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Once there was a king and queen. They earned their throne by defeating a tyrant and slaying a dragon who threatened to unmake the world in his image. They ruled as well as they were able, strengthened by their love for and faith in one another, and were beloved by most of their subjects for it.
The only flaw in their joy was the lack of a child and heir, and as the years passed, their desire to fill this absence grew ever more keen, threatening to spoil the happiness of their marriage and their reign.
In her desperation, the queen sought out a witch she’d had dealings with before, an ancient woman of great power, with no reason to love the queen or her husband. Humbling herself and setting aside her regal pride, the queen poured out her misery to the witch, beseeching her for aid, prepared to beg if she must.
But the witch did not require that of her, offering magic with an enigmatic smile and no mention of price. “Take the chalice from your wedding feast and place it upside down on a bed of fertile soil in the royal garden overnight. In the morning, you will find beneath it two fresh-grown roses. You must choose one to eat: red for a son, white for a daughter. I would not advise you to consume both.”
Wary but without other options, the queen returned to her palace and followed the witch’s instructions, scarcely daring to hope for the miracle she sought. But as the witch had promised, by dawn two tiny roses had grown beneath the chalice, and the queen stared at the delicate miniature flowers in trembling awe. Such small things to hold so much power.
The previous night, lying awake beside her sleeping husband, with her mind drawn to the empty chalice in the garden, the queen had thought about the child she would wish for. A son or a daughter, she would treasure and cherish any child that the magic granted her, her greatest desire come to life. But in her heart, she imagined a beautiful golden-haired girl with her husband’s smile, and so she plucked the white rose and placed it in her mouth.
With the sweet taste of the flower on her tongue, she stared longingly at the second rose. But mindful of the witch’s warning not to consume both flowers, she left the red bloom untouched.
Breaking her fast with her husband the king, the queen’s heart was light, filled with joy at the thought of the child they would soon be blessed with. Keeping the magic secret until she was certain of it, she sought to prepare her husband by sharing her dream of a sparkling daughter. Laughing, he countered with visions of a strong, brave son bearing his mother’s eyes. The rich food turned to ash in the queen’s mouth.
After the meal, she ran to the garden and vomited up what she had eaten, trusting it to carry the white rose from her body as well. With trembling fingers, she reached for the second rose, berating herself for not having known to choose it before, not having realized that her husband would wish the child born from the flower as red as the one he had begun their courtship with so many years ago.
The second flower tasted as sweet on the queen’s tongue as the first, and she went to sleep that night filled with contentment and joy at the thought of the perfect son whose life was even now beginning within her.
The discovery that the queen was with child brought great joy to both her husband and her subjects, as she had known that it would. The time until the birth was marked with celebrations both public and private, and never in her life had the queen been so happy.
The king was not present when the time came for her to give birth, and thus only the midwife bore witness to what transpired. The queen delivered not one child but two. The first, however, was malformed, its body scaly and hairless with a tail and sharp nails upon its tiny fingers and toes. Frightened by this monstrous appearance, the midwife wrapped the draconic infant in a blanket and said nothing of it to the queen, presenting her only with the second child, a beautiful healthy boy. In the guise of taking away bloody linens, the midwife smuggled the first child away from the birth room, intending to dispose of it in the woods outside of the palace walls.
At the edge of the forest, the midwife was met by a witch with hair as black as a raven's wing, who bid her to stop and turn over her burden. The midwife feared having her theft of the queen’s malformed child discovered, but she feared the witch’s power more. And so she did as the witch requested, giving the child over to her. In a moment of boldness, the midwife asked what sort of evil ritual such a monstrous babe might be used for.
The witch regarded the woman with scorn and bid her begone and take her foul thoughts with her. “You know nothing of me, and all you need know is that I shall raise this child with care, just as I did its elder brother.”
The queen and king knew nothing of this lost child, rejoicing only in the birth of their longed-for son. When tales began to spread that the dragon the queen had slain to save the kingdom had hidden within her womb devouring all her babes until she bore a prince strong enough to drive it out, they never thought to wonder how such a gruesome story got its start.
The prince grew into a just, handsome, brave man, to the delight of his parents and kingdom alike. When the time grew near for his parents to turn over the throne and crown to him, all the nobles in the land were called to gather and swear fealty to their future king.
As the ceremony was to begin, a stranger appeared in the midst of the gathering, standing like a man but with the scales and claws of a dragon. In a loud voice, the newcomer challenged the prince, claiming the throne as the birthright of the firstborn.
The queen dismissed the claim as nonsense and ordered the intruder thrown out. But before the order could be carried out, a woman stepped forward, the daughter of the midwife who had attended the queen. Trembling, she relayed the tale her mother had told her in secrecy, of the queen’s monstrous firstborn child who had been taken away and raised by a witch.
Still the queen did not believe it, but the scaled claimant handed her a single raven feather, a token from the witch who had raised the stolen child in secret. The feather recalled a witch the queen had known long ago, a woman she trusted though she did not understand her, and the queen knew the story to be true. And then the queen’s fury was so great that the midwife was considered lucky to have died the previous winter and been spared the consequence of taking the queen’s child from her. The king and queen welcomed their lost child with an embrace, and the prince warmly greeted his twin, ceding his claim to the true firstborn.
The other peers of the kingdom, however, were uneasy with the thought of a monster raised by a witch serving as their future monarch. Unwilling to directly challenge the king and queen’s will in this matter, they instead proposed a compromise, that the new heir must take a bride selected by the gathered nobility to serve as queen. Remembering their own marriage arranged under similar circumstances, the king and queen exchanged a fond smile and accepted this condition.
After much deliberation, a bride was selected, a younger daughter from a noble house in the northern islands, a distant cousin of the current queen. The girl herself had no interest in the position, protesting privately to her father that she did not wish to be tied to this husband or any husband. But her father’s ambition to see his daughter as queen was stronger than his care for her feelings, and the agreement was made despite her wishes.
No one asked for the ruler-to-be’s opinion on the match, so it was uncertain whether the prince’s scaled twin wanted this wife or even a wife at all. But all parties other than those directly involved were satisfied, and so the deal was struck.
The wedding was arranged quickly, perhaps out of concern that one party or the other might back out of the arrangement if preparations dragged on for too long. The night before the ceremony, the bride stood looking over the sea, imagining her island home far away and longing for the waves to carry her to it.
As she lingered there, a man appeared beside her, and she knew him for a witch. “Have you come to offer me congratulations on my wedding?”
“I have come to offer you advice for a happy marriage, a gift from your brother-to-be. Wear ten linen shifts beneath your wedding gown. For each that you remove, require that your spouse first shed a false form. When all is revealed, hold what you find in your arms.”
“Must I truly hold him, no matter how he appears?”
“Must you? Of course not. The choice is always yours. But I think you will both be happier if you do.”
When the time came for the wedding, the bride did as the witch had advised her, donning ten linen shifts beneath her heavy formal gown. She stood beside the new heir through the ceremony and celebration, taking comfort from the witch’s words, his suggestion that this scaled and clawed monstrosity might not be the true form of the partner she was to spend the rest of her days married to.
When the two were alone that night, the heir bid her remove her shift, and she responded as the witch had advised. “If I am to show you my form, let me first see the truth of yours. Remove this false shape.”
“You may not like what you will see if I do.”
“Even so, I wish to see it.”
The draconic humanoid form fell away, revealing a high dragon towering above the bride and the bed, nearly filling the room. The bride honored her bargain, removing the first shift though her hands trembled with fear.
The dragon now repeated the call for its bride to undress, and the woman responded again the same way. “If I am to show you my form, let me first see the truth of yours. Remove this false shape.”
This conversation repeated, with the bride removing shift after shift as her spouse became many things, a bear and a giant spider and a wolf that walked upon two legs rather than four. Through all of these horrors, the bride did not relent, holding to her faith in the witch’s promise. At last, when she stood in a single linen shift, her spouse took on a form not monstrous in the least, becoming a handsome man the very image of the prince his twin.
“Wife, now will you undress for me?”
The bride hesitated before responding. The witch had told her to wear ten shifts, not nine, and surely if anyone were to know the number of the ruler-to-be’s forms, it would be him. Trusting still in the witch, she repeated her answer one final time. “If I am to show you my form, let me first see the truth of yours. Remove this false shape.”
“You may not like what you will see if I do.”
“Even so, I wish to see it.”
Head bowed, the form of the prince’s twin fell away, revealing the truth at long last, a slender woman with golden hair and pale skin. Awed by the beauty and perfection before her, the bride shed her final shift and opened her arms wide to embrace her wife.
Thus did the servants find them in the morning, two lovely women sleeping entwined in the nuptial bed. If they were surprised to discover the monstrous scaled ruler transformed into a beautiful lady, it was nothing compared to the astonishment of the nobles when they found they had appointed two queens to rule the kingdom. The king and queen, however, were delighted to have their golden-haired daughter at last, and the marriage proved as happy as the third witch had predicted. When the time came for the new queens to take the throne, they had gained the love of the people as well, and under their rule the kingdom continued in prosperity and joy for many years to come.