A Fair Account of the Traitors Snow White and Rose Red

Her Pretty Little Kingdom

The storm of glowing cherry blossoms settles at my feet and I blink as the vivid dream of Estelle's life releases me. The shimmering woman stands just a few feet away, tantalizing in her closeness. I want to believe she is my mother more fiercely than anything, but I'm not ready to give into my hope just yet . . . .

"If Astra was the soul caught in this glass, how did you trade places?" I demand.

"Trade?" Estelle laughs bitterly. "I was tricked. A letter arrived from the Felgarde estate filled with rumors of a secret slave trade blossoming in Albemar. My loyal retainer Sanju warned that the Green Guild was taking bribes to let the slave ships into the Port of Leona under the very nose of the king." Cherry blossom petals fall and dissipate in pale pink cinders with the force of her sigh. "But I didn't dare bother your father with the rumor, not when corsair fleets were already barricading our harbor and threatening war. And too many nobles were already owned by the Green Guild, I didn't know who to trust in the Court. So, I made my first fatal mistake—"

"You sent Snow?" I finish.

Estelle bows her head. "She was a geomage, while I—I was a petty queen with no real power to protect anyone." Tears run down the woman's face freely when she meets my gaze again. Somehow, I can't stand them. They aren't mine and yet they hurt like they belong to me, too. "But when Snow didn't return on time, I was utterly delirious, terrified that I may have killed her because I was always too cowardly to face my fears alone!"

Estelle holds out her hand and a single cherry blossom coalesces in her palm like a tiny pink star. "I begged Astra to use her gloriphagy to force my own weak powers to awaken. I only wanted to be stronger! But the second her soul latched onto mine through the glass, my sister pulled me into the mirror, stealing—no, I can't stay she robbed me, for we were both born in the same flesh." Estelle blows on the blossom and lets it dissolve between us. "She took our body for herself."

Her tale may explain the abrupt changes in Mother's behavior after Father's death—but not what truly happened that night of shattering glass.

"I must know," I say with deliberate slowness. "Did she kill him?"

Mother stiffens. She knows I speak of Father. "You must understand—Astra was simply following the same principle that wouldn't allow her to spare her own life as a child; she doesn't tolerate weakness and will do anything to protect what she loves. Anything!"

Glowing petals wilt and slip free from the circle of cherry trees as her eyes meet mine. "It's my fault for forgetting that . . . I could do nothing as she used gloriphagy to bind Snow's likeness to her skin out of shattered mirror dust; nothing but watch from shards as she struck your Father down."

I shiver as I realize that the hard sparkle of the false Snow's dagger that night was not ice geomagy, but rather the razor slant of glass catching moonlight.

The woman holds out a hesitant hand, as if to draw me closer. "Astra took down most of the palace mirrors so that I couldn't watch you grow, but every morning she'd open my dowry chest and tantalize me with tidbits about what you were studying, or some new art you'd mastered." Her eyes brim with a luminous light much too bright for tears. "But I never thought I'd get the chance to see you again—"

All the coldness that filled the palace after Father died and Snow disappeared makes sense at last. A stranger has been walking in my mother's skin for the last eleven years, bloodying her own hands against her will. Stumbling forward, I trip into Estelle's arms, all awkward angles and a million pieces of happiness that finally fit together.

"I've missed you!" I sob. "So very, very much."

"When did you grow into such a fiercely beautiful creature? And so tall!" Estelle, no—Mother whispers as she embraces me. "You look just like your Father with your flaming mane."