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she is the daughter of the beast

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When the Queen called her mad, she wasn’t lying.

Snow White slits an assassin's throat with her father’s dagger. There will be no mercy for those who attack her, no quarter given for those who would do her realm harm. Her band of seven cheer her savagery, but Alcott stares at the blood running down her blade. He looks at her like he’s never seen her before. Like he’s never seen her with a weapon in hand.

Which is foolish, considering. Who does he think he married? She is the only daughter of a half-mad King, a man who fell to a witch’s spell and then let the guilt burn him to a shadow. Snow White is strong because she has to be, because that’s all she learned to be under the Queen’s cruel tutelage. She lives in the palace that was her prison, and she rules over her people who worship her, and this is their life now.

She murdered a witch on her wedding day with a blood-red smile. And her people love her for it.

Maybe if her father didn’t remember his ten long years as the Beast, things might have been different. Maybe if all the blood on his hands didn’t drown his waking hours, he might have been able to hold his throne. But the Witch Queen left the country indebted and destitute: ripe pickings for casual conquerors. The King, now barely a ghost in the halls of his home, refuses his seat. Instead he spends his days in his first wife’s chambers, mourning someone long dead. Snow steps into his place.

She serves well. She wins her battles. She rides a night-black stallion whose hide matches the color of her hair, and her battle armor is painted as red as her lips. Her father’s dagger stays sheathed at her side as she hacks through her enemies. They say she looks like a goddess of death, and she believes them, if only by the fear in their eyes and lust in their bodies. It makes her smile, sly and slight.

She comes from battle with that same sly smile on her blood-red lips, and her husband refuses to kiss her until the rush of adrenaline fades and she is scrubbed clean. He can taste blood where there were once strawberries, and the contrast is bitter. Metallic. The Witch Queen asked her magic mirror the wrong question. Beauty is not the only thing about Snow White to be feared.

When the Queen called her mad, she wasn’t lying.

Snow White kills those who threaten her people, because they are hers. She brings peace to their country through bloody slaughter, and then she slaughters again when that is not enough. And again, just to get the message across.

In foreign lands beyond her kingdom’s walls, they say that she is a dragon in woman form, as inhuman as her father the Beast. They say that she drinks the blood of her enemies, staining her lips forever. They say that her pale skin is made of ice, made of diamonds, and that her Prince Consort is actually her prisoner. They say that she walks unafraid through the cursed woods, that wolves answer her call, that no bandit dares to strike her, even when she’s unarmed and unattended.

The Witch Queen’s rooms were filled with broken glass when the palace guards broke down the doors. It is said that Snow walked across it barefooted, without fear or hurt. It is said that she spoke to the mirror...and that it answered her.  They say that she is the witch who stole the crown.

They say that she laughs when she kills, and they’re not wrong.

Snow White, the Beast’s daughter, the Mad Princess, the girl with lips as red as blood and hair as black as a moonless night. With tales like these attached to her name, it’s no wonder the invasions trickle to a stop. Her legend is as much a weapon as her blade is, and it’s just as useful in keeping her people safe. Fear is more powerful than beauty — a lesson the Queen should have learned.

Prince Alcott doesn’t understand. He is spoiled, her lovely prince, used to his looks and wealth being all that mattered. She adores him all the same, because he is hers, but she understands his weaknesses. He thinks she enjoys the battle too much, and maybe he’s right. But she spent ten long years as her stepmother’s prisoner, unable to fight back. Unable to run and leap and hack and tear and bleed. 

When the Queen called her mad, she wasn’t lying.

Not long after the wars stop coming to her, Snow White goes looking for wars. And she wins them, her band of seven at her side and a loyal army at her back. Her husband stays home, looking after her people — they will never be his, never, they will always be hers; they remember the Prince’s almost-marriage to the Witch Queen, and they do not forgive as easily as their Mad Princess, and they do not care that he was be-spelled. Everyone involved pretends that his presence at the palace is purely by necessity instead of by choice.

Snow White goes looking for wars, and she wins them. She draws more people to her. They fall at her feet as soon as she flashes her blood-red smile at them, and they gladly follow her night-black stallion to the next battle, and then the next, and then the next. Under her sword, the realm becomes twice as large and three times as rich — and still she fights. She is driven by a deeper quest, a thirst that nothing can quench, a thirst that began as soon as she watched her stepmother fall on her wedding day.

Bloodshed and slaughter and laughter that makes the birds sing even as she hunts down her enemies and kills them in cold blood, with her father’s dagger singing just as loudly in her ears. The Witch Queen asked her mirror the wrong question.

When the Queen called her mad, she wasn’t lying.