Princess Snow and the Empress

18: Sapphire Blue Eyes

Snow was dreaming again, she was sure of it. Faces appeared and disappeared from the mists before her eyes: her father's stern sigh – the same sigh whenever she was in trouble; her foster mothers' smirks from behind silk fans; Master Li's perpetual scowl beneath his mustache...

Her dear Chow Chow, its white fur bright in the sunlight, running up to her... leaping into her arms, licking her cheeks...

Snow lifted her face off the floor. That's right – she was still in the cottage, except now it was dark. Moonlight beamed in through the window, the open door creaked in the wind.

Pain shredded through her once more. Snow groaned. Curse the Empress! Curse her, and her stupid, poisoned apple.

She knocked her own forehead against the wood. I cannot die like this. After all that she had done, I cannot let that lying snake win.

Her eyes trailed to the dwarves' sleeping mats. She could not let them find her like this, it would devastate them. What could she do? Through her tears, she saw it. The medicine box.

With all the strength she could summon, she propped herself up on one elbow. She fought through the excruciating pain to drag herself towards the medicine box.

Snow pulled the cover off and the box toppled onto the floor, spilling its contents before her. Her blood smeared over their labels as she frantically searched through them. Blood clotting powder did not work – even after she poured its entire contents over the gash on her wrist. Her blood simply washed the clumps of powder away.

She needed the one for blood poisoning.

This is it! She grasped the neck of a bottle; through her blurring vision, she could just make out the characters for 'blood' written upon it. Snow pried the stopper open and downed its contents. The liquid burned her throat like fire and the taste made her gag.

She swayed, her head only growing lighter. She squinted at the bottle again, forcing her vision to clear. For blood stagnation and stasis.

Snow cried in both frustration and pain. The bottle pinged as it dropped to the floor. She scrambled for the other bottle, reading the characters upon it more closely this time. For blood poisoning. She could not afford to be wrong again.

The strength was leaving her fingers. Snow pulled on its stopper again and again before it finally came open with a pop. Its contents were acrid, but she gulped it all down to the last drop.

Nothing happened at first, but after a moment, the pain started to subside.

It's working! She started to cry in relief, but her sobs were quickly cut as the air was choked out of her and an intense pain surged from her spine to her limbs. Her stomach twisted, like a wet rag being wrung of its last drops.

Goddess have mercy! She covered her mouth but could not stop the flow as she retched a stream of black bile onto the floor.

She purged until she could hardly breathe, and when she could finally stop, she backed away and rolled onto her side. Her breathing became ragged and shallow. The world started to dim, like someone had covered her head with a black silk veil.

What a mess I've made. I'm sorry for the mess. I'm sorry for troubling you, brothers.

Master Li, I'm sorry I've been such a monster.

Erden...

In her mind, she was back at the lake where she had seen the pain behind his smile, felt that jolt of lightning when their eyes met, and felt his hand on hers. The warm sensation of his skin had burned through her like a sweet flame. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to dredge up a long-forgotten memory from her childhood.