Prologue
Princesses are like porcelain dolls. They are cruel and white with ribbons of lace choking their stone cold figure. You can brush them, dress them, play with them, but in the end, they’re all the same. They hold glass features with empty holes on the inside, all while wearing a mask of beauty and elegance in the masquerade of life. The holes tell them to act beautiful, valorous, and graceful. In our world of corruption, princesses are prizes to be treasured. Some may be encrusted with diamonds and gold, but in reality, they are art, and not everyone can see the beauty in their glass faces. We see them as artworks set in the place of flames-war, mainly.
I’ve always known two things in fairy tales:
Princesses are soft and graceful, while the princes are strong and powerful.
But I’m different.
Unlike the others who hold glass features and growing empty holes, mine is devouring me. It eats me up inside, telling me to act one way. My soul twists, influencing me to harness the power and become a monster. It wants me to strip lungs of their beautiful breaths and to find all the lovely things in the world and burn them to the ground. It batters my mind, telling me to bring the world to its knees. It kills me to only hear my name spoken in fearful whispers, rather than gleeful voices.
My skin has never been as sweet as honey or as savory as milk. It’s jagged and cracked. My skin lies on my bones glued together by tears of a hurricane—a disastrous mosaic. I was forced into my tight skin as a prisoner. I would never be a princess, but a prince. I can never be graceful while my veins thirst for blood. I was created to be a monster, a prisoner of darkness doomed to act only one way.
But I think it’s time to break out of this skin of mine, and cave my way out into the light.
