The Fairest of them all?

When I woke up, the world assaulted me with a splash of roses and rust, bustling together in an almost acidic concoction.
The light was a brutal, unfiltered glare, stabbing at my eyes, and the voices were too loud, grating against the fragile silence I had known. My skin felt like paper soaked in tepid water—too numb, yet flinching at the sheets. I tried to speak, to form a word, any word, but it tangled on my tongue, a dry, useless thing, like a brittle leaf caught in a relentless wind.

A hand pressed to my cheek. Large, steady, unfamiliar. The calloused warmth of it was a shock to my senses. I hadn't felt...this warmth when I was in the darkness of death.
“She’s breathing,” someone whispered, their voice thick with a relief so profound it vibrated in the air. “She’s really breathing. Pray the Lord!”

A man leaned over me, his face a blurry landscape of concern and something akin to awe. His eyes, swimming with unshed tears, reflected the harsh light. His lips were split from smiling, a raw, vulnerable expression. “I’ve waited so long,” he said, his voice a choked tremor. “You’re safe now, my love.”

I flinched, a primal recoiling from the unfamiliar touch, the possessive endearment. He took it as joy, a shudder of returning life.

The castle doors swallowed me whole, a gaping maw of stone and shadow. I was wrapped in silk, the smooth, luxurious fabric a suffocating weight against my fragile skin, paraded past torchlit halls where servants bowed low, their faces averted, and musicians played songs written before my body had gone cold, melodies that spoke of a life I no longer knew. They burned my old dress before I could touch it—rags and ash, they said, the acrid smell of burning fabric lingering in the air. A symbol of suffering, now over.

My new name was Queen Snow, a title that felt like a lead weight on my tongue. My new face painted in oils, a stranger staring back with vacant eyes. My new smile carved into marble statues, a grotesque imitation of a joy I no longer possessed. Only—I didn’t smile. Not once. Not truly.

He had a daughter. Isobel. Ten when I first arrived, a curious shadow flitting through the echoing halls. Fifteen now, all long limbs and clever eyes that seemed to pierce through the carefully constructed facade. She spoke like she'd been born with secrets in her throat, her voice a low, knowing murmur.

We met in the garden, a riot of color and scent that did nothing to soothe the hollowness within me. I had wandered there in bare feet, the cool, damp earth a small comfort under my soles instead of the suffocating softness of velvet slippers. She was sitting on the fountain’s edge, her skirt soaked, the dampness seeping into the stone, flipping through a book far too thick for her age, her brow furrowed in concentration.

“You’re her,” she said, glancing up, her gaze direct and unwavering. “The one who died and came back.”

“I suppose I am,” I said, the words tasting like ash on my tongue.

“You don’t look like a ghost.”

“Don’t I?”

She squinted, her gaze scrutinizing. “Maybe a little. Around the eyes.”

And just like that, a fragile tendril of connection unfurled within me. I liked her sharp honesty, the way she saw without pretense.

But then she grew, her laughter echoing through the halls, a bright, vibrant sound that highlighted the silence within me. And the court began to notice.

“Look at that hair. Like silk at dusk,” they’d murmur, their voices hushed with admiration.

“Her skin—just like Snow’s, but... fresher,” another would add, their eyes lingering on her youthful bloom.

“She’ll outshine her mother soon,” a cruel whisper that reached my ears like a poisoned dart.

I laughed the first time I heard it, a hollow, mirthless sound that startled the birds in the aviary. Not because it was funny. Because it sounded familiar—like an echo from inside a poisoned apple, a chilling premonition.

I began avoiding mirrors, the sight of my own vacant eyes a painful reminder of the life that had been stolen.

Until the mirror found me.

There was a door behind the east wing tapestries, a secret passage concealed by faded grandeur. Dust coated the handle, a thick layer of neglect. The lock had rusted through, yielding with a soft groan. I slipped inside one sleepless night, barefoot, the cold stone floor a shock against my skin, my heartbeat clicking in my ribs like a clock gone mad, each tick an agonizing reminder of time passing, of a life I wasn't living.

The room was round, full of cobwebs that shimmered like ghostly lace and a suffocating silence. Moonlight, pale and ethereal, slipped through a shattered skylight and touched the tall mirror in the center like a secret blessing, illuminating its dusty surface.

It was old. Older than the palace, its presence a silent testament to forgotten ages. Framed in gnarled oak that curled like twisted fingers, its surface cold and unyielding. The glass held no reflection at first—just shadow, a gaping void.

I stepped forward, drawn by an unseen force. My image bled in slowly, a ghostly apparition solidifying: pale face, the shadows beneath my eyes like bruises, lips that once broke a curse, now thin and bloodless. I asked before I could stop myself, the words a dry rasp in the silent room.

“Am I still the fairest of them all?”

The mirror pulsed, a faint tremor in the ancient glass, like breath on glass, a fleeting warmth against the cold.

“No one is. No one always will be. 'Fairest' is a crown carved from fear.”

Something in me cracked, a deep, internal fissure. “I hated her,” I whispered, the venom still potent after all this time. “The queen. But maybe… maybe I understand her now.”

The days turned sour, the vibrant colors of the castle fading to a dull, lifeless gray. I skipped meals, the rich food turning to ash in my mouth. Forgot words, the simplest phrases dissolving into a fog. I walked past the rose garden, the air heavy with their perfume, and couldn’t smell a thing, the vibrant fragrance lost to the hollowness within.

The prince noticed, his brow furrowed with a concern that felt performative. “You’re quieter than usual.”

“I’m fine,” I lied, the word a hollow echo.

He smiled, a radiant, hopeful expression that twisted the knife in my heart. He took it as a sign of my growing affection.

I began collecting the herbs at night, under the cloak of darkness, their earthy scent a morbid comfort. Bitterroot, its sharp, acrid tang. Belladonna, its velvety leaves whispering of oblivion. Old tricks I never wanted to remember, knowledge etched into my bones. My hands knew the measurements, the precise quantities for a final sleep. My body remembered how to leave, the instinct for escape a primal urge.

I mixed the powder into a silver vial, its cool smoothness a morbid comfort. Small. Elegant. Final.

I sat on the floor of the mirror room, cross-legged on the cold stone, the silk of my nightgown clinging to my knees like a shroud. My hair hung loose, tangled like branches in a winter storm, framing a face I no longer recognized. The glass reflected a stranger, a ghost in my own skin.

“I didn’t ask to be saved,” I whispered, the words a soft lament in the echoing silence.

My fingers closed around the vial, cold. Smooth. Lethal. A promise of release.

Footsteps. Light, hesitant. Then a voice, small but clear, cutting through the silence.

“Don’t.”

I turned, startled. Isobel stood in the doorway, barefoot like I was, her face streaked with tears that shone like liquid moonlight.

She ran to me before I could move, her small body a whirlwind of desperate energy. Threw her arms around my shoulders, her embrace surprisingly strong.

“Please,” she said, her voice a choked sob. “Please don’t leave.”

Her body was warm, real, a tangible presence against my cold detachment. She smelled like rosemary and ink, a comforting, familiar scent.

“You’re my mother,” she said, her voice thick with unshed tears.

I froze, the vial clutched tightly in my hand. “No,” I whispered, the denial a reflexive recoil. “I’m not. I’m a story someone else finished without asking me.”

“You’re mine,” she said, her grip tightening. “And I need you. Even like this.”

The vial slipped from my numb fingers. It rolled across the cold stone, tapped once against the ancient mirror, a soft, final click, and stilled.

I wrapped my arms around her, her small frame trembling against mine. She pressed her forehead to my neck, her breath warm against my skin. Her hair tickled my skin, a small, grounding sensation. I breathed her in, the scent of rosemary and ink a fragile anchor.

“I don’t know how to be whole,” I said, the confession a broken whisper.

She held me tighter, her small hand clutching my nightgown. “You don’t have to be.”

The mirror showed our shadows curled together on stone—her hand in mine, our foreheads pressed, real. No crowns. No beauty. Just breath and salt and skin, a fragile connection in the vast emptiness.

And in that moment, with her small heart beating against mine, a steady, insistent rhythm—I smiled. The kind of smile that hurt, a physical ache in my chest. The kind that meant I was alive, however broken. For the first time in five years, I was.