Ashley Beach-Author and Storyteller

A beam of light pierced through Brinn and reached back to Erianna. The force of the overwhelming light knocked Anwyne back onto the snowy earth. As the sun’s light pinkened the sky, Anwyne regained her footing and was about to blast the light before her when a sharp, piercing pain entered her heart. Anwyne’s knees collapsed beneath her and she fell back into the arms of Tharynn who had come up behind her. Knowing the arrow had not come from his quiver, Tharynn looked up and saw a middle aged man who wore a brilliant white doublet with gold embroidery woven throughout. His brown hair was interrupted by a bright white streak in the front. The man looked at Anwyne, and Tharynn could see a look of pain cross his face as he moved his hand down slightly.

Anwyne gasped for breath as the arrow lodged itself in the shard of glass that had embedded itself in her heart all those years ago. Tharynn stared in amazement as he realized the correlation between the queen’s pain and the movement of the man’s hand. The man looked at him and nodded as if telling him to step back. Tharynn helped the queen to her knees and stepped away from her. As Anwyne looked up at the robed mage, her eyes began to sting as the icy veil that had covered them slowly cracked and shattered. She gasped for breath again as the arrow lodged deeper in her heart. The mage continued to look at her as tears began to fall from her eyes, drawing the white of her eyes away with them. A tender warmth mixed with sadness filled the mage’s eyes as the crystalline blue that reflected in her daughter’s eyes became visible in her eyes once again. If Tharynn could read his thoughts, he would imagine the mage saying, “I’m sorry it had to come to this to make you finally see.

The Mage’s Son turned slightly and gestured behind him. Queen Anwyne’s tear filled eyes looked to where he gestured and she saw the figures of both her daughters walking towards her. A sob caught in her chest as she looked at her beautiful girls for the first time.

The Snow Queen. One of my favorite fairy tales and the very story that inspired Beauty Restored. Queen Anwyne is the snow queen in this story. She hadn’t always been a cold and icy queen who ruled with cold ruthlessness in her heart. She once was close to the Great Mage and the Mage’s son. After she had married and was to be crowned queen of the winter realm, someone paid a visit to the Great Mage. The Dark Lord requested permission from the Great Mage to bestow a gift upon the young queen on her coronation day and the Mage allowed it on one condition: the baby the queen carried within her was to be unharmed. Luscian agreed and left to bestow a “gift” on the queen.

The Mage’s apprentice, Archimedes, was also tasked with bringing a gift to the queen– a beautifully etched mirror. When the queen gazed at her reflection in the beautiful mirror, her heart was pierced by a prick of vanity. That vanity soon consumed her heart, mind, and soul and she had no other sight but for herself. The Great Mage sent Archimedes to tell the queen to change and give her a warning: “Until the beauty in your heart is reborn, you shall bear no rose but only thorn.”
The queen scoffed at the hobgoblin and banished him from her kingdom for declaring such a warning over her, sending him to dwell in the southernmost part of the realm in a hovel he was never allowed to leave. When her child was born, she seemed normal and perfect enough, but as the baby grew into a little girl, strange things started to happen. Her perfect snowflake had begun to show unusual signs of changing into a dragon during the cycle of the full moon. Appalled that her perfect daughter could be so marred, the queen begged the Great Mage to change her daughter back, but the Mage knew the request wasn’t from the heart, but born out of the queen’s vanity, so he didn’t change the princess back.

The queen’s vanity turned her heart cold as ice and took more and more control of her life as the years went on. She was ruled by her icy vanity and ruled the kingdom and the realm in the same icy vein, banishing the other kingdoms and the presence of the Mage and his Son. When she couldn’t change her daughter back, she banished her too. The queen’s actions can be viewed as heartless and cruel, but we may be surprised at how similar our hearts can be at times. When we allow vanity and pride and selfishness to rule our lives, we often treat others with disrespect and condemnation when other’s actions lack the perfection we demand. Sometimes we may not even realize that our hearts have been pricked by our pride or vanity and often don’t even realize when it is ruling our lives. Our actions and decisions can hurt those around us and especially the ones we love and care about because we are blinded by our pride and selfishness.

Queen Anwyne was blinded by her vanity and it cost her greatly. At the end of Beauty Restored, when her pride is prompting her to destroy her daughter’s, the Mage’s Son intervenes and pierces her heart with an arrow that shatters the glass of vanity that pricked her heart so many years ago. It may seem cruel for the Mage’s Son to pierce Anwyne’s heart, but sometimes, our hearts need to be pierced in order to break them of their selfish vanities and allow room for our hearts to be restored to the One who created them and longs to have that heart restored to Him. When the Mage’s Son guided the arrow deeper into the snow queen’s heart, his eyes were filled with tears at the pain he was causing her and sorrow that it had come to this point, but he knew she couldn’t be whole until the ice in her heart was shattered.

The white that had filled her beautiful blue eyes had retreated and the veil that had kept her from seeing the beauty in her daughters and the world around her fell away, giving her clear sight for the first time in many, many years. Her heart felt pain and her lungs gasped for breath as the icy shards of her frozen heart melted away and her nose was met with the refreshing scent of the freshly fallen snow. The queen’s heart had been restored.

The arrow she had been pierced with was laced with the poisonous ice bane that threatened the life of the prince from the spring realm. Sometimes, even when we ask forgiveness for our sins, we still must face the consequences of our sin. David and Bathsheba had to experience the tragedy of losing the son born out of their adultery and David’s murder, but God spared their lives. Queen Anwyne’s heart was once again consumed by the deadly grip of the ice bane, but not before she could see and speak with her daughter’s, who were the most beautiful sight she had ever beheld in her life. She had been restored to her daughter’s and experienced their forgiveness before she died.

Sometimes we need to experience the piercing of an arrow to be brought to a place of reckoning. Have the shards of vanity, selfishness and pride broken so we can see the beauty in our world and in the people around us. Have the icy fingers of anger and bitterness melt away by the warmth of repentance and forgiveness so we can live a life restored to the one who loves us more than anything.