Snow White and the Huntsman (2 page)

The king’s daughter, Snow White, would sit beside them at meals, her chin resting in her hands as she studied Ravenna. She was a child still, only seven years old. Together, they were a family. It was what the king had always wanted.

He would watch Ravenna sometimes, how she smiled at Snow White or took her hand and led her around the castle courtyard. She seemed so very happy with them.…

When the day of the wedding arrived, Ravenna stood in the back of the cathedral. Through the wooden doors, she could hear the crowd shifting in their seats. Her cheeks were powdered. Her lips were painted a deep blood-red, and her dress was laced up the back so tightly that she could barely breathe. She watched her reflection in the mirror on the wall, the slightest curl on her lips. Tonight, after the ceremony, there’d be no more pretending. She would finally get what she wanted.

“You’re so beautiful.…” a small voice whispered.

She turned to see Snow White standing in the doorway, watching her. Snow White took the end of Ravenna’s long white gown in her hands, pulling it up to keep it off the stone floor. Ravenna beckoned the king’s daughter forward with a slight flick of her wrist. “That is kind, child,” she cooed. “Especially when it is said that yours is the face of true beauty in this kingdom.” Ravenna touched the little girl’s cheek. Her skin was as perfect as porcelain. She had huge dark brown eyes and a hint of rose in her cheeks. Whenever she passed handmaids and soldiers alike, they were charmed, dropping down to one knee.

The little girl looked up at her with eyes so innocent, so naive. Ravenna smiled down into the tiny face, knowing that this charade would end soon, and then she would right the wrongs that had been done to her and to her people. “I know it is difficult, child. When I was your age, I, too, lost my mother.”

She stroked Snow White’s cheek. She could hear the orchestra in the front of the great cathedral starting up. Soon she’d walk down the aisle. It was all coming together as planned.

As she waited for the music to begin, her thoughts drifted back in time to the day the king’s men had just arrived in her village. She’d been so young. Ravenna and her brother, Finn, had been in their mother’s gypsy wagon. They’d been together always, a small traveling clan, until the day the king’s army came. Her mother had held a mirror in front of her face.

“This is all that can save you,” her mother told her. Then the older woman took her daughter’s wrist and held it over a bowl of white liquid, whispering spells beneath her breath. With a sharp blade, she nicked Ravenna’s wrist and let the blood drip into the bowl; the red shone that much more vibrantly against the white. Ravenna drank the potion quickly, swallowing it down. Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she could still taste the strong, metallic liquid on her tongue. “Drink,” her mother had said. “And with it, you will have the ability to steal youth and beauty. For that is your ultimate power and only protection.”

The king’s men worked their way through each wagon, taking the gypsies out of their homes and killing them. Finn was screaming. He wanted to protect her—that much Ravenna remembered now. Her mother had put her hands on their foreheads and whispered more spells, more words, putting a power in them that connected them both. They would always have each other, and Ravenna would be tied
to him until death. Then they were running, so fast Ravenna could barely catch her breath.

They had escaped, but their mother had been left behind. The hair on the back of Ravenna’s neck stood up as she recalled the way the soldier pressed the sword against her mother’s throat. Her mother had spoken her last words, calling out to Ravenna as she was dragged away. “Be warned,” she’d yelled, “by fairest blood it is done, and only by fairest blood can it be undone.” Then her mother had fallen to her knees, the gash spilling blood on the grass. Within minutes she was dead.

“Ravenna?” a small voice asked. “Ravenna? It’s time.”

Ravenna opened her eyes. Snow White was standing behind her, spreading out the train of her dress. The wooden doors had opened. A thousand eyes were upon her, waiting for her to walk down the aisle. She straightened, her blue eyes darkening as they locked on the king.
The little girl is right. It is time.

That night, as the last wedding guests drank and ate in the castle courtyard, Ravenna took the king to his bedchamber. She lay beside him in her white wedding gown, her long wavy hair loose around her shoulders, watching as he finished his wine. He ran his fingers through her golden hair and finally let them rest on her thin gold crown. Rubies and emeralds dotted the front. The groom was weakened by the day’s festivities, his movements slowed from so many drinks. He was an easy target.…

She reached under the pillow and pulled out the silver dagger she’d hidden there just hours before. She raised it
above her head, focusing on the center of his rib cage, where the bone concealed his heart. In one swift motion, she drove it into his chest, watching his body shudder from the sudden blow. “First I will take your life, my lord,” Ravenna whispered as his limbs finally went still. “Then I will take your throne.”

She strode out of the chamber and down the hall, leaving the king twisted in the bloody sheets. She moved quickly, descending the stairs to the castle’s portcullis. Her brother, Finn, was waiting outside the latticed iron. His army was behind him, the shadow soldiers barely visible in the moonlight. She raised the metal gate, and the soldiers flooded inside. Within minutes, they’d descended on every inch of the castle.

While the soldiers fought, Ravenna returned to her room. She could hear the cries of civilians downstairs, and the clinking of sword against sword as the soldiers locked in battle. One of her brother’s men brought in a massive mirror. It looked like a round shield of highly polished bronze. When she was alone, the air outside her room filling with shouts and yells, she gazed into the mirror’s reflective surface. It was much bigger than the one her mother had held before her all those years ago, but it held even more magic.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” she asked, leaning toward it.

The surface of the mirror rippled. Liquid spilled onto the floor around Ravenna’s feet, re-forming into a bronze statue nearly as tall as she was. The figure appeared as though it was draped in thick fabric, but it reflected back the room around
her. The mirror man’s face showed Ravenna’s face just as it was. “It is you, my Queen,” it said. “Yet another kingdom falls to your glory. Is there no end to your power and beauty?”

Hearing the mirror speak, Ravenna knew the magic her mother had given her was boundless. In her presence, kingdoms fell, men perished, and even simple objects took on a magical life, revealing secrets no one else could know. She raised her hands in the air, feeling the fight in her fingertips, remembering all that her family had given up to the king. He was finally dead. The kingdom was hers again. No one could hurt her now, or ever again.

When the fighting ended and the courtyard was silent, she went back down the stairs. The shadow warriors were assembled in the stone courtyard. Blood was spattered on the tables and chairs. Plates were broken on the ground, the remnants of the celebratory dinner strewn everywhere. She didn’t shudder at the sight of the bodies, some of them women, slumped over in their seats. The surviving wedding guests and nobles were lined up against the wall, held back by Finn’s army.

“What shall we do with these?” one general asked. The women clasped their hands together, begging for mercy. A few noblemen even teared up. They pulled their children close, trying, however uselessly, to protect them. Ravenna shut her eyes and remembered her mother—how
all
the women in her village had been so brutally slaughtered. This was what was meant to happen. It had been the king’s mistake—not hers. This was how it was supposed to be.

“To the sword,” she said, her voice flat. She wrapped her
robe tight around her and shuddered from the cool night air. Then she turned on her heel to go.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Finn holding the little girl. His knife was pressed against Snow White’s neck. Something in the girl’s face caught her by surprise, this young child who just hours before had held up her wedding dress. Her lips were trembling, and her eyes were brimming with tears.

“Finn—no!” she cried, the words coming out before she could stop them. He narrowed his eyes at her, as if he weren’t quite certain who she was. She straightened, trying not to seem weak before her brother, who had just fought so valiantly in her name, never questioning her commands. “Lock her away. One never knows when royal blood will be of value.”

Her eyes met Snow White’s. The two stared at each other, the chaos swirling around them. Women were dragged outside to be killed. Noblemen struggled against the soldiers’ grips. A little boy was screaming for his mother, his face tear-streaked and red. But in that moment, Ravenna saw only Snow White, and Snow White saw only her. Ravenna rested her hand on her chest, wondering what it was that she felt for this young child, the heir to the very kingdom she had overthrown. They were bound together, somehow, by some strange, powerful force.

Ravenna stood there, her hand over her heart, until Finn left for the dungeons, dragging Snow White behind him.

The child’s eyes never left hers. She was still glancing over her shoulder, looking back, until she disappeared behind the heavy wooden door.

F
inn was watching her again. Even lying in her bed, her eyes half closed, Snow White could see his shadow on the dungeon wall. She didn’t say anything. Instead, she shook the matted blanket off herself and folded it on the narrow cot. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to undo the knots that had formed at the nape of her neck. Then she knelt down, starting her fire as she did every day, twisting the wood back and forth, back and forth, until the thin shavings caught. By the time they flared up, bringing warmth to her fingers, Finn was gone.