At the palace they were sure that yet another trial would end in failure, until a modest girl entered the pool and made everyone freeze: what happened shocked everyone 😱🤯😨
For three hundred years an ancient golden pool had been kept in the royal palace. According to legend, its water changed color when a girl destined to become the wife of the crown prince entered it. But for the last ten years not one of the beauties invited to court had been able to awaken this sign. The water stayed clear, and Prince Adrian grew ever more indifferent to talk of marriage.
King Edmund was losing patience. He feared that his son would never find a suitable match, and decided to invite noble girls from the neighboring kingdom to the palace. Among them was Isabella — a quiet girl whom many considered too plain for the royal court.
Before the trial the court steward explained the rules:
— Each of you will enter the pool in turn. If the water changes color, the kingdom will know that the chosen one has been found.
— And if it doesn’t change? — one of the girls asked.
— Then you will go back home, — he answered dryly.
Isabella stood at the end of the row and clenched her hands so hard that her fingers turned white. Behind her they whispered and snickered.
— I don’t understand why she was even invited, — said Lady Sophie. — She won’t fit in the pool at all, it’s too small for her.
Isabella heard these words but answered nothing. When she glanced at the prince, awkwardness and obvious displeasure mingled on his face.
— They put her at the end of the row so she wouldn’t break the pool too soon, — another girl said mockingly.
One after another the girls entered the water. The pool remained clear. Some tried to smile, others quickly turned away from the courtiers. With each failed trial the king looked gloomier.
At last the steward called Isabella’s name.
She froze. The laughter behind her grew louder, and for a moment the girl seemed to forget how to move. Then she slowly exhaled, squared her shoulders and stepped toward the pool.
— Careful, don’t break the pool. It’s a relic, — Sophie threw out.
Isabella didn’t answer. She looked at Sophie, then walked up to the pool. And in the next second the fat girl did something that made everyone in the hall freeze in shock 😱
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— Isabella is not the prince’s chosen one, — the steward announced. — The emerald color means she is the only one who can open the secret chamber beneath the pool.
A murmur rolled through the hall. The king demanded an explanation, but the steward had already gone down the stone steps to the water and pressed a mark right at the edge. With a dull click a narrow door opened in the floor.
— Three hundred years ago a king hid there a document that proves the pool does not choose a bride, — the steward said. — It was created to protect the royal family from a conspiracy.
Prince Adrian frowned:
— Then why did the water turn emerald precisely now?
The steward took an old scroll out of the chamber and unrolled it before everyone. It said that whoever changed the color of the water would receive the right to demand an investigation of any crime committed at court.
Isabella looked at the king:
— So you knew the trial was a deception?
Edmund was silent. Sophie turned pale and tried to step back unnoticed, but the steward stopped her. In the documents were letters proving that it was she who had bribed the attendants so that the pool would stay clear and the king could choose a bride for his son as he pleased.
Adrian renounced the forced marriage, and the king agreed to an open trial. Isabella became neither his bride nor an heiress: she demanded only the truth. And for the first time in three hundred years the palace heard her in full.
