Glass

Chapter Eleven: The Search (Part II)

My armour was boiling under the Mendessa sun, but what made my face red moreso was the amount of people calling my name and staring as I passed by. When we entered each home, a crowd would gather at the window, anticipating the reveal of the future Queen of Mendessa, allowing for no privacy if Cinderella ever desired it. The news travelled faster than a lightning strike, attracting more and more people from their work and towards the latest home visit, pushing and shoving each other so that they could have the best view. 

This was not like an average search. We could not send hundreds of men out to search multiple homes all at once. It was to be a slow process; one by one, door by door, until every woman in the kingdom had tried on the glass slipper. And through it all - even if it took us months - the fast-travelled news had to somehow not reach the king and queen. 

My entourage guarded the doors and windows of the houses, bribing away anyone who appeared to be watching for my father's sake. Emiliano wasn't foolish enough to believe my father would let even the most trusted soldiers in Mendessa alone with me. He had spies of his own; soldiers for his soldiers; guards for his guards. 

"It fits! It fits!" A woman no older than myself cried out. Her father, a baker, dropped his dough to the ground and cried, holding her hand and dousing it with flour. But the slipper took effect, and tightened at her toes.

"Wait! Get it off, get it off!"

Zolin fell back as he took the shoe away, and the baker sighed with disappointment - both at the result, and at the fact that his hard-made dough was now soiled.

A large house by the docks required several entourage members to search every room, with little avail. The only woman in the house, an elderly woman named Dolores, insisted on trying the slipper despite it being obvious that her crackled voice did not match that of Cinderella. We humoured her, but yet again, the slipper would not fit.

By afternoon, I had found myself speaking to possibly more people than I had the night of the ball. But unlike that night, I strangely felt more at ease. I found it ironic, how an occasion in which I was celebrated and sought after felt so uncomfortable, and yet this rather embarrassing situation of not finding my potential future bride was more relaxed. Maybe it had been the same questions that had eased me into knowing how to answer. Or maybe just the presence of normal people was more welcoming. Here, I wasn't so much of a prize to be won, but a spectacle. This was to be my killing of the feathered serpent, but far less violent in nature. After trying another woman's foot, she told me,

"When you find her, this'll go down in the history books!"

I wasn't sure if the people I met always liked me, or if it was just an act in fear of angering my father with disrespect. As we reached a district of peasants, however, their disdain grew more obvious. They glared judgingly at the upper classes, following me to my next household, not saying a word. 

When I turned a corner, a man in a hood spat at me. Rafael leaped into action and apprehended him immediately, twisting his arm and letting his hold fall. He was coated in dirt, and grimaced at the pain. 

"You pigs!" He croaked, "Invading all our homes, and for what!?"

"Rafael," I said, taking in the man's silver, thinning hair, and his wrinkled, hollowed eyes, "release him."

Rafael almost looked disappointed. He released the old man, but with a slight shove into the wall. The old man looked up at me with the very same hatred, as though I had not spared him. My lip quivered a little.

"I am sorry."

He spat again, and Rafael almost went for him. The old man's eyes were aflame.

"My daughter is gone! Most of our daughters are gone! And your queen had done nothing for us!"