Princess Snow White was walking out of the castle when her cook/messenger came running up with shaking hands, clutching a sheet of paper in a farflung fist. The messenger had dark brown hair pulled back in a high ponytail and a round middle.
"Princess, I thought you'd make a great queen, but you pursue a suicide mission." Her throat trembled visibly as she willed away frustrated tears and squinted in the sun with the expression of someone fending off a migraine. She was covered in flour and smelled like vanilla and walnuts.
Snow White instantly assumed she was referring to Prince James. She must've caught them! The glamour spell must hae failed. Snow shifted her eyes guiltily. Then smiled brightly in her violet-colored gown with teal embroidery. "What are you talking about?" she inquired innocently.
"This letter Reul Ghorm gave me to deliver to mercenaries. I know I shouldn't have perused it, but when I touched it, I had a bad feeling. My great-grandmother was a Seer."
"Seers can mate?" Snow uttered dubiously as she accepted the sheet of paper and began to read. Her face lost several shades of color.
Dear Mercenaries of Rhilopia,
Your assistance is greatly needed for me to destroy King George. He is a formidable foe.
I will pay whoever lops off his head half the gold of my kingdom.
Your Loving Queen-to-be,
Snow White
The signature was indisputably hers.
She ran her tongue over her bottom lip, her eyes wild. "I never saw this parchment in my life!"
"You didn't sign it?"
"No! This is forgery…treachery." Bells of alarm rang in Snow's head.
Reul was getting desperate. Whatever vendetta she had against King George was making her overstep her boundaries as an advisor.
"I knew you had more sense than this," sighed the cook/messenger. "I'm glad I read it instead of having it delivered."
"H-how m-many are there?" Snow asked around numb lips, her eyelids twitching heavily. A sudden pain pulsed against the left side of her temple. She needed pain-reducing herbal tea before her ailments destroyed one of her organs. Even though she'd only smoked a cigar once—a couple of weeks ago, when she felt rebellious and was sitting in a tree—she suddenly felt like she was breathing through a straw.
"She gave me fifty, but there are four more messengers she hailed. I'd wager two hundred and fifty."
Princess Snow spun in a dizzy circle to her knees. Reul Ghorm was the ultimate traitor.
"We're not going to stop them," Snow uttered dully when she could breathe again. She was lying flat on the ground. The cook/messenger had a vial of smelling salt against Snow's nose. Snow had never fainted before, but she'd been swarmed by hopelessness for the first time in her life.
"Nay, we can't," agreed her loyal servant, helping her sit up then collapsing beside her, snuggling against her shoulder. "The others have already departed. But we can declare the statement false."
Snow inhaled deeply. "By the time we've done that, I'm sure one of those bloody mercenaries will have lopped off King George's head. No, Mathilda. We will have to run away."
"Run away?" Mathilda shrieked in despair and disbelief. "But you're the future monarch!"
"If a mercenary beheads King George," Snow murmured around her ringing ears and shallow breath, "he will come at me for half my riches. If I refuse, he'll kill me." She sounded a lot calmer than Mathilda would have.
"So kill him first. Don't even answer him. Just have someone ready to kill him," Mathilda suggested.
"That'd be a wonderful idea, except the other mercenaries would come after me if I do that. The Blue Fairy," she enunciated, "dug a ditch she knew I'd break my leg climbing out of." Narrowing her eyes, she mused, "But she thought she'd catch me unawares. Sacrificing half our country's wealth or dying at the hands of a flock of mercenaries."
"She must really hate you."
Snow shook her head. "No. She hates King George. Blinded by her lust for his death warrant, she neglected me. Forgot to take me into consideration."
Mathilda studied Snow's face querulously. "How can anyone despise anyone that much?"
Snow shook her head slowly. "I don't know. But I know Reul. It's not that she doesn't care what happens to me. She does. I am her queen, after all.
"And," Snow continued, "she was palpably thinking long enough to scribe two hundred and fifty forged letters. Mainly out of spite for me not going along with her harebrained scheme in the first place." Snow glowered.
Mathilda closed her eyes then sneezed hard. "That's one bad fairy."
"I've never seen her like this before," the princess asserted diplomatically. "Though I guess my mother always listened to her advice. This is the first time she wanted me to decide, and it would have been a mistake to follow Reul's guidance here. The one time she doesn't get her way!" she yelled into the barren courtyard. Summoning her normal whisper—a voice she'd acquired to keep unwanted people from inserting their opinion into her private plans—she muttered, "Goes to show how loyal she is."
Clasping her hands over the princess', Mathilda swears, "I am your loyal servant. I will follow you to the volcanos of hell, save you do not try to send mercenaries after King George. As long as you have common sense, I am yours."
Snow forced a smile. She hated to leave her glorious kingdom behind, but she felt she had no choice. "Okay, listen. I'm in love with someone Reul would disapprove of."
Mathilda gasped and placed her hand over her heart. "King George?" It was well-known that he had buried his wife twelve years ago and had never taken another.
Princess Snow White didn't say yes, nor did she say no. All she said was, "I'm not ready to unmask him, but would you like to see the ring?"
Mathilda was delighted. The two of them squealed over the beautiful engagement ring. It felt so good for the princess. She hadn't even shown the girls she was closest to because they had big mouths and chances were, unlike Mathilda, they wouldn't be happy for her but sorely jealous.
Even Red, who ate her boyfriend!
But none of them knew her thirst for darkness. The ring was merely another secret she kept high out of their reach.
Cinderella was the most likely to understand since she had traded her firstborn child—a daughter—for riches. For Thomas. She was pregnant with their secondborn and had proudly confided the reward was worth the trade. She hadn't even set eyes on the first babe, though she'd heard her cry.
Princess Snow White may enjoy killing and outwitting fools, but she'd never betray her loved ones. She wouldn't trade her own child for anything but a chance to save Prince James' life, if he were dying.
