A Fair Account of the Traitors Snow White and Rose Red

The Last Leonesse

Snow is shivering against the space between true dream and awakening. She's always there, but lately her silhouette has been growing clearer, sharper. Perhaps that is because today on the first morning of my sixteenth year, we are finally the same age. I burrow deeper into my bed sheets and steel my skin against the cold draft slipping through the stone walls of the palace. Snow's ghost presses even closer—as if she rests right beside me.

I've given up trying to banish her long ago.

My half sister was born a princess, but died no better than a traitor in an unmarked grave. I used to wish I knew where her body lies so that I could mingle my whispers with her bones. I wouldn't leave her a prayer, not even a curse. Just my pain—I hate you, Snow White. I must despise you always, though our laughter once twined thicker than briars. There was a time when I would've done anything just to trail in the wake of ice crystals behind Snow's shadow. I might even have followed her into the forbidden silver groves of the Wildershade, except that I know what I saw the night our father was murdered eleven years ago.

"Rose Red, Rose Red—"

The sing-song echo of the huntsman's cry pulls me back to that night. No matter how many times I've tried to close my eyes against the memory, the path to Father's study always catches me in its maze. I'm five summers old again, a confident brat playing my very last child's game in the castle corridors.

"Rose Red, Rose Red, if I catch you, I'll tear off your head!"

Micah's voice ends in a ferocious growl that startles me out of my sprint. I bump into a marble bust of one of my Leonesse ancestors sleeping under a noble shroud of dust. Steadying my frowning stone relative on his pedestal, a tiny thrill darts through me as I recognize Micah's snarl; Silver Saber Cat, western mountain province of Albemar. The Chief Huntsman of the Court has taught me dozens of cries of beast and bird since I was knee-high to his boot.

None are frightening enough to ferret me out.

I stifle a cross between a snicker and a sneeze as I slide behind a musty mermaid tapestry. Poor Nana Lune! My nursemaid must be desperate if she sent her nephew to track me down. But there's no way I'm getting snared for bedtime so easily, not when I can fold myself into a perfect puzzle in the chest in Father's study. My hand searches the wall until I find the small circular indentation in the stone. Pressing hard, the secret panel gives and I stumble backwards into the study. My eyes blink as they adjust to the sudden golden sphere of candle light, which can only mean . . . Uh oh. I thought he was still stuck in a stuffy council.

"Evening, Father," I murmur, dropping into my deepest curtsy.

I expect to be reprimanded for my interruption and ordered promptly to bed without my after-supper treat. Farewell, caramel-glazed crumpets . . . Yet Father doesn't even notice me. Somehow, I find that even worse. His hair is the same firebrand red as mine, but tonight the candle light seems to catch all the new white strands that have been sneaking into his beard lately. He hunches over a map of the Isle of Albemar spread across his desk, pinning and unpinning a fleet of tiny silver ships to the parchment. I wince as a sharp metal point slits through the thick paper and grinds into the wood.

"Stop." I place my warm palm over his weathered hand. "You'll rip a hole in the kingdom!" I stiffen as Father's blue gaze meets mine suddenly.

"Rosavere?" Father sounds out my name slowly, as if drawing each syllable from somewhere faraway. "Forgive me, bean," he mumbles. "If I could unmake you princess, spare both you and Snow the coming gale, I'd do it now—"

Normally, I pummel Father whenever he teases my gangling frame with the nickname "bean." But he's so strange tonight I can't do it. His feverish eyes fall back to the miniature armada swarming the map on his desk. He's . . . crying without water?