It is said that all legend has its basis in history. It is also commonly known that history has primarily been handed down to us by the male of the species. Not just any males however, powerful males, in fact the most powerful of all, Royal Males. The legend I am about to impart to you will no doubt sound familiar to you. I have heard it myself, just as you. However, we have heard it from the spin of the most powerful man involved in the tale, the King. For Snow's sake as much as mine, I am going to tell you what the King never wanted anyone to know. I am going to tell you what really happened.

It may be hard to fathom, looking at me now, but once I was accorded the accolade of "fairest of all". It is a heady thing to be told that you are the most beautiful woman in 10 kingdoms and when the title was bestowed upon me I was a mere child of 14 winters. No 14-year-old girl can ever hope to adequately cope with such fame and adulation. I was no exception. The praise and power that comes with extreme beauty corrupted me as much as it would any other. I grew vain and haughty and confident of my powers of attraction and all was confirmed for me when the King of this land proposed a marriage between his 30 year old self and me. I was not flattered; I considered it my due, for who else could be worthy of my extraordinary self?

I was 15 years old when I walked down the aisle to meet my groom. He was splendid and handsome and all any woman could desire for a husband. He towered over me, rising to a height above 6 feet; his shoulders were broad and his waist trim. His hair was mahogany, his eyes cerulean blue and his teeth were white and straight. As I approached the altar I noted that his eyes were glued to my entourage and I thrilled to his royal attention. I felt certain that soon I would have his heart in my grasp, how could I fail? Was I not the most beautiful woman in the world? Had he not petitioned my wealthy and noble father for my fair hand? My future was secure. I had beauty, wealth, power and a handsome vigorous husband. No woman could want for more and I looked forward to a contented future.

As I stood before my groom and exchanged our vows, I noted that his eyes did not rest on me, but on something or someone over my shoulder. Three of my young cousins attended me that day and stood behind me as I faced the King. All were sweet lovely little girls whom I was dearly fond of. I thought it was so sweet that my new husband was shy, too shy to meet my eyes as we vowed to belong to each other. I thought I was so sophisticated, but I was without a clue as to what his distracted gaze would mean to me. The ceremony was splendid and the reception that followed still remains a blur of dazed happiness in my memory.

As I prepared for bed that night I was not only the fairest of women, I was the happiest. I dismissed my attendants and waited for the King to come to me. I waited long. Finally in the wee hours of the morning, after I had fallen asleep atop the bed linens, he made his appearance. I awoke to find him roughly tearing away my fine silken chemise. His hands parted my legs abruptly and he sank his turgid shaft into my tender virginity with callous disregard for my inexperience. I screamed as he tore away my hymen and I writhed in agonized pain as he pistoned his large shaft in and out of my abraded passage. He used me for 30 minutes or so before shooting his boiling seed deep into my violated womb. I cried throughout my brutal initiation to womanhood and he spoke nary a word to me the entire time.

I spent the following day curled up in bed, as far as I could get from the bloodstains on the sheets. I bathed that evening and winced at the tenderness between my legs and the bruises upon breasts and thighs. I lay abed that night and feared he would return. When the sun rose the next day and he had not appeared, I sent my prayers of thanks skyward.

In the days following our wedding, I spent much of my time amongst my extended family, who had been invited to stay in the palace for the entirety of the honeymoon. I asked my young cousins if they had been introduced to the Princess Snow White who was of an age with them. They avoided my eyes but acknowledged that they had. I myself was eager to get to know my young stepdaughter but each time I visited the nursery I was informed she was not available. I was glad to hear that the Princess was not being excluded from the merry company.

I had met the elusive child only once before the wedding and had seen her at the reception but never since. She was a beautiful little girl with black hair, pale ivory skin and a crimson bloom to her cheeks and lips. She was slender and delicately fashioned but perhaps a bit small for her 7 years. She seemed subdued and sad-eyed when I saw her and I couldn't help wondering if it was because her father had replaced her mother with another. The former queen had died bearing the king a son just a year prior to our marriage. To the sorrow of the entire Kingdom, the child did not survive his mother by more than a few hours. I had glimpsed the young queen once when I was myself but a child of 10 and I remembered her as a beauty with the same coloring as her surviving child.

As that first month drew on, I noticed that my small cousins grew quiet, hollow eyed and withdrawn. I questioned their parents about the change but they were as baffled as I. The children did not complain, but they also would not offer any explanation for their seeming melancholy. I asked if they continued to play with the Princess and they answered that they did indeed see her often. As for me, I had still had no success in obtaining contact with my new stepdaughter and began to wonder if she was so resentful of me that she had instructed her attendants to refuse me her company.

When the month had passed and my family had departed the palace to scatter back to their various estates I determined that I would have converse with the child, will she or not. Was I not the Queen? Was I not her lawful mother now? Unfortunately, thinking in terms of motherhood, I was inevitably reminded of the child's father. I had avoided thinking about him while I could. I did not want to dwell on what my marriage had turned out to be.

Far from possessing my husband's heart, I was barely afforded any of his attention at all. He visited my bedchamber most nights and ruthlessly assailed my body with no more tenderness or consideration than he had shown me on our wedding night. He acknowledged me when we appeared together at public functions and he nodded at me over the acre long dining table each night. He barely spoke to me at all. His nocturnal invasions were conducted with grunts and groans and the occasional slap but never a word passed his lips. He did not ask for my council, my opinion or even after my welfare. I wondered bleakly if his first marriage had been thus conducted. If it were so, I did not blame the former queen for taking the outlet afforded by death's infinitely gentler hand.

I had all the material possessions that anyone could ask for, more money than even I could spend in a lifetime and servants to attend to my every need. What I no longer had was the love of a family. Mine own had been lavish in their affections and I missed that with an almost physical ache. Siblings and cousins, doting aunts and uncles and a wonderful pair of parents who nurtured and supported me in every way possible had always surrounded me. Now I was alone. My only chance for a family was the King's secretive daughter. My determination to reach the child grew stronger.

After weeks of being turned away from her chamber with all manner of excuses at every possible time of day, my temper snapped. On the 28th day after the departure of my family, I once again approached the child's suite and was informed by her nanny that she was not available. I summarily pushed the woman aside and strode into the main room of the nursery. The Princess was seated on the floor in a soft gown of cobalt blue and appeared to be reading a book. She looked up at me in surprise and her sapphire eyes widened.

I knelt down on the floor in front of her and held out my hand for her to shake. I spoke softly and said, "Hello, your Highness, my name is Giselle. I'm your new stepmother." She took my hand tentatively and replied in a whisper, "My name is Snow White, but Nanny calls me Snow."

"May I call you Snow as well?" I asked gently. She cocked her head to the side before she answered. "My mother never called me that, she always called me Blanche. She said it meant "white". My friends call me Snow, do you want to be my friend?"

I smiled broadly at her and winked. "I'd like that more than anything, Snow. My cousins all call me Gisa, would you like to call me that as well?" She seemed to consider it and I continued to smile, enchanted by this solemn little girl. Finally she nodded and smiled at me and I felt as if the sun had just risen. Her smile was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I asked about the book she was reading and she showed me the delicately hand written volume of poetry.

"My mother wrote it just for me! I miss her, I wish she was still here." I nodded with tears in my eyes and gave her a swift hug. "I do too sweetheart, I do too."

I think I came to wish that wish even more than Snow in the coming months. My husband started to become cruel without the restraining influence of my family. He hurled insults at me regarding my intelligence, my morals, my inability to satisfy him in bed and my looks as well. Until this point in my life, I had received almost universal praise from those around me. I was unable to cope with his spite. I tried to avoid him but there was no place to hide from the supreme power in the Kingdom. He started beating me while I lay pinned beneath him at night, berating me for not performing better in bed. He used me everyway imaginable and many ways I never could have dreamed up in my wildest nightmares. He often dragged me from my rooms to visit his "special play room". I'll leave you to imagine the horrors visited upon me in that chamber.

The sole point of light in my life became Snow. She was a delightful little girl and reminded me poignantly of my young cousins whom I missed dreadfully. She was eager to please and so receptive of affection, starved for it really. Her father did not seem to pay any attention to her whatsoever. I questioned the strangely tight-lipped nanny as to the extent of His Majesty's contact with his child but she would only reply, "His Majesty calls the child to him when he requires her company." As far as I could see that was never. I asked Snow about it a few times but inevitably her face would fall and she would tremble and reply, "He calls me sometimes." When I tried to question her further she would ignore me and act like the conversation had not taken place.

I had little choice but to assume that the King ignored his child like so many royal and noble parents did. Meanwhile, I lavished my love and time on the girl and was amply rewarded by her unstinted reciprocation of my affection. We walked in the gardens together and romped in the royal forest like the children we were. We spent many hours in giggling companionship pursuing the lady like arts of embroidery, painting and song. I taught her the fashionable dances and she would float around the room like an exquisite angel. She became a sister to me and I cherished her role in my life.

Yes, I know. I know how legend has told it. I informed you earlier, this is what really happened. Legends need monsters to thrive and I was easy to cast in the role. Pray however, hearken to my words and you shall perceive the true monster in this tale.

Months passed in this fashion. My nights were filled with terror and pain and my days with sunshine and affection. However, there soon came a change in the tenor of life in the palace. Two nights passed without my husband's appearance in my chamber. At first I was relieved, thinking that perhaps his appetite for humiliating me was fading and perhaps it was. That second morning I attended my stepdaughter in her bedchamber and she complained that she was sick. I wanted to stay and nurse her personally but Nanny would have none of it. Her primary complaint was a sore belly and the woman dismissed me as both too young to care for the child and of too high estate to stoop to the menial task of bodily attending to another, even the Princess. My estate did not bother me, but her reference to my youth and implied inexperience was true enough to set me back. I did not want to harm Snow through ignorance and therefore I allowed myself to be banished from the sick room that day.

My husband resumed his depredations upon my body and Snow recovered her health several days later. However, she seemed as withdrawn as when I first arrived and when I asked why she answered that she was just tired. Several weeks passed and Snow seemed to slowly recover her spirits.

Again it passed that my husband did not attend me for several nights and on the third morning after, Snow again fell ill. I demanded entrance to her room and pushed the nanny aside. When I beheld her she was laying abed and tears tracked down her face. I fell down on the bed beside the child and gathered her to me.

"Sweetheart what is it? What ails thee?" She just cried and said her tummy ached. I was alarmed at the degree of pain a simple tummy ache should cause her and demanded the nanny summon the royal physician. The nanny replied that the King had ordered that her personal servants and no others attend the child.

"The King has seen her? He was here? This very morning?" The nanny averted her eyes and replied that the child had fallen ill during the wee hours and her father had been with her. An unformed dread knotted my belly. I held the girl to me tenderly while my mind refused to allow the thought to be fashioned. I looked into her tortured eyes and my mind shut down. It couldn't be. How could such things enter my head? I set the child from me and before anyone could stop me I dragged the sheet back from Snow's body. She was clad only in a thin silken chemise of the creamiest white. My horrified eyes beheld dark stains on the pale cloth. I covered the child quickly and looked in horror at the nanny.

"Tell me what ails this child? Tell me, woman, or I shall personally have you flogged!"

The woman avoided my gaze and stammered that the child had "the flux". I inquired into how many times the child had suffered from the ailment in the past. She told me this was but the second time. I clamped my teeth together on any further questions. Snow's nanny was not to blame. I spent several hours with the little girl soothing her and rocking her in my arms. That evening I sent a missive to an uncle who lived in the Royal City.

My husband came to me that night and for the ten that followed. On the eleventh I stayed awake all night and when the hour approached four I thought I heard a faint scream. I dashed from my suite, pulling on a robe as I flew down the hall to Snow's room. The nanny met me at the door with tears welling from her eyes. She whispered, "She's not within, Your Majesty. She is not here. Her father called her." I whirled away and pelted for the Royal Chambers. The guards tried to stop me but I thrust them aside and ran down the private corridor that led to the King's actual bedchamber. I stopped just outside the doors and gulped air desperately into my lungs. I could hear her sobbing, punctuated now and then by an agonized scream.

I reached a trembling hand to the door's handle and turned it slowly. I did not want to enter that room, I did not want to see what I knew was happening. I eased the door back noiselessly and slipped into the room on silent feet. I closed the door behind me with the same care and slowly turned to look to the bed. Snow screamed just as my eyes reached them. All I could see of her was the ivory paleness of her legs splayed out to either side of her father's hips. His buttocks were tensing and relaxing as he thrust to and fro. I silently circled the room, my mind frozen in horror. I stood to the side of the chamber and watched as his enormous penis split the child's obscenely stretched pussy. Blood and cum squelched out around his thick cock each time he buried it in her shuddering body. Every few strokes he would jam himself balls deep into her hairless little slit and she would scream in agony and jerk and twist as if in unimaginable pain.

I stood watching in horror, my hand to my mouth and my head shaking silently side-to-side. I knew Snow was in hell for the bastard filling her under-developed body with his oversized weapon visited that same hell upon me nightly. How much worse must it be for so small and delicate a child? Her cries filled the room and I stood rooted to the spot staring in terror as he held the child under him and forced himself into her over and over again. The blood was everywhere. It coated his legs and hers, as well as the bed beneath them. I slowly became aware of the litany of filth he was spewing from his mouth even as his thick blunt cock tore Snow's body in twain.

"Yes that's it you filthy cunt, take it, take all Daddy's fuck stick. That's all you are, a piece of fuck meat for my pleasure. Yeah that's it scream! Scream little girl...no one can hear you...no one can stop me. I'm the fucking King! That's it cunt, take the Royal Cock! You're mine, along with all the other fuck meat in the kingdom. I can have any of it and I will. But you're a pretty cunt, my daughter and I'll use you as much as I want, yeah, oh fuck yeah, that's it, cry, cry all you want, fight me, that's it, shake for Daddy!"

He continued to pound her into the bed while the obscenities poured from his mouth. His cock sawed in and out of her visibly torn flesh ignoring the blood, the agonized writhing of her body and her ghastly moans and screams of pain. He started to shake and I knew it wouldn't last much longer. He nailed her to the bed and howled like an animal as he spewed his filth into her immature womb.

I shrank back further into the shadows and remained silent. I prayed that God would end this abomination and strike down the Monster on the bed. But He did not heed my prayers that night. I watched as the King rose above the child and grinned wickedly down at her. Snow lay sobbing quietly under him, his spunk and her blood pooling beneath the girl's legs. He reached a hand to her puffy bloody lips and scooped up some of the vile liquid. He forced it to the child's lips and thrust his fingers inside.

"Lick it up bitch!" He pulled his fingers free and replaced them with his bloody cock. "Suck it clean cock-whore, suck the Royal Dick!" He laughed evilly and shoved his filthy meat between her innocent lips. He jammed his hips forward and started deep fucking Snow's throat. She gagged and struggled beneath him as he choked her with his cock. Her color deepened and began to turn purple before he eased up and allowed her to breathe. The respite was short lived as he forced himself deep into her air passage once again. I cried silently as I watched him force her to take him down her slender throat again and again. I knew this game for he did the same to me on many a night, often going so far as to choke me unconscious.

He continued this sick game for nigh on half an hour before pulling his still hard member from her raw and voiceless throat for the last time. He chuckled at her limp exhausted form. Those brutal punishing hands reached out and turned the tiny child onto her stomach. He shoved a pillow beneath her and straddled her hips before leaning down to whisper to his daughter. The words were soft but they still reached my ears.

"Sweet little girl, we're going to play a brand new game, just for your step-mamma." He looked straight at me where I stood frozen in the shadows. "She's been here watching us have our fun almost since the beginning." Snow looked over at me at that moment and cried out, "Please Gisa, please make him stop!"

I wanted to die then. I wanted to slit my throat and be sent to the lowest depths of hell for my inability to help her. He looked at me. Cold fear shivered down my spine. This was the same man who was orchestrating my own private hell. I knew what true evil was at that moment. Satan himself could do no more destruction than the man who lay atop his daughter before my terrified eyes.

"Yes, Gisa, make me stop. Can't you do that? Can't you make me stop?"

I was shaking all over. Ice cold sweat poured from every pore and I didn't trust my legs to hold me up under the concentrated malice in his gaze.

"That's what you came here to do, isn't it? You came to save the pretty Princess from my attentions, didn't you?" He looked back at Snow. "She wants to save you, cunt. She wants to but she can't. She can't even save herself." His gaze whipped back to mine. "Can you cunt? You want to save her, but even more, you want to save yourself. You're secretly relieved it's her aren't you? You'd rather I fuck her than you, isn't that right? Isn't it?"

I shook my head back and forth. He laughed. His hands were on her small sweetly curved buttocks. He was pulling them apart and fingering the hole as he spoke. "She wants me to fuck you instead Snow. She told me so. She said it last night, she said 'go fuck that little cunt in the nursery and leave me alone'. Didn't you Gisa, huh?" I shook my head in horror. I had said it. But I hadn't meant Snow. He had whispered to me that he liked fucking Snow's maid so much more than me. I'd been in agony at the time, his cock buried balls deep in my ass. I'd flung the comment at him in impotent rage.

"No!" I screamed. He laughed and eased his glistening cock toward Snow's puckered little rosette. "She said it little girl, she screamed it at me." I shook my head, the tears falling as I looked deep into Snow's dazed eyes. "Not you sweetie, I didn't mean you." He laughed again and the tip of his swollen flesh made contact with the little girl's unprotected hole. He pulled the cheeks wide and forced the head of his thick rod into her body. She screamed as he breached her. I closed my eyes, not wanting to watch this newest abomination.

I could still hear them though. Her hoarse screams mingled with his obscene grunts and moans of vile pleasure. I sank to the floor in shame unable to bear the knowledge that I could not stop him. I was the Queen, I was the fairest, I was still powerless because I was still a woman. He was the King, he was my husband, he was her father and he was a man. All power was his. Even had he not been who he was, even had he been a lowly peasant, he still would have owned us both. Perhaps, had we been of low estate, some relative might rescue us, but he was the King, and none could gainsay him. No matter what manner of perversions he practiced, however evil, his word was law and we must submit.

I opened my eyes reluctantly as his moans increased in intensity and volume. He had Snow on her knees now and had turned her slightly towards me. His hands were on her waist and he was forcing her body to meet his, his evil cock burying itself to the balls in her tiny little ass with each forward thrust. She was hanging almost limply in his hands but her eyes were open, staring glassily at me where I kneeled on the floor beside the bed. Each thrust forced a pained grunt from her throat but I could tell her voice was mostly spent. I don't know how long he plowed her violated body but it seemed ages to me. Finally he pulled out of her with a shout and sprayed his blood-tinged cream all over her and me. He shoved her aside and collapsed on the bed beside her with a satisfied grin.

I finally managed to drag myself to Snow where she lay quiescent on the royal bed. The silken sheets beneath her were stained with blood, cum and feces. Her legs were smeared with it and she lay limply, her muscles quivering but lifeless. Her eyes were open but glazed. I held my head to her chest and was relieved to hear her heart beating, strong and steady. Her breathing was labored and I knew her throat was swollen from his earlier attack. I looked at him and he grinned at me.

"She's all yours, my lovely Queen."

I gently gathered the small child in my shaking arms and carried her from the room. I didn't cover her but carried her out naked and bloody, both of us splattered in cum, down the corridor past the guards who pretended not to look. I saw a few bulges spring up beneath soft leather breeches and noted which faces belonged to them. The King might be beyond my reach, but few others were.

I reached the Royal nursery and the nanny met us at the door. She whispered, "I have a warm bath ready for her, Your Majesty, if it please you to give the child to me."

I looked at her with dead eyes. "No, nobody will touch her but me. No one!" I kicked the woman out of my way and carried Snow to her room. I lowered her soiled and violated body to the warm water and she whimpered. I whispered soothingly to her.

"I know sweetheart, I know it hurts. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry!" I started sobbing then, horrible wrenching tears of despair for both of us. I was shaking so badly I had to let her sink the rest of the way into the water. We sobbed together as I bathed his sickening fluids from her torn and battered flesh. I ordered a second bath and washed her again in clean water. I tenderly dried her and carried her to the bed. She clung to me and I to her. I whispered to her, "Oh my sweet one, I'm going to make it stop. I swear, somehow I'll make it stop." She just clung to me, her eyes telling me she didn't believe, but she loved me for lying to her. Finally she slept and I cradled her body against me and tried desperately to think of a way out.

She awoke once near dawn, shaking from a nightmare. I didn't feel the need to ask what it was, I just cuddled her and whispered, "Shhh, little girl, I'm here. I'm here, baby girl, and you're safe." She looked up at me and I could see tears in her eyes.

"He does it to you too, doesn't he? He hurts you all the time. He told me so. He said I was lucky, that he only did it to me a little bit, but he does it to you every night." A harsh cry escaped me at those words. Oh, God, how could he do that to his own child? How could he fill her soul with such horror? I squeezed her tight and nodded as the tears fell once again.

"That's how I knew, Snow. He didn't come to me, and I remembered the stains on your chemise that last time." I looked at her. "Nanny said it only happened twice before, is that true?" Snow looked down and nodded. "He only made me bleed those two times." "What did he do before that," I asked in dread. "He would make me lick him and a few times he put it down my throat like tonight. He would put a finger in me, but not his thing. That hurts so bad, Gisa. How do you stand it every night?" I hugged her close and shut my eyes. "I can't baby, but I have no choice."

I received a missive from my uncle several days later and sighed in relief as I read it. When I was finished I burned it to ash and scrawled off a quick note before summoning a maid to see to the note's delivery. I went to Snow's room, a small worn leather satchel in hand. When I arrived I dismissed all the servants. I picked her up and held her close to me.

"Sweetheart, I'm going to make it stop now. Before he can hurt you again."

She looked at me with hope in her eyes. "How, Gisa?" I put her down and turned to the enormous wardrobe in the corner of the room.

"Remember my uncle Norman?" She nodded happily, "He's Kathryn's father, right? The one with the big belly and the white beard?" I nodded and she beamed.

"I liked him, I liked Kathryn too." I forced a smile to my face when she mentioned Kathryn. Uncle Norman had told me in his letter why Kathryn and her younger sisters Liza and Margaret had gone so quiet while staying in the palace. The monster I'd married had raped all three girls while they were here. I finally understood what he'd been staring at as we exchanged our vows before the priest.

"Yes, love. I like her too. I love all my cousins. Anyway, Uncle Norman has a plan, a good one." I looked in her wardrobe and searched out her plainest play clothes. I pulled a few stained linen kirtles out and an extra chemise, also of linen. No silk for this trip. I quickly bundled them into the satchel. I helped Snow out of her finery and into a plain gown such as a merchant's daughter might wear. "Come with me sweetie, we have to go meet someone."

I took her and the satchel through the halls of the palace and out a postern gate. Across a small bridge and through the outer walls by means of another little used gate. I bribed the guard on duty, one I trusted, and we slipped out into the forest that bordered the palace grounds. Thirty minutes brisk walk brought us to a small, well-made cottage surrounded by a wooden palisade. I rapped smartly on the gate and was hailed by a deep and mellow voice.

The gate swung back and we slipped inside. The Royal Master of the Hunt stood before us. He was a tall man, dressed all in leather dyed a greenish brown. He looked at me and swallowed nervously. His eyes roved over me and then clung to my face as if in awe. It had been so long since I'd seen any reaction to my looks that I had forgotten them. I smiled warmly at him now. He returned the smile.

"Sir Aldoren, my Lord Uncle Norman Whitenougher wrote to me that you might be able to assist me. Is this still so?" My eyes clung to his in desperation. He looked down at Snow, who was clinging nervously to my skirts. An angry determined look came over his face as he saw the fear in Snow's haunted eyes. "Yes, Your Majesty, it is so."

I released my breath in a long sigh. I knelt down next to Snow and looked deep into her eyes. "Sweetheart, this is your chance to escape. Sir Aldoren will take you away to a place where your father can no longer hurt you."

"What about you?" she cried out. "Aren't you coming too?"

I shook my head sadly. "I can't sweetheart, my face draws too much attention and is too well known. He would find us." She flung her arms around me and started to cry.

"You have to come, he'll keep hurting you! He already hurts you more than me! Why can't you escape too?" I hugged her to me tightly. I met Sir Aldoren's eyes over her head and they were filled with compassion for us. I started to cry as well.

"I can't baby, he'll find us both and hurt us worse. You have to go. You have to escape. Please, Snow, do it for me. I can't bear to watch him hurt you anymore, I can't! Please, baby, please go." She pulled back and stared into my eyes for long moments. Finally she nodded.

"For you, Gisa. I'll go for you."

I closed my eyes and breathed, "Thank you." I opened them again and smiled at her. You'll be happy baby, you'll have a wonderful new life, I promise." I stood again and handed the satchel to the waiting huntsman.

He looked at me steadily and spoke these words, "I wish I could help you too, Your Majesty." His sincerity could be in no doubt.

"You can," I replied, "You can take my little girl and make her safe from him forever." He nodded and reached for Snow's hand.

I looked at her one last time. "I love you Snow, I love you more than life." She started crying again, "I love you too, Mommy." I turned and fled with tears in my eyes. It was the last time I ever saw her.

Naturally there was a kingdom-wide outrage at the disappearance of the Princess Snow White. The King tore into my chambers and demanded to know her whereabouts. I couldn't walk for 3 months when he was done with me, but he never found her. All I knew then was that she was to be taken to a remote mining village and raised by the people who lived and worked there. My uncle told me that the miners could be trusted with her life and I trusted my uncle with mine.

I first heard the whispers about my supposed role in the Princess's disappearance nigh on ten years later. It was rumored that I had grown jealous of the child's fabled beauty and had disposed of her to suit my vanity. I shrugged them off, knowing the truth too well. I had no vanity left. My beauty had faded quickly in the harsh world of pain and torment in which I lived. God be praised I never gave that monster another daughter to prey on. I did bear him two sons though, whom I wish I had smothered in their cradles. For they seem to have turned out much as their father.

Other rumors have reached our corner of the world. Whispers speak of the Princess' reappearance in a kingdom so far from ours that its very existence is in doubt. I've heard the stories. I pray the rumors are not true. That's right, I hope the fairy tale ending hasn't come true for her. I hope she's married a poor miner and lives happily in a thatched hut in the deep forest. I pray with all my heart that she hasn't been found by the acquisitive eyes of a Royal Male. I rescued her from one; I couldn't rescue her from another, just like I couldn't rescue myself.