A Fair Account of the Traitors Snow White and Rose Red

Goblin Fruit

We are, I am—Snow White.

Not now, but as I was in the last hour before my death; when people could still mistake me for a common human if I kept my troublesome eyes downcast and held the cold inside me. Until the glint of ice crystals forming on my skin betrayed me for an unnatural creature—always betrayed me. But I have no need to hide my cursed geomagy within the hot springs of Verage. Plumes of boiling mist sap my frost to a thin silver sheen that barely stains the turquoise rocks on which I sit. Pools of emerald water bubble and hiss on all sides as I huddle under the shade of a large boulder, waiting.

She'll come for me. I know the Queen—she will believe the huntsman!

Surely, by now Micah will have explained everything to her about what happened that night in the harbor. I blink as a slender silhouette darkens and coalesces amid the serpentine coils of heat. She's here . . . but for me, or just my heart? The order of execution my stepmother gave the huntsman still lays stone-heavy on my chest; but Micah would never divulge my location to her if he didn't feel it was safe—

"I didn't kill Father," I say, betraying myself to her trust.

"I know," Estelle replies as she reaches a pale hand out to me. "I misjudged you. We all did in our grief, but especially me."

Scrambling up, I rush forward and bury my head into Estelle's slight shoulder. "I knew you'd come to set things right!"

Estelle smoothes my tangled raven locks with a pat of her slim hand. "Of course I came—we're family. I don't abandon my own."

Her perfume hangs a sweet halo of white jasmine around her. Although I dearly wish I could hide in her arms for hours like this, I pull back almost immediately. I know how the chill of my embrace pains her delicate skin. "Then . . . you believe me?" I ask. "I only did what you asked that night. I could never hurt Fa—"

"Of course!" Estelle interrupts, and I am puzzled by her brusque manner. "Your innocence shares the pureness of your very name, but darling, poor little princess, to the rest of the kingdom—Snow White Leonesse is 'king-killer' now. You know what they say about you, what they have always whispered behind your back. Ice witch, frost demoness—"

I hang my head. "What am I to do, then, hide in the Wildershade, or wallow in these blasted hot springs forever?" I demand bitterly. "You know I can't leave Albemar so long as my Grand Bane still taints my veins! It's too strong. I nearly died when Father tried to send me to Temaru Isle as a child to temper my ice geomagy. I can never leave this blasted isle—"

"Shhh," Estelle soothes, grabbing my face between her hands and forcing me to still. We are only ten years apart in age, but I can almost imagine that she is my birth mother, Isabeau.

"Ah, but you can leave," she whispers, pulling a bundle wrapped in a white kerchief from the folds of her gown and offering it to me. "Nothing shall keep you here after one bite." A gust of wind brushes the kerchief loose. I blink as the white silk reveals a gleaming sun in her hand wearing the skin of an apple.

"What is it?" I ask, my fingers hesitating over the gift.

"Fruit from the Goblin Key," Estelle says. "Only those most loyal to the Felgarde family within the Green Guild know of its existence. It's a barren island with no freshwater and wild apple groves that still burn with a high degree of magiation from the Starfall. It's rumored that one bite can suppress even a Grand Bane."

Estelle raises the fruit inches from my lips, so close that its heavy cloying scent permeates the very air I suck between my teeth.

"Free yourself, Snow. All the isles of the Fathomsea will be yours after one little bite! You can go anywhere, be anyone you want."