Snow White stood very still, the stable suddenly too quiet. From the yard, hoofbeats pounded on stone as the visiting company was rushed toward the gate. “They’re leaving,” she whispered to Grimm. “He’s leaving.” Her chest ached in a way that felt wholly new and yet eerily familiar, like a tune she’d heard only once but could hum by heart. She moved to the stable door, drawn as if by a string, and peered out. She dropped her head in sadness or in anguish from the chance to almost have something, and lose it before she even learned his name.
As she stared at the ground something caught her eye. A silver token. She swallowed. Her fingers closed around the token almost without her permission. The metal was warm from his skin. She closed her fingers over it, pressing the metal hard enough to sting. She retied the necklace and slipped the cord over her own head, tucking the token under her dress, where it lay cool and solid against her skin, just above her heart. All she thought of was the feel of his hands at her waist, the look in his eyes when he’d saidlet me help you, the weight of silver between her collarbones.
And somehow, impossibly, it felt like she had just lost something vital. “Fool,” she whispered to herself, cheeks damp. “You are a fool.” But she didn’t believe herself.
The stables were not empty for long. The relative quiet shattered as the side door banged open with force enough to make the hinges protest. Snow White straightened instinctively, hand falling from her chest. Hunter filled the doorway, shoulders nearly brushing the frame. His expression dragged the temperature in the room down ten degrees.
“Princess,” he said, and the old endearment sounded wrong in his mouth now. “The queen wants you.” His hand shot out and closed around her wrist before she could reply. Pain shotup her arm. His grip was hard, fingers digging into her skin, the opposite of the careful steadiness she’d felt only minutes before.
“Ow,” she said, trying to twist free. “Hunter, you’re hurting me.”
They passed a pair of servants in the corridor. The maids pressed themselves flat against the wall, eyes down, as Hunter dragged Snow White between them. One of them glanced up just long enough to register the redness already blooming on the girl’s wrist.
“Could you at least loosen your grip?” Snow White hissed when they turned a corner and the hall emptied. “You’re not hauling a sack of grain.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. His tone had slid into something low and almost… ashamed. “The queen is very upset.” Hunter noticed that the girl in his grip moved like Liora, smelled like Liora, and even her voice sounded like Liora’s.
“I did nothing wrong,” she protested through gritted teeth as the doors to the throne room loomed ahead. Her pulse roared in her ears. The token under her dress felt suddenly heavy, as if pressing her heart further down into her ribs.
“Your queen will be the judge of that,” Hunter replied.
He stopped before the great carved doors, shoving them open with more force than was strictly necessary. “Majesty,” he called into the echoing hall. “I’ve brought her.”
His hand loosened at last, and Snow White stumbled forward into the cold light of her mother’s gaze, the memory of a knight in a white riding coat and silver armor still echoing in her heart.
Chapter seven
Beauty is Pain
BythetimeSnowWhite turned eighteen, the castle had completely forgotten how to glitter. But it remembered—for one night.
For the first time in a long while, the great hall thrummed with preparation. Servants scurried up and down ladders to hang fresh banners. Chandeliers were lowered on creaking ropes so maids could polish each candle cup until it shone. Musicians tested strings and reeds in a corner, their hesitant notes echoing off the vaulted ceiling. She often listened to servants and maids as they gossiped about the guest list, hoping she would hear of a king and his son, of a prince, any clues she could gather. She wanted to ask her mother, but was never able to muster the courage.
From the narrow window of her tower room, Snow White watched the courtyard bloom with color: lords and ladies arriving in carriages, their cloaks flashing jewel tones against the cobbles; grooms leading unfamiliar horses to the stables; guards in dress livery relieving the weary men from the walls.
“Look at them, Grimm,” she said, pressing her forehead against the glass. Her breath fogged a circle through which the world appeared softer, dreamlike. “It’s like the old days. Before.” Down below, she could just make out the black shape of her stallion’s back as he paced his stall, unsettled by the influx of strange horses. “I miss you,” she whispered.
Two years ago was the best and worst day of Snow White’s life. She had met the boy of her dreams. His hair, his eyes, his touch, everything about him made her swoon, yet their encounter was so brief. Liora had chastised Snow White for the meeting, claiming the boy was a stranger and she could have been hurt. “You’re too naive,” “think of your father,” “how can I keep you safe?” and other declarations hurled at her by her mother, while Snow White tried unsuccessfully to tell her mother of the prince and their instant connection. Liora’s mind had already been made up. Under the guise of protection, Liora told Snow White she was no longer allowed to leave her tower. That meant no roaming the castle, no rides outside with Hunter’s permission, no rides at all. She wasn’t allowed in the stables at all. Snow White cried and begged her mother, tugging at her dress as she wept on the floor like a child, but it was no use. She hadn’t seen Grimm, except in stolen glances from her window, in two long years.
Her heartbreak was immense that day. She wondered if heartbreak was all she would ever know. Each time she felt content it was met with a shattering of herself, of a loss so unimaginable. The last two years were full of isolation—she had no friends, and no means to visit them even if she had. Besides brief lectures from her mother at meals or short exchanges with Hunter as she passed in the hallway on the way to the library at the very top of the tower, she rarely interacted with another being at all. She was desperate for some attention, for someone to talk to, for someone to be near. She had all but forgotten whatit felt like to have the warmth of her father’s love surround her in a blanket of security.
But tonight was the ball. Tonight things were different. Snow White was elated at the thought of all the guests.I can’t wait to talk to someone, anyone. I’ll sway to the music, I’ll laugh, and maybe someone will ask me to dance.With still hours before the ball, she was eager to get ready and put on a dress instead of the simple rags she’d become so accustomed to.
She caught sight of herself in her broken wall mirror—one of the few that had escaped Liora’s purge because it was so broken it barely reflected. Her chopped hair, grown out now to just brush the tops of her shoulders, framed her face in uneven layers. No amount of smoothing ever tamed it. Still, even in the distorted glass, anyone could see what the mirror in Liora’s chamber had known for some time: whatever the queen tried, Snow White’s beauty was ripening.
She thought of a ball she’d read about in one of her favorite stories: a girl in a dress made from her dead mother’s curtain dancing under a crystal chandelier, the prince besotted at first sight. “Ridiculous,” she told her reflection, even as her heart whispered,maybe.
Her fingers went to the cord around her neck as if by habit. The falcon pendant lay warm against her sternum where it always rested, hidden under her clothes. She closed her hand around it and, just for a heartbeat, let herself imagine what it would be like if he walked through the great doors tonight. It had been two years. Two long, gray years of chores and curfews and the constant, haunting knowledge of her mother’s gaze. Two years of tracing the edge of the token whenever she felt too small, too invisible, reminding herself that once, someone had seen her. “Fool,” she whispered, though without heat. “You’re still a fool.”
“Mirror,soulofsilverand glass, who in this land shall I never surpass?” Entranced, Liora repeated her ritual. As she stood naked and oiled in front of her mirror, she noticed an odd sensation—nerves? She had seen her daughter’s beauty growing and noticed her changing body over the past few years. When Snow White smiled Liora felt a pang of jealousy wash over her.
The mirror morphed with a familiar ripple, and for the first time since she’d acquired it from an old peddler in her mother’s village, did not show Liora her reflection. Instead, it showed the image of Snow White—naked in the bath, skin silky and firm, black hair stringy and wet, breasts perky and sudsy with soap, nipples resting just below the surface of the water, cheeks flushed with warmth, and lips a natural deep crimson.
Liora was taken aback at the sight. Almost in horror. She thought it must be a mistake. She asked the mirror again, and again the mirror showed her daughter getting ready for the ball. Liora suddenly regretted everything—regretted telling her she could attend the ball, regretted allowing her to the stables the day the king and prince visited, regretted allowing any freedoms, regretted having a daughter at all. Liora was jealous, not only of her daughter’s beauty, but of her purity. Snow White was an effortless, innocent beauty, but Liora had taken a more twisted path to the throne. Each time Liora’s power was threatened she refocused and did what was necessary to maintain her superiority, and each time, over time, she had allowed Snow White’s kindness and charm soften her again.
But not this time. The betrayal of her mirror was the most jarring moment Liora had ever experienced. Never again. Never again will anyone, anything threaten Liora’s beauty, her power. She knew what must be done.
A knock sounded at her chamber door.
