The Enchantment-Trifecta Writing Challenge

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The fire is fading. Light still flickered around him softening the ancient features of a face recently twisted in anger, the softness, only illusion.

His words still echo, “Ariadne, you will! It is your duty!”  

She answered softly, “I don’t love him.”

“That is of no consequence,” he thundered!

“Yes, Grandfather,” whispering as she retreated into the shadows.

Ariadne did not choose this path; it was a consequence of life, thrust upon her by her birth and sex.
Entering her chamber, she walked to the corner cabinet withdrawing a small chest belonging to her mother. These things should have come to Ariadne by inheritance; however, she took them by stealth. Grandfather had her mother’s chambers sealed after her parent’s mysterious deaths. Ariadne had carefully forced the seal; removed the chest and replaced the seal. The door would not survive close inspection, but the servants, and her grandfather never go to that part of the castle, out of some unknown fear. A fear that Ariadne thought she now understood.

Over the months, she studied the contents of the chest. Ariadne discovered that her mother came from a family of powerful enchantresses. She wondered at the meaning this could have to her troubled life. Since her appeals to Grandfather fell on deaf ears she must now try something different. She selected the small volume inside. Opening it she read the instructions written in her mother’s delicate hand.

Incantationibus
Muddy water makes a potion
With which I cause stop to
Beauty’s motion. The One
Who looks upon this soul.
See always ugliness and
Lost devotion!

*****************

“Count Jovan, my granddaughter."

“My Lord,” she curtseyed deeply, then lifted her head. “I am honored by your proposal.”

Count Jovan gasped, backing away in horror. “Excellency, we must speak in private!”

Later, the court murmured at Jovan's declining the hand of the Lady Ariadne. Grandfather blind with anger, thought the Count, quite mad, "
Ariadne is many things, but not ugly." He must look elsewhere to make an advantageous match for himself, with the girl.

Ariadne accepted the bowl of warm, perfumed water from her attendant. Carefully dabbing the potion from her face, she the magical words. Smiling at her face in the mirror, she is assured of a new pathway. She whispered, “Thank you Mother.”

This week's word is:PATH
1: a trodden way
2: a track specially constructed for a particular use3a : course, route
b : a way of life, conduct, or thought

photo credit: Claudio.Ar via photopin cc