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A moment later, a woman in a white flowing gown walked out from the tree. Her hair was long and red and curled around her face. She walked- almost floated- over to me.

“Snow. You have grown.”

When she said my name, I felt like my body seize as the air shifted around me and could almost feel Gage’s body react, but I didn’t want to look to find out.

“Persephone.” I started, but didn’t really know how to word the rest. “My mother, she… she came to me in a dream and instructed me to find you. She said there were things I needed to know that she couldn’t tell me, but you could.”

“My dear Snow.” She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and guided me away.

I quickly glanced over my shoulder and saw Gage standing there, torn and in shock.“You have led a very troubled life. Born from magic. Harvested for youth. Now, hunted till death.”

I stopped walking and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Oh Snow. The Queen couldn’t have children.”

I shook my head in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

She sighed. “While she may have birthed you…” she paused and grabbed my hands, “you were not hers.”

“What?” My knees felt weak.

“You are Merla’s daughter.”

“My stepmother? But how?” I felt bile rising in my throat. I was going to be sick.

“She came to the Queen as a blackbird, causing her to poke herself with a needle. In the wound, Merla could pass on the curse for the Queen to bore you, binding your life to the Queens. She needed to die for you to live.”

I shook my head, speechless, as I watched the trees sway and the birds fly.

Life was moving around me, but I felt dead on the inside.

I was dead.

This couldn’t be happening.

I snapped my head in her direction. “You said harvested for youth.”

She nodded.

“The curse made it so that when you were born, Merla could use your youth to keep her young.”

“Which is why she wanted to kill me when I turned eighteen- I was no longer a child.”

She nodded but didn’t speak.

“Which is why I’m now hunted till death.” I said, replaying her words back to her.

“Every day you live as an adult, she begins to age.”

“Why me? I can’t be the only one…”

“You aren’t. Huntsmen, for centuries, have hunted her children down and killed them.”

“Oh, Goddess.”

“Desperate for youth and vitality, she had the Queen carry you so no one would suspect who you really were. Probably the only reason you’ve been able to live into adulthood.”

“So she used my mother as a surrogate and then killed her. She made my father think he had a child. Who is my father?”