Thornspell
Page 23
But you never really know with Balisan, thought Sigismund. He’s very good at keeping his own counsel.
Aura was right, he thought. They had been part of exactly the kind of story that Wenceslas would tell on a summer evening in the West Castle stable yard. There had been good faie and evil, a faithless friend and others who stood true, an enchanted princess and a magic sword, and a dragon that took human shape and walked amongst men. And although that story was over, the days ahead no longer seemed colorless and dull.
“Right now,” said Sigismund, sharing this thought, “I feel that the next part of our story could be even more extraordinary than the beginning.” He took a step back, slipping an arm around Aura’s waist so they stood side by side, watching the constellations flower overhead.
“But I suspect,” she said, after a time, “that the beginning is the part that the world will remember. People may even tell of it for another hundred years, the story of the Prince and the Wood.”
“They will if Wenceslas has anything to do with it.” Sigismund let his arm tighten, just for a moment. “But he’s bound to embellish the original.” He smiled, remembering the tower of mirrors. “He’ll insist that the sleeping princess is woken by a kiss.”
Aura turned and brushed her lips against his. “And you?” she murmured. “What will you insist on?”
Sigismund tilted his face to the moon, which could never, he decided, have looked anything like a question mark. “Only that they live happily ever after. That’s the ending I want.”
And they went down from the tower together, to the lights and the laughter and the friends who waited for them there.
Helen Lowe won an inaugural Robbie Burns National Poetry Award in 2003 and was the recipient of a NZ Society of Authors/Creative New Zealand award for emerging writers. Helen has had short stories and poetry published and anthologized in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States, and currently fronts a regular poetry feature for a local radio station (Plains 96.9 FM). Thornspell is Helen’s first novel, and she is already hard at work on her next one.
In addition to her writing life, Helen is a second-dan black belt in aikido and represented her university in the sport of fencing. She lives in a ninety-year-old house with a woodland garden in Christchurch, New Zealand, which she shares with her partner, Andrew, and two cats.
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Helen Lowe
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lowe, Helen
Thornspell / Helen Lowe. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: In this elaboration of “Sleeping Beauty,” Prince Sigismund, having grown up in a remote castle dreaming of going on knightly quests, has had only a passing interest in the forbidden wood lying beyond the castle gates until a brief encounter with a beautiful and mysterious lady changes his life forever.
[1. Fairy tales. 2. Princes—Fiction.] I. Sleeping Beauty. English. II. Title.
PZ8.L9474Th 2008
[Fic]—dc22
2008004149
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eISBN: 978-0-375-89150-2
v3.0