Loki fell back on her enormous bed; it was soft and comfy. He saw drawings on the ceiling, full of doves, ravens, owls, and apples, with the color pink being the most dominant.
“You’re not here to take a nap,” Snow White said. “That’s my bed, and you didn’t ask permission.”
“It’s your bed, your castle, and your dream. I believe we’ve been over that, my princess,” Loki sat up, resting his elbows on the cushiony bed. He had a big smile on his face. “Speaking of naps, how long is this dream. I thought it was only supposed to last around forty two minutes?”
“Time is different between the Dreamworld and the waking world,” she said. “I don’t know how, but when the dream is about to end, the crows will start to gather—”
“And then the world will fall apart,” Loki nodded. “I know.”
She sat next to Loki on the bed, a bit too close for a boy who was afraid of demon girls up until less than half an hour ago. “What?” she narrowed her eyes. “Never been with a girl alone in her room?”
“Room, yes. Bed’s a bit different,” Loki said, averting his eyes from her.
She said nothing, trying her best not to laugh at how polite he was trying to be.
“And also not when the girl’s father is the King of Sorrow,” Loki shrugged.
Snow White moved even closer. This close, he couldn’t stop looking at her lips, red as blood. Whoever had written this about her forgot to say: lips red like strawberries, like candy and cherries, like as hot as chilies and freaking attractive. He felt so silly.
“Tell me,” Loki said, literally pushing her away a little. “So Angel swims all the way to the shore, finds an island, and makes it his Kingdom of Sorrow. What happens next?”
“They found land after being lost in the ocean for seven days. They decided to build their own kingdom there. Years went by, and the kingdom became one of the greatest in the world.”
“So far so good,” Loki said. “Your parents escaped their pursuers and started a new life as king and queen.”
“That was the case until Night von Sorrow found the kingdom,” Snow White said.
“What?”
“Like I said, Night wasn’t going to give up hunting them. My father gathered and trained an army of young and strong huntsmen and soldiers to protect the borders. It was a very special army,” she explained. “And although the kingdom was safe, my father paid the price of having to fight Night’s vampire army at the border forever. Each day he fought them, and people died to keep the Kingdom of Sorrow safe.”
“And your mother?”
“My father prevented her from getting involved. She was ruling the kingdom in his absence, which was enough of a burden already. Maybe he also wanted to keep her safe because he needed her blood—I’m not sure, but every two to three days, he had to travel back to her to get his drops of blood.”
“Ah. I forgot about that. She was his most important source of power against the vampires.”
“Exactly,” she said. “So my mother, being the Queen of the Kingdom of Sorrow, was lonely and stressed most of the time. Although she was still young, she wanted to have a child to fill the void and the absence of my father.”
“You?”
“Yes. She begged my father repeatedly to have me, but he denied her wish at the time.”
“Why?”
“He said that he needed to win the war with vampires first, that he couldn’t risk what could happen to her or the baby if he lost the war.”
“And what was your mother’s reaction to that?” Loki asked.
“There was nothing she could do, but her lonely life and the responsibilities of the kingdom were suffocating her, and she started killing time by practicing witchcraft.”
“That’s an odd thing to do.”
“She’d been into witchcraft long before that, never for evil purposes, though. She learned how to cast protecting spells on the kingdom’s borders to prevent the avenging vampires from entering when she first built the kingdom with my father. Still, she always felt lonely, and she pleaded with my father repeatedly to have a child. She accused him of not loving her anymore, and that was why he didn’t want her child. Eventually, my father granted her the wish of having me.”
“So did she really wish you’d have lips red as blood, skin pale as snow, and hair black as a window frame like it’s mentioned in the Grimm Brothers fairy tale?”
“Yes, and she had her reasons. On the night my parents decided they wanted to bring me into this world, Carmilla used a spell she’d learned, wishing for me to look like my father in every way. She loved him dearly, and she wanted me to grow to be a stronger woman than her. She hadn’t seen anyone as strong as Angel in her life, and she thought if I looked as beautiful as my father, I’d be as powerful and determined as him.”