“What are you doing?” Seraphina said, watching with wide eyes as Snow stepped through the ivy.
Snow snatched up the brass candleholder. She swiped the enchanted blade from the floor near it and stuck it in the empty sheath on her belt. Then she headed for the alcove with the mirror. The mirror’s eerie face jerked to and fro inside the cracked looking glass, as though trying to get away.
“Stay away from there!” the queen shouted.
Snow lifted the candleholder and smashed it against the mirror. It cried out, as if in pain. Seraphina echoed it.
“Please! I beg you!” she said. “Please stop!”
“Please stop?” Snow glanced at her over her shoulder.
The queen managed to wiggle into a position to see Snow smashing the mirror. Good. She was glad the queen would see it destroyed.
“Yes, please.” She sniffed. Tears pooled in her eyes. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” Snow said. “I know you worked with a dark wizard to kill my mother to become queen. I know you murdered my father. I know you used the dark wizard to become all powerful. I know you also tied the essence of that dark wizard to the Magic Mirror.”
Seraphina’s face paled as she stared at Snow in disbelief. “How do you know all that?”
“Because I found the essence of the dark wizard you left in the Wyldwood Forest. You tethered his soul there and have been siphoning his magic for your use ever since,” Snow said. “Do you deny this?”
The queen sucked in a breath, nearly choking on a sob. “Snow, please. I was young when I met Govan. He seduced me, made me promises he didn’t keep.”
“And so, you repaid him by stealing his magic and trapping him for all eternity?” Snow glanced at the mirror, wondering then if the visage floating there was what was left of Govan. “You saw nothing wrong with murdering my parents in cold blood and stealing my throne. You would have killed me, too, but hoped I would die alone in the forest, didn’t you?”
Her response was nothing more than a wracked sob. “Snow, I’m sorry. I was consumed with my wrath and drunk on the magic.”
“I do not accept your apology.”
With that, Snow smashed the mirror again. This time, pieces broke off and fell to the stone floor with a tinkling. The mirror itself groaned.
“I release you, Govan, from your eternal fate,” Snow whispered.
One more blow to the mirror and it shattered completely. Shards fell from the ornate oval frame, sprinkling the floor around where she stood. Pale blue smoke curled upward from the empty frame, dancing a moment over her head in a swirl, and then dissipating into nothing. Seraphina’s wail was deafening as she cried out.
Slowly, Snow turned to face the queen who still writhed on the floor in apparent agony. The same smoke lifted from her body in a hiss of steam and swirled over her. It churned as though realizing it was finally free and then floated upward, disappearing. Snow dropped the candleholder with a thunk.
“I release you from your bonds,” she said with a wave of her hand.
The ivy retreated back to the balcony. Snow held her breath as the queen got to her feet, her face wet with tears. In a fit of final rage, she clenched her fists as if to conjure a spell and then flung her hands outward. Nothing happened.
“You may have taken my magic, but I still have your throne. You swore a blood oath.”
Snow nodded and approached the queen slowly, relieved to see she no longer had magic. “That’s true. I did. But I am not willing to go without a fight.”
In one fluid motion, she whipped the enchanted blade from her belt and charged the queen. The blade in her hand sprang to life, the steel shimmering and glowing and humming, as if it knew what she intended to do.
She cried out when Snow crashed into her and managed to put her arms up in defense. The blade was inches from the queen’s face.
But Snow was determined. She wanted to avenge her parents. Revenge for a life of living in solitude. Vengeance for all the things the queen did to keep her away from the Mystic Vale, for torturing the villagers, for taking and taking and taking.
Frustration edged through her as she shoved the queen back toward the balcony. Even as she shoved her backward, the point of the blade inches from her face, the queen smirked.
“You can’t kill me, Snow. You don’t have it in you.”
Snow thought of the ivy lining the floor and sent a command to it. It crept upward, lifting just enough for Seraphina to stumble over. It was enough to make Snow release her grasp on the queen. She regained her footing and gave her a wicked grin.
“Nice try,” she taunted.
