Dreamer of Briarfell: A Retelling of Sleeping Beauty (Fairytales of Folkshore Book 7)

by Lucy Tempest

  Will made a rude gesture in Robin’s direction.

  Appalling behavior! But I couldn’t expect better from commoners who spent their youth among soldiers. They wouldn’t know what to do among more polite company. Just like I didn’t know what to do among them.

  Maybe it was a blessing they couldn’t see me, and I didn’t have to interact with them. Though I interacted with Robin just fine, and he…

  My thoughts halted as a memory tugged my mind towards snippets of songs and stories I’d heard on rainy days in court, both prior and during the war.

  “I know of an Alan-a-Dale!” I blurted out. “Could he be the same person?”

  “I’ve heard of an Alan-a-Dale!”

  Agnë had spoken in unison with me, but Robin answered my question. “Either that, or he’s from a long line of bards using that name.”

  Will continued his disapproving muttering. “Whatever he is, he’s annoying. Never knows when to shut up.”

  Curiously, Meira joined him, just as cranky. “Bards are always annoying. And after so many overdramatized songs, you lose all tolerance for that whining string instrument they play.”

  Where had Meira heard a wandering bard? Were there even bards still in this day and age? They were an outdated concept, lost to the growing urbanization of the western end of the Folkshore, and the growing wave of industrialization. We now had professional singers and composers traveling to sing on elaborate stages in opera houses, to paying crowds.

  Unfortunately, Arbore wasn’t leading the Folkshore in those arts, with the most inspired music coming from our former enemy, Avongart. At least they didn’t have the prettiest lyrics, too. Those came from Campania, with their vowel-filled language just lending itself to musicality.

  “I, for one, can’t wait to hear him,” I said. Not that my input would make any difference. It would go as unheard as my ambition for music. “I haven’t sung in so long, and even longer since it’s been of my own accord.”

  “People forced you to sing?” Robin sounded taken aback.

  I sighed. “Demanded and expected me to. To entertain others, and only the approved material. Always one of five songs. You can only sing the same songs composed to flatter royals so many times.”

  “Did Prince Jon have you sing vacuous amendments to Father of the Realm daily?”

  “Not daily, that would have driven me insane, but, Gods Above—how did you know?”

  “That pig and his ilk are just that predictable.”

  Before I could even consider taking offense, Little Jon’s voice joined in, a thrumming bass even my boneless self could feel. “Please, don’t talk about that man. Keep talking about the lunatic singer, or about those monstrous imps we could find here—just not him.”

  “What’s your issue with Prince Jonquil?” Agnë asked.

  A chorus of outraged voices rose, Meira’s among them. So she, too, shared their terrible opinion of him? And she’d never told me. Of course.

  “I don’t like to be reminded His Vileness exists,” Little Jon growled. “Because it makes me want to curse my parents for naming me after him.”

  “You were named after him of all people?” Agnë, despite trying to not badmouth my uncle, seemed to cringe at the thought of him being anyone’s namesake. “Why?”

  Jon huffed a mighty exhalation. “My father is a proud immigrant, his family having fled the Northlands when he was a child. He decided to name all his children after members of the royal family to embody his love of this nation. My eldest sister is Florentina after His Majesty, I am Jonquil like him, and my younger brothers are Oleander and Rowan, after the king’s uncles.”

  My father and nine of his predecessors were called Florent, as per tradition. Also, my younger siblings, Esmeralda and Florian, were named after our parents—their fresh start after presuming they’d end up losing their older children to the Spring Queen’s wrath. But to find that strangers had my family as namesakes was simply fascinating.

  Leander himself was named for our great-uncle Oleander. Mother had objected to her firstborn being named after a poisonous plant, and Father had compromised by dropping the first letter, saying it now sounded based on the Orestian name Leandros.

  If only he could have found as clever a compromise to his broken engagement with the Spring Queen, I wouldn’t be Ghost Girl now.

  My thoughts halted as we traversed farther into the fairy path, and I just felt it. We’d left our realm behind.

  The transition was subtle, yet indisputable, not unlike when we—the Final Five vying for Cyrus’s hand—had been taken for our second test into the witch-city of Zhadugar.

  However monstrous the redcaps they were referring to were, I hoped they were nothing like the ghouls I’d been thrown to, by Zhadugar’s ruler, Marzeya. Oh, how I hated that woman! And she had looked as horrifying as she truly was.

  The blue light from the glass-like mushrooms intensified, tinting our surroundings, and augmenting the soft, yellow glow of the path as it snaked ahead through navy-blue trees. But it was the blinking, multi-colored lights that appeared in batches, hovering at different elevations that now caught my attention.

  “Fairy fireflies,” Robin said.

  “What?” I turned, and found him leaning towards me.

  “You were making a face at the light-bugs. Thought I’d explain what they were.”

  “I keep thinking you’re addressing me.” Agnë looked over her shoulder, light-blue eyes looking dazed as she looked through me. “Sorry, but it’s a bit disorienting.”

  Robin waved. “I should have considered how confusing it must be for you. If I talk to you, I will use your name, Miss…”

  “Agnë.”

  Robin hummed. “Sounds like an Orestian name.”

  “Yes!” Agnë sounded shrill all of a sudden.

  “You’re too fair for an Orestian,” he noted.

  “I’ve been in Arbore for years. So many rainclouds, shorter summers, you know how it is.”

  “So the lack of sun turned you into a blonde?”

  “Um, no, uh, yes—I mean…” Agnë sounded like she’d hyperventilate at any moment.

  “Leave the poor girl alone,” Little Jon ordered from up ahead. “She and the mouthy one have had a hard time looking for their friend. It’s enough they’ve arrived to find her split in half, a part out of reach, and a part invisible.”

  “I’m just making friendly conversation,” Robin said innocently, when he was clearly indulging in his favorite pastime of investigating others, like he’d done with me.

  Though his line of questioning this time made me realize how much I didn’t know about my handmaidens. I’d only known they were from two different lands, one from the south and one from the north.

  But I’d always thought Agnë was the northern one. So if she was from Orestia as she’d just claimed, which, like Robin felt, made no sense, that made Meira the Northerner. Which made even less sense.

  “Mouthy one?” Meira snapped from behind us. “I have a name, you oaf! What even are you, anyway?”

  “He’s a sentient boulder.” Will ducked to avoid the swipe of Little Jon’s spear. “No, no, I’m sorry. He’s actually an oak tree dryad.”

  “If anyone is a tree here, it’s you, Willoughby,” Little Jon retorted.

  Will sighed. “If only I were as tall as a willow tree.”

  “You’d be a weeping willow, because you never stop whining,” Robin added, surprising an amused snort from me.

  “And what would you be, hmm?” I asked him.

  “I’d be no tree, but I’d make my nest on any of your briar branches.” Robin then whistled, a clear, agile tune mimicking the energetic trilling of the songbirds I’d once heard outside my window every day. Red-breasted robins.

  He had a good ear and perfect pitch, judging by how he reproduced the complex call. In another life, he could have been plucking guitar strings, rather than pulling bowstrings.

  The squabbling banter died down as we continued down the path. And
despite the unease that anything fairy-related induced inside me, I had to admit it was quite lovely so far.

  Suddenly, I felt the mood around me change, a new tension gripping my companions. I saw Will drawing a dagger out of his boot, while Robin asked Little Jon for the crossbow he’d taken from the castle. He tossed it to him and pointed his spear forwards.

  Then I heard it. A haunting sound that rose, surrounding us like a vortex of emotions, amplifying the surreal atmosphere, seamlessly pulsing to the rhythm of an approaching staccato.

  From the dense mist, right in our path, a gigantic set of antlers emerged, and I almost choked on my ghostly heart.

  Had the Horned God himself tired of waiting for me to descend to his domain, and come to drag me there himself?

  Before I had a chance to fully panic, the mist parted, and what appeared wasn’t Death with his skeletal stag’s head. It was a man in an umber cloak, riding a huge reindeer, and playing that evocative tune on his lute.

  Suddenly, he started to sing, his voice as mesmerizing as his music, with elongated vowels and lilting tones.

  “I will tell you of Will Scarlock, Little Jon and Robin Hood, they were outlaws as it is known, their hideaway the forest of Sherwood, a land no man, noble or thief, could ever own.”

  “It’s Will Scarlett!” Will’s shout shot out like an arrow into a glass orb, shattering the hypnotic crooning. “And why do Jon and I always come before Robin in all of your ballads about him?”

  Entering the light of the fairy path, the bard came into clearer view.

  He had long, wavy, auburn hair, but olive skin like a Campanian, and stormy-grey eyes that glimmered like quicksilver. His resting face looked grim, then he cracked a smile that felt less like a greeting, and more like a warning declaring, Beware, Here Be Danger. He was nothing like the funny little man their argument about him had painted.

  “He comes last for rhyming purposes,” said Alan-a-Dale, scanning the group before him in a slow drag of his eerie gaze. “Many good words go with ‘hood.’ Structuring quatrains ending in your names is painful.”

  “Lots of good words rhyme with my name,” Will argued.

  “Either none too flattering, or mundane. Take your first name, for instance.”

  He strummed his instrument briskly, breaking into a jaunty tune.

  “There once was a boy named Will,

  Who’d have you believe he could kill

  A thousand enemies with ease and spill

  Enough of their blood to fill a rill,

  Always boasting of such great skill,

  Spinning a dozen blades like a mill

  But ask anyone and they will

  Tell you he is sour and shrill

  Building mountains of e’ery molehill—”

  “Enough!” Will shouted, his ears turning as red as his coat.

  Alan stopped playing, looking quite pleased with himself. “But I had some verses still.”

  “I said stop it, you fairy fool. It’s a wonder nothing over there has eaten you yet.”

  “They’ve tried, but all come to realize the truth about me.” Alan leaned forward, slowly batting his eyelashes. “Tempting to bite, but lethal to fight.”

  “If you start speaking in rhyme, I will use you for target practice.”

  Ignoring Will, Alan’s eyes lingered on my handmaidens, each girl’s fidgeting reaction inspiring a higher rise in a corner of his lips. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing guests.”

  “Unexpected tagalongs are a hazard of the job, Alan.” Robin rode towards him, and they clasped hands as Jon introduced Agnë and Meira. Then they moved to each other’s mounts, Robin scratching under the reindeer’s chin, while Alan stroked the horse’s head.

  “She’s new,” Alan remarked.

  “Maple belonged to a friend who has since given up hunting,” Robin said. “I figured I’d take her to save her the idle life of a stable horse.”

  Alan nodded. “I think I know who you mean. How are the residents of Rosemead since the Beast and his fellow monsters vanished?”

  Suddenly, I was fully invested in their conversation. So Robin had been in Rosemead while Leander was there, too? With this Alan? They certainly got around.

  “I haven’t been back there since the Duke of Briarfell’s wedding, though I assume it’s the same old since the excitement died down. But we’re more interested in the conditions in Faerie. We have more than one score to settle with its residents. Think you could get us an audience with any of the royals?”

  “I can manage at least two monarchs,” Alan said smugly.

  “Ask him which ones!” I urged.

  Robin relayed my question, and Alan said, “The Summer King and the Autumn Queen. But you won’t like how you get there.”

  “Doesn’t matter how, just as long as it gets done.”

  “Story of your life.” Alan sighed fondly as he turned his reindeer around, and began strumming his lute again. “Follow me closely, and never lose sight of me. And no matter what you find or what finds you, don’t stop moving.”

  If I wasn’t concerned about our expedition before, I certainly was now.

  But the prospect of meeting the Summer King overshadowed everything else.

  This was better than I even expected. From what Bonnie had told me of their encounter with him, King Theseus didn’t have a queen. And he fit all the other criteria of the curse. He could be the one!

  As Alan and Robin led the way farther down the winding yellow path, I recognized the melodramatic song the bard was playing, a folk song called Todd and Tabby, about a case of mistaken identity between a commoner fox and a royal cat.

  Robin seemed to be the only one who recognized it, too, and he started singing along halfheartedly. Knowing only he could hear me, I joined them. He snapped his head around, and even within the obscuring darkness of his hood, I thought I saw his lips spread in an approving grin.

  That urged me to sing a little louder, leaving inhibitions behind, along with my kingdom, past, and identity.

  Soon, the path ahead started to shimmer, like wind-blown waves under a morning sun, riding the rising and falling of our voices.

  Then the landscape shifted around us, the dankness and darkness of the woods catching the fire of colors, warmth, and brightness as it smoothly melted into an open expanse of sand. Salty wind blew through all of my companions’ hair and flapped their clothes, so warm and humid even I felt it. But it was the rumble of waves, ebbing and flowing nearby, that solidified our arrival into another realm.

  Until now, my rash decision to follow an infamous outlaw off the continent, and into a world of mayhem and magic, had been a desperate, yet illusory, concept. Now, it had become an irreversible reality.

  I had left Arbore without my body, and taken my soul into Faerie with only the hope that someone in that realm could reunite them.

  If this quest failed, I would go straight from the land of the fey, to the land of the dead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Under clear blue skies, and swathed in crisp colors, the capital of the Summer Court sparkled like a jeweler’s masterpiece layout.

  Arranged between an encompassing coast of azure waters, and the towering backdrop of a gleaming mountain, its architecture ranged from spiraling buildings like upright conch shells with pearlescent hues, to faceted houses painted in blinding white and cerulean blue, to golden temples topped with onion-shaped domes. Everything looked like a magical cross between the desert kingdom of Cahraman, and the mountainous coastal region of Orestia.

  Which was strange, considering this side of Faerie was farthest away from both those corners of the Folkshore.

  Stranger still was how the similarities filled me with a dull ache of nostalgia.

  Who’d have thought I’d actually miss Cahraman, after all that had happened to me there?

  But even while I’d been losing test after test, being humiliated and thwarted, being forced to rethink my importance, to face my true worth, there’d also been aspe
cts I didn’t regret. A new sense of action, of excitement, of choice. Even the harrowing experiences in Mount Alborz had had a silver lining.

  I’d looked violent death in its nonexistent eyes, and I’d survived. I’d worked with my enemy to survive. And I’d left that cave knowing nothing lasted. Not enmity, not expectations, not status—not life itself. It had made me realize how much I wanted to live. How I hadn’t truly lived up till then.

  I had come back from this experience much changed. I had started to see the world differently, to mature. And to realize I probably wouldn’t have a chance to continue my journey of growth.

  But maybe now I was here, I’d get that chance.

  Now I looked at the massive limestone mountain in the distance and felt that sentimental pang intensify. The walled city sprawling at its foot in levels, reminded me so much of Sunstone, the capital of Cahraman. And maybe, just maybe, it might become my new home.

  Robin’s voice roused me from my reverie, asking Alan why he was diverting our path.

  “Humans aren’t allowed past these,” Alan said, pointing towards the royal palace gates. “I’ll have to take you in a shortcut through the mountain.”

  All my fuzzy feelings evaporated as the memories of my one time inside one mountain assailed me.

  “Is this really the only way?” I complained loudly, even when it was only to Robin. “In my experience, scary things make their homes inside caves.”

  Agnë stiffened with a shriek in front of me. She twisted around so hard, she almost tipped herself off Amabel’s back.

  Mouth hanging open, she stared. Not into space, but—at me?

  Then she let out a delighted squeal, “You’re here!”

  She threw herself at me, only to go through me. She would have fallen headfirst, if Little Jon hadn’t caught her.

  As he settled her back, she gazed at me in horror. “You’re not here!”

  “Hello.” It came out almost a sob of relief. She could see me. “I am sort of here.”

  Agnë faced forward and yelled at Meira, “Can you see her, too?”