A shadow princess

All light was drained by lanterns dim,
Old sentinels in weary line.
The castle’s shadow, vast and grim,
Hung o’er the water’s glassy shine.
A ghostly form stood by the gate,
No cloak to guard her from the chill—
Pressed close to stone and twisting slate,
To ivy’s grip, forever still.

Her outline—graceful, bold, and bare—
No corset wrapped her fragile frame.
She slipped beneath the frozen air
Into a world both proud and lame.

Through corridors of aching blue,
In frost-tipped crown and whispered lace,
She roamed where ghost magnolias grew,
In gardens lost to time and place.
Past roses sealed in glossy glaze,
By sleeping lakes that knew no sun—
Through moss-fringed arches, lost in haze,
She wandered, grieving, lost, undone.

A castle deep in forest old,
Where every torch had lost its flame—
There once a princess, crowned in gold,
Now lingered as a shade, unnamed.
No silks, no pearls, no trumpet calls—
Just gauze of dusk and veil of frost,
Alone inside these timeless halls,
A winter's soul, a kingdom lost.

But through the fog, a hoofbeat rang—
The Unicorn, with silver horn,
From icy northern realms he sprang
To where the ghost of love was born.
He dropped the season’s first snowflake—
And Winter, mother pale and wise,
Wove robes that stars themselves might make,
With crystals born from midnight skies.

Adorned from crown to snowy hem,
She danced within a dreamlike court,
Where forest whispered like a hymn
And royal trees stood still in thought.

The frozen moon, in speechless gaze,
Beheld this bride of winter light—
A fleeting dream, a phantom phase,
A shimmer veiled in velvet night.

But spring will wake with blushing flame,
The frost will melt, the spell will die.
The Unicorn, now prince by name,
Will lift her hand beneath the sky.
The wind will play its harp once more,
As servants gather in the glade—
But time will knock upon the door,
And dreams, like snow, begin to fade.

Her gown dissolves in golden rays—
The thaw begins, the tale retreats.
Yet in her heart, love's aching blaze
Still pulls her down forgotten streets.
And so the shadow, soft and pale,
Still seeks the horn, the snowy trail—
In love with myth, in dusk's caress,
She roams again—
a Shadow Princess