Bull-fucking-shit. I know the whole point of this story is that they will end up together, but since she genuinely wants to annul the engagement right now, the notion that she wouldn’t use a tragic story about an *unwanted* marriage to convince the mother to help her is stupid as all hell.
“We can’t accept these rings, your majesty. To be honest, we don’t want to be married. I have someone I love back in my kingdom that my parents don’t know about, and I don’t want my story to end like the second queen’s. Will you please help me?”
Simple as that. I know stories like this inevitably have contrivances, but this is next level.