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

by Lucy Tempest

  And promise to return to her side

  Then take another girl for a bride

  Next spring morn Sweet William rose

  Rushing to the one his heart chose

  ‘Where is Marguerite’ he asked her kin

  Without a word, up the tower they led

  Him where she laid still upon her bed

  ‘I know not why I forgot,’ he cried

  Kissing lips with no breath within

  And breathing his last by her side.”

  I then joined in. The crystals glowed brighter, as if drawing energy from our harmony, their hum rising like an orchestral accompaniment.

  “They were interred among the trees

  Where they once danced with the bees

  Marguerite lay with Sweet William in repose

  Then upon her grave grew a red, red rose

  And from his sprung a dark, dark briar

  In death their love grew like vines

  Till it could grow no higher

  Forever bound and intertwined

  Red rose among dark briar.”

  Then we fell silent.

  His beautiful tenor remained in my ears, a voice I could never tire of hearing. A voice that had become an essential part of me.

  Eyes gleaming emerald even in the blue light, Robin stared at me, panting. I hadn’t seen him pant like that during severe physical exertion.

  As if coming out of a trance, he said slowly, “I take it back. You don’t sound like a songbird. You sound like nothing I’ve ever heard. It’s a shame so few people, and the wrong ones, too, got to hear such beauty.”

  It didn’t matter if I was incorporeal, I was certainly flushing like I had a fever as I blurted out, “I could say the same about you. You should have been the bard, not Alan or Keenan, or whatever his name is.”

  After a stretch where we walked in silence, he said, “Want to hear the commoner’s version with the happy ending?”

  “I’ve read the lyrics once. But is it the same tune?”

  “Yes, though on a bright, major key, not that lamenting, minor one.”

  Robin took in a deep breath, and started singing:

  “Sweet William lived among the trees,

  Wild and learned of tongues and blades

  Marguerite, a beauty beloved by bees,

  A princess who fled to the everglades.

  In verdant fields their song and dance

  Made flowers bloom and droughts flow

  Born was a love that made stars glow,

  Then torn apart by fate’s own hands.”

  They were the lyrics I’d seen. I didn’t know them well enough to sing them fluently. But there was no one to judge me if I stumbled on a few words, or became pitchy with uncertainty. Robin wouldn’t.

  I joined him, earning a delighted laugh midsong as we embarked on a full duet that made my numb heart flutter with glee.

  “War came to the land, setting fields ablaze

  As Sweet William left to fight on the seas

  Marguerite was left behind to count the days

  ’Til his return to wed by spring’s first breeze

  But Marguerite’s queen mother decreed

  For her to wed the king of wasps,

  Defiant, she declared she’d rather bleed

  Rid her mother of her pawn by asps.”

  I launched into a different harmony in the last stanza, and his smile broadened as he stopped and bowed to me, offering me his hand.

  I hovered my remaining palm above his and followed his movements into a dance.

  “In her tower, Marguerite wept to the bees

  In their pity they built her a waxen stair

  Of honeycomb for her to flee to the trees

  Where she heard a voice beyond compare.”

  I felt my spectral skirt flutter around me, and my bare feet regaining some sensation of the cold ground. Robin kept miming the twirling movement, and I spun out of the tunnel in that joyous waltz.

  How I’d dreamed of a moment like this. When I would meet my prince, and we would forge a connection during our dance. When I would look into his eyes, and know he wasn’t just the one to save me, but the one for me. The one who made me feel like I wasn’t dying, but brimming with life. A life I’d spend with him.

  I’d had that moment during the ball. And now again.

  But he wasn’t my prince. He wasn’t the one for me.

  No. I wouldn’t spoil this moment with such desolate thoughts. This could be my last chance to be with him.

  I forged into a new harmony to end our duet.

  “Sweet William returned with a ring

  And bees made them their queen and king

  From their love roses with no thorns did thrive

  In the woods forever after they shared their lives”

  With a final spin, we came to a stop, with him laughing, and I giggling with a freedom I’d only ever found with him.

  When we quietened, he said, “I still can’t credit how you know this version.”

  Because no princess would be taught a song where one escaped marrying a king to live with a wild man in the woods.

  “It was through personal research.”

  “Aha. Now that makes sense.” He started striding again before giving me a sideways glance. “Though it’s actually less credible than the tragic version, since princesses don’t marry wild men.”

  No, they didn’t. But I’d also been raised to believe princes didn’t marry common girls, and they were doing just that left and right around me.

  Everything in my life had turned out to be either an outright lie, or a catastrophic mismanagement, leaving me with the one choice of having no choice at all.

  So here I was, making the one choice I could make, taking a detour that could literally cost me my life.

  It had certainly cost me my heart, all over again.

  Any remaining mirth faded, just like my body.

  After a while, I said, “I always felt this version spoke of flower fairies, anyway. Those tiny pixies you’d see in children’s books.”

  “Where did you get that idea?”

  “Sweet William and Marguerite are flowers—carnations and daisies. And she was ‘beloved by bees,’ as flowers tend to be. I wonder why these characters were such a popular topic for songs and poetry.”

  “My guess is because Sweet William is literally called ‘the poet’s carnation’ in Armorican.”

  “Don’t tell me you speak Armorican!”

  “My grandmother insisted I learn it,” he said, expression fondly resigned. “She believed we’d be invaded by Northlanders, and I ought to impress our new overlords with my mastery of their language. After years of linguistic torture, we went to war with the Avongartans instead, who happen to speak a hideous language.”

  I couldn’t hold back a giggle. Though his grandmother’s idea was a practical fear, since it nearly came true. “How do you say Sweet William in Armorican?”

  “L'œillet de poète,” he said with a nasal affectation, like when I’d mockingly mimicked my tutors. “More literally, Doux Guillaume.”

  “Doesn’t œillet mean eyelet? Like the holes in honeycomb?”

  “Could also be the eye of a needle. But the honeycomb does suit all the bees in the ballad.”

  “Why do words have so many meanings? In my curse, “sleep” turned out to mean anything but. At least my brother’s curse was plain and easy. Just get a pretty girl to love him.”

  “I’m glad it did work out that way, otherwise I would have orchestrated their meeting for nothing.”

  My thoughts came to a complete halt. “What?”

  He laughed wearily. “I was stationed in Rosemead towards the end of the war, and I needed my friend to be himself again. It also didn’t hurt that the sooner the heir was human again, the sooner he could boot your uncle out of the regency. I needed to find him the right girl, and Bonnie practically fell in my lap.” He chuckled again at the memory. “I tricked her into thinking I kidnapped he
r father to ‘sacrifice him to the Beast.’ I needed her to choose to go up to Leander, and hopefully trade her life for her father’s, so they’d be stuck together until they fell in love. And wouldn’t you know it? It all went completely to plan!”

  My mouth eased open, but only stammering came out. “You…you…”

  Robin winked. “…should be the best man at their wedding, yes. Especially since I also came to their rescue on that fairy path when the redcaps almost made a meal of them.”

  His words mingled with Marzeya’s, flowing through my reeling mind like wind through a forest, whispering echoes.

  The only thing in common between your curse and your brother’s isn’t his solution, but the catalyst for his rescue.

  Robin had been that catalyst. The one true common element between Leander’s fate and my own.

  He’d helped them in a way that had saved them both, in more than one way. Just as he’d helped countless people when he’d fought against the Avongartans’ efforts to invade us, and the corruption Arbore had spawned from within. He’d thrown himself into Faerie to save Will’s sister, refusing to count her lost, as anyone carried off by fairies always was. He’d promised to see me to my release, risking everything to fulfill his promise.

  And he’d seen me. The only one who could truly see me.

  Like those names in the ballad, words had many meanings according to context. Using my status as a frame of reference, everyone had misinterpreted my curse, as Robin himself had suggested. No one once doubted noblest referenced rank. And everyone had been wrong.

  I had been barking up the wrong tree, all my life.

  And since I met him, as Reynard, I had so desperately wanted it to be him. Now I knew for sure. And not just from what I felt in my heart.

  Robin Hood, the selfless thief, the scourge of the unjust.

  He was the noblest of men.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Years of navigating life at court hadn’t prepared me for such a moment. If anything, they robbed me of the capability of being ecstatic for even a moment. I hadn’t been taught to sink into the bad news, or savor the good ones, but to immediately think: “What do I do with this information?”

  And that was the problem. What was I supposed to do, now that I realized he was The One?

  How could I broach the subject to him? How would I even phrase it?

  Robin suddenly stopped, going pale. “You’re not going to disappear again, are you?”

  I shook my head, feeling lightheaded. “I think I know how to stop that from ever happening again.”

  “Yes, once we find the Spring Queen’s nephew…”

  “That’s not what I mean.” I bridged the step between us, hesitant yet excited, jubilant. “I think I know why nothing ever worked. The answer to my problem was something no one ever thought of.”

  His eyes widened, and his mouth opened…

  “ROB!” Will’s voice echoed from somewhere ahead, shattering the delicate, precious moment.

  Not taking his eyes off me, Robin yelled, “Stay put, we’re coming!” Then he urged, “You were saying?”

  But I’d already lost my nerve.

  When I didn’t say anything, looking confused and concerned, Robin headed in the direction of the others’ voices. “I wonder if they were too caught up in their belligerent courting to notice our absence till now.”

  The last thing I wanted to think about was my fairy godmother and his best friend, but it was something I could talk about. “Considering the frequency of human-man-fairy-woman couplings I’ve heard of, I wouldn’t put it past Meira to club him over the head, and drag him back to the Summer Court.”

  Robin cracked a surprised laugh, before sobering up at once. “Maybe we’ll end up having two weddings in Faerie, hers and Will’s, and yours and the Spring Prince’s.”

  “I won’t marry him!”

  My vehemence surprised the both of us.

  Robin looked bewildered. “What choice do you have?”

  “I do have a choice, especially if what I’m thinking is true.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “That the requirement of my curse isn’t literal, but figurative.”

  Marzeya’s words had said as much. You’re purposefully seeking out fool’s gold. And I had been, all my life. I’d known where the true gold lay for a while now. He had the real, innate value—not noblest by birth, but by character, by choice.

  Robin’s eyes only rounded, as if the idea scared him. “We don’t have time to find more men who could figuratively suit that curse. You’re already missing an arm. Besides, anyone else but him makes no sense.”

  “Why not?”

  “You already established this was the Spring Queen’s roundabout way of strong-arming your parents into accepting her deal. And don’t worry, that nephew of hers will take you with my arrows pointed at the back of his head, no games or tests this time.”

  It was a wonder how I hadn’t known it was him long before now. Everything he did, everything he was, made him my only true option.

  I opened my mouth again to say that, but closed it again as another realization hit me.

  If we’d always misinterpreted the definition of noblest, we probably also did that of love.

  I’d always been led to believe that a commitment and a declaration equated to love, at least in terms of breaking the curse. But what if the curse didn’t care about the words or the formalities, just like it didn’t care about status and titles?

  What if it meant I had to have the noblest of men’s actual love?

  The Summer King’s failure to break the curse proved this theory. The curse might have even retaliated at what it had considered my attempts to fool it by giving me tastes of eternal punishment.

  But if this was true, this made telling Robin even more difficult.

  He would do anything to break my curse. But it would be obligation. Duty. Chivalry. Maybe even affection. None of those were based in love, but the very thing that made him The One. His very nobleness.

  So did those two issues conflate? If he declared his love for me out of his promise and need to help me, would it work? Or would the curse consider it born of nobility, not specific love for me?

  There was one thing to do. Tell him, and he would try, and if what he felt for me was enough, I’d be free. If not, I’d be out of time, and nothing would matter anyway.

  But—if it worked, what of our lives after the curse broke? Wouldn’t I be taking advantage of his nobility by tying him to me for life? At the expense of his own happiness, his own choices? After all we’d said about no longer living our lives for other people?

  The curse’s conundrum felt like a serpent biting its tail, a noose choking sanity and life out of me.

  The only solution would be if he loved me.

  But he didn’t. Not like I needed him to love me. Like I loved him.

  And if he didn’t, how could I tell him?

  There had to be a way to go about this, so he would save me, while ensuring his freedom to pursue his own destiny and desires in the future.

  I had to think of something by the time we exited from this cave.

  “They’re over there.” Robin pointed to the right, thankfully oblivious to my inner turmoil. “They sure love butting their heads together.”

  We turned a corner to find Will and Meira bickering and pointing in opposite directions.

  “Where did you two go?” Meira beat Will to a tirade, looking worn out. “The moment we left the path to look for you, we kept going in and out of passages that led nowhere.”

  Robin smirked. “At least we haven’t stumbled on any crystal ghouls.”

  Meira glanced around warily. “So far.”

  Will glared at her. “You should know if there could be any. How did you live here this long, and not see this place before?”

  Meira humphed. “King Yulian himself didn’t know if there’s anything here. What I do know is we need to get out of here fast before Fairuza loses
another limb!”

  Will prodded her onward. “Lead the way, then.”

  Meira dug her heels in. “You mean in case something lives here, so it can attack me first?”

  “Why do you always assume the worst of me?” Will griped. “You’re the only fairy here, you ought to know more than we do.”

  “Well, I don’t!”

  “If I were born here I’d have explored this land, even the whole continent several times over!”

  “That’s because you have nothing better to do,” she snapped. “I have a job!”

  “A job you’re so good at, you did this to Fairuza!”

  “Can you not bring me into whatever this is?” I passed through Will and Meira bringing their debate to a sputtering end. “I’ll go first.”

  Robin stayed close, putting some distance between him and our bickering companions. “How do they have the energy for all this?”

  “Some people find great entertainment in arguing,” I said. “My mother thrives on conflict.”

  “Your mother needs a hobby.”

  “If you say that to her, she’ll act like one of your arrows pierced her heart.”

  “I’m starting to see why the Spring Queen lost her temper.”

  It was meant as a joke. But it stirred my resentment of everyone involved in my curse all over again. I wanted it broken, now. Wanted to get out of here with everything in me, so I could tell Robin everything, come what may.

  Like a path had called to me when I’d wanted to run and hide, now I wanted out, I found myself being drawn to a certain passage.

  Soon, I could see light at its end, not the cool tones of the crystals, but the warm gold of daylight. As we approached it, the temperature rose, and the sounds of pastoral life came from beyond.

  We had reached the Spring Court!

  I rushed towards the light, feeling I’d suffocate if I didn’t get out of here, if I didn’t tell him.

  But as soon as I stepped out of the cave, I fell face-first. I heard Robin’s startled shout, felt his fingers go through my elbow, his effort to save me as pointless as ever. I sank into the earth.

  Somehow, I pulled myself out of its layers, and hovered over its surface, trembling. I lifted my ghostly skirt to check my numb foot—and found nothing.