✨👑👸Damsel (2024): The other princesses 👸👑✨
They fooled you. You’ve been killing innocent daughters just like they did. Then, end it. No. I’m through doing what I’m told.
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Next to V's message, a cluster of names was etched into the rock, most names accompanied by a bloody thumbprint, as if providing further proof each woman had been there:
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And on and on, close to a hundred names of women who had traveled from all over the world to this isolated kingdom, promised a royal life of serenity and prosperity, only to be tossed off a mountainside to appease a voracious monster.
Elodie read each name aloud, shaking, knowing that every name represented a real person who had suffered through the confusion and terror that she herself had just lived through. So many beautiful, bright sparks of life, snuffed out because the royal family made a deal with a demon....It was their blood that had stained the floor of the glowworm chamber, their blood that had soaked into the rock and left behind a legacy of pain and despair. Elodie let the tears continue to fall as she said a quiet prayer for each woman represented by a name on the cave wall.
There weren't enough names, though. Henry had said his family had ruled Aurea for eight centuries. Three princesses a year for eight hundred years meant there ought to be close to twenty-four hundred names here.
"Oh," Elodie breathed, as understanding settled like a lead weight in her belly. She remembered the remnants of the blond tower princess that the dragon had sniffed greedily, and the other skulls and charred bones. The names listed on this wall here were only the princesses who survived long enough to discover the Safe Cave. Less than 5 per cent of those sacrificed.
The ones who died faster were erased from history.
From Pages 149-150 of paperback movie-tie-in edition of Damsel, by Evelyn Skye
