The garden of blooms sprawled in front of her. However, the beauty in front of her did not please her. Her attention totally focused on the little girl playing happily amongst the oleander bushes. Her nemesis.
"My Queen, the King would like your audience," the voice of her maid cut through her reverie.
"Send him in," she snapped.
The King strode in, his presence dwarfing the huge chamber. "When the hell will you assume your duties as the queen of the Kingdom, Queen Crierwy?"
"The day I feel like I'm a Queen, not a shadow of your dead wife," she bit back, tears of humiliation gathering in her huge eyes.
The King remained unperturbed. "I loved her," he said quietly, "it is difficult for me to forget her. You know under what circumstances we got married. If only your mother....."
"Don't you dare take her name in front of me ..." she thundered, forgetting her positon in her anger. "She sold me to you for the promises you made to her."
"I didn't make any promises," The King caught her shoulders and forced her to look towards him. His face earnest, reflecting her own grief. "I didn't want to marry anyone after Snow's mother died. I'm still trying to understand her death. "
Crierwry gave a mirthless laugh, "Have you not yet understood it, my Lord?
The King shook his head, looking bewildered. Crierwry smiled and walked towards her gilded mirror. She pushed aside the covers and whispered,
"Mirror Mirror on the wall,
Let the King find his answers once for all. "
The she plunged her hand right inside the mirror.
The King took a few steps back in horror. "You're an enchantress?"
Criewry didn't say anything but brought out an apple from the mirror. "This is the apple your wife ate before she died of illness. You all thought it was the plague." She turned the apple towards the King. He saw a bite mark - similar to the apple that had been lying beside his dear late wife when she hand fallen to her fatal slumber. "This was poisoned apple my mother, The Enchantress Ceridwen, had given to her best friend - your wife."
The King slumped to the nearest settee. "Why?"
The Queen looked at him contemptuously, "Don't you remember? Seducing her and leaving her? Do you think she has ever forgiven you for that? You chose her best friend as your Queen, after making her dream about a future with you."
The King was breathing hard by now. "But you are her daughter? How could she do that to you?
"She has filled me with the same anger that she is consumed with. My love was also killed by her magic, so that I wouldn't dare to marry anyone but you. My heart is no more beating, my Lord. It is just a hard mass." She brought the apple very near the King's face. "Just like this Apple.. Be warned, this apple will slowly be a part of your history - never to be forgotten."
The King looked at her beauty, now contorted with anger and vengeance and walked out of the door, a sense of doom resting heavily on his stooped shoulders. The heavy door closed behind him but the piercing laughter of the woman from behind door, resonated in his soul.