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They will never ask why I did what I did.
They will only ask how monstrous I must have been to dare.
So I will write it myself.
I did not want to be loved. Love is fickle. Love is lazy. Love crowns children and calls it destiny. I wanted to be fair. I wanted to rule with balance—measured hands, open eyes, judgment unclouded by charm or softness.
A kingdom cannot be governed by beauty.
Yet beauty is what they worshipped.
From the moment Snow White was placed into my arms, I felt it—the wrongness. Seven years old, wrapped in white linen, her skin pale to the point of translucence, as if warmth refused to stay in her body. Her hair was impossibly dark, the color of ink spilled at midnight. Her lips—red like blood too fresh, too deliberate.
People called it poetic. I called it unnatural.
Snow does not belong indoors. Blood does not belong on a child’s mouth.
They praised her complexion as if it were a miracle. They never noticed how it swallowed the light instead of reflecting it. When she smiled, it was perfect, practiced even then, and it never reached her eyes.
Her eyes were old.
Not wise. Not innocent. Old in the way hunger is old. Old in the way winter waits.
I ruled fairly. I punished when needed and forgave when possible. I listened. I learned names. I weighed consequence against mercy every single day. And still—still—the court would lean past me to watch her walk by, as if the future had already chosen her face over my judgment.
They mistook stillness for purity. Silence for virtue. Beauty for goodness.
I watched her childhood closely because someone had to. And began to keep notes.
When she was eight, a maid slipped on the stairs and broke her neck. An accident, they said. but Snow White stood at the railing, silent, unblinking, and asked later whether the maid would be replaced before dinner. Her tone was not cold—merely curious. The court laughed nervously and excused it as childish innocence.
When she was ten, a stable boy’s life was ruined, the boy swore she told him to loosen the saddle strap “just a little.” And when the horse threw its rider and shattered a leg, Snow White cried harder than anyone, clinging to my skirts, trembling as though the pain were her own. I held her while the boy was beaten for lying..
She never struck. Never pushed. Never lied outright.
She suggested.
She learned early that others would do violence on her behalf if she only looked wounded enough.
Animals obeyed her in ways that made my skin crawl. Birds gathered too near. Dogs lowered themselves when she passed. cats watched her with a stillness that bordered on reverence or terror—I could never tell which.
They said she was kind to animals.
They never asked why animals feared her.
I tried to love her. Gods forgive me, I tried. I told myself I was cruel for doubting a child. I told myself my magic had sharpened my suspicions into madness. I told myself a woman who ruled alone too long would see threats everywhere.
But intuition is not madness. It is memory the body refuses to forget.
The mirror only confirmed what I already knew.
I did not ask it who was beautiful. Beauty is a useless. I asked it who held power—who the world would choose if order collapsed, if blood had to be spilled, if a ruler was required rather than adored.
And it spoke her name.
Snow White.
As a certainty. As a verdict.
That was the moment I realized the kingdom was no longer mine to protect.
She did not need to rule wisely. She only needed to exist. People would excuse her mistakes, soften her failures, die for her smile. They would tear the kingdom apart calling it devotion.
Thus I ordered her death because I saw what no one else did. Because I knew she would outlive fairness, outshine reason, and rot the throne from beneath with sweetness and silence.
I trusted the huntsman because i thought him to be, practical, unburdened by courtly fantasies. Chose him because I believed he would see what I saw once he was close enough. And I told him the girl was dangerous, that the kingdom would not survive her ascent.
Yet the huntsman failed me, and I knew mercy had doomed us all.
I tried again. I tried cleanly. Each attempt was a test, not of her body—but of her nature. Would she panic? Would she beg? Would she rage?
I approached her three times, wearing the faces of desperation, commerce, and kindness. Each time, I tested her.
The laces were first. Tight enough to steal breath. She struggled just long enough to be convincing.
The comb followed. Poison threaded through beauty. She collapsed with a sound almost like laughter.
She performed every time.
The apple revealed the truth.
Poisoned, yes—but not enough to kill. Just enough to reveal her.
She bit into it without fear. Eyes locked on mine—not as prey, not as a frightened girl—but as a victor indulging a game already won.
“You should have tried harder,” she whispered.
That was when I understood: i had long lost before the war had even begun.
They laid her in glass, preserving her like a relic, worshipping the stillness they mistook for innocence. The prince did not save her. He played his role like everyone else—another man dazzled by symmetry and myth.
Everyone fell for her perfectly planned scheme
When she rose, reborn into applause, they needed a villain to complete the story.
They chose me.
As I was led to my death, I saw her watching—skin flawless, lips red, eyes bright with something that had nothing to do with grief.
She smiled.
The same smile she wore as a child at the top of the stairs.
I failed.
Not because I was wrong—but because truth has no chance against a beautiful lie.
They will sing of her gentleness. They will teach children to fear my name. They will crown her goodness and call it fate.
And one day, when fairness is gone and beauty rules alone, they will wonder how it happened.
I tried to stop it.
That is the only sin I will ever confess.
Snow White lived. The kingdom cheered.
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