As the weeks passed, Snow oversaw the rebuilding of the castle, which didn’t sustain too much damage from Alfred’s trebuchet. He broke down camp, but left a few men behind to assist in the rebuilding.
Snow found the family portraits Seraphina had stashed in an unused bedchamber and restored them to the gallery. The queen had also removed much of the furniture, stashing it away in parts of the castle that were unused. Snow spent a lot of time putting things back to the way she remembered when she was a girl.
She’d offered the position of advisor to Roderick, but he refused. He was more comfortable with a hammer in his hand pounding out steel. He never found his enchanted dagger and so he resolved to make another one. Snow, however, had retrieved hers from the dead queen but refused to keep it. She asked Roderick to melt it down and remake it into something else.
The Captain of the Guard, Erick, pledged allegiance to Snow and asked to regain her trust. Snow agreed since he helped them gain access to the queen’s chambers, much to Roderick’s objections. But Snow trusted him and allowed him to interact with Alfred’s men and saw he had changed and was willing to fight for his new queen.
When it came time for her and Roderick to visit the villages, she left the care of the castle in his hands as steward. They told the villagers of the queen’s death and that she had taken her rightful place as ruler of the Mystic Vale. There was much rejoining within the villages and they were treated with feasts and festivals and tournaments. Snow was happy to learn the innkeeper’s son, William, was still alive and well and happy to see them again. And Snow made good on her promise of paying the innkeeper in gold. He was shocked and grateful.
After weeks of traveling, they returned to the castle to find things progressed and Erick had not betrayed her in her absence. The rebuilding of the castle was almost complete.
Snow found she could not stop thinking about the dark wizard deep within the Wyldwood Forest and wondered if his essence had also died with the mirror. There was only one way to find out.
She fell easily back into old habits by slipping out at night to spend time in the castle gardens, which were overgrown and ignored. She vowed to bring them back to their former glory. But in the meantime, she managed to find a piece of grass under an old oak tree. There, she sat cross-legged, her eyes closed and her palms flat on the ground.
She attuned herself to nature, feeling it inhale and exhale every breath as it moved under the canopy of stars. Night creatures were busy foraging. Frogs sang in the creek beds. Crickets chirped the night away. The elves were busy rebuilding their burned village. Some regrowth began to spring from the ashes, which made her smile.
And deep with the Wyldwood there was an abandoned cabin that once belonged to the dark wizard, Govan.
She used her senses to push deeper into nature than she had ever been. There was Faradill, standing strong and sure as always. In the meadow, the unicorn grazed on blades of grass bathed in the blue-white veil of moonlight.
Past that, she pushed deeper until she was in that place where the abandoned cabin was. The place where there was silence and no creature stirred. She stretched her senses deeper, recalling the ivy climbing the walls and smiling at the alias she gave the disembodied voice of the dark wizard. Her mind stretched into the cabin, where it was overrun with plant life and nothing more.
The dark wizard was gone.
She sensed no other presence aside from nature and nocturnal creatures. And so, he told her true. Destroying the Magic Mirror released him from his bonds, allowing him at last to rest.
Snow pulled back to herself, passing by Faradill. A faint fluttering brushed her cheeks. She opened her eyes to see Annilen hovering. She held her palm out to let the little sprite land. She dipped a curtsy.
“Your majesty.”
She laughed. “I’m Snow to you. And I didn’t get a chance to thank you for helping bring King Alfred here.”
“No thanks necessary. I was happy to do it.” She stifled a yawn. “Snow, can we take our morning walks again?”
Snow leaned back against the tree. “Yes, we can.”
“Good, because I missed them.” Which also meant she missed Snow. “What happens next?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“With you and the Mystic Vale?”
“Well…” she said. “I suppose I’ll do my best to be a good queen.”
Annilen yawned and settled down in her palm. “You will.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am,” she said, sounding confident. “You’ll be a kind and just ruler.”
And she was.
Epilogue
“Theend,”Hildesaid.She took a swig of water from the bottle she held in her hands, her throat parched and her voice tired from telling the story.
Marigold blinked sleepy eyes. “But what about Roderick and Snow? Did they live happily ever after?”
