Bride to the Cursed: a Snow White retelling

Chapter 33: The Red Apple

The Seer did not put the goddamn apple away. Instead, she lowered herself stiffly into a seat close to Cassie's and placed the apple down on the table between them, letting it stand as a wordless threat.

Fine. Time was too precious for Cassie to kick up a fuss about minor grievances or even make small talk. "If what they said was true, why did you not kill me that day on the balcony?" she asked, straight into interrogation mode.

The Seer tilted her head a little to the side. "Your child is innocent. If she lives, one day, she will bring hope for many. I'd also hoped you would die in childbirth, so I wouldn't have to get my hands dirty," she replied evenly, as if she was speaking of the weather and not of her desire to see Cassie dead. Then she added, "I don't like getting my hands dirty."

"But you're still prepared to kill me."

"I am prepared to save the lives of thousands for the price of one."

As much as she tried to channel the air of regality and propriety Madam Piper had spent months instilling in her, Cassie could not keep the bite out of her voice. "And what gives you the right to decide who should live or die? How do we know we can trust you? What if you have ulterior motives?"

"The gods saw fit to entrust me with the gift of sight and knowing, and with that, comes the responsibility of doing what I must do, based on what I know. It was with that knowing that I saved your king."

Cassie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The interests of gods—even if they did exist—seldom aligned with the interests of men. If they did, then the world should see a lot less suffering and inequity than it did. But arguing spirituality would not advance her interests. She was here to put an end to destruction because the gods wouldn't.

"I will do this if this is what I really must do to save everyone," she said, eyeing the apple between them. For her, it served less as a warning than as a reminder of the honeyed apple that rolled out of her mother's basket after... No more tears, she scolded herself. Lifting her chin, she said firmly, "But you need to convince me that this is indeed what I must do. That this is the only way. I need you to tell me everything."

For a moment, the tiniest crack appeared in the Seer's icy exterior. Her eyes flashed with hope and relief in response to the possibility that Cassie would give up her life so the Seer did not need to soil her own hands with the blood of murder.

"I do not pretend to know everything," she began. "We in Meltec may have the greatest libraries with the oldest and most obscure tomes, but books do not hold all answers. Neither do I. I may be what they call a seer, but all I really have is a greater sense of knowing. I see some of the past. I see some of the present, even when they take place far out of my sight. But the future—"

"Can you see Dane? How is he?" Cassie had the sudden urge to leap out of her chair, grab the woman and shake her for answers.

"I cannot see him, though I can feel how frightened he is. For you."

A bead of tear escaped at those last two words, and Cassie had to press a palm to her mouth to suppress a sob. For countless hours, she'd tried to ignore the gnawing worry that threatened to consume her, not knowing whether the monsters had crushed Dane's armies on their way to Lyons.

She wanted to ask more. So much more. But time did not allow her to. Swallowing down the rest of her tears, she cleared her throat and asked, "What were you going to say about the future?"

"Most of what I see of the future are glimpses of endless possibilities, for the future is ever-changing, ever-dependent on the choices of fickle minds."

It made sense. Cassie nodded along, then stopped abruptly. "If the future is ever-changing, then how can you be so sure about what the beasts would do?"