"This princess that little girls all dream of becoming, in reality she is nothing more than an expensive whore who can be discarded after a time without a shred of sympathy from anyone..." So writes Cinderella, who married a prince at the end of her fairy tale but whose story is far from over. Years after ascending to the queen's throne she is kidnapped by the king's enemies and held under house arrest. As she waits out the uprising while facing possible execution, she recounts her life after the end of the fairy tale, telling the story of a powerless and illiterate near-commoner thrust into the life of court, and how she managed to find her own way to enlightenment through the power of words. "I have been in so many prisons, my stepmother’s poverty, my marriage, court, the winter palace... But true prison is the prison in the mind. As long as the mind is free, it matters little where the body be."