The Fairest of Them All (31 page)

I reached out to comfort her, running my hands over her hair. “You are worried for Snow White, and you are driving yourself
mad with your thoughts. We all are, Clareta.
What’s happened has nothing to do with these old stories.”

But all I could think about was how much Mathena had loved Marcus, how she’d never been able to love again, how she’d disavowed men altogether. She must have hated the kingdom after what happened. And yet, she was the one who’d sent me here, right into its heart.

Clareta pulled away from me then, running her hands down her cheeks. “Perhaps
I am being foolish,” she said. “Like a child afraid of monsters under his bed. I just . . . What will happen to us all if Snow White is gone?”

“It will be fine,” I said. “The worst thing you can do is cause panic in the court at a time like this. You have not spoken of these fears to others, have you?”

She shook her head. “I only came to you.”

“Good,” I said. I lowered my voice and leaned in.
“You must not speak of any of this. Do you understand?” I pressed my palm to her face, willing her to silence.

“Yes,” she said.

“Everything will be fine,” I said. “I promise.”

A
fter Clareta left, I rushed to the mirror, which had been silent and dark for days. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” I asked, yet again, “who’s the fairest of them all?”

My own face stared back
at me, and then to my surprise the mirror clouded over, sparkled. It spoke in a whisper: “She is. Snow White.”

My heart dropped. I stared at my own shocked face.

“Who?”

“Snow White.”

“But Snow White is dead.”

“She lives still, in the forest.”

“Show me.”

The mirror shifted, and slowly, faintly, a scene came into view. A young woman lying on a bed. There was a man next to her.

As she shifted,
I realized I was staring at Snow White. Though not Snow White as I knew her, but a strange, hollowed-out version, her black hair loose, her eyes huge and haunted. Though she was still beautiful—the fairest of them all—she looked frail, and unspeakably sad. Like someone entirely new.

Another man entered the room as I watched. She did not even react as he came over to her and placed his hands on
her thin limbs.

The scene shifted, and I was staring at a large house, a river twisting beside it, trees crisscrossing in the sky.

I recognized it, I knew that house, that river: the house of bandits.

Suddenly it was impossible to breathe. Why was she there?

I had held her heart in my hands!

Whatever I had eaten had not been her heart. I started gagging, uncontrollably, and I rushed to a
finger bowl and heaved my insides into it. The memory was visceral: the way I’d bitten into it as if it were an apple, how hard and tough it was, nearly impossible to chew and get down my throat. It had taken at least an hour, maybe two. The blood covering my hands and body, the overpowering scent of metal. I had
felt
myself taking in her beauty and power and youth.

What had he brought me?

I cried out with fury.

He had not killed Snow White.

I slammed my fist down on the table. I started screaming and I could not stop. A maidservant rushed in, and I was crying, feverish, the room spinning around me, and the next thing I knew, the room was full of people and I was being carried to my bed.

Later, I awoke, clutching my throat. I was still half dreaming, swimming in a river of blood,
dancing as the iron burned my feet.

I stumbled to my mirror and I looked ancient, my face lined with wrinkles, my hair in scraggles. I looked away and back and I seemed myself again.

I slipped in and out of consciousness. Every time I woke, blinked my eyes open against the light of the sun or torches, I thought again of that heart, could feel the toughness of it between my teeth.

He must have
saved her. He must have killed an animal and brought its heart to me instead.

And now she was in the forest, lost. Had he brought her to the bandits? Had they found her, scared and alone? Surely the king and his men would find her eventually, if they hadn’t already. And then what would happen—to him, to me?

It was torturous, as I moved from sleep to dream to the waking world, and back again.
Several times I woke and saw spirits standing over me, watching me, come to punish me—the prophetess, Teresa, Snow White herself, though she was
alive
and Gilles had betrayed me—and when I tried to scream, they put their hands over my mouth and pushed me back into a dream.

The next morning, my husband entered the room. Even in my weakened state I could feel every muscle in my body tense.

He
did not look like the king I knew anymore.

He came to me, sat down on the bed beside me. His face was haggard. His eyes, usually so alert, were red, watery, showing his lack of sleep. A beard had partly grown in, making him look years older. But more than that, it was the way he carried himself, the heaviness with which he came to me, sat on the bed, sighed, and laid a hand on my face.

“Did
you find her?” I asked, trembling.

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” I said, placing my own hand on his.

What a sight we must have been, me too ill to move, lying on my bed of sweat-soaked hair. Him, beaten and ragged, next to me.

“I’m sure now that it is the work of our enemies,” he said. “Her mother’s family, tired of peace.”

“Oh.” I just stared at him. “You think they . . . took her? Would
they hurt her?”

He shook his head. “They won’t harm her. But they want to go to war with us, and they could not do that with her here. They hate our kingdom. They blame me for her mother’s death. They think I killed her, just as they say I killed my father before that . . . Though I would never have hurt either of them.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” I said. “I know it too well.” And then, though I
knew I should keep silent, I asked, “Are you sorry you married me?”

He looked at me. “No,” he said. “I’ve always been enchanted by you. I would have married you instead of Teresa, had I had the choice.” I felt tears prick at my eyes as he spoke. “But I have suffered for it.”

I clasped his hand, realized that he was trembling. What a
terrible thing it is, to feel your king trembling, even if
you know he is only a man, and your husband. “How do you mean?”

“Because you are a witch.” The word made me flinch, but I saw that he did not mean it unkindly. “They are saying that Snow White disappearing is my punishment.”

I nodded. “So now,” I asked, “what will you do?”

He sighed as he ran his palm over my face, wiping away my tears. “We will go to war.”

W
hen I was
feeling strong enough to stand, I wrapped myself in a fur and went out to the mews to confront Gilles.

He was inside, feeding the hawks.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Where is she?”

His face registered the barest surprise, but the expression quickly disappeared. “I killed her in the forest, as you asked.”

I stepped toward him. “That was
not her heart. It was something else.”

“You doubt my loyalty, my queen?”

I wanted to slap him across the face. “How dare you lie to me!” I said, spitting the words. “What was in that box? Tell me what it was!”

“A heart.”

“What heart? She lives! I know that Snow White still lives.”

He looked around, then strode over to me, placed his hand over my mouth. “Be careful, my queen,” he said into
my ear. “You must not let anyone hear you speak of this.”

I struggled in his arms.

He continued. “You would have our kingdom go to war over your petty jealousies. She is the heir to the throne! She’s just a child! How could you have asked such a thing, and of me?”

My hair was tangling around my neck, pulling at my skin. He tightened his arms around me. I continued to struggle against him, furious
to feel his love and worry pulsing through.

“Let me go!” I screamed, biting into his palm, and he released me suddenly, causing me to fall to the floor.

I stood up, my whole body alive with anger. I might have been a bolt of lightning, a storm.

“I could not kill her,” he said. “Not even for you.”

“Then where did you take her? Where is she?”

“I took her to where she would be safe from you.”

“In a house full of criminals?” I yelled. As I accused him, I realized how much it pained me, how much I hated the image of her being abused. I had loved Snow White like a mother once and I loved her still, despite everything. “I wanted her dead. I did not want her to be tortured.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She is in the forest, in a house of bandits.”

He did not seem to understand me.
His confusion seemed genuine. “I did not kill her,” he said. “I took her into the forest, but I did not take her to a house of bandits. I made sure she was safe.”

“Then where is she?”

The room seemed to be spinning. The falcons and hawks became terrifying in their hoods.

He paused. “I took her to Mathena. She has promised to protect her.”

I
stared at him in disbelief. And then I knew, suddenly, that I had to find her and fix what I’d done.
I felt it, down to my blood and bones, the terrible mistake I’d made. I turned and ran to the stables and demanded a horse, and then I spurred my heels into its side and raced through the palace gates, past the soldiers’ encampments, the streets lined with houses.

“Go!” I cried, digging my spurs into the horse, and we flew through the kingdom.

Guards rushed to follow, but I was driven by passion,
by magic, and soon I was out of their sight altogether.

Nothing made sense anymore. All I knew was that Snow White was in the house of bandits, and that Mathena had taken her there. I knew I had been the one to send Snow White to the forest, to ask for her heart, but I’d never meant to make her suffer the way she was suffering now.

When I was exhausted, I stopped, and made a camp for myself
in the leaves. After feeding and watering my horse, I let down my hair and wrapped it around me like a blanket.

As I began to drift to sleep, I could see Mathena up in the tower, staring at the castle, imagining me as queen within it. She
had known how much I would suffer, not being able to give the king an heir. Knew how much I would come to hate the child Snow White.

Seven years I’d spent
in the kingdom, before she saved me. Seven years after my child died, I went back and became a queen. Now eight more years had passed.

The world was hazy around me.

I was half sleeping, half awake.

Suddenly I understood something. She had been lying in wait, hadn’t she, all these years? She’d been a favorite at the court for all that time, and then she was cast out. Her beloved, condemned to
death. She’d tried to save him, but ended up giving him a fate that was worse than dying.

I knew then why she’d taken me into the forest all those years before, and why she’d spent all that time training me to be a witch.

I sat up, my heart hammering in my chest. All around me the forest moved, shifted, hiding its secrets.