The Garden of Lyssa

The abandoned palace at the edge of the valley is full of statues. Too many statues. Soldiers, thieves and nobles, all with faces frozen in a last second of horror. The villagers call it the Garden of Stone, and they do not go there.

Inside dwells Lyssa the Serpent Woman, alone with her collection as her only company. She was once a beauty, cursed into a shape no one can look upon without turning to stone, and loneliness has honed her cruelty. Somewhere among the marble stands a vanished prince, freshly petrified and still savable, if you are quick and clever enough.

You navigate through halls of mirrors and dark passages, using shields and basins of water so you never look straight into her eyes, and read from the poses of the statues exactly how each victim died, and thus which mistake you must not make. Lyssa hunts by sound, speaks in a mournful voice, and tries to make you look up with her words.

The twist: the prince let himself be petrified on purpose to escape a forced marriage, and does not want to go back at all. The climax turns on both cunning and timing: paralyze Lyssa with her own reflection or beat her without ever looking up, break the petrification curse with her blood, and decide what to do with a 'rescued' prince who would rather have stayed stone, before the sun sets and her power is at its strongest.