CREDITS:

Story by talitavasconcelos

Traduction by Gabriela Silva 

Cover Art: Oprazeretodomeu

Dividers: mabeirobooks

- Mirror, mirror... Is there any woman more beautiful than me?

Anyone who saw the young Morgana Le Fay would never have guessed that her perfect face was thousands of years old. Her stunning beauty had already driven heroes and even kings mad over the centuries. King John was just her latest victim.

And now she was about to complete her cruel and audacious plan: a child of the king was growing in her womb.

However, it was not maternal instinct that had led Morgana to desire this conception.

She was descended from a powerful line of sorcerers, but for her evil deeds, she had been condemned to death by her clan almost two centuries ago, and she had been running away from her sentence ever since.

Morgana had already faced the wrath of men countless times, and had known various forms of death. She had been hanged, impaled, beheaded, burned at the stake and poisoned. Magic always brought her back. It was in her blood: only a witch can kill another witch, just as only a diamond can cut another diamond. It took three witches to exterminate her powers and banish her soul to darkness for all eternity.

And there was only one way to guarantee true immortality: by becoming the Queen of Darkness herself.

To do this, she had to gather the sacred fruit that had sealed the unholy marriage of Hades, Lord of the Dead, to Persephone, goddess of spring: a pomegranate, stolen from the garden of the Hesperides in the far west.

The fruit had been encased deep in the throat of the dragon that once guarded the garden. The dragon was petrified, but Persephone still preserves the fruit inside, as if it were a heart of flesh inside a body of stone. Whoever picked it and planted its seeds in the Garden of the Hesperides would be rewarded with immortality and dominion over the power of darkness.

- Arthur pulled the sword out of the stone to prove he was worthy of being king; and I will cut the heart out of the stone dragon to prove myself worthy of being the Queen of Darkness. However, only a king or queen can enter the garden. Any commoner who crosses its gates, even a wizard, turns to dust.

And his throne would only be legitimized with an heir, and with the death of the king.

Two things that Morgana was already arranging.

When she realized she was pregnant, she wanted to get rid of her husband immediately. However, on the advice of her Magic Mirror, the sorceress decided to wait until the child was born. Then, as the heir's mother, no one could deny her the throne.

Months later, on a terrible stormy night, the queen gave birth to a baby girl.

While recovering from childbirth, a raven, perched in the huge oak tree in front of the window, cawed loudly, as if greeting the future Queen of Darkness for her imminent victory; it then flew off into the storm. A triumphant laugh erupted from Morgana's chest as she felt it was only a matter of hours before she could get up and stab the king through the heart. And then nothing would separate her from the power of Darkness.

Not far from the castle, in a hut in the forest, two sorceresses were informed by the raven that Morgana was weakened. It was the perfect time to stop her. A deafening thunderclap echoed through the kingdom as they began to recite the spell. Lightning struck the castle garden, opening a crack in the earth. The Shadow of Death emerged, hungry and furious, thirsting for Morgana's blood.

The sorceress, who knew nothing of this plot, felt her strength returning rapidly.

Expecting to see her plan realized, she got out of bed just before midnight. Picking up a sharp dagger, Morgana crept into the chamber where King John was sleeping soundly, unaware that death was lurking. With the storm roaring outside, no guard would be able to hear her cries.

Suddenly, however, the castle began to shake, causing Morgana to collapse on the carpet. The dagger, slipping out of her hands, fell under the king's bed, out of her reach.

Through the alcove window, Morgana saw the Spectre of Death rise up and dive through the glass towards her.

- Damn! - shouted the queen, tripping over the skirts of her nightgown as she got up and ran out of the room. Morgana felt, rather than saw, the Shadow pursuing her, as she ran as fast as her still weak strength would allow to the village cemetery. On consecrated ground, conjured Death could not enter. The sorceress turned towards the gate, retreating further into the cemetery. A loud clap of thunder lit up the ground outside, and she could clearly see the Shadow hovering in front of the gate, unable to cross it.

- You can't beat me! - shouted the sorceress, laughing into the darkness. - I'll be your mistress yet!

As she laughed, the queen didn't notice that her feet were tangled in the roots of the pumpkins that the gravedigger had planted next to the angel statue in the middle of the cemetery. The guardian of the dead, with his wings spread, was the only witness on that dark night.

While the storm roared, and the castle clocks echoed the twelve chimes of that gloomy midnight, far away, in the forest hut, the witches finished reciting the fatal chant. When Morgana realized it, it was too late.

The pumpkins suddenly came to life; they rose from their roots and devoured the queen alive. The castle stopped shaking. The Shadow dissipated, and with it, the storm. In the queen's alcove, the soul that Morgana had imprisoned in the mirror had finally been freed.

The newly freed witch knew she wouldn't get another chance. If the child had inherited her mother's powers and character, it was only a matter of time before the world was plunged into an era of darkness and horror. She had to stop it. Grabbing another dagger, she crept silently into the adjoining room, where the child was sleeping in its cradle, and was preparing to drive the blade through its heart when the accompanying maid suddenly woke up and threw herself over the baby, receiving the stab wound instead.

Attracted by the maid's scream, the guards burst into the room, catching the killer still wielding the murder weapon. The sorceress was immediately brought before the king, who, awoken by the commotion, was horrified to learn of the attempt on his newborn daughter. However, when he laid eyes on the prisoner, all words evaporated from his mind.

She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful of all women. Her beauty surpassed even that of the queen, whom he hadn't even remembered to ask about. The king's heart was immediately captured by another love spell, but this one was not performed by the woman who stood in front of him, waiting to die.

Remembering what she had done, the king ordered her to be put in the dungeon, where she would wait for months for her sentence to be passed. At one point, she thought she had been forgotten. But the last thing the king did was forget her. It wasn't until the following afternoon that he was informed of the queen's disappearance. Weeks passed without anyone finding out what had happened to Morgana. Many thought that the murderer had killed her before reaching the child, perhaps by throwing her out of one of the windows that had been broken during the earthquake, but nobody was ever found.

The queen was never seen again.

Inside the cemetery, the pumpkins grew amazingly that fall; some of them were much taller than the tombstones that surrounded them. And some say they acquired a peculiar taste of flesh and blood.

Winter also passed, and with it, the search for the queen was officially closed. Her Majesty could only be dead. There was no other explanation for abandoning her husband, her kingdom and, above all, her daughter.

And since it was his second wife who suffered a tragic fate, the most evil tongues began to speculate that perhaps the king was cursed. Supposedly, his first wife, Queen Leda, had fallen into a frozen lake. The scarf she was wearing was found tangled in a hole in the ice, but her body was never recovered. And now, Queen Morgana mysteriously disappeared on the night she gave birth to her daughter. As the mother hadn't had time to choose her name, the king decided to accept the suggestion of the maid who had saved her life, and who had survived with a minor shoulder injury, and call her Snow White.

The guards pressed the king daily about the prisoner, but the sovereign, still bewitched by her beauty, postponed his sentence. Meanwhile, the child was placed under close surveillance and was never left unattended in or out of the castle. And as she grew up, she became more and more enchanting.

It wasn't until Snow White's third birthday that the king finally decided the prisoner's fate.

But it wasn't the death sentence everyone expected. The king personally went to the dungeon to give the murderer a choice: he would order her hanging that very day... unless she married him.

To save her own neck, Katherina - this was the prisoner's name - accepted the king's proposal, and that very day she was transferred from the dungeon to Queen Morgana's old chamber; a new prison, only less cold and dark than the first. It was necessary, however, to wait seven years after Morgana's disappearance before she was officially considered dead and the king could marry again. And then, without the guards constantly on her tail, Katherina would look for a new opportunity to kill Snow White.

The princess's seventh birthday arrived, and Katherina found herself married to a man she couldn't stand, crowned and pregnant. And as soon as his desire for the new queen cooled, the king finally mourned his second wife; and the knowledge that she had given him a daughter he had barely known before only made his resentment grow even more.

It wasn't long before the enchantment he had once felt for Katherina turned into utter contempt.

Meanwhile, Snow White grew up, surrounded by love and protection from the servants and palace guards, with her stepmother, nicknamed the Wicked Queen, always on the lookout for an opportunity to exterminate the last living root of the evil Morgana. And as if the guards weren't enough, a wolf appeared in the castle and began to protect the princess, following her like a shadow. To get her hands on Snow White, Katherina would probably have to kill the beast first. However, Snow White's heart never turned wicked.

The girl was sweet and had such a gentle soul that she unwittingly won the affection of even the Evil Queen, although the latter never showed it.

But Katherina couldn't give in to the child's charms. Evil sometimes lurks in the most innocent of receptacles. However, despite her slightly energetic temperament, she saw less and less reason to worry about the princess's character. Apparently, she hadn't even inherited her mother's powers. The witches of the forest, however, were absolutely convinced that the princess's apparent kindness was nothing more than a ruse, for just as a snake hides in the foliage, evil sometimes hides under kind smiles. Katherina couldn't let her heart soften. Snow White had to die!

As the years went by, the young Snow White became a brave, determined woman with a keen sense of justice. As the king's bitterness grew, he oppressed the people, demanding heavier and heavier taxes to feed his greed. In opposition to her father, she went out into the kingdom, helping those in need, defending the oppressed and helping the poor.

The princess even distributed the supplies from the castle kitchen, and the money she managed to get hold of to help people; and so, naturally, she won the sympathy of the whole kingdom. The queen herself secretly admired her stepdaughter's energy.

And the princess wasn't the only one fighting against the king's excesses. A band of thieves often stood by the side of the road, waiting for the tax collectors' carriages, to prevent them from fattening the king's coffers. Once recovered, the money was immediately returned to the people, starting with the most needy. Because of their philosophy of stealing from the rich to help the poor, these men won the sympathy and protection of the people, who took great pleasure in deceiving the soldiers to avoid persecution.

The King was already looking forward to capturing this gang, when a curious episode occurred in which two guards, disguised as Franciscan monks, were captured by the bandits, trying to take the tax money along a different route to the one the carriage had taken, in order to avoid the robbery. The two men were tied up in the square, wearing only their underwear, and the money was once again taken by the bandits and returned to the population.

It was then that the king decided to offer a reward of one hundred gold coins to anyone who captured this vile gang, and especially its infamous leader, Robin Hood. The thief, however, was not perturbed to learn that he was being hunted. He was used to escaping death and always having an armed soldier on his tail. But since the king wanted to meet him so much, Robin Hood was willing to pay him a visit.

Using the greengrocer's cart that supplied the castle kitchen as a Trojan horse to get through the gates, and thanks to the long tongues of certain of the king's servants, the gang had no trouble finding the treasure chamber, which was guarded by a real army... of empty armor; a hoax that the king had designed to scare off invaders. If they thought it was a real army and tried to fight, the sound of swords hitting armor would attract the guards. Knowing it was nothing more than a ruse, the gang sneaked in carefully so as not to knock over the armor, and after defeating the door lock with a piece of wire, what unfolded in front of them took their breath away.

- Open up, Sesame! We're in Ali Baba's cave! - whispered one of the men, astonished.

It was a large room with high ceilings, full of the most varied riches: piles of gold and silver coins, several chests full of precious stones, countless statuettes and objects made of solid gold... An extraordinary variety of priceless objects.

In just a few minutes, the boys had filled several bags with the king's treasures. The only thing they hadn't counted on was a sentry asleep inside the treasure chamber, in an upper cavity in the high wall, right next to a gong. At the shrill ringing of the piece, a crowd of guards rushed in, leaving the men with no time or route to escape.

They would have been easily captured, had it not been for the providential help of a mysterious person who, hiding in the chamber, revealed a secret passage to a labyrinth of tunnels in the castle's basement, which led to an opening on the west side of the wall, obscured by the shadow of the forest's great oaks. From there, all you had to do was silently cross a shallow area of the moat and run into the woods.

- I owe you my life and the lives of my men," whispered Robin to his mysterious savior, still in the shadow of the tunnel. - If I ever get the chance, to whom should I repay the kindness? The person took a step into the moonlight, allowing him to see her face. It was Snow White.

For the next few days, Robin Hood couldn't keep the beautiful princess out of his thoughts.

Her men had taken the valuables taken from the king's treasuries to sell to the Black Prince, a nobleman of few scruples, whose fortune and title had been won by despoiling his enemies. And with the kingdom's poor well supplied, the princess had no reason to leave the castle for many days. So if he wanted to see her again, Robin would have to invade the fortress once more.

And the only way to get close without being seen, with every guard and mercenary in the kingdom looking for the bounty on her head, was to dress like a maid. Especially since Snow White's room was the most heavily guarded in the castle; even more so than the treasure chamber, with a real, live guard at her door at all times - a precaution to keep her safe from the Evil Queen.

Snow White was brushing her long black hair in front of the mirror when he entered her room. The she-wolf, who never left the princess's side, approached the thief as soon as he had taken off the shawl he was wearing to shade his face, sniffing him with her teeth bared.

- "It's all right, Freya," assured the princess.

- Do you have a pet wolf? - Robin was surprised.

- It's more like a guardian. In case the guards aren't enough.

After sniffing him for a moment, the animal seemed convinced that the boy was no danger. He was actually a little embarrassed to admit that he had entered the castle just to see the princess.

- Mirror, mirror, is there a more charming princess than me? - said Snow White, smiling at her reflection.

- It's unlikely," replied Robin Hood, smiling.

Although flattered, Snow White asked him not to make the mistake of falling in love with her, as her father had already promised her hand to King Leopold of Monferrato, a man famous for his cruelty. Prisoners who were unfortunate enough to fall into his hands didn't live long enough to face a formal execution and were tortured to death by him.

Some said that he feasted on the flesh of prisoners of war, drank their blood in golden chalices and, according to rumors, killed his first wife and newborn son with his own hands. The misfortune of any outsider was to cross the path of this ruler, who was deservedly nicknamed the Beast.

Robin Hood offered to help her escape, but the princess knew that he would be hunted down by two wicked kings if he did.

- "The people of this kingdom need you more than they need me," she added.

And no matter how noble the bandit's intentions, Snow White convinced him that he shouldn't interfere or encourage the people to defend her. She wasn't exactly resigned to her fate, but she assured him that she would know how to deal with this monster, hinting that she already had her own plan in mind to avoid him.

- My destiny was carefully mapped out from my mother's womb. I was born destined for the crown. And I know exactly which path to take. Please forget you ever met me. Your romantic fantasy can't come true with me.

- I will stop this wedding," promised Robin Hood.

- Guards! - called Snow White, her voice devoid of emotion.

Robin hastily pulled his shawl over his head.

- "Virginia is leaving," said the princess, indicating the door to the "maid".

Robin left the alcove, begrudgingly, but without question.

- Silly boy," muttered Snow White as soon as the door was closed. But she sighed to herself: "In another life, perhaps?

As he left the castle, a growing certainty filled Robin's heart: he would keep his promise; he would stop Snow White's wedding at any cost.

Snow White's imminent nuptials to the Beast were announced a few days later, and there was no one who didn't lament the fate of the kind princess. However, she seemed resigned to her fate, remaining indifferent during her fiancé's visit.

Retiring to her alcove early, the princess found Robin Hood sprawled on her bed. Over the last few days, he had insisted vehemently on escaping.

- You're very conceited... Why do you think I would run away with you?

- I never told you to run away with me. I told you to run away from the Beast! I think it's you who's falling in love with me.

- Don't talk nonsense.

Although she wouldn't admit it, the two young people were clearly united by more than just the same ideals. The sweet flame of passion had captured their hearts, despite any resistance. And Robin had already formulated the whole plan: the following night, Snow White was to dismiss her maid. His men would create a distraction so that he could rescue her, but she remained reluctant to agree. Suddenly, the she-wolf stood up, startled. Someone was turning the door handle. The princess led him to the balcony and instructed him to climb down the vine. As soon as Robin reached the ground and ran into the darkness, she authorized the person to enter. Freya was growling. To Snow White's complete surprise, it wasn't her maid who entered. It was the Evil Queen.

The queen had long been convinced that she had been hasty in her judgment. The princess hadn't inherited her mother's powers or, more importantly, her temperament, and she certainly didn't deserve to be condemned to live alongside the Beast.

Realizing that the princess was plotting her escape with the thief, Katherina decided to help. While they were talking, she had a servant offer the princess's guards wine mixed with a sleeping potion, so that they wouldn't prevent her from entering, and offer Snow White an apple soaked in a potion that would give her the appearance of death.

- Poison? - suspected the princess.

- No. A recipe I learned a long time ago from an Egyptian witch. You will sleep soundly for a day and a night, but your heart will beat so faintly that it will be impossible to feel it; your breathing will be so soft that it won't be noticeable. You will be buried in the castle crypt, from where your noble thief will have no trouble rescuing you through the underground tunnels.

Naturally, Snow White suspected that this might be a plot to kill her and frame Robin Hood, but over the years, the queen has had countless opportunities to kill her, and has failed to do so. Right now, she was in her chambers, while the guards slept the "sleep of death" on her doorstep. The princess had long since stopped fearing her stepmother; she was just used to avoiding her. Even the she-wolf, although alert, didn't seem too concerned about the queen's presence at that moment.

- Tomorrow will be the new moon. The forest will be dark. Eat the apple tonight, and tomorrow you'll be far away from here, in the arms of your bandit. Giving her stepdaughter a sympathetic smile, the queen left the room.

Snow White hesitated, staring at the fruit. In fact, the queen's plan was an excellent one, as it would prevent a chase after her escape. For all intents and purposes, from that night on, the princess would be dead. And very soon, with Robin Hood's help, she would be free. It could be a ruse... But it was worth the risk.

The princess quickly scribbled a message for Robin, and persuaded her chambermaid to arrange for it to reach him.

- This had better work... - hissed the princess hours later, alone in her room, settling under the covers. As she bit into the fruit, a numbing sensation began to cloud her mind, until she lost consciousness. The last thing she saw was the blood-red apple rolling out of her hand and onto the carpet.

The flag at the castle was lowered to half-mast not long after dawn. As the morning progressed, news began to circulate that Princess Snow White had died in her sleep.

The people were inconsolable. How could such a terrible thing happen to such a good soul? The princess was buried at dusk, in the crypt in the basement of the castle, where her ancestors also lay.

The Beast had set off that very afternoon, galloping furiously on his black steed, carrying the severed heads of the princess's guards, whom he had blamed for his fiancée's untimely death.

Without much hope that the princess would revive - considering that the plan had been devised by the Evil Queen - Robin Hood waited for nightfall and sneaked into the castle to the crypt where Snow White lay. The queen hurried him to carry her away while she was still asleep, and he stayed behind, tidying up the tomb so that no one would suspect that it had been tampered with, but the she-wolf, excited by the kidnapping of her mistress, ended up attracting the attention of the guards with her howls. Robin Hood managed to escape, carrying the sleeping princess in his arms to a wagon hidden in the forest, with the faithful she-wolf escorting them to the thieves' refuge. However, the queen didn't have time to hide and ended up being surprised by the guards at Snow White's empty tomb.

Thinking that she had been responsible for her death and that, not satisfied with the murder, she had destroyed the princess's body, the guards brought the Evil Queen before the king, certain that this time he would not spare her. The queen was taken to the scaffold at sunset the next day for the murder of Snow White.

At the moment of her execution, however, a hiss crossed the square, and an arrow accurately pierced the rope of the gallows, just above the queen's head, at the exact moment the trapdoor opened. Katherina fell straight to the ground, without suffering any damage.

A huge commotion took over the square. Men armed with bows and swords emerged from everywhere, bravely charging at the king's guards. The bravest townspeople got involved in the fight, helping in any way they could: with knives, staffs and pieces of wood, while the rest fled the confusion. The she-wolf jumped on the executioner and tore him apart while the guards tried to contain the rebels.

A horseman with a hooded face led the way through the square with his sword until he reached the foot of the scaffold, where two of the invaders helped the queen to her feet.

- Don't let the prisoner escape! - shouted the king.

But it was too late. The rebels freed her hands and lifted her onto the horse's saddle.

Clinging tightly to her rescuer, the queen tried to kick anyone who came near. The rebels stood around the horse, fending off the people and the soldiers, while the rider skillfully made his way out of the square.

It was only when they reached the safe hiding place, a complex of huts suspended between the tops of large trees around a clearing, that the horses rested and the riders helped the queen to dismount.

- To whom do I owe my life? - she asked, as soon as she caught her breath.

- Guess what? - Said one of the knights who had escorted them, whose voice was recognized even before the hood was removed. The queen's voice came out in a sigh of relief:

- Snow White!

When she woke up in the thieves' hideout the next morning, for the first time in years, Katherina felt free. All she wanted now was to be reunited with her sisters, Cassandra and Theodora, the witches of the forest, but her stepdaughter persuaded her to stay in the hideout for one more night, as the gang would be preparing a feast for them.

After feasting on the excellent food and enjoying the festive atmosphere in the clearing, Snow White invited her stepmother to visit a lake near the hideaway, which she used to visit with her nanny when she was little.

Robin Hood led them along the confusing forest paths to the beautiful lake surrounded by wildflowers. The stars reflected on its surface, giving the illusion that one could immerse oneself in the immensity of the sky. Normally, the resemblance to a mirror would have made Katherina uncomfortable, with the memory of the time she had lived imprisoned in Morgana's Mirror, but such a beautiful lake didn't inspire any terror in her.

At least, until Robin noticed that he wasn't the only mirror in the place.

Partly hidden among the trees, on a path parallel to the one they had used to reach the lake, a large black mirror had been positioned on a trestle.

The queen's heart skipped a beat when she recognized it. She took a few steps ahead of the others, intimately praying that she was wrong.

- That's strange... - Said Robin Hood, still staring at the shiny object in the distance. - It looks like a mirror I saw kept in the king's treasure chamber...

A yelp escaped the thief's throat. The queen turned in a flash, just in time to see him fall, choking on his own blood. The noble thief fell to the grass, with a deep wound in his jugular. The dagger used to wound him was raised, bathed in blood, in Snow White's hands.

- I told you it was a mistake to fall in love with me," said the princess, staring at the corpse in front of her.

The Evil Queen's eyes popped out of their sockets as she realized the trap she had fallen into.

- "Long time no see, Katherina," said a voice at her back. The queen slowly turned to face her demon, but she had already recognized the voice, even before she saw the face staring back at her from the surface of the mirror: Morgana.

As soon as she accepted the king's marriage proposal and was transferred to the room that belonged to Morgana, Katherina covered the mirror; and as soon as she became queen, she ordered the servants to remove it from her room and destroy it.

She still had nightmares about the time she lived trapped inside it, serving as a crystal ball for the perfidious Morgana to plan her evil deeds. The world on the other side of the Mirror is a dimension of mist and darkness, where all the possibilities of fate are mixed together. Through the mists, she could see the future, but she couldn't interfere with it.

Even when someone was supposed to. And the slave of the mirror can only tell the truth. She can't even manipulate words to mask or disguise the facts. How many times had she wished she could throw Morgana into a trap with a false prediction? How was it possible that now that thing was coming back to haunt her?

It was Snow White who had kept it. The maid who had been ordered to destroy it gave it to the princess as a memento of her mother.

- I can't tell you how surprised I was to discover that my dear mother was imprisoned in that cursed mirror," revealed Snow White.

Of course, Katherina suspected that Morgana was definitely not dead. It took three witches to banish a sorceress to darkness, and at the time of the spell, her two sisters had to perform it alone. As much as Katherina wanted to help, from that dimension in the mirror it was impossible to use her magic. It was only a matter of time before Morgana found a way back. She just couldn't imagine that the sorceress would return caught in her own trap.

Morgana had created that prison from an ancient crystal, whose inner mist allowed any soul trapped there to glimpse the future. Then Morgana turned it into a mirror: a perfect prison to hide the most beautiful of all women.

Aphrodite, who was not exactly a goddess, but a powerful and extremely vain sorceress, envied Katherina's beauty. And in exchange for her destruction, she offered an ancient Grimoire, containing various secrets of black magic, to the wicked Morgana.

Satisfied that her rival was trapped in the mirror, Aphrodite handed over the Grimoire, where Morgana finally discovered the artifact that would make her the most powerful and invulnerable entity on Earth: the fruit of Persephone.

Obviously, Snow White couldn't risk anyone finding out that her mother was a powerful sorceress who was teaching her her craft so that she could avenge her and set her free.

So she moved the mirror to the treasure chamber where, while everyone slept, she secretly learned to develop her powers.

Until her father decided to marry her off to the Beast. Robin Hood's ridiculous infatuation with her turned out to be a very convenient way to avoid this marriage, as her mother had bigger plans for when she became queen of her birthplace.

Snow White soon planned to murder her brother and father, take over the throne and, together with her mother, become the Queen of Darkness.

- I should have poisoned that apple when I had the chance," concluded Katherina.

- "It's too late for that now," said Morgana. - "The spell your disgusting sisters did the night my daughter was born freed you, and trapped me in the mirror instead. Now your death will set me free!

The princess raised the dagger, still stained with Robin Hood's blood, but the flesh it wounded was not Katherina's. The she-wolf had been her guardian since the beginning of her life. The she-wolf who had been her guardian since childhood lunged forward and grabbed the princess's arm, throwing the dagger into the lake.

- Freya, you bastard! - screamed Snow White, lying in the grass, trying to stop the bleeding from her arm, just above the wrist.

Now the she-wolf was snarling, more furiously than ever, at the princess she had protected all these years, in defense of the Evil Queen.

- Kill that creature! - screamed Morgana, punching the mirror from the inside with both hands. Enraged, Snow White set fire to the animal. However, instead of killing it, the flames broke a spell, making the she-wolf take on human form again. As soon as the fire was out, the wolf-woman stared at Snow White with rage in her icy blue eyes.

- Who the hell are you? - asked the princess, horrified.

- "I am Queen Leda," said the wolf woman, her face scratched by the dagger. - And you will never be queen of my kingdom.

- The king's first wife is alive! - exulted the Evil Queen, adding an amused laugh.

Leda hadn't fallen into a frozen lake, as everyone thought. Morgana had turned her into a wolf and planted her scarf in the hole in the ice, so that everyone would think she had died and the witch could marry the king immediately. The wolf had never protected Snow White, after all, she had protected everyone else from the sordid princess.

- "Well then, I'll have to kill two queens," said Snow White, hurling Leda into the trees with her power. Katherina dampened her speed, preventing the former she-wolf from being impaled by the branches. Snow White took advantage of her distraction to pull another dagger from her boot and throw herself at her stepmother.

Katherina struggled, holding onto her stepdaughter's wrist, trying to disarm her, while the princess tried to use the fire to push her away. Just then, a chant arose from the trees as the two forest witches entered the meadow on the shore of the lake. At their command, the raven returned to camp in the early evening and followed the group to the lake. When Snow White wounded Robin Hood, he flew like an arrow back to the hut to warn the sisters.

Snow White raised her head to look in the direction of the witches, and Katherina took the opportunity to throw her away with her power. Then she joined her voice to the sisters' to cast the fatal spell.

- MAKE THEM STOP! - screamed Morgana, helpless inside the mirror, feeling her arms being gripped by an invisible force. The same force that also held Snow White.

Katherina joined Cassandra and Theodora on the edge of the meadow, and the three witches joined hands to conjure death against the two evil women.

A deafening clap of thunder echoed through the kingdom as lightning struck the meadow by the lake. From the crack that opened up, the Shadow of Death emerged, hungry and furious, grabbing Snow White. The princess screamed something unintelligible as the Shadow swallowed her into the hole in the ground.

From inside the mirror, Morgana watched with wild eyes as the earth swallowed up her daughter, regurgitating her blood onto the grass. A supernatural force dragged the mirror into the same crack. A bolt of lightning struck it right in the center, splitting the black crystal like a spider's web.

The Shadow of Death emerged from the mists, grabbed the wicked sorceress and dragged her through the mirror and into the fiery rift. The three witches looked away just as the mirror shattered, disappearing into the rift, which immediately closed. Morgana and Snow White were banished to the Darkness forever.

Queen Leda cowered by the tree she had been thrown against. She wasn't hurt, but seemed horrified by the scene she had witnessed.

- We're all free," said Katherina. And with a relieved smile, she added to Queen Leda:

"Now, we must return to the castle. I have a crown to give you back.

The End