The Snow White Queen
She ran, stumbling blindly down stairs, through abandoned hallways, into unfeeling shadows—Away. Stone scraped her skin raw through her delicate nightgown and splinters pierced flesh, but she didn't dare stop. Fear made her impervious to the pain. The rhythm of bare feet slapping cold floor echoed her heartbeat. It pounded in her throat, amplified by the ragged sobs that tore themselves from her.
What had she done?
She could still hear Vanora's anguished lament. The howl chased her no matter which way she turned. Behind her, doors were opened and candles lit as servants poured into the corridor, hurrying to find out what was wrong with their distressed, wailing queen. They ignored Rhosyn in their haste, and she was happy to be forgotten. Her mother's cry drove her from the castle and into the black courtyard. She no longer knew if the voice she heard was real or merely a haunting echo in her mind, but it didn't matter anymore. She couldn't stay.
Why had she done it?
The outline of the forest began just beyond the city gates. It grew taller and bleaker with each pounding step. The trees stretched along the horizon, beyond the edge of her vision. Behind them, streaks of early sunlight scattered the stars and midnight blue sky, but the darkness overwhelmed her again with her first running stride into the forest. Fear and adrenaline kept her warm, but the chilly air hovered just outside her thin shield. She would have to get used to the cold, she knew. She was alone.
Where did she go now?
Rhosyn stole quietly into her mother's dressing chamber, cringing every time the floorboard squeaked. She forcibly suppressed her gasp when a bubble of hot wax from her candle dripped onto her hand. Her flesh burned, but not as much as her curiosity. It had been many years since she had ventured into the forbidden room—her nights were usually spent better in haunted dreams after lonely days—but she was desperate now, more than ever, to understand her mother's obsession.
Just one look; she just wanted to know what her mother saw.
The silver circle across the room caught the shreds of light cast by moon and candle and gleamed with an unearthly pallor. Rhosyn could see the hazy outline of her own silhouette slinking through the shadows that crossed the face of the mirror. She set her candle down on the nearest cabinet to see it better.
Her reflection was a haunting mask in the broken light, and her expression was stark. Ghostly eyes stared back at her; her reflection judged her. She wondered what it saw, what it thought…if it thought she was worthy.
"You will not have me," she whispered to it. Unyielding, her reflection stubbornly held her gaze until she turned her eyes away. She dared to brush her fingers over the brass fittings that held the mirror in place and let out a shriveled breath. Lightning didn't split the sky, the world didn't crumble around her—it was nothing more than a mirror after all.
Its touch was cold, but intoxicating. She pressed her fingers more fully on the lifeless metal, letting them fall into every detail that made up the structure. The workmanship of it had always entranced her.
It was the image of a tree, majestic and pure. Every curving branch had been carefully hammered into place, every texture stamped clearly on the surface of the brass. And high, tangled in the delicate branches, was the perfect circle of glass; it gleamed like the full moon itself through the branches of a midwinter tree.
She whispered breathily; no word, but an incoherent pocket of raw emotion that summed up the intricacy of its details. Her breath fogged the glass, tainting the flawless surface.
"What are you doing here?"
The voice was close at her shoulder, its tone neither questioning nor innocent, but angry. Rhosyn had not heard the queen come in or seen her in the reflection. Caught, she turned; too hastily, for her fingers snagged between the brass branches and pulled. She heard the grating of metal on stone—despair suddenly airborne in the hollow silence that filled the room—and then the shattering of Vanora's existence.
The thousands of shreds of glass glittered from every corner of the room like an ethereal blizzard. Rhosyn brushed glass dust away from herself, but her mother stood frozen rigidly in place as the fairylike glass flakes settled on her clothes and in her hair and face.
Time forgot itself in that moment and ceased its insistent racing, as equally frozen in horror as the mother and daughter who faced each other over the settling storm of white. And then Vanora spoke again.
"What have you done?"
What began as a broken whisper ended in a piercing scream. Vanora's hands reached out to her daughter's neck. "What have you done?"
Rhosyn tore away, felt fingernails tearing at skin.
And she ran.
Storynotes: this is something I am thinking about turning into a full-length novel. In the meantime, it's fanfiction length. Regular font=regular story, Italics=linearly decreasing flashbacks. Just thought I'd throw that in because it's a little more difficult to understand on here than on my computer. Fanfiction messes with my aesthetics...Anyway, this chapter obviously includes one of each. Future chapters might be the same, or only one. Not that you care at this point.
Any questions, ask. Any reviews, leave. Much obliged.
