As always, Melilot blamed her stepmother for what had happened. Although this time, perhaps, not any more than she blamed herself.
“I am your only parent now,” the queen observed to Melilot not long after the funeral. “Surely this is when you will admit I am your mother.”
“You are not my mother!” Melilot shouted. “My mother is dead!”
The queen’s frown was ominous. “When your father still lived, I allowed your willfulness to grow unchecked. I shall allow it no longer. You must learn to obey. Fetch me three pure white hairs from a unicorn’s beard.”
Melilot’s jaw dropped open. “What?”
“You heard me. It is a simple task, no more than I would ask of any of my daughters. Do it, or you shall face whatever punishment I devise.”
Fearing this punishment, Melilot did as her stepmother wished. She spent the next month tracking down a unicorn and convincing it to let her pluck its beard. When she returned, she scattered the hairs before the throne, declaring, “There! I have performed the task commanded of me by my queen. Now let me be in peace.”
Her stepmother, however, was unsatisfied. “You have obeyed me once, but will you do so a second time? Fetch me the shadow of a candle flame.”
Melilot stared. “Fetch you what?”
“You heard me. It is a simple task, no more than I would ask of any of my daughters.”
“It most certainly is not!” Melilot contended. “You would never assign such an impossible quest to Jonquil or Calla!”
“Jonquil has already brought me the shadow of a clear pane of glass,” the queen asserted, “while you were out frolicking with unicorns. She searches for the flame’s shadow even now. If you wish to have any hope of finding it first, I suggest you make haste.”
Not wishing to be outdone by her sister, Melilot did as her stepmother bade her.
The tasks continued as the years passedby—
“Where on earth did you find the shadow of a candle flame, though?”
“It turns out fire is less dense than the surrounding air,” I explained, “which gives it a lower refractive index. So if you shine an even brighter light source on it, you’ll see a dark region—”
“That’s a lot less poetic than I would have expected.”
“Trust me, it only takes one or two impossible quests before you become a firm advocate of victory by pragmatic technicality.”
The tasks continued as the years passed by. Melilot was sent to copy an endless book, to capture the moon in a cup, to make bread from a stone. Sometimes her sisters went with her, and sometimes she went alone, setting forth on her own to seek wonders, find treasures, and match her wits against villains. The work was often tedious and always difficult. Her sorcerous skills did not develop at the same pace as her sisters’, and she grew jealous of their easy, hereditary might. Although admittedly, Melilot’s refusal to practice magic, in order to spite her stepmother, may have also contributed. Whatever the cause, she never came close to matching their magical prowess, and she was a greater failure still compared to the queen. Her sisters often had to bail her out of difficulties. Which only reinforced her feelings of inadequacy.
By the time she was sixteen years old, she was thoroughly sick of all this. And one day, when her stepmother attempted to shove her out on another ridiculous-sounding quest, Melilot refused.
Her stepmother paused in the middle of her instructions. “What did you say?”
“You heard me,” Melilot growled at her. “I’m done. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s an enemy army threatening our borders.” For indeed, such was the case, although that threat has gone entirely unmentioned until this moment. “I think there might be more important things right now than finding a dragon’s toenail for you.”
The queen’s eyes narrowed. “And if I say that there is not?”
“Then I would answer that you’re not my mother, and you can’t tell me what to do. You might have my sisters under your thumb, but not me. Not anymore. And you know what? I don’t think there’s going to be any of this ‘punishment’ you keep talking about. I’m calling your bluff.”
At this, the queen pressed her lips together, nodded, andpromptly ordered Melilot to be confined in a tower deep within the trackless wilderness of Skalla. The tower had no doorway. The only opening in the sheer wall was a single small window at the highest possible point.
“That’s terrible.” Sam sounded appalled. “You must have been miserable.”
I shrugged. “Some might say I got off lightly.”
“I don’t. Your queen built a doorless tower just to punish her daughter for disobedience. That’s beyond excessive.”
“Well, that wasn’t the only reason she had it. It was a—Hm.”
“What?”
