Chapter 6 The Queen’s Fury
Chapter six
The Queen’s Fury
Liora did not believe in coincidence. She believed in timing.
In patterns. In threats. The moment she saw the way Snow White and the visiting prince looked at each other in the stable yard, a cold, familiar fear slid into her gut.
Not again, it whispered. We will not do this again.
She had carved her path to the throne with her beauty.
She had learned every way it could be used—for her, against her, over her.
She had seen how easily men’s loyalties shifted when a younger, fresher face appeared.
Now her own daughter—her mirror’s ghost—was starting to draw glances the way Liora once had.
This could not be allowed. She turned from the window before the scene below could fully play out and swept back into the throne room, skirts swirling behind her like spilled wine.
The visiting king sat in the high-backed chair to her right, a goblet in hand. He was speaking to one of his advisors, gesturing to a map laid across the nearby table. His knights lounged further down the hall, trading quiet jests.
Liora did not smile as she approached. The mask she wore now was colder, sharper.
“Majesty?” the visiting king said, looking up at her change in air.
“Our discussions are concluded,” Liora said. “You will leave at once!”
The table went still. A drop of wine slid down the outside of the king’s goblet. “I beg your pardon?” he said slowly.
“Now!” she repeated. Was it anger, jealousy, or fear behind her perfectly painted eyes?
A flush crept up his neck. “We had an understanding. A ball tomorrow night. Time to deepen our alliance—”
“Our alliance,” she said, “no longer interests me.” In truth, it did. His armies were strong. His coffers full. A union between their kingdoms could have paved a swath of influence across half the continent.
But none of that mattered if her throne—her mirror—was threatened.
The king was a man of pride and didn’t need to hear another word. He inclined his head—too sharp to be called a bow—and gestured to his men. “We ride,” he said. “Make haste.”
Chairs scraped. Boots thundered. In moments, the grand hall that had been prepared for feasting and dancing felt more like the mouth of a cave disgorging an angry beast. As they swept past her, the king’s entourage split around Liora like water around a stone.
She did not move. Her eyes were not on them.
“Hunter!” she called.
He had been lingering near the side entrance, jaw tight from the scene in the stables, anger barely leashed. At her call, he straightened, masking his turmoil under duty. “Yes, Majesty,” he said, stepping into her path.
“Bring me Snow White,” she said. Her tone could have etched frost onto the tapestries. “At once.”
Down in the stables, Snow White was trying to find her courage.
She wanted to ask the knight’s name. Before she could speak, a commotion rose from the direction of the courtyard.
Shouts. The sharp tone of the steward trying to make his voice heard over the clatter of boots.
The young man’s head snapped up. The shouts grew louder.
Someone called for him down the corridor. “Your Highness!”
He winced. “That would be my cue.”
Your Highness? Her chest froze, the words rearranging everything she thought she knew about him. He was a prince. Before she could speak again, his attendants appeared in the stable doorway, faces tight.
“Your Highness,” one said, catching his breath. “We have to go immediately. Your father is already halfway out the gate.”
The prince took a half step toward her, then stopped, clearly torn between impulse and decorum.
In a moment of reckless gallantry, he caught her hand in his and raised it gently to his lips.
His mouth brushed the back of her knuckles.
The warmth of that brief touch seared into her skin.
Her heart thundered so loudly she was sure Grimm could hear it.
At that moment, two of the king’s men, frustrated by the prince’s hesitation as they were being hurried out, grabbed the prince by each arm in a big commotion and started to pull him.
Something near the prince’s chest went snap as the men grabbed him.
In three strides he was at the door, his attendants falling in around him.
In six, he was swallowed by the corridor shadows.
A small object slid free unnoticed by everyone—a simple silver token on a cord from around his neck, oval and worn from years of handling, stamped with the image of a falcon in flight.
Snow White stood very still, the stable suddenly too quiet.
From the yard, hoofbeats pounded on stone as the visiting company was rushed toward the gate.
“They’re leaving,” she whispered to Grimm.
“He’s leaving.” Her chest ached in a way that felt wholly new and yet eerily familiar, like a tune she’d heard only once but could hum by heart.
She moved to the stable door, drawn as if by a string, and peered out.
She dropped her head in sadness or in anguish from the chance to almost have something, and lose it before she even learned his name.
As she stared at the ground something caught her eye.
A silver token. She swallowed. Her fingers closed around the token almost without her permission.
The metal was warm from his skin. She closed her fingers over it, pressing the metal hard enough to sting.
She retied the necklace and slipped the cord over her own head, tucking the token under her dress, where it lay cool and solid against her skin, just above her heart.
All she thought of was the feel of his hands at her waist, the look in his eyes when he’d said let me help you, the weight of silver between her collarbones.
And somehow, impossibly, it felt like she had just lost something vital. “Fool,” she whispered to herself, cheeks damp. “You are a fool.” But she didn’t believe herself.
The stables were not empty for long. The relative quiet shattered as the side door banged open with force enough to make the hinges protest. Snow White straightened instinctively, hand falling from her chest. Hunter filled the doorway, shoulders nearly brushing the frame.
His expression dragged the temperature in the room down ten degrees.
“Princess,” he said, and the old endearment sounded wrong in his mouth now.
“The queen wants you.” His hand shot out and closed around her wrist before she could reply.
Pain shot up her arm. His grip was hard, fingers digging into her skin, the opposite of the careful steadiness she’d felt only minutes before.
“Ow,” she said, trying to twist free. “Hunter, you’re hurting me.”
They passed a pair of servants in the corridor. The maids pressed themselves flat against the wall, eyes down, as Hunter dragged Snow White between them. One of them glanced up just long enough to register the redness already blooming on the girl’s wrist.
“Could you at least loosen your grip?” Snow White hissed when they turned a corner and the hall emptied. “You’re not hauling a sack of grain.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. His tone had slid into something low and almost… ashamed. “The queen is very upset.” Hunter noticed that the girl in his grip moved like Liora, smelled like Liora, and even her voice sounded like Liora’s.
“I did nothing wrong,” she protested through gritted teeth as the doors to the throne room loomed ahead. Her pulse roared in her ears. The token under her dress felt suddenly heavy, as if pressing her heart further down into her ribs.
“Your queen will be the judge of that,” Hunter replied.
He stopped before the great carved doors, shoving them open with more force than was strictly necessary. “Majesty,” he called into the echoing hall. “I’ve brought her.”
His hand loosened at last, and Snow White stumbled forward into the cold light of her mother’s gaze, the memory of a knight in a white riding coat and silver armor still echoing in her heart.