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“Shape shifter! It’s like looking through water—
the heat bends, it blurs everything: brush, precipice.
A shambles between us.”
- Allison Funk, The Prodigal’s Mother Speaks to God
::
Here is a story about a hero. It goes something like this:
An orphan girl once fervently believed that she could be something more. Having grown up brawling the other hungry-eyed, eager children for food, she grew strong and lean and desperate for purpose. On her seventeenth birthday, she stole away into the night to join the royal guard, but being only a girl, she was turned away. Yet this did not deter the young hero. Rather than being dashed, her hopes blossomed into stubborn pride. If she could not become a royal knight, then she would fight the evils of this world until recognized for the hero she was! Determined, the young hero traveled far and wide to hunt down evil creatures. She grew stronger with every battle, taking from every monster a token of triumph. From the scales of the dragons she slew, she fashioned her armor; from the gleaming, powerful teeth of felled sea-creatures, she shaped her sword.
As the years passed, the hero became known far and wide as Evil’s rival and natural adversary. Should evil arrive on a doorstep, one would rarely have to shout before their Good Savior would soon come knocking.
But like every hero, the Savior vanished one day. She disappeared into a strange mystery, a legend that was favored by any child who’d ever had a parent lull them back to sleep after a dreaming insight on Evil.
Which brings us to our villain:
When the Evil Queen first heard of the Savior, she was only seven.
She had not been called evil then, but several other names had been muttered by her mother to suggest it all the same. As a little girl, the Queen had heard the tale of the Savior many times before but had not yet come across the name. The stories had become so dinned into everyone’s minds at that point: so well-rehearsed, so frequently visited, that the details had smoothed like a stone on the beach.
Papi had been the Savior’s most fervent admirer, and often conjured tales of her that could not reasonably have occurred but were so earnestly retold that they slipped into the fabric of the hero’s history.
Mother had not been so fond. To her, the knight was simply the twitch before her scowl.
From these stories, the Queen learned what goodness was.
Goodness came in shining white armor and piety, undiluted faith. It came with an enormous gleaming sword that swung unwavering on Evil. It was a gentle hand, and golden hair. It hated Evil. It was the wrinkle of joy in her father’s cheek. It was warm, muffled laughter late at night, long after the lights have gone out.
Evil, the Queen gradually learned, was not so simple to describe. It came in every form imaginable.
Her second encounter with Evil came with the face of a sweet little girl. Her skin was as pale as snow and her heart as pure as gold or, so the Queen was told. This evil was not as brutal as the first or as cruel as the third, but since one had mothered her and the other married her, it was only the second that the Queen could bear to think about.
Throughout the years, the many faces of Evil followed the Queen around until it began to seem a part of her like a dangerous echo, a shadow of her real self. Was she Evil or the Queen?
After the King’s mysterious death, the princess lost to the streets, the Queen’s people dismissed any difference. Evil was a mirror; it came with the name. It was chanted to the Queen through her chariot as she passed through the villages. From this invocation, it followed her from room to room, and looked out at her from every stare and every reflective surface. There she was, the Evil Queen. Evil Evil Evil.
The Queen did not like her new name, but she knew better than to fight against it. Any attempt to suppress fearful whispers now would seem like weakness or cowardice, which the Queen knew to be the far more sinister siblings of Evil though lesser known.
So the Evil Queen reigned over her kingdom with fierce, iron-clad hatred. She sat with a cold heart on her throne, dressed in all black save for a crown of golden leaves.
For a time, she did wait. After all, she grew up on the tale. The Savior, vanquisher of all Evil…
But years passed, and no Savior came knocking.
::
On a journey home from the latest failed capture of Snow White, the Evil Queen paused on a grassy knoll to watch the wind sweep over the tall grass.
Yellow and purple flowers bobbed within the soft sea of crabgrass. The thought of home had never been a warm one, but with each failure the Queen’s kingdom became colder and more obscure to her. Fury worked inside her heart with cancerous efficiency and replaced pieces of itself with a strange, cold emptiness.
As she stood there, the shadow of an osprey coasted downward over the grass. It caught the Queen’s attention as it floated high above her head and slanted down with the wind. Had the Queen not been so discouraged, she might have continued her journey home. But her latest failure had left her strangely forsaken on that grassy hill, and so the Queen had sat and watched as the dark spot of a bird slipped suddenly out of existence.
Just like that.
The Queen knew she had not imagined it: the bird had been there, and then it had not. It had passed into some abstract vortex beyond this world the same way a coin blinked into a wishing well.
At once, the Queen urged her horse down to where the bird disappeared. The horse obliged. Though the wind was cold and bitter, he was fond of this girl and allowed himself to be guided in the opposite direction of home.
Upon nearing the spot, however, the horse suddenly scattered to a stop and stamped his hooves nervously.
“What is it?” the Queen asked, but the horse could not explain. He could only shake his great black mane and stamp his hooves, unnerved by what the ground was telling him.
The Queen could not feel the earth as the horse did, but she had sensed the change in the air. There was a new smell to it, slightly brackish, like sta gnant fountain water. And all around them was a faint whistling, as if the air were passing through great empty hallways and rattling against windows.
The Queen waved her hand warily.
Now, this is where the story gets interesting.
The ancient veil of magic, cast nearly a century before, had been undone, revealing an overgrown, half-ruined castle. It loomed above her with an air of defeat, sunken in the ground with large injuries made of missing roofs and doors.
Staring up at the castle, some deep, unnamed feeling stirred inside the Queen. She urged her horse forward carefully, entering the castle, in a slow trot.
Vines of poisonous sumac had grown thick over the stone walls. The polished floor was now a knotted web of thistle, chickweed, and white clovers. If any kind of life lived here, it did not stir.
“Hello?” the Queen called. “Is anyone here?”
A resounding echo was her only answer. Once gone, the silence rushed at them from all sides.
Her horse knickered uneasily. Though the Queen hushed him, her own heart trembled. The place held a sense of abandonment so restless and unconfined, it stole the warmth out of the bones.
One room flowed into the next. Hallways spilled down into stairwells. A bluish gleam of light hung in the air. All over, plants were winning silent battle against the stone.
The Queen saw the statue only by accident.
A ray of green, trickling sunlight caught the very edge of a sword in a hallway. At the abrupt flash of silver, the Queen turned upon the threat with a sneer and a flame hot in her hand.
Though the statue held a threatening stance, feet planted apart, and sword aimed to kill, the silver only gleamed.
Slowly, the Queen drew her horse to a stop.
The statue was almost completely hidden. What might once have been pristine white marble was now dampened grey, and its face was hidden mostly by vines. Had she failed to notice the threat of a sword she would not have seen it.
A stir of curiosity brought the Queen off her horse to inspect the statue, drawing closer with a quiet wonder.
The statue was extraordinary. Like nothing she had ever seen before.
Though wearing armor, the statue was unlike anything made in stone. She was a fierce, angry figure, and seemed capable of anything, though made of only stone and hidden beneath the vines.
Most striking, however, was her expression.
Her face, even in marble, held an emotion so painful that it closed the Queen’s heart with a feeling she had not felt in years.
Above the grim line of her lips, the statue's eyes looked as wild as a bolting horse and compelled the queen to put a comforting hand to the statue’s cheek. The sun-soaked marble jolted her with its surprising resemblance to skin.
“You poor thing,” the Queen whispered.
She trailed her fingers down its sun-warmed cheek. Marble looked back at her with a mystified sense of loss impossible for any artist to craft. Some things could not be captured in art – they could not even properly be said.
Tenderness welled inside the Queen. Had anyone been around to witness it, she’d have stamped out the feeling and returned to her horse. But, alone, the Queen was caught in the tide of her heart.
She trailed her fingers slowly along the curve of the statue’s jaw, unsure of what she was doing.
But what happened was simple.
When the Queen looked into the eyes of the statue, her heart – which had sat as stone for years – jolted awake. Once revived, it reached desperately towards the one who woke it. The moment the Queen touched the sun-warmed lips of the statue, a pulse of magic vibrated between them and rolled to all foreseeable corners of the castle.
Beneath her hands, the stone came to life.
If the Queen had been a romantic, she might have been cut in half.
Luckily, as the muscles of the statue warmed into flesh, some working part of her mind remembered the liquid flash of silver and the statue’s powerful stance and pulled her away.
Materializing behind a wall, the Queen leaned against the stone. There, she listened to the loud, frightening clang of metal on stone and cursed all seven gods.
In the other room, the statue coughed harshly. Her breathing sounded labored and painful, as if she were breathing through wet cement.
“Hello?” the knight spoke at last and coughed. “Uh…are you still here?”
In the green speckled light of the hallway, Queen briefly thought of escape. Then she deflated. Her horse was still there. She could hear him snuffling the hand of the knight for a treat.
“Yes,” the Queen answered tightly. “I’m still here.”
“Oh” the knight’s voice brightened into an oddly cheerful tone. “Good.”
An awkward beat passed.
The knight tentatively walked closer.
“Sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to swing at you, I had just been, you know, fighting for my life a moment before,” the knight coughed again, though it sounded less thick. “It’s been longer now, I guess. I was uh, cursed.”
The Queen had known as much, but the confirmation rose a terrible suspicion into her mind like a bubble of trapped air.
She pursed her lips. “What curse held you under, knight?”
“I’m not sure, my lady,” the knight replied softly, almost shy. “But its caster was a nasty, powerful creature. I don’t’ think any kiss could have broken it.”
The Queen’s lungs tightened with fear. Her body remembered love; it had embalmed the feeling and buried it deep inside. The thought of it now made the Queen want to turn and flee like a child in the dark.
With a slow, steadying breath, the Queen was able to see a sliver of advantage. It was the only thing that kept her calm.
“Sheath your sword, knight,” the Queen commanded.
“Oh,” the knight fumbled. “Of course.”
There was a brief whoosh of air as the knight returned her enormous sword to its place along her back. The Queen waited in the silence for the sound of some secret weapon being drawn out – a dagger or bow – but all was silent.
So, the Queen stepped out.
“Oh wow,” the knight straightened at the sight of her. “You – you must be royalty.”
The Queen blew a note between her teeth. “Yes. Your queen, actually.”
Upon these words, the immediately knight kneeled.
“Sorry, my queen,” the knight dipped her golden head. This was an incorrect formality – your Majesty being the proper title – but the Queen found herself merciful in the face of such immediate obedience. “You woke me with your kiss. For this, I pledge you my life and heart’s devotion.”
The Queen’s heart stirred at this, but she pushed it down. It had been years since her heart spoke to her, and years since she listened to it.
In the quiet, she studied the knight.
Despite her time in stone, the woman looked strong and healthy. Her skin and hair glowed beneath the flood of midday sunlight. Though her face held the blunt, mulish look of a fighter who’d won too many fights, in the length of the Queen’s gaze a quirky beauty revealed itself in her focused eyes and the hard lines that bracketed the knight’s mouth.
When she looked into her knight’s eyes, a strange heat flushed the back of her neck.
“Knight,” the Queen ruled the tremble from her voice. “How many years were you trapped in sleep?”
The knight’s face tightened into a knot. “I don’t know. Many years, I guess,” the knight looked around. “This place looked a hell of a lot nicer.”
The Queen nodded and regarded the knight once more. A memory bloomed to the surface like folds of seaweed in the ocean.
“Your armor looks unblemished.” The Queen walked close enough to trail her fingers along the knight’s silver shoulder plate. The armor was cool to touch and gleamed like something other than stone. “This is not normal armor, is it?”
“No,” the knight beamed. “I made it myself. From the scales of dragons I have vanquished, my queen.”
The Queen arched a single eyebrow. “Your armor is made from dragon scales?”
“Yes.”
The Queen hummed and circled the knight again. On the knight’s back, an enormous sword hung, attached by leather strips that wrapped around her chest. Under the green light, the sword seemed to glow.
“Your sword…” The Queen hesitated before she reached over to touch the gleaming, white-boned weapon. The sword did not flash white at the touch of evil as her Papi believed, but it was undoubtedly powerful. “I’ve only heard of one knight that carried a sword like yours.”
The knight puffed up. “You have heard of me, my queen?”
“Legend says you have killed every evil thing you’ve come across.” The Queen remarked. “They called you the Savior. Is that true?”
“I was,” the knight grimaced. “Once.”
“Well,” the Queen smiled. “Blemished record aside, I think you’ll do nicely. A legendary knight is just what I need.”
The knight looked up with new eyes. Midday light slanted off her forehead and made her look striking and strangely lit like a beautiful lighthouse on some distant, salt-soaked coast.
“You’re in need of a knight?”
At the softening look in her knight’s eyes, the Queen’s heart began to beat ferociously. Had she not learned of love through those who scorned it, she might have said anything.
“Yes,” the Queen cupped the knight’s chin in her hand. “But I have no need for your heart. Only your life, and that sword.”
The knight hesitated, then dipped her golden head.
“I am yours, my queen. For whatever you need.”
And so our story begins.
::
It is hard to say what the Queen had expected when she sent a Savior to kill a girl. Had she expected her enemy to meet a swift and gruesome end, she never saw it. Had she expected blind stupid obedience, it never appeared. Had some secret part of her expected to be exposed as a despicable creature herself and swiftly cut down, she had poorly misjudged a heart in love.
Whatever it was she expected, she got a handful instead.
“Your Majesty,” one of her black-armored guardsmen dipped his head. “Your knight has returned from her mission.”
“Let her in,” the Queen growled.
From outside, the sound of her knight’s cheerful whistling swept across the open courtyard. Though it was undeniably a happy sound, the Queen could not enjoy it. After reports of her knight’s most recent mission, her anticipation had soured into a bitter fear of humiliation.
Now, as the knight kneeled with her new expensive armor – the same black and gold colors that the Queen wore – her hands knuckled around the arms of her throne.
“Knight,” the Queen made herself stone. “You cannot reasonably expect me to be pleased with you right now.”
Her knight drew up what seemed like real surprise.
“My queen, why do you say that?”
The Queen, who had played this game now several times, only scowled.
“Did you help Snow White escape?”
“What?” her knight gawked. “Of course not. I would never work against your interests.”
“Then why, ” the Queen bared her teeth. “Do I hear that you attacked my soldiers in Dun Broch?”
“ Your soldiers?”
“Yes. My soldiers. The soldiers that hold the same crest as you. Don’t play dumb with me. Did you help Snow White escape?”
“No, my queen. If Snow White had ever been there, she was long gone.”
“Then why in the name of all seven gods did you attack my soldiers?”
The knight dithered between two responses until the worsening sneer on the Queen’s face hastened her to pick one.
“They were abusing innocent villagers, my queen.”
“ Innocent ?”
“Yes—”
“ Nobody is innocent.” She had meant to seem commanding as she approached, but her heart blew such a racket into her head that it spotted her vision. Unbalanced, the Queen settled a hand on the golden arm of her throne. “These villagers are hiding Snow White. They are aligned with her , and my soldiers are aligned with me , if you find yourself confused as to your alignment.”
Her knight grimaced and raised her head. In the pale blue light of the morning, she looked to be beyond skin and bone once again.
“My queen,” her knight said. “Your men are not aligned with you.”
A whisper of unease stirred the rigid line of soldiers behind her throne.
Clenching her jaw, the Queen straightened her shoulders, feeling watched. She folded her arms behind her back.
“Explain yourself, knight.”
“Your men steal from the merchants,” her knight continued, composed as a pool of water. “They sleep and eat in the villagers’ homes and leave them nothing. Children wake up hungry, while your men do little but drink and steal. They certainly don’t look for Snow White.”
The Queen felt the resentment of the soldiers behind her like a wet cloth on the back of her neck.
“Leave us,” she commanded with a sharp nod to the door.
In one single snap of motion, the line of soldiers turned and marched out of the room. When the door closed, the Queen released her breath.
“Knight. Are you a fish?”
“My queen?”
“Why does your mouth so often move without thought?”
Her knight’s smile sloped. “Only a liar learns to keep their mouth shut.”
“Funny. I’ve heard just the opposite.”
Her knight’s eyes narrowed, but her voice remained deferent.
“Do you think I’m a liar, my queen?”
Three beats passed. With a snarl, the Queen began to pace.
“You understand so little,” the Queen spat. “Those villages watch my every move. If I pull back my men, those people will think it weakness. They’ll revolt against me.”
“They are your people.” Her knight responded with gentleness that flustered her heart. “Perhaps if you treated them like that, they would treat you like their Queen.”
Kissing her teeth, the Queen deliberated briefly on ordering a punishment onto her knight. The usual consequence to defiance was a whip. Twenty lashes. But the thought soured her stomach.
Sinking back into her throne, the Queen rubbed her head though that was not where her pain was. A bitter and uneasy ache had begun to radiate inside her ribs.
“Perhaps I should send you away,” the Queen said at last, though miserable at the thought. “You would be more fitting as Snow White’s knight than mine.”
Her knight grimaced and dipped her head.
“My queen, I do not wish to leave you,” she spoke somberly to the sun-drenched floor. “I made a vow to you. Please, pull your men from these villages, and I will find you Snow White.”
She shook her head and sighed, even as the speech she would make began to form in her mind.
“I know I have displeased you,” the knight said after a long silence. “I would like to make up for it. Would you accept a token of my loyalty?”
The Queen sighed once more. She seemed capable of only sighing.
“What is it?”
“It is a charm from the village.” Her knight unlatched a small silver necklace wrapped twice around her wrist. As she approached the Queen’s throne, she hesitated. The Queen waved with exasperation, permitting the knight to climb the stairs to her. “The people in Dun Broch claimed that it can fill your heart with warmth whenever it nears despair. I earned it in your name, and so the gift is yours.”
The Queen sighed but extended her hand and watched as the silver necklace curled into her palm like a question mark.
::
Late that night, the Queen stared up at the darkness of her bedroom. She did her best to keep her mind blank, but it flew about the room instead. To golden hair and warm skin, to a large sword, then to villages she had ripped through, houses burned and gone. The sky was full of stars, but in her chamber, there was nothing but darkness.
The Queen silently rooted for the necklace that she placed on a cloth beside her bed. It took some work to hook the silver charm around her neck, but once latched, the Queen found herself blinking back tears.
She had not realized how empty her heart had been. She had forgotten how it felt to be warm.
::
Four nights passed.
In that time, the Queen hardly slept. Most nights, she woke to the sound of a fight. Sometimes twice. These were not at all like classic battles from the Savior’s past like the myths of Charybdis or Manticore’s defeat, Papi’s favorite. No, these were brawls – loud, brash, and often sparked by stupidity. It was hard to keep track why. Her knight was scrapy and fervently disliked. Often it came down to some little insult, and whether anyone had been around to hear it.
On the fifth night, before going to bed, the Queen had her handmaidens clean out an empty room beside her own. When the room was clean and tidy, the Queen called for her knight, who appeared at her side at once, serene and obedient though she sported new scraps around the jaw and a purple eye socket.
“This is where you’ll sleep from now on,” The Queen gestured to the single bed, and stepped to the side. “You will no longer go to the soldiers’ sleeping quarters at all, unless told.”
The knight dipped her head once and then settled down on the white bed. She bounced lightly on the mattress, smiled, and looked up. Her eyes gleamed like the ocean in summer. The Queen’s heart seized.
“Is this room really mine?”
“Yes, knight.”
A beat of peaceful silence passed.
“Knight,” the Queen spoke and realized at once that she was smiling. “The legend says you were turned away from the royal guard because you were young and a girl. Is that true?”
“Mostly,” her knight rubbed the back of her neck. “And…Well. I never really got along with others.”
“I thought so. Get some rest, knight.”
“Good night, my queen.”
::
“Knight.”
Her knight lifted her head from the map on the Queen’s war table. The light of autumn made the gold in her hair shine radiantly.
“Yes, my queen?”
The Queen touched her steepled fingers to her lips and smiled.
“Would you indulge my curiosity?”
“Of course.”
“Legend says that you fought evil in every form. Since you seem to have a talent for snuffing it out, I wondered…what do you think evil looks like?”
Her knight shrugged and answered with the ease years fighting horrible, ravenous creatures gave her.
“Something that kills without compassion.”
“Ah,” the Queen arched her eyebrows. “So the wolf is evil, then.”
The knight opened her mouth. Then closed it. Her forehead stitched with the very first indication of annoyance, which was an odd relief. The Queen had come to believe that it could not happen.
“No. The wolf isn’t evil.” Her knight huffed. “I guess…evil is something violent. It can’t control itself.”
“I see. Then fire is evil.”
“No, not fire .”
“No?”
“No. It has to be alive.”
“Ah, so disease?”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“No, of course not, my dear knight,” the Queen rested her lips against her knuckles to hide her delight. “I’m only curious.”
The knight glared at her suspiciously for a moment, and then finally, grudgingly, continued.
“Fine. I guess…evil is a feeling,” the knight paused, and let the thought sink into her mind. “It comes over someone when they can’t feel love.”
This snagged the Queen’s heart. Her delight left, spooked. Like birds from a nest.
“I see.” The Queen nodded after a long moment. “So you think someone who is evil is incapable of love?”
“Yes.”
The knight waited for more questions, but none came. The Queen simply picked up her quill and continued to slice carefully through long sections of dense text.
Light outside turned brick red. Shadows of the leaves flickered and greyed the light on her Queen’s face.
The knight had just returned to her map when she heard the Queen’s voice again.
“You grew up in an orphanage.”
The knight looked up. She saw that a brightness had entered her Queen’s eyes and it made her nervous.
“I did.”
“I have seen those places,” the Queen remarked over her folded hands. “I can think of no other place in such severe shortage of love. Really, it’s no wonder that most of our criminals have come from there.”
A beat passed. The Queen watched the muscle in her knight’s cheek jump.
She asked. “Would you think of these criminals as evil?”
“Would anyone?” her knight snapped. “They didn’t have a chance.”
“Even those who have committed horrible crimes?”
The knight drew in a deep breath. In a contained voice, she replied, “I remember how it felt belong a kid over there. We sometimes did horrible things. We stole and fought and hurt people who tried to help us. I don’t think it made us bad. We were just starved of everything that makes a person good. Food and safety. Warmth. Love.”
She looked up to see if her Queen’s expression had changed, but it hadn’t. It had remained cool and hard. Except for her eyes. Her eyes were now a tunnel of black, endless depth.
“Very well,” the Queen said. “But if the absence of these things doesn’t make a person evil, then what does?”
This time, the knight understood. She bowed her head in deference.
“My queen,” her knight replied. “I’m afraid I understand evil far less than I thought I did. If you’d give me some time, I would like to give you a proper answer.”
With a hum, the Queen brushed her lips thoughtfully across a finger. There had been a right answer, after all. She wasn’t aware she’d been waiting for one.
“Of course,” she responded softly.
::
“It’s a two-day trip,” the Queen glanced at the icy blue sky. “There shouldn’t be any weather delays. I expect you back in a week, at most.”
“A week, then,” Her knight’s eyes lightened with her smile. “If not sooner.”
“Well, good,” Heart fluttering, the Queen folded her hands. “This shouldn’t need reminding, but I will state it again just in case I can finally penetrate that thick skull: you are not to fight any of my men, and you will do as you are told.”
Though her knight bowed her head, the Queen thought she heard a soft comment muttered to her feet.
“Knight,” the Queen bristled. “We are not having this conversation again. I am your Queen. You are bound to do as I command.”
The muscles in her knight’s shoulders and neck tightened, but she did not bow her head. She stared back defiantly.
“Knight,” the Queen warned.
“I am bound to you,” her knight replied softly. “But not just to your words.”
The Queen’s breath evaporated. Her heart dizzied her with its pounding, shouting a reality she’d been ignoring.
“You think you have a place in my heart?’ the Queen had meant to sneer, but she had not recovered from her breathlessness. “Is that it?”
“Yes,” Her voice held only a soft waver.
“You’re a fool . I could discard you in a moment.”
“Maybe so. But your heart would leave with me.”
In two steps, the Queen roughly cupped the knight’s chin. She held on tightly, until her knight’s eyes lifted to hers.
“You’ve made a lot of mistakes since coming home with me,” the Queen whispered sharply, half-choked with emotion. “But baiting me isn’t just a mistake, it’s stupidity. Challenge me again, and I will dispose of you. Do you understand me?”
After a long moment, her knight slowly nodded. She closed her eyes.
“Come back with the heart of Snow White,” the Queen said. “Or do not come back at all.”
::
After the first week, the Queen reasoned that the trip was likely longer than she predicted. A week was too fast to expect. There was a lot to be done. When the days continued to pass, the Queen began to fret. But she held her head. Her knight had likely lost her way. Maybe she was hurt. She would return.
By the end of the third week, the Queen renounced all comforts. She removed the charm from her neck and stopped looking out the window. She sat on her throne, utterly cold.
It was well into the fourth week when a guard bowed to her ear, “Your Majesty, your knight has returned.”
The Queen’s heart woke at once, though she did not allow herself to stir. She waved her guard away and waited.
Her knight returned in the same colors she’d left in. Black and gold. Her chest still held the Queen’s crest. The Queen folded her hands to hide their tremble.
Before she could speak, the knight took a silver box from her bag. A hush fell upon them as the box creaked open. Inside, sat a small dark heart.
When certain that her voice would not waver, the Queen asked. “Is that the heart of Snow White?”
“No,” The knight said. “It’s the heart of a pig.”
Too stunned to be angry, the Queen gawked instead. Seconds later, the gall touched her at last and she stood with a snarl.
“And you still came back to show your face?”
“The butcher assured me the pig’s nickname was Snow White. Apparently, it had a very fair complexion.”
“You are laughing at me,” The Queen said with astonishment. “You’re laughing at me?”
“Never, my queen,” A stitch of silence passed. “Although I did hope you would take this all with a little bit of humor.”
“A fatal mistake,” The Queen said, then, having sensed her own bluff, turned tactics. “You disappeared for four weeks, and now you’re back with nothing. If you mean to stay as my knight, you’d better think of an excellent excuse.”
The knight sighed. She looked weathered by her journey. New lines had bracketed around her mouth and made her look almost brutal with unhappiness.
“My queen,” she said. “I turned the village over, but they were not hiding Snow White. I thought that perhaps they were lying to me because they were so frightened. I stayed to watch them in secret.”
“And what did you find?”
“Nothing,” the knight responded. “Your people do not know where Snow White is. They are too frightened to. Many pretend not even to know her name.”
The Queen scoffed and raised her chin defiantly.
“Is this your defense then? You stayed four weeks walking in these villagers’ streets, in their clothes, and waiting for someone to tell you the truth? And then, what?” she sneered. “You turned around when you realized none were going to talk?”
“No,” her knight grunted. “There were other things.”
“Oh.”
After a beat, her knight continued. “The villagers were starved. Something had run off from the river and entered the soil. Killed off their crops.”
The Queen made her face a starless night.
“Knight,” she uttered. “Don’t tell me…”
“It took me a week to figure out that King George’s mining had contaminated all surrounding streams.”
“ Knight -”
“Had I not acted the whole village would have died.”
“So not only did you fail to bring me Snow White, but you’ve also made an enemy of a very powerful ally?”
The knight dipped her golden head. “Yes, my queen.”
The silence stung. The Queen felt the beating of her own heart like a shard of bone in her throat.
“You defy me, then.”
“I act in the interest of your heart,” her knight recited with the soft repeated ease of a well-known story. “Your people are grateful. They were not able to give me Snow White’s heart, but they now hang your colors in the streets.”
The Queen sucked her teeth. Though her body brimmed with anger, it touched her heart differently. It no longer ran through her, but rather wavered like the shadow of a leaf.
Right then, she regretted not listening to her mother. So little came from keeping one’s heart in their chest.
Her knight tentatively lifted her head. “Are you still mad at me?”
“Yes,” the Queen snapped, though her heart wasn’t in it. “You’re lucky I’m in such need of a knight. I’d have thrown you out long ago, otherwise.”
The knight dipped her head, but the Queen still saw the flash of her smile.
With a grunt, the Queen looked away.
“Why the pig heart?”
“Oh,” her knight paused. “On my way back, I stopped for something to eat. I asked the butcher whether she knew anything about Snow White, but she didn’t. She gave me the heart. She told me that a pig heart was actually a great good luck charm.”
“Really?” the Queen drawled.
“Yeah. It’s just a myth. She told me the story though.” The knight straightened her shoulders with purpose that the Queen resigned herself to. “Basically, decades ago, this horrible beast walked the earth – they called him the Stranger, because he came from a place far away, and was brought here against his will. The beast devoured the hearts of innocents to keep him young or whatever,” the knight wrinkled her nose. “ The story is a little long, so I forget most of the details, but basically, the beast told a young father that he wanted him to cut out his little kid’s heart – oh yeah, the Stranger never did any of the killing himself. He always had someone else to do it. That was key. Anyway, the father agreed. He calcified a pig heart to trick the beast into eating that instead of his little kid’s heart and the beast shriveled up from the salt like a slug.” The knight grinned. “The butcher told me to keep it with me for good luck.”
A coolness swept over her. The Queen once more reached for her anger but found herself nearly sickened by it.
“My knight,” the Queen said at last, almost inaudible. “Don’t you hear what they call me?”
A long silence passed.
The knight’s head sunk like a rock. Her chin found her chest plate.
“No, my queen,” she replied quietly. “I do not.”
::
Days passed. As winter sharpened the air, summer linens were folded and returned to their cabinets and replaced by the furs of winter. The blue ridge of mountains steeled into grey, then white.
The Queen rarely thought about the cold. Sometimes a soldier’s finger or toe had to be cut off after a journey through the mountains, but it never interrupted planned routes.
Now, as the Queen studied the maps, the mountain ridges became tiny teeth and the rivers like the greedy fingers of a hungry beast.
“So,” her knight blew warm air into her cold fingers. “Where to next?”
The Queen’s chest tightened. Her fingers swept along the thin brown map once more and paused on a small group of familiar black triangles. From there, her fingers made the track back to the marking of her own castle, a span of a few inches that were far flatter than the thin careening trails that curled around the mountains.
“I want you to search the summer palace,” the Queen said.
Her knight leaned over her shoulder to look at the map. She tracked the distance silently with her eyes.
“This should only be a day’s journey away. At most two,” she paused. “Do you think your enemy would hide in a place so close to you?”
“Possible. Places so close are often overlooked.”
There was nothing to say, so the knight nodded.
“Should I stay until I find her?”
“No,” she murmured. “Bring me only a token of your effort.”
“Yes, my queen.”
::
Two days passed, and then three. This time, the Queen did not wait. At the end of the fourth day, she resolutely saddled her horse and set out into the hush of fresh snow to search for her knight.
The stars kept a steady map above the Queen’s head.
From the blackness, the spires of the summer palace approached steadily: first as a needle-like shape pointed to the stars, and then gradually into the thick permutation of tall black peaks.
By the time the Queen reached the castle gates, the sky held a blush from the approaching sun. Clouds turned a heartbreaking lilac and pink that mirrored in the snow.
“Knight?” the Queen called as her horse ambled up the stone steps. “Knight, are you here?”
It took only a few minutes. Her knight was neither as well hidden as quiet as she had been the first time, nor.
Over the wind came the familiar sounds of her knight’s frustration. Since her knight’s relocation to the small room beside her own, the Queen quickly became accustomed to her noises. In the break of dawn or the gloam of night, the knight grunted and grumbled to herself as she forcibly dressed or undressed.
Following the familiar trail, the Queen directed her horse into the next room. Her heart jolted at the sight of her knight.
“Knight!” The Queen gasped and swung off her horse.
“This is humiliating.” her knight whimpered and yanked helplessly at her sword. Both hands had turned into marble and were now rigidly attached to a sword which had clearly missed its target and was now stuck between the flags of stone beneath her feet.
“Stupid, stupid.” Her knight yanked helplessly.
“Knight,” The Queen approached with her palms up, the way she’d approach a wild horse. “Knight calm down. It’s alright.”
Her knight sagged onto her sword with grim defeat. Her face was deeply lined, and her cheeks shiny. With a thumb, the Queen gently wiped away a tear.
“What happened?” she asked softly.
“I didn’t find Snow White,” the knight cursed again. “I did find that old snake, though. For all the good it did me. He trapped me just as easily as the first time.”
The Queen gently brushed her wet cheek. “What happened?”
“I wasn’t paying attention,” the knight huffed. “Some knight I am. I ought to be a statue. I’m about as useful as one.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” her knight whimpered. “I failed you.”
“You break all my orders, too. I hardly see you so shaken about that.”
Her knight chuckled raggedly. Gently, the Queen cupped her knight’s cheeks with both hands and drew her into a kiss.
A pulse of magic cleared the air, ringing in the Queen’s ears with their force.
Flesh once more, her knight tipped her head beneath Queen’s chin to bury into her neck. The Queen, too stunned to oppose, raggedly combed her fingers through the mess of golden hair.
After a long while, the Queen whispered. “I won’t be sending you on anymore excursions.”
Her knight jolted. Then her face crumpled.
“Oh. No, my queen,” she breathed. “Please. Let me stay. I want to serve you.”
“You will continue to serve me,” the Queen snapped harshly, startled by the thought of her absence. She closed her eyes with a huff. “You will stay with me,” she said more softly. “Forget Snow White. You serve me best when you’re beside me.”
::
“My queen?”
“Yes, my knight?”
“Do you think it’ll rain?.”
The Queen looked briefly out the window. The sky was white, but the clouds looked as thin as tracing paper. In the distance, a purple stroke of heavier clouds waited atop the mountains for the wind’s final say: into the forest or upon the castle.
“No, it’ll pass.”
“The wind might change. It sometimes switches after lunch.”
“I said it’ll pass.”
“You know best,” the knight paused. “Would you like to go for a walk?”
The Queen looked up at once. Her knight watched her from the place beside the window. Even backlit against a dim cloudy sky, she seemed to gleam like something shiny and reflective on the bottom of a lake.
“I have at least another few hours of this.” The Queen began but swallowed the line of thought upon the sight of her knight’s wrinkled brow. “But I can take a break. Have you had anything to eat?”
“A little coffee. You?”
“Nothing. I’ll have the cook prepare something for us to take. Come along, dear knight.”
::
“You were right about the wind.”
The Queen admitted this casually, as if the realization had come to her like some forgotten coin from years ago that was found incidentally in her pocket as if they weren’t soaked to the bone and huddled for warmth in a small grassy cave.
Still, not all was lost. The Queen had thought to bring a black fur cloak and they had a little wine and cheese. If the rain proved to be unforgiving, they could fashion their bag into a pillow.
“It did look like it was going to pass,” her knight offered the Queen another slice of apple from her knife.
“No, it didn’t.”
“No,” her knight grinned. “It didn’t.”
Glaring, the Queen sipped her wine. “I’m now finding your offer for a walk a little suspicious, dear knight.”
“Well honestly I thought we’d be able to make it back before the wind changed, but –”
“Oh, well, shame on me for wanting to see the view of the lake. If you were so sure about the wind, why didn’t you say anything then?”
“You wanted to go,” Her knight’s smile was like a small treasure. “How could I turn back?”
::
The rain did in fact have mercy. When the sky cleared, the Queen secretly mourned. What she wanted would not happen on accident. It would have to be a choice, and that act of choosing would uncover things inside of her she did not yet want to be named.
The Queen waited as long as she could. But as the days got colder, the light shorter, her patience caved.
Most nights, the Queen listened to her knight as she prepared for bed. Without any armor there were no more grunts or sighs or clanging metal, but her knight normally still made a fuss about the boots and straps of her leather vest.
But tonight, all she could hear was the sound of the wind jostling the windows. Her knight seemed to slip inside her room and fall straight to sleep.
It was oddly this that made the Queen slip out of bed. She might have been worried, or only curious.
When the Queen opened the door, her knight was not asleep as expected. She was on the bed with her elbows on her knees, and her fingers interlocked. Waiting.
When the door opened, she straightened. She looked at the Queen with a face full of hope.
“My queen?”
The Queen did not bother to hide her desire. She closed the door behind her and walked slowly as if through a flood of warm water. Her heart boomed against her ears.
With both knees set on either side of her knight, the Queen felt like a shield. She gripped golden hair with both fists. All other motions were tethered from there.
::
Later, she lay spent against a warm chest. A smile warmed the Queen’s ear as she pet and smoothed the bare thigh hooked around her hip.
“Don’t look so happy.” She mumbled into her knight’s neck later. “Most people will think you’ve stuck your foot in a bear trap.”
It was a joke and a warning.
The knight heard both, but whatever comment she might have made was put off momentarily by the Queen’s embarrassment. Having sensed an accidental truth, she turned to mash her teeth into her knight’s shoulder and slide her hand between her legs.
::
After many nights, a routine formed.
With her knight in her arms, the Queen felt almost heavenly. They were both lazy and golden, and her hair smelled of the warm rose water they had both soaked in. The Queen smiled at her ear and brushed her fingers along her lower back. Mine , her heart purred.
Soon after planting another kiss against her ear, however, her knight rolled onto her back. The cool air left a prickling absence between the Queen’s arms.
“What is it?” she asked restlessly.
Her knight sighed deeply. The sound turned the Queen immediately into stone.
“What?”
Her night looked at her. “Have you seen much evil in your lifetime?”
After a brief fright, the Queen calmed her heart. The bright green waters of her knight’s gaze lulled her with a safety she had never known.
“Of course.”
A pause.
“Would you tell me?”
“I …” the Queen wavered. “I don’t know. I have known so much. It has too many faces to describe.”
After a moment, the knight curled over the Queen. She was like a sun-warmed blanket, rose-scented and honey sweet. The Queen felt her body ease beneath her knight as easily as if she were bath water.
“Describe one.”
The Queen thought she would start with the Second but found instead that the First and Third had pulled her quickly into far deeper waters. The little girl who she had devoted so many years of hatred to – with her face like snow and her heart of gold – slipped by like a bird atop the sea. Instead, more horrible stories came. They rose inside of her like a wall of churning mud, a flood of unspeakable losses. She spoke every indignity she faced, every agony, every loss she could remember, though with every word, she felt a growing fright inside of her. She was afraid of the momentum of these stories, and where they would take her. Of what unspeakable horror she would say next. And whether she would have to claim them as her own.
::
The Queen’s heart shifted that day. She began to see Evil in little things, daily things. Like the way her villagers trembled. The way her maids said her name. The fright in children’s eyes. The way voices dim when she enters. Her face, once familiar, now doubled her glance at any reflective surface.
“Are you alright?” her knight asked one night.
“Of course.” She snapped, then softened. “Why do you ask, my dear?”
“You just…you seem unhappy.”
The Queen looked and found herself in those green watery eyes. She touched her lover’s cheek so that she could venture the space between their lips with closed eyes.
::
It took only another week.
The Queen woke up one night, calm. Resolute. She washed her face and dressed. She let her knight sleep until the sky blued with light, then she woke her with a soft shake of her ankle.
“Get dressed.” She whispered and left.
::
On horseback, the nearest destroyed village was only half a day’s journey. It still smelled of smoke.
Though the grass had grown higher, the houses and shops were charred. Anything resembling a village now were lost in the tumble of broken, splintered wood and dirt.
Whatever weapons the villages had scavenged to play sword or shield still laid about on the ground like forgotten toys, scorched.
When she turned to her knight, she saw the wreckage completely. It was in her eyes.
She nodded to herself and dismounted. From her horse, she had unsheathed the sword attached to the saddle.
“Look at me.”
Her knight looked at her and saw her sword. She shuddered and looked away. This felt somehow worse than any horrible ugly thing that could have been said.
“Darling, look at me.”
Her knight shook her head. “Stop this.”
“You kill evil things,” the Queen said. “That’s your purpose. Is it not?”
“I said stop it.”
“Knight, I am more evil than the creatures you have slayed. Look around you. This is only one of the towns I have destroyed. There were children here. There were families. I’ve destroyed them all. I destroyed their past and their future. There are countless more.”
Her knight turned back to her. Her eyes were surprisingly clear, and their crystal depth made the Queen shudder.
“My love,” the Queen continued. “You see now what I am. Look at what I’ve done. I have killed without compassion. I have been violent without self-restraint. I am everything you’ve ever cut down with your sword.”
“Are you not capable of love?”
“Worse, my dear. I did all of this, all of it, and still fell in love.”
The knight shook her head.
“Do you know what evil is?” The knight’s face was severe in the morning light, a brutal slate of calm. “I’ve searched for it all over and I now know the answer. Ask me.”
“Knight.”
“Ask me.”
The Queen sighed and indulged her love. “What is evil, then?”
“Evil is a word,” her knight said. “It’s just a word.”
The Queen felt a cold shock through her body. She closed her eyes.
“You fool,” she sighed. “You poor stupid fool.”
“No. You listen because I happen to know what I’m talking about. I spent my whole life hunting down evil, thinking I knew something. But really I was just going in whatever direction other people pointed me in. I just took their word for it, never thinking once that I might just be evening some score. But let me tell you. You listen long enough, and you start hearing evil everywhere, even pointed at the people who started pointing in the first place.”
“Knight, look at what I did!”
“Look at what happened to you !” The knight cried. “If you are more evil than the creatures I have slayed, then I should fall on my own sword, because I have only vanquished things in this world that urgently needed my protecting.”
The Queen was silent, unable to speak.
Her knight lifted her gaze. She washed the destroyed houses, the ruined fences, the scorched, unused earth with her gaze.
“This was the first village I visited. On one of my first missions. I crossed straight through here. I saw it all.”
The Queen stared for a long time. She shook her head, not understanding.
“Why did you return?”
“Because everyone I talked to have the same story, even though it didn’t make much sense. They didn’t really care about what happened.”
“It was probably true.”
“Yes, in parts.”
A silence washed over them and took everything in its current. It left between them a brilliantly clean, swept silence.
“What do I do now?” It was the only thing left in her to ask.
Her knight pulled in a deep breath. Her eyes gleamed.
“Where do you want your story to go?”
The Queen closed her eyes tightly. She could not fully imagine the steps it would take to heal the wounds she had made. But as she held out her hands, there was a gentle certainty in the familiar curve of her knight’s shoulders, in the slope of her neck and the soft press of her cheek. She held her knight tightly, with the grip of a person who had waited her whole life for a single lifeline, and, having finally grasped it, would now never let go.
“Show me the way, and I’ll follow.”
Like any good story, there is no end.