"The Veil, the Fail, and the Prince Who Turned Pale"
“Where is the thing I asked you to fetch?” Crown Prince Oliver demanded, his voice brimming with impatience and a strange kind of excitement, as though he were about to receive a long-awaited treasure.
“This, Your Highness,” the attendant said reverently, handing over a rolled canvas. “A portrait painted by the former palace artist of the Braveland Kingdom.”
Oliver’s eyes gleamed. Braveland—land of supposed barbarians, where the rumors claimed women punished cheating husbands by sautéing their private parts for dinner.
He had also heard whispers that their princesses collected lovers the way squirrels collected nuts. This marriage, however distasteful, was political—a neat ribbon to tie off centuries of border wars.
With a dramatic flourish, Oliver unfurled the portrait.
And immediately wished he hadn’t.
He let out a strangled noise that was part gasp, part choking fit. The woman staring back at him looked less like a princess and more like the kingdom’s most overworked butcher.
The “nineteen-year-old maiden” described in the dossier appeared to have skipped maidenhood entirely—her stomach protruded farther than her breasts, her hair resembled straw after a drought, and her face looked like a battlefield where acne had staged a very successful coup.
Oliver recoiled as if the painting itself had tried to kiss him. “By the heavens! This is… this is grotesque!” he cried. “Are we certain this isn’t the court jester in drag?”
The attendant cleared his throat nervously. “Your Highness… Princess Clarabelle is already on her way to the kingdom.”
Oliver’s lip curled. His dreams of marrying a beauty had just been replaced with nightmares of being crushed on his wedding night. “Enough!” he barked. “Send assassins. I refuse to let this… this ugly thing darken my doorstep.”
And with that, he threw the portrait aside, as if it might infect the palace walls with its hideousness. The irony, of course, was that the crown prince had just signed off on what would become the greatest embarrassment of his reign.
“Two carriages,” Assassin One muttered, squinting at the road as though deciphering the grandest mystery of their careers. “The princess brought her aging nanny. The one with the insignia and the fancier wheels must be hers.”
“Why no guards?” Assassin Two asked, scratching his head. “Only maids and drivers? Seems… reckless.”
“They’re Bravelanders,” Assassin Three reasoned smugly. “Probably think their barbarian women can bite swords in half. Confidence is their armor.”
“Enough chatter,” Assassin Four cut in, already flexing his daggers like he was auditioning for a play. “Let’s do our job.”
With the grace of drunken cats, they descended on the more lavish carriage, blades flashing, chaos ensuing. In minutes, they emerged victorious, wiping blood from their hands with the smugness of men who had just earned a fat paycheck.
Assassin Two peeked inside and recoiled. “By all that’s holy! She’s even uglier in person. No wonder the crown prince wanted her dead. That portrait didn’t do her… atrocities justice.”
The others nodded gravely, as though they had just performed a noble mercy rather than a paid hit. Satisfied, they slunk back into the shadows, congratulating themselves on a job well done.
The assassins marched into the royal chamber like conquering heroes, smelling faintly of sweat, horse, and overconfidence.
“Your Highness,” Assassin One announced with theatrical pride, “the deed is done. The so-called princess will trouble you no more.”
To prove their triumph, Assassin Two stepped forward and presented a bloodstained trinket: the royal Braveland insignia, pried from the better-looking carriage. He displayed it with the reverence of a priest offering a holy relic.
Oliver’s eyes lit up like a spoiled child unwrapping an early birthday present. He snatched the badge, caressed it between his fingers, and grinned with the smug satisfaction of a man who believed the universe revolved solely around him.
“Well done,” he declared, puffing out his chest. “You have spared me a lifetime of marital misery with a woman fit only to frighten livestock. History shall remember you as heroes!”
The assassins exchanged pleased glances, each silently ranking himself as the most heroic. Assassin Three even imagined a ballad being written in their honor: “The Four Who Saved the Prince from Ugly Love.”
Oliver poured himself a goblet of wine and drank deeply, already fantasizing about a future where he remained gloriously single—or at least found a wife who looked less like she could arm-wrestle his knights.
The next morning, Crown Prince Oliver stood at the grand entrance of Pinnacle Hall, trying his best to look regal while suppressing a monumental yawn. Ministers lined the steps in their ceremonial robes, faces stiff with dignity, while Oliver’s own expression screamed get this over with.
After all, why bother being excited? He was certain the princess was already a corpse, neatly handled by his hired buffoons. Today was nothing but pomp and pageantry, a performance to hide the inconvenient truth of last night’s bloody order.
But then came the sound of trumpets.
A luxurious sedan rolled into the courtyard, gleaming with the royal insignia of Braveland. The door swung open, and out stepped a woman.
Oliver’s heart plummeted into his jeweled shoes.
Impossible. The assassins had delivered him a badge, bloodstained proof! Could it be…? No, surely not. Surely he wasn’t about to be upstaged by his own incompetence—well, by their incompetence, but still.
His first thought was simple: I will torture and kill those idiots.
But as the princess approached, another thought slithered into his brain. Her figure was undeniably… feminine. Her arms, slender. No hulking butcher’s build. No bulging muscles prepared to snap him like a twig on their wedding night.
Oliver frowned. Suspicion was a stubborn beast. She’s thin, yes. But her face—surely the face is the horror show from the portrait. The acne, the nose, the tragic hairline…
The ministers shifted in anticipation. The hall grew tense. Tradition dictated he must wait until the vows to lift the veil. But Oliver, drunk on curiosity and arrogance, couldn’t resist defying centuries of custom.
He reached forward, fingers trembling ever so slightly, and lifted the veil.
What he saw nearly knocked the smug out of him.
Princess Clarabelle was breathtaking. Radiant. Beautiful enough to make poets rethink their life’s work. She was so dazzling, in fact, that Oliver realized with painful clarity: he had not only failed to kill her—he had arranged to humiliate himself in front of his entire court.
For the first time in his pampered life, Crown Prince Oliver’s jaw dropped so low he looked like a startled codfish. The silence in the hall was deafening—and delicious.
