A Fair Account of the Traitors Snow White and Rose Red

Mirror-Bound

The glass mirrors every shadow and angle in the room except for mine. Panic floods through me as my limbs and joints lock marble-stiff. My eyes are frozen wide as a single reflected dart of light from the lucidium crystal cuts through me. I blink, just once—but once is all it takes. When I open my eyes again, Mother's bedchambers have dissolved into a wavering collage of shifting hues and shapes like water colors running together—except for one figure. I gulp. I've found my reflection! Or rather, it's found me. A filmy silhouette ripples into an exact copy of me down to the last wayward curl, except for the eyes, which have no iris or pupil. Instead, they gleam with tiny, silvery white facets like the compound eye of an insect—a dragonfly, perhaps.

And then my alter-self begins speaking with a voice that twists a thousand strains of music with each syllable into one terrible chant.

"May I not wake yet?" she asks, and I cover my ears as the cacophony of her plea vibrates through my bones like a thunderclap. But I should've covered my heart. I don't even have time to scream as she plunges her hand into my chest. Yet instead of excruciating agony, all I feel at her touch is a warm tingling, almost like a feathery ray of light slanting through me.

The girl quickly withdraws her hand and turns away from me in disgust. "No! You're not real, either."

"Not . . . real? You're the one stealing my reflection!" I shout, but my voice falls feebly in this space. I don't think she can hear me anymore than the sneeze of a flea.

My alter-self bursts into sobs, and I wince as each falling tear smashes against the floor with the force of a shattering mountain. "I've been dreaming for so long!" she cries. "Please, will no one wake me? No one at all?"

I fall to my knees and cower as my reflection's wail rips through me with the force of a typhoon that would shake even the Fathomsea. I can't hide from the sound. I'm going to shrivel under the weight of it until not even a speck of me is left.

"Shh, Chant!" a woman's voice commands.

My raging alter-self disappears as pale pink ribbons surround me in a tight cocoon. Sitting up, my jaw drops as each ribbon curls into bunches of petals until I'm completely encircled by a luminous grove of cherry trees. My skin prickles as I realize that I'm caught in the aura of a gloriphage. Someone has completely unwound their spiritual energy to create this illusory sanctum.

A white-haired woman robed in pink silk materializes beside me and I realize that the train of her gown flows into each of the trees. Her soul and the grove are one and the same.

"Hello, Rose." Mother smiles at me shyly, extending her hand.

But I slap her hand away. While her slender frame and iolite eyes match Queen Estelle's, I don't trust the flawless details of this alter-mother. "You're just another mirror trick! I'm going to shatter you along with the crystal!" I shout.

My mirror mother laughs. "Go ahead. I deserve to die. After all, your father was slaughtered by my hand."

I nearly choke at how freely she admits her guilt. I knew this wretched mirror had something to do with Father's murder. My hands clench into fists at my side. "What are you, monster?"

The woman runs a hand through her pearl-white stream of hair and tosses it over her shoulder before answering. "Your mother, Estelle Felgarde. The woman who currently wears my body outside this looking glass is Astra Felgarde—my sister."

I shake my head, completely bewildered. "Liar! My mother has no siblings."

To my surprise, the woman nods in agreement. "You're right, of course. That is what my parents always swore me to say. It was more or less the truth." She snaps a branch from one of the cherry trees and offers it to me. Heavy golden sap bleeds from each blossom in copious tears as I grasp the branch.