yet Kalmia couldn't help but wonder where the Wilis had gone.
In the slowly transforming throne room, Giselle spied Albrecht.
"Loys!" she cried, throwing her arms wide to greet him.
"Um…" Hilarion looked at Albrecht.
"Giselle," the prince began, "I…told you a lie. My name isn't Loys. I'm Albrecht, Third Prince of Astrea."
He was a prince?
Giselle laughed out loud. What a surprise! And a nice one, too!
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.
"My parents had me engaged to someone else, a Princess Bathilde from Callindry. I never loved her, though. I love only you."
Giselle didn't care.
"I love you too, Albrecht," she replied. "If only we could do something about your engagement."
Kalmia's shoes had worked their magic; the curse on Odette and her sisters was broken. Cygnus and Leda were overjoyed to have their daughters back, and Odette and Siegfried met for real and truly fell in love. Rothbart and his daughter had vanished, much like the Wilis, as no one had seen them since the ball. Thus Odette's kingdom of Cygnia and Siegfried's kingdom of Kaldin were aligned.
In the nearby kingdom of Astrea, a new arrangement was being made.
"I never loved him like you do," sighed a green-eyed, black haired princess with pale skin to Giselle. She had met Bathilde before her kidnapping, and they had become good friends without knowing Bathilde was engaged to Giselle's true love.
Hilarion, like Albrecht, had never been the type to believe in love at first sight, but this meeting was proving him wrong. The princess of Callindry was perfect in his eyes, and luckily for him, he was perfect in her eyes as well.
"Please, Your Majesties, we wish to break our engagement as we love others," Bathilde said.
Queen Erin considered the two pairs. She had been but a milkmaid, like Giselle, when the young King Harold of Astrea had fallen in love with her. And now that same scene was unfolding with her son before her very eyes.
"Very well," she said smiling. "We shall have two grand royal weddings. One for my son and one for the princess of Callindry."
Giselle's mother, upon hearing that the Queen had agreed to the match with the prince, had a demeanor quite changed about her daughter's choice of husband. Giselle was dancing in the village square, thinking it the most wonderful of days. Kalmia had informed her that she had been cured of a curse, and she thought that very good.
She and the villagers danced, and at last she became Queen of the Harvest. They were calling her Princess Giselle already.
"Oh, Albrecht," she sighed, "isn't it just like a fairy tale?"
Albrecht didn't answer.
"Albrecht?"
He wasn't even there.