Lyra and Calista by Maria Kukshyna

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom, there lived a princess

of blinding beauty and a heart of gold—though, her story began with darkness. A curse was cast on her by a pact her desperate father made with a dark witch. Born lifeless, the princess was brought back to life, but the price was as high as her father’s fleeting joy: when the princess turns 18, she is to be married to the most handsome boy in the kingdom, and the witch shall come and take his life then. For the princess would be the prettiest and the kindest, heartbroken by grief, she would follow shortly after. That night, when the prophecy began the countdown, the whole kingdom saw a pillar of blue light split the sky and heard a baby scream.

Terrified of losing his daughter—the only reminder of his late wife—the king locked the princess in the tallest tower of the castle. She was to never speak to any men until after her 18th birthday. The princess grew prettier and kinder with every passing day. And the king grew more and more worried about her impending fate.

But the princess longed for human connection above all else—someone to share her dreams with, someone to love. She wept in her tower for years, and her pleas to the father fell on deaf ears. Then one night, she overheard some servants whispering about the witch’s curse. And the princess slipped from the tower to find the dark sorceress.

Her hut stood alone, apart from every other building in the kingdom. The witch could not undo the hex, but she offered the naive princess something else. The latter could build herself a man from scratch—him who will not bring her doom, as a creation cannot wed its maker. Before the sunrise, the princess came back to her tower with a witch’s clay in her hands. She worked without rest until the man of her imagination stood before her—handsome, tall, athletic. The princess chanted the spell and in a blink of an eye the clay sculpture turned into a human. The created man was everything the princess dreamt of.

“You were born to be adored by me,” she would tell him repeatedly. But her beautiful creation had no soul of his own, and soon the princess began getting bored with him. Their sneaking out at night seemed pointless, the long days of talking seemed even longer when he was simply repeating whatever the princess wanted to hear. Her new man being a secret, she had to hide him from everybody in the closet. And with passing weeks, the time the clay man spent in the closet only grew, and the longing for connection resurrected in princess’s heart. The man was getting angrier for his princess did not pay attention to him anymore.

A few days before the princess’s 18th birthday, the king came to her room. Wanting to please his daughter, he hired her a servant—a young girl named Lyra, who was to keep the princess company.

“Good morning, miss,” said the girl with her head down. When she looked up, Lyra was stunned by the beauty of the princess. Her silver hair was framing her face, cascading down to the waist; her skin clear as porcelain; her long lashes striking black against the cobalt of her eyes.

“There is no need for titles between us. Just call me Calista.”

The spark seemed to ignite between the princess and Lyra. They would spend every minute of every day talking, running around the tower, joking around. Lyra had a habit of finishing Calista’s sentences before she could—and somehow always getting them right. It was also Lyra who first noticed that Calista never asked for anything for herself. She started leaving small things outside her door—a flower or a stolen pastry. For the first time in years, the king heard laughter coming from the tower. Something was loosening in his chest. Soon, the princess started feeling something she had never experienced before. She felt as though her heart grew three times larger and was filled to the brim with joy.

But hearing the laughter made the clay man jealous. For he was the only one the princess must adore. For he was the only companion she was supposed to ever need. The man said nothing. He only watched, and waited, and planned. Until one day the perfect scheme emerged in his wicked head. He tore a piece off himself and shaped two wedding rings.

On the night of the princess’s 18th birthday, he waited in a closet, ready. When the footsteps faded and Calista was left alone, he stepped out of the shadows. Before the princess could cry out, her hands were tied in a strong grip. “I am pronouncing us man and wife,” the clay man whispered in an eerie voice, sliding the ring onto her trembling finger. “For all eternity.” The ring glistened in the dim moonlight, and sparkles started flying around the room in a storm. Through the dust of glitter, the witch tramped into the room. The sorceress snapped her fingers, and the man froze in place, turning back into a statue and then melting into a puddle of mud.

Calista had expected relief. Instead, something inside her cracked open. Her feet carried her to the dark puddle spreading across the floor as though they had a mind of their own. She sank to her knees beside it, tears flooding her eyes. The cold crept into her chest so quickly she had no time to fight it. Her beautiful creation, despite how cruel it was in the end, was something born of her hands. Devastated, she fell lifeless onto the floor.

At the time, Lyra had not gone far from the tower as she heard an evil laugh tear the silence of the night. She ran to the princess’s room to find Calista’s limp body draped across the floor. She ignored the witch laughing cruelly and crumpled to the cold stone beside the princess. Lyra gently embraced Calista’s cooled hand and started crying, her hot tears riveting her cheeks and dropping onto the princess’s body. Then something shifted. The stillness broke. Calista’s chest rose on a sharp breath. After a second that felt forever long, a pair of bright cobalt eyes were staring into the emerald ones belonging to Lyra. The girl pressed the princess’s hand tight to her chest, saying on a sob, “I thought I will never see you again. Never hear you speak.” She caught a quick breath before continuing, the sound of her voice a mere whisper trapped between the two girls, “I think I am in love with you.” Calista rose up sleepily from the charm, hugging Lyra with all her might. “I am falling in love with you too,” she said through tears.

The witch, stunned by the sudden break of her prophecy, stumbled backward, her composure cracking. How did it happen? Her curse was iron—unbreakable, absolute. She pressed her hands to her temples, muttering frantically. Another step back. Her feet slipped on the mud puddle, and the windowsill caught the backs of her knees. For one suspended moment she tried to balance herself, arms wheeling, eyes wide with fear. And then she tripped over the edge and was gone, swallowed by the dark purple of the upcoming sunrise.

The waking sun lit up the castle with shades of orange and pink. It covered every crack of the princess’s room, sending the shadows into a vanish. The room felt different—lighter, as though the walls themselves exhaled. The two girls were still sitting there, on a floor now dyed in strokes of yellow, hugging. And then they lived happily ever after.