by Liz Braswell
Aurora was plopped down in the large throne-like chair at the end of the room. The wood was hard and uncomfortable under her; she wished she could bunch up the cape and use it as a cushion.
This was also how she knew she was finally awake.
Men and women of all stations loitered at one end of the room, looking impatient and angry.
Another important-looking fellow immediately approached her. From his black velvet ensemble and pretty buttons that looked like coins, Aurora decided he was the treasurer.
“Your Majesty,” he said. “The emergency coffers are dangerously low. Should there be a blight this year, we have nothing left to rely on.”
“A blight?”
“Of wheat,” he said impatiently. “As there was a decade ago.”
“A wheat blight,” she said, still unsure what that meant.
“Your Majesty, what shall we do?” he pressed politely, if impatiently.
“What…protocol…does one normally follow in these cases?” she asked, wondering if she had a right to feel proud about how well she had phrased the question. Didn’t it sound regal?
“I recommend we raise taxes immediately,” he said with a shrug. “An emergency tax of an additional five percent multure, plus a geld of two and a half. That should cover it.”
“All right,” she said slowly. “Let’s do that….”
There were howls of fury and stomping. She jumped in her throne, shocked by the outburst. The treasurer rolled his eyes.
“What is wrong?”
“They don’t want to pay taxes,” the castellan explained from where he stood on the other side of the throne—with her in between him and the angry crowd. “They think running a kingdom is free.”
“What’s a tax?” Aurora whispered.
The castellan gaped at her. Then he shook his head and turned away.
She turned back to the treasurer.
“What’s a tax?” she repeated.
“Your Majesty,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now is not the time for a lesson in basic economics. Now is the time for swift, decisive leadership. We need a decision. Now.”
“I can’t without knowing what all this means!” she protested.
“What kind of queen is she?” a storm-faced, craggy old man with religious vestments spat. “What is this we’ve been left with?”
Aurora looked desperately through the crowd, hoping for a friendly face. But all of their expressions ranged from hate to confusion to disappointment. She wanted to run. She just wanted to get out of the room as fast as possible and run as far as she could. Back to the village where they had found her. Back to the woods. Back to her old hiding places in the dreamworld castle. She gripped the armrests on the throne to keep herself from leaping up and fleeing.
“What do I do?” she asked.
The castellan just shook his head again in disgust.
“What do I do?” she asked again, louder.
“WHAT DO I DO? WHAT DO I DO?” she screamed.
No one would answer.
“WHAT DO I DO, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?”
Phillip was shaking her.
She screamed hoarsely and constantly until her eyes finally registered the hay around her, the night outside, Phillip’s face lit by the stars.
“Rose? Are you okay? Rose? It was just a nightmare.” Then he paused, realizing how ironic and weird that sounded.
She blinked for a moment, taking it all in.
Then she began to weep.
“What’s the matter? Rose?”
He put his arms around her and pressed her face to his shoulder. Now someone was finally holding her, but she was too overwrought to enjoy it properly.
“My gifts,” she said, still coughing a little. “The fairies gave me grace and beauty and song. That’s what Maleficent was trying to trap me with: beauty and song.”
“Yes,” Phillip said, a little confused. His deep brown eyes were even darker with concern. He picked a strand of hair out of her face and laid it back with the others. “But we beat her! She didn’t win. She won’t win.”
“No,” Aurora Rose said, trying to form the words clearly despite her shakiness and hoarseness. “You don’t get it. They gave me beauty and song, and then I was left in the woods to grow up for sixteen years before being handed over to you. I don’t know anything about ruling. I don’t even really know what taxes are. I was in the woods in the real world. In the dreamworld, I hid like a mouse and then organized balls and parties.”
“Oh,” Phillip said.
“Oh,” he said again. “Well, my sisters aren’t exactly being taught how to lead an army into battle….”
“But they’re not an only child!” she cried, instantly regretting it. Her throat burned. “Even if Maleficent was right—even if my parents were hoping to have a male heir after me, they didn’t. Shouldn’t they have had some sort of plan B?”
“Well…”
“And I’ll bet your sisters are taught something,” she went on. “I’ll bet they know how to sew or organize the kitchen staff or…”
“Of course,” Phillip said without thinking. “Bianca is known quite widely for her skill in embroidery, actually. And Brigitte began to take over some hostess duties after my mother died. My dad said that she actually had some quite innovative ideas about how to peacefully handle the tolls on the northern trade route….”
The princess let out an incoherent, strangled cry of rage.
“Sorry,” he said quickly.
“WHAT ARE BEAUTY AND SONG GOOD FOR? To a princess or a queen? It’s not like I could join a wandering band of troubadours. These ‘gifts’ have nothing to do with running a castle or a country. And everything to do with being a perfect pretty wife for the prince I was engaged to marry when I was a baby.”
“Hey, now,” Phillip said slowly. “We fell in love….”
“I know, I know, that’s not the point,” she said, irritably scratching her hands through her hair like a crazy person. She sort of remembered loving him, but it was strangely secondhand, mixed in with all the other memories that didn’t feel quite real. Now she had no idea what she felt for him.
She began to weep again. Exhausting, racking sobs from a girl with two false childhoods and too many memories and no past; grace and beauty and song and nothing more. And of course, despite the muddy tracks of tears down her cheeks, dusty with wheat chaff, and her tangled hair, and her strange dress, she was Beautiful.
Phillip hugged her and stroked her hair down.
“Shhh. Try to get some more sleep. Or rest at least. We can’t go anywhere until the sun comes up, so we might as well conserve our strength. I promise: no more nightmares.”
The princess didn’t want to fall asleep again.
But she did, and it was dreamless.
The next morning, she was woken by something uncomfortably sharp cutting into her side. Irritably, she moved aside and saw that it was Phillip’s sword. Despite her resentment, she couldn’t help admiring the delicately traced motifs winding their way up the grip from the pommel, the golden vines and decorated initials, the carefully faceted and inset gems.
She cautiously picked up the blade. It was lighter than she had expected but heavier than she could easily manage. Even to her inexperienced hand, it felt extremely well balanced; though it would take force for her to swing it, she could manipulate the tip easily with just a turn of her wrist. She ran her left hand down its sharp edges, feeling metal that was kept clean and sharp and grew noticeably colder the longer she had it out in the air. There was a tiny recent nick on the left side.
She put it down carefully next to Phillip. She was stretched beyond her physical limits, murky-headed, exhausted, and weak. Apparently, you did need sleep in the dreamworld, even once you knew it was a dream.
Phillip slept harder than she, innocent of troubling thoughts and incoherent pasts. It was quite a while before his handsome features began to twitch and his spirit began to surface to the waking world.
Aurora Rose watched him, contemplating his boyish face, which had just begun to lean out in the way of a man. Although her mind kept getting stuck on the concept of love at first sight, she could understand being struck by those looks. And already she was slowly being won over by his optimism and general wholesomeness.
But to promise yourself forever to someone you had just met?
Life in the woods must have taken an even greater toll on her patience and mind than she had thought.
Still…
Some pleasant dream pulled his lips into the tiniest smile.
Aurora Rose leaned forward with some idea of trying a kiss—a small one, before he woke up—just to see…
But suddenly, he was moving, stretching, and running a hand through his hair.
The princess hastily sat backward. He didn’t notice.
“Morning! Boy, I haven’t spent a night in a haystack in years,” he said amiably.
“You’ve done this before?” she asked in surprise.
The prince looked chagrined. “You sort of chafe under the whole ‘crown prince’ bit after a while. You sneak out for a good adventure with your best lads. Hunting, hitting the taverns…waking up in an orchard with your head pounding and starving for that grouse you swore you were going to get…Don’t look at me like that; I’m not the first prince to do so.”
She wasn’t sure what look her face made. It was an amazing, rebellious idea. She had never considered actually running away from anyone, even her aunts, except for that one night in the forest.
“Was…was your father angry?”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Phillip said with a rueful grin. “He took my sword and bow away and forbade the stables from releasing my horse, Samson, to me. And I had an extra chapter of Cicero every night for two weeks. CICERO! The man couldn’t end a sentence if there was a dagger at his throat. I mean, I guess there was, eventually. But it was totally worth it, though. For me, I mean. Not Cicero.”
They got up, brushed away the worst clumps of dried grass and dirt, adjusted their clothes, and set off again. The village was starting to come fully alive in the morning dream sun. The woodsmen had left a long time ago, but the other men and women were tending their kitchen gardens, heading out to the fields, going to forage in the forest with baskets to fill with berries and mushrooms. The tink tink tink of a smithy cold-forging something small echoed across the flat ground. The animals grazed or wandered or dozed or chewed contentedly. A couple of old palfreys hung around a tree, heads together like a pair of gossips.
“We could steal a horse…” Aurora Rose said slowly. “That would be faster than walking.”
“No,” Phillip said immediately. “No, we couldn’t.”
“But it’s just a dream—who cares?”
Even as she said it, she wasn’t sure if she believed that statement herself.
“So we could just steal and kill and rape and plunder and it doesn’t matter?” Phillip said as if it was something he had already deliberated in his own head. “I don’t believe that. We’re still the people we were when we were awake. It’s not…it’s not always the result of the decision that’s important; it’s how we make those decisions. It’s the sort of people we are. Oh, I’m not making any sense.”
“Yes, you are. I wouldn’t know how else to put it. There’s more to it for me, though. I’ve lived two lives, and each seems equally real—and equally imaginary. I was telling myself before we met—this time—that all I have is my own eyes and hands to tell me what’s real. Who knows how long I’ll be living in this version of my life? It seems real to me. So I’ll act like it is. Whether it’s fairies or castles or evil queens or thorns…”
She stopped, thinking about the thorns.
How they disappeared under her touch.
“Yes? What is it? Thorns?” Phillip put a hand on her back, trying to push her along.
How her dress had changed…
“I want porridge,” she said, unmoving.
“Porridge? Look, I know you’re hungry—I am, too, famished—but we can’t linger in the village anymore. We can’t trust anyone; you’ve seen that. We’ll grab something along the way. Nuts, a grouse, maybe…just talking about one earlier made me hungry….”
Aurora Rose shook her head and set her jaw. “In the last few months at the castle—or minutes, or whatever they are in the real world—I started to see things. Things I wanted to see. Pictures of the way the world was before—well, before the fake apocalypse was supposed to have happened. I saw a vision of a bunny.”
“A bunny?”
“Yes, a bunny. I wanted more than anything to see and touch a real rabbit. And one appeared. And then the fairies appeared. And then when I was escaping, I sort of wished that the thorns that held me would let me go. And…they did.”
Phillip looked at her, still confused.
“They did?”
“Could you please stop just repeating the last thing I said and actually listen to me? It’s my dream. My touching the spindle caused all this. I’m the first one who fell asleep under her spell. It’s why Maleficent had to lie and make up a sort of reason for us all to be trapped together; she doesn’t have complete control of this world. Or whatever it is. It’s part of me. You said so yourself.”
“All right, that makes sense,” Phillip said in a Serious Voice, arms folded and face frowny. “But what does this have to do with porridge?”
“I want porridge!” she said, exasperated. “That’s all. I wanted a bunny before and it appeared, and now I want porridge. The way my aunts used to make it on cold mornings. Warm and buttery, with rich toasted acorns in it.”
“Acorns? Really? That sounds…um…I mean, it’s an interesting gastronomic choice.”
She rolled her eyes. “We lived in the middle of a forest, Royal Prince. It was what we had. And a real treat in the middle of winter.”
Then she proceeded to ignore him.
She closed her eyes and cupped her hands. She prayed and wished and imagined and begged.
Phillip stayed politely silent—though he did look around, sigh a little, and do all sorts of other things to obviously fret over the passage of time.
She tried to call up the feel of the wooden bowl in her hands: it warmed almost like flesh where the wood was thin and the heat of her fingers and the hot porridge mingled. She summoned the smell, a mix of dairy and things of the earth and the tall green grass and the woods. Sometimes there was even a dollop of honey on top.
She thought so hard she felt like she had to go to the privy.
Her concentration faltered for a moment when she distractedly wondered if that ever happened to Maleficent when she was performing an incantation. But after a few seconds she was back in her dream of porridge.
Time passed….
“GOOD LORD!”
The smell in her head was giving way to a real scent in her nose now, with even that faint, almost untasty burnt smell the acorns sometimes gave off.
She smiled and opened her eyes.
In her hands was a cracked wooden bowl full of porridge, just like she remembered.
“Can you get me some eggs and a drumstick?” Phillip asked eagerly. “Maybe a tankard of beer to go with it?”
“Eat the porridge, greedy bird,” she said, smiling.
“Oh, all right,” he said with a sigh. “It is certainly a lot better than nothing. Well done and all! Shall we use our hands?”
She tried to summon two spoons. But which ones? The big wooden paddle Merryweather stirred their soup with? Or tiny teaspoons for fancy afternoons? Or…
Each one flitted up in her mind and then disappeared.
She shrugged apologetically. “I can’t concentrate. Too hungry.”
“Well, this won’t be the first time,” Phillip said, wiping his hands carefully on his cape. “Let’s dig in!”
They did, giggling. As she licked the first scoop and the warm, familiar cereal filled her mouth, so too was she—filled with a warmth and happin
ess that she hadn’t known in a long time.
“I NEVER REALIZED JUST how infinitely boring the prattle of human teenagers was,” Maleficent drawled. But her voice was even thicker than irony required; she seemed slow…like a mechanical bird winding down. “I hope we don’t have to put up with much more of their fascinating discussion of philosophy and the nature of reality. Or the culinary delights of porridge.”
“I thought the part with the porridge was fairly interesting,” Lianna spoke up, perhaps emboldened by her mistress’s weakness. “Especially the part where she summoned it out of the air.”
Maleficent’s yellow eyes flicked toward her.
“Yes…that was interesting. And troubling. Who knew the girl had it in her?”
“You didn’t,” Lianna pointed out tonelessly. “There is much more to her than you originally thought. Considering how she has evaded all your traps—even the particularly clever nightmare inside the nightmare. It will be harder to kill her now that she is beginning to unlock the power of her own dreamworld.”
“I don’t need to kill her,” Maleficent said with a satisfied smile. “All I need to do is delay her. She has one hour and two minutes to figure out how to defeat me and wake up. If she is in my power when the clock strikes twelve and the next day begins…I win.
“But you’re right,” Maleficent said thoughtfully, swirling the green and red liquids in the orb of her staff. “It might be time to step up the direct assaults on her personage. I need the work of my cleverest, strongest servants! Eregral, Slunder, Agrabrex, to me!”
Large, slow-moving, grinning black forms congealed from the shadows in the corners of the room.
And Lianna’s opaque eyes might have shown a hint of concern.
HOURS LATER, it was still early…and Aurora Rose was already exhausted. Despite the porridge, her feet were dragging; it was probably before noon, and they had already walked at least six miles. She tried not to complain or slow down. Neither seemed like a princessy thing to do.
Instead of burning off entirely, the morning mist had risen and thinned out and now covered the sky loosely, like thousands of baby spiders leaving trails of silk behind them. The sunlight, so bright and yellow before, was sickly gray. The air was damp and chilly.
