Chapter one
Once Upon a Nightmare
“Onceuponatime,”Snow White whispered to her own reflection, “a princess forgot how to breathe.”
Moonlight pooled across the stone floor of her tower room, silvering the edges of the heavily cracked mirror nailed crookedly to the wall. In it, the girl who stared back at her looked more like a ghost than a princess—pale skin almost blue under the night glow, black hair falling unevenly, in jagged clumps just past her jaw. The last time her mother had taken scissors to it, she’d promised it would keep her safe. Her mother, the queen, always chopped it so short, but she must have lost track since it was starting to grow longer now, silky and reflective in the moonlight.
Snow White’s fingers rose to the hollow of her throat, tracing the line of her jaw, then lower to the tender swell of her collarbone. The mirror had once been part of a grand wardrobe; now its surface was spiderwebbed with fractures, slicing her reflection into shards. In one shard she caught only the curve of her lips, stained naturally deep red as if she wore forbiddenrouge. In another, a single eye stared back at her, wide and too knowing.
You’ll never be as pretty as her. The thought wasn’t hers; it was a distant echo. Her mother’s voice curled inside her head. In her eighteen years of life, Snow White had never seen anyone more beautiful. Her father would tell her repeatedly how Liora won his heart with the first look. He used to recall their eyes catching, and he couldn’t look away, entranced, hypnotized by her beauty.Someday, I will find a man who looks at me the same way my father looked at her.
She let her hand drift down, over the thin linen of her nightshirt, skimming the curve of her breast. Her nipple tightened under her palm at the light contact, and a slow burn traced its way up her throat. She swallowed, half-ashamed, half-defiant. But when she closed her eyes, the feeling rose anyway.
In the privacy behind her lowered lashes, he appeared again. The boy. The prince. His highness. Strong but gentle hands cupping her waist through the coarse fabric of a stable girl’s dress. A mouth hovering close to hers, hesitant and reverent, as if she were something precious instead of something to be hidden. She never caught his name. Only the piercing blue of his eyes and the way his blonde hair had fallen over his forehead. Only his gentle touch and his kind laugh. Only the way he had looked at her like she was a miracle, not a mistake.
In her daydream, he leaned down. Soft lips touched hers, not demanding, just asking. His kiss was soft and sweet, yet unexpected. She had never kissed anyone before and longed for her first real kiss. Warmth grew low in her belly as she imagined his fingers slipping beneath the edge of her stays, slowly tracing the swell of her breast. She ached for his touch. The racing in her chest blurred with another ache lower down, a restless, tingling hunger that made her shift in her seat. Her real fingers followedthe path of the imagined ones, gliding over the thin cotton to her chest. Her eyes closed tightly when she grazed the sore spot beneath it—dark, blooming pain radiated from her ribs, stealing the air from her lungs. She hissed and pressed more firmly, feeling along the curve of bone. The pain was ugly under her nightshirt—she knew it would be a blotch of sickly yellow and purple when the light came.
Why…?She felt small in the empty room.
The memory came back in pieces. Her mother’s hands, deceptively rough, tugging the laces of the corset. The queen’s perfume—juniper and something harsher, like crushed mint. The world narrowing as Liora pulled and pulled, voice light and sharp while Snow White struggled to breathe.
“You want to look perfect for the ball, don’t you?” her mother had said. “Beauty is pain, my little snow-thing.”
Then the comb, gleaming in the morning light like a jewel. A gift, a kindness so rare Snow White had almost wept with gratitude. Then the sting against her scalp, the sudden, drowning darkness.
She pulled her hand away from her ribs, fingers shaking.She had seemed to change, turned colder since Father’s death, but could a mother do this to a daughter? How could she? Why would she?Snow White’s thoughts faded into the darkness. The realization washed over her like a crashing wave.It was her. I don’t know why, but I can’t ignore it.
Moonlight carved harsh angles into her cheekbones. For a heartbeat, her reflection blurred, and she saw not her own face but her mother’s—the same black hair, the same red mouth, the queen’s beauty honed into a weapon. The thought made her chest seize. She looked away from her shattered mirror and wrapped her arms around herself.
Her gaze darted to the narrow window, to the slice of night beyond. Somewhere down below, beyond towers and courtyardsand locked iron gates, the royal stables huddled against the outer wall. She could almost smell the sweet, familiar scent of hay and horse, feel the velvet brush of a muzzle against her cheek. It was the one place she truly felt seen. The horses, their keen sense of connection, almost as if they knew her heart. She spent hours in the stables, sitting in the hay reading. She loved to read—not that she had much else to do—stories of faraway lands, young love, and happy endings. The books gave her comfort and occasional hope. Sometimes she would read aloud to her four-legged companions or snuggle next to her gallant, dependable steed.
“Grimm,” she whispered. Just saying his name eased something clenched inside her. Her father’s last gift. Her only real friend within these stone walls. If she pressed her forehead to the cold glass and squinted, she could almost imagine him: a dark shape shifting in the straw, ears pricked as if he sensed her watching. His glistening black mane, which Father said had matched her own, and the way she knew Grimm would do anything she asked—he would even try to jump the moon for her if she asked him to.
I should leave.The idea was wild and impossible.I could climb down, get Grimm, and go. Ride away, far, far away. Find a nice village, a place I can live. I can be a stable keeper. I can be okay. I can be okay without her.She thought of the queen’s hands on the corset laces. The comb’s teeth biting into her scalp. The slow, dawning realization that these were not accidents. Not motherly mistakes. Intent. The room seemed to shrink around her. The cracked mirror, the narrow bed, the single candle sputtering on its stand—this tower was a gilded cell, and she had been pretending not to see the bars.I’ve got to get out of here. And it has to be now.
Snow White’s gaze returned to her reflection. The girl in the mirror straightened her shoulders just a fraction, lifted herchin. Her red lips parted, not in fear, but in something like quiet defiance.
“Once upon a time,” she whispered again, “a princess ran away.” The words hung there, frightening and thrilling. Much like the wild plots in her books. Runaways, star-crossed lovers, knights and maidens, sirens and dragons, and everything in between. The candle flickered. Somewhere in the castle, a clock began to strike, each toll rolling through the stones like a heartbeat.
The sound pulled her backward, down, through years of layered memory, back to a time when the castle had been full of light instead of shadows, and she had still believed “once upon a time” always led to “happily ever after.”
Bigflakesofpuffywhite snow began to fall on the morning of Shay’s eighth birthday. From her bedroom window, the world beyond the castle walls looked like a storybook illustration: rooftops dusted in white, the distant forest softened to pale gray shapes. Shay pressed her nose to the cold pane, leaving a round, foggy print. Shay’s black hair was long and silky; her rosy cheeks matched her cheerful dress.
She was petite for her age, shorter than most of her peers, and she smiled as the snow fell, thinking about how much her parents loved the snow. She had been told often that her name, Shay, came fromSchnee, the German word for snow, because of the blizzard the night she was born. She liked the idea that the whole world had been wrapped in a blanket just to welcome her, as it was again today, eight years later.
“Your Majesty,” a warm voice rumbled behind her, “if you smudge that glass any more, the servants will revolt.”
Shay whipped around. “Papa!”
King Wilhelm stood in the doorway, already wrapped in his heavy fur-trimmed cloak, cheeks pink from the draft. He was not the sort of king bards sang about—he had a round belly and a nose slightly too large for his face—but his smile lit the room brighter than any torch.
The king had longed for a boy, a strong heir to take his place on the throne one day, but Liora was firm from the start that she would only give birth one time. Wilhelm loved Liora, and when the nursemaid announced their baby was a healthy baby girl, Wilhelm smiled, knowing he was blessed. Times were beginning to change in the kingdom and Wilhelm felt sure his people would bow to a queen as their leader on the throne one day.
“Come here, birthday girl,” he said, holding out his arms. She ran to him. He scooped her up with anoofand spun her once, her laughter tangling with his. When he set her down, he held her at arm’s length to look at her properly. “Look at you,” he marveled. “Pale as the first snow, hair black as the raven on my banner, lips red as the apples in the south orchards. Every day you look more like your mother.”
Shay preened a little under his gaze. “Do you really think so?”
“I know so,” he said solemnly, then ruined the effect by tweaking her nose. “Only you’re kinder. Don’t tell her I said that; she’ll have my head mounted over the hearth!”
