Free Sneaky Snow White (Dark Fairy Tale Queen Series Book 2) by Anita Valle Page B

lungs. I guess that was true. She couldn’t use her lungs when he was strangling her!
    I press my cold, trembling hands to the glass and feel the love pour into me like warm syrup. She is here now. In her final moments, she managed a spell that transported her life essence. My mother became The Mirror. She’s been here all this time, waiting for me to grow up. Waiting to help me become the queen I was always meant to be.
    I ask why she nearly killed me when I looked in The Mirror as a child. She helped me understand that she needed Cinderella then, drew power from her constant worship. Cinderella thought The Mirror loved only her and so it had to look as if The Mirror didn’t want me. But she would not have let me harm myself. She summoned my father to pull me off the window sill. He was unaware my mother still lived in the mirror and so she could manipulate him in small ways.
    On my sixteenth birthday, The Mirror rejected Cinderella. It threw out a force of hate so strong that Cinderella was knocked on her back and across the floor. She went wild with grief as she realized The Mirror would never want her again. Cinderella never knew who The Mirror truly was. Only that it was something that made her feel loved.
    I cry until I have strength for no more. I nearly fall asleep on the floor but The Mirror reminds me I have a job to do. I get up and wipe my swollen eyes. Of course I will kill Cinderella. She had no right to take my mother’s place. I will avenge my dear mother and become the next queen. Hunter will have to understand.
    Finally, The Mirror shows me the Dwarves’ cottage. It sits in a distant part of The Wood, segregated from the nearest village. The cottage looks like the Dwarves, big and rustic. It’s got two floors, a timber frame and stone walls, and a thatched roof like a hood of messy hair. The shutters are crooked and one window is broken, but otherwise it all looks sturdy and solid. The Mirror tells me which roads I must take to get there.
    I return to my little tower room to fetch a shawl. Then I tiptoe down through the dark palace, holding my breath whenever I pass a snoring Dwarf. The Mirror assured me it could hold them in sleep for a little while. I sure hope they won’t come after me when they wake up, especially Cooper. Hopefully, he won’t realize I’m gone and just assume I’m with The Mirror.
    I slip out of the palace through a side door because the big ones in front are too groany. The sky is deep-water blue but the edges are paling. I unfold my shawl of white wool, drape it over my head, and hug it to my body. The hanging folds conceal the jeweled dagger on my hip. I must look like a ghost as I cross the palace grounds and weave between the trees of The Wood. I walk slowly and methodically, without looking back. Today I am an angel of death. I will return Cinderella to the ashes from which she came.
    It’s a long, lonely walk. Far past the cave that leads to my tower. Someday, I’ll go back there, at least for a while. It’s good to have a secret place where the horrible world can’t find you.
    I’m still sickened by the memory of my mother’s murder. Devastated to learn my father was such a monster. Did he even think about what he was taking from me? Why do some parents think their own children don’t matter, that their feelings are somehow inferior? Whatever that assassin lady did to my father, he deserved much worse. I hope she beat him to death with a hot poker.
    Speaking of hot pokers, the sky has become a nice fiery orange. The sleepy silence of The Wood has been replaced by chirpy birds. I’m moving through a patch of forest with stripes of slender birch trees when I see the cottage at last. Suddenly, all of this becomes very real.
    I hover behind the trees, afraid to be seen. The cottage looks so peaceful and warm, glowing in the buttery light of morning. I clutch the dagger beneath my shawl and try to calm my stomping heart. It’s not easy to just walk into someone’s