“I suppose you’ll have to trust me.”
His magic pushed back against hers. She felt the ripple of it through her clenched fist, her wrist and then up her arm. If she released him, would he attack her?
“You and I are a lot alike,” he said. “I want to help you.”
“Help me how?” Her eyes narrowed to slits.
“Release your magic. I’ll release mine. Then we can discuss. You have my word I will not harm you,” he said.
She regarded him coolly, not budging.
“I never go back on my word,” he added.
With reluctance, she released her magic. He released his. The vines fell away, back into their normal place. They stared at each other a long, silent moment. When it was clear he wasn’t going to attack her, she relaxed a little.
“All right, Roderick. Why did the queen send you?”
He kept his hands visible. “She told me you are her enemy. That you are a threat to her throne.”
Snow laughed, but said nothing. Yes, indeed, she was the queen’s enemy. She was a threat to her very existence.
“Why is that?” he asked.
She considered his question, trying to decide how to answer. He was a stranger, so telling him the truth about who she really was didn’t seem like a sensible thing to do. But then, how to answer him without telling him the truth?
“Who are you to her?” he asked before she could come up with an answer.
She sucked in a breath, then exhaled it. “I am no one to her.”
He shook his head. “I disagree. If you were no one to her, she would not be so determined to do away with you.”
That caught her off guard. “Do away with me?” she repeated.
“She wants you dead.”
An interesting choice of words, almost as though he already knew who she was.
Of course, Seraphina wanted her dead. She used her dark magic to force Annilen to tell her Snow was living in the elven village. She sent the Shadow to kill her. Snow regarded Roderick and understood why, then, he had returned. He had come to kill her.
“You speak as though you already know who I am when I have not given my name.”
“Seraphina told me there was a woman living in the forest with hair as black as ebony, lips red as the rose and skin white as snow. There is only one person in this forest that matches that description. You. You are Snow White,” he said.
She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at him. “Are you going to kill me then?”
“As I said, I intend to help you.”
He had avoided her question altogether. Irritation swept through her. Did he think she would accept this as an answer?
She scoffed. “Do what?”
He considered her for a long moment. There was a thoughtfulness in his eyes as he chose his next words.
“When I traveled through the villages from here to the queen’s castle, I stopped along the way in Westfall to take shelter and have a meal at one of the inns. The innkeeper there was a jolly man who liked to tell stories,” he said.
“What does this have to do with Snow White?” she asked, still in denial of giving him her true name.
Roderick ignored her question and continued. “He told me the story of Queen Seraphina and how she came to power when the king died. The kingdom, it seems, was to pass to the king’s only daughter but she had mysteriously disappeared. No one knew where she went or even if she still lived. He said her name was Snow White.”
