A Wicked Thing

by Rhiannon Thomas

  “Yes,” Aurora said. A smile crept across her lips despite herself. “That sounds lovely.”

  Betsy nodded and slid a pin into place. She opened her mouth to speak again, but the door opened, and Queen Iris swept into the room. She wore a tense, pinched expression, her hands clutched in front of her.

  “Prince Finnegan wishes to see you,” the queen said. She emphasized the ns in Finnegan’s name so that it sounded like an insult.

  Aurora turned. A lock of hair tumbled, brushing her shoulder. “Right now?”

  “Yes, right now,” the queen said. “Why else would I be here? Betsy, leave her hair. She will have to do as she is.”

  He must have news, some new information about the events of the previous night. Aurora removed the loose pin, trying to appear calm. “What does he wish to see me about?”

  “Goodness knows, Aurora. If that prince has any logic in his head, he is loath to share it with me.”

  The queen led Aurora to a small lounge filled with comfortable-looking chairs on one of the castle’s upper floors. Finnegan stood up when the door opened, offering her a casual smile. His expression did not give a single hint about the last time they had spoken.

  “Ah, Princess Aurora,” he said. “How lovely to see you again.” He bent down and brushed his lips across the back of her hand. Her cheek tingled with the memory of his kiss, the anticipation that burned when she thought he would really kiss her, the thrill of uncertainty over whether she would shove him away. “Thank you for allowing us another meeting, my dear Iris. I appreciate it, as always.”

  The queen tilted her head in acknowledgment. “I am afraid I can only spare the princess for half an hour. We have many things to do in preparation for tomorrow’s banquet.”

  “Yes, of course,” Finnegan said. “I will savor the moments.”

  The queen nodded again, her hands held before her. “I will return to collect you, Aurora. My guards will wait outside the door if you need anything.” Then she departed, her skirts flowing out behind her.

  Aurora spoke as soon as the door clicked shut. “What is it?” she said. “Did you learn something about last night?”

  “Nothing more than what you heard. The king is keeping it quiet. I doubt Iris even knows.”

  Aurora shook her head. “He can’t keep it quiet for long,” she said. “So many people are dead.”

  “People that nobody cares about,” Finnegan said. “If we hear about it, it’ll be about rebels storming in and killing the king’s men. But they’ll keep that quiet too, if they can. It wouldn’t be good for the king to reveal flaws in his defenses, so close to the happy day.”

  “You heard about it,” Aurora said. “You knew before it even started.”

  “I have my sources,” he said.

  “You have spies, you mean.”

  “Of course.”

  “Why didn’t you stop it?” she said. “If you knew what was going to happen?”

  He sat down on one of the comfortable chairs. “How would I stop it, Aurora? Please, enlighten me. How do I stop people I don’t know from doing something they’ve already started, or stop the sovereign of another country from dealing with his own criminals? Should I swoop in with my dragons and threaten them all? Or maybe you were thinking something subtler. Charming them all into submission, perhaps?”

  She frowned. “Don’t mock me,” she said. “Not now.”

  “It’s strange how you always take the truth as mockery. Perhaps there is just something inherently mockable about you.”

  “Or perhaps there is just something inherently insufferable about you.”

  “Insufferable?” he said. “Harsh words, Aurora. But remember, I was the one who kept you informed last night. Without me, you’d be as ignorant as you were before.”

  “I guess that makes you my spy,” she said. “Although not a very informative one.”

  “I live to serve. If not very well.”

  She still refused to sit down. She paced, the nervous energy of the night buzzing through her.

  “Things could have been worse,” Finnegan said, after a few moments of silence. “That friend of yours was lucky to escape.”

  “Friend?” She stopped. “What do you mean—?”

  “I saw your face, when they were threatening that boy. You knew him.”

  She stared at him. There seemed little point in lying. “Yes,” she said. The confession made her dizzy. “I did. Or I thought I did.”

  “Thinking of betraying Rodric, were you? And with someone other than me? I’m hurt, Aurora, truly I am.” He spoke lightly, but something hard and intense gleamed in his eyes.

  “If you want to give me that nonsense, now is not the time.”

  “Now seems exactly the time.” He stood up, so that she had to crane her neck to look at him. He was at least six inches taller than she was. For once, his expression was sincere, without a hint of a grin. “You saw King John for who he really is last night. You can’t stay here, not after that.”

  “I have to stay.”

  “No,” he said. “You don’t. And you’d be a fool to do so. There’s no hope for you here. There’s no hope for anyone.”

  “So you’re trying to convince me to betray my country to save it? How noble of you.”

  “Well, my motives aren’t entirely noble,” he said. “But you summed it up rather well.” He leaned closer, until his nose almost brushed hers. “Things are only going to get worse, Aurora. Last night was just a taste of what will happen if you stay.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because I’ve seen these things before. This is only the beginning, Aurora. Which is why you should listen to me. Have you wondered why, even though we’re small, your king and queen fear Vanhelm? It’s because we’re rich. Well organized. People are happy to ally with us.”

  She stepped backward, forcing more space between them. “It’s because they’re stupid enough to think someone like you could control the dragons. Not because you’re actually powerful.”

  His smile grew at her assertion, as though he expected nothing less from her. “Ah, but I made them think I had that kind of power. Don’t you think that shows some intelligence and initiative too? I’m sure you know plenty about letting people believe lies, with your wedding to your true love so close. The only difference is, my lie makes me look powerful. It gets me what I want. Your lie just puts you in the background. And you do look so stifled there.”

  “I will not be in the background for long,” she said. “I will make a difference.”

  “Really? Is that what you think?”

  She forced herself not to look away. “I woke up for a reason,” she said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  “And who says that reason is Rodric? Who says the reason is staying here?”

  She threw up her chin. Her hair tickled her neck. “The fact that he woke me up, and you didn’t? Rodric will make a good king. And I will make a good queen.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said. “But let me tell you something. Rodric might make a good king someday, but not now. Not in this mess. What do you plan to do in the meantime?” She did not reply. “For someone so fierce, you seem surprisingly happy to be powerless. You don’t have to stay here and go down with the rest of them. If you came with me, you could let some of that fire out. Be who you are actually meant to be.”

  Fire. The burns on her hands throbbed.

  “I would have thought you have enough fire,” she said. “What with that dragon problem of yours.”

  “The dragons are beautiful,” he said. “But none is quite so lovely and terrifying as you. John and Iris don’t even know what they have in you.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Now, I’d be a fool to tell you, wouldn’t I, if you aren’t going to be on my side. But you should be careful, Princess. I doubt setting your dear Rodric on fire would fit in with your plans.”

  She drew in a breath, cold and sharp. “How did you—”

  “So it
is true,” he said. “I thought so. Word of advice, Princess: don’t ever assume that anyone knows as much as you do. You never know what you might end up giving away.”

  She pressed her lips together, hating him, hating herself for revealing too much. For falling under the spell of the argument, of the terrible possibilities he promised, and forgetting to guard herself. “You’re despicable.”

  “No,” he said. “I am honest. At least with you.” He was standing too close to her, but she could not move away. “They will destroy you, you know,” he said. “When they find out who you really are.”

  “I will not betray my kingdom.”

  “It would not have to be a betrayal, Aurora,” he said. “Everyone else is playing the game. Why can’t you?”

  She stepped back, her heart pounding. “It isn’t a game,” she said. Finnegan was still too close, his presence filling the room. She moved toward the door, trying to hide the way her hands shook. “Thank you for your advice,” she said. “But I will not change my mind.”

  “Of course not, Princess,” he said. The name seemed taunting on his tongue. “But I’ll be waiting if you do.”

  The queen called Aurora to her chambers again that afternoon for the final fitting of her wedding dress. It fell in streams of gossamer and ice, floating ethereal on the air and transforming her into a fairy that might have slipped, like a dewdrop, out of the mist. Two of the seamstresses gasped and exclaimed at her beauty, while the third, the tall, austere one, stood farther back and watched the scene with stern, approving eyes.

  “What do you think of it, Aurora?” the queen asked as a seamstress placed a single lily behind the princess’s ear. The queen clutched Aurora by the shoulders and spun her gently toward a full-length mirror, decorated with swirling silver and darted through with jewels.

  “It’s beautiful.” And it was. Her hair fell down her shoulders like a waterfall of golden silk, while the material of the dress shimmered with such delicacy that one touch might make it melt away into nothing. The bodice was tight, forcing in Aurora’s stomach, but it also straightened her back, making her tall, elegant, regal. She reached out and touched the cold glass with the tip of her index finger. The skin still seemed to prickle from the point of a needle. This is my destiny. Her head began to spin.

  After the dress had been pinned and tucked, and the seamstresses had scurried away, the queen met her eyes in the mirror. “I think you will do,” she said. She ran a hand down the back of Aurora’s hair. “If you follow my instructions, perhaps things will turn out well.”

  If she practiced her lies. If she remained as careful, as false, as Iris herself.

  Aurora stared at their reflection. The queen’s elegance was effortless, but beneath it, Aurora thought she seemed rather tired. “Tell me what it is like,” Aurora said slowly. “To be queen.”

  The queen frowned, and for a moment, Aurora thought she was going to dismiss her. Then she spoke, her voice soft. “It is . . . hard,” she said. “They are always watching you, Aurora. You have all the appearance of authority, but no actual power. And if you let that appearance slip, you lose even that.”

  “If you knew—if your husband were doing something terrible, would you stop him?”

  “Aurora, my dear, I can as little control my husband as I can stop the rain. After many years, I have learned to cajole him. But my opinion stopped counting the moment I was sent here to marry him.” She ran her fingers through the ends of Aurora’s hair. “But you need not worry yourself about that. You have been given a good lot, for all your grief. Rodric is not that sort of boy.”

  For a moment, Aurora considered going to Rodric and telling him what she had seen. About sneaking into the dungeons, about Tristan, about his father’s brutality. But she couldn’t do it. Not if it meant losing Rodric’s trust. He deserved more than her lies and fake smiles. He deserved the things she could not be.

  Suddenly, she knew what she wanted to do. “I wish to see Rodric,” she said. The words burst out in an ungainly tumble.

  Iris frowned. “The banquet is tomorrow, Aurora, and we have much to do. I am sure it can wait.”

  “I wish to give him a favor,” Aurora said, clutching her skirt with her hand. From what she had read, it was precisely the thing a young princess would request. “I wish . . . to settle things. Before we marry.”

  Perhaps it was her use of the word “marry,” the admission and acceptance of her future, that made the queen pause. “What is it you wish to give him?” she said.

  “A book.”

  The queen raised her eyebrows. “A book? That is hardly a traditional gift.”

  Aurora’s fingers twisted in her skirt. She forced herself to look the queen in the eye. “No,” she said, “but I am hardly a traditional bride.”

  She waited for Rodric in the queen’s garden, sitting stiffly on the chilly wooden bench. The trees here were still bare, but a few brave daffodils had poked their heads free from the soil and burst into bloom, a spattering of sunshine against the shadows of the afternoon. The book lay heavy in Aurora’s lap. She clutched it tightly and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the insistent footsteps of patrolling guards, trying to catch fragments of birdsong in the air.

  “Princess?” Rodric stood in front of her, a concerned frown on his face. “Mother said you wanted to speak with me.”

  She nodded and began to stand.

  “No, please,” he said. “Let’s sit. I do not want to walk with the guards trailing us like assassins may jump out of the bushes at any second.”

  “All right.” She held out the book as he sat. The gold lettering glinted in the fading sunlight. “I wanted to give you this.”

  The Tale of Sleeping Beauty. Her thumb pressed over the golden spinning wheel engraved on the cover, right in the center. He did not move to take it.

  “But . . . it’s yours.”

  “No,” she said. “No, it’s not.” When he still did not move, she placed it on his knee. It wobbled, lurching toward the ground, and Rodric caught it with the heel of his hand.

  “Why are you giving this to me?”

  “I wanted you to have it.” It was all she could say. How could she explain? She wanted the story out of her room, the words and paintings mocking her every imperfection. How could she say that he deserved this dream version of her, that he deserved to hold the story in his hand, even if it could never materialize in her? This was the way things should be, the way things were fated to be, and maybe this was a denial that she could ever be the girl in the pages, but also a promise to him, that she would try her best. That their reality would not be this, but she was accepting, fully, finally, that it must be whatever they could make, together, or else everything would fall apart. That she was setting the story aside, so that she could try to put something like reality in its place.

  He continued to stare at the cover of the book, running his hands along the leather binding. “It’s a good book,” she added.

  He opened it. Once upon a time, when wishes still came true, Alyssinia was ruled by a beloved king and his gentle wife. The illustration was dreamlike and elegant, a bearded king and a woman with hair like sunlight. It had been less than a month since Aurora had seen her parents in person, but she already felt the memory slipping, replaced by the blurry ideal of the paintings. Did her father have wrinkles around his eyes? What did her mother’s hair smell like when she hugged her close? The more she thought, the more she tried to snatch at the memories, the farther they seemed to float, laughing, from her grasp.

  Rodric turned page after page, lingering over every word as though reading them for the first time. Finally, he reached a painting of Aurora, or someone like her, staring at an old battered spinning wheel, her finger outstretched. Aurora pressed her fingertip against the image, trying to remember, fighting to piece together the conflicting scraps left in her thoughts. Why did you do it? he had asked. There’s always a choice. And maybe she did choose. Maybe this was her fault after all.

  “It was f
orbidden,” she said, her voice shaking. It explained so much about her life if it was true. “That’s why I did it. Because it was forbidden.”

  “You remember?”

  She trailed her finger across the painting, tracing the outline of the spinning wheel. “No. I don’t know. I remember—I remember music, pulling me from my room and into . . . I am not sure. I remember going upward, but that’s impossible. There was no up from my tower.”

  “Celestine was powerful,” Rodric said. “She could do it.”

  “Maybe.” Aurora closed her eyes. “There was a light, a beautiful, bobbing light, like a fairy, or—I don’t know. I followed it up, higher and higher—” And it was as though she could feel the creaking wooden stairs beneath her feet, hear the haunting melody, now replaced by Nettle’s voice, filling the air around her. “There was a dusty, round little room, but—but it wasn’t like the painting. An old woman sat spinning. I had never seen a spinning wheel before, but I had seen pictures, and I think—I think I knew what it was. It was the night before my eighteenth birthday, the very last day before the curse was broken, and it was like . . .”

  A shiver ran through her, as if she were in the room once again, and suddenly she understood what people meant when they spoke of fate. It was a pull, an impossible lure, a sense deep in her stomach that this was the moment, the event she had been waiting for her whole life. “The woman looked up at me. I didn’t ask why she was there. And she said, ‘Would you like to try?’”

  Aurora opened her eyes. Rodric was staring intently at her, his mouth slightly open, as though absorbing every breath she sent his way.

  “And I knew, I knew, that I shouldn’t. I knew. But I had spent my whole life running from this. And I thought . . . what would it be like? The wheel spun so smoothly, and the needle glinted, and . . . I wanted to know. I was tired of being afraid.”

  “You pricked your finger on purpose?”

  “No,” she said slowly. “No. But I sat at the stool, and the woman showed me how to turn the wheel, so that the thread came out smooth.” She closed her eyes again, and reached out with her fingertips, as though the thread still ran across her skin. Maybe it had been a spell, maybe it had been her own exhaustion, but she thought she had felt the world fade as she sat there, guided by the strange old lady. She couldn’t quite remember, but the sense of it lingered in the back of her mind, like a tale she had been told as a child and had since let slip away. It felt like truth. “But I was clumsy,” she continued. “I was clumsy, and my finger slipped. It landed on the point of the spindle, the tiniest of pinpricks against my fingertip. It was cold and sharp. . . .”