Aurora looked back up the spiraling staircase, straining to make out the wedding picture. Her promised future, captured on the wall for all to see.
They walked on, until the decay began to seem almost artistic. Cobwebs hung from some corners, but they did not block the stairs, and there were no spiders in sight. The stones only had a light coating of dust, and a few torches lit the way. “Someone has cleaned here,” she said.
“No one’s used the tower in years,” Rodric replied. “But people visited sometimes.” He spoke quickly and a little too loudly, his voice reaching out to fill the silence. “Not to—not to try to wake you, of course. That—that was only princes and—and people like that. There is a bit of a superstition, actually,” he added. “About entering the tower. Only the boy who goes to awaken you in his eighteenth year can climb the stairs. Everyone else must wait below. If he is accompanied, or if anyone else disturbs you, you will never wake up. But some people still got a glance. At the tapestries. And the stairs.”
Aurora stared at her feet. A thousand tiny needles prickled inside her head. She could think of no reply.
A heavy wooden door waited at the end of the staircase, blocking out all sound from beyond. Aurora stared at it. She had not walked through it in years, not since her father decided that even the rest of the castle was unsafe for her. It was longer than years now. Lifetimes. The door had marked the way out, the way to freedom, for her whole quiet little life. What was it now?
Rodric’s hand hovered over the brass knocker. The moment lingered, and then he nodded, once, and pushed. The door slid open, just an inch, wobbling as though uncertain whether to swing forward or slam shut.
“Well?” A sharp voice cut through the gap. “Is she awake?”
“Yes,” Rodric said. His voice cracked on the word. “Yes,” he repeated with more conviction. “She’s awake.”
The door was torn open. Aurora blinked, raising one shaking hand to cover her face.
A woman stood before them. She had a long bony face, brown skin, and sleek black hair tied in an elaborate knot at the back of her head. She stared at Aurora, mouth open, cold eyes scanning her, as though searching for some flaw, some sign she wasn’t real. “It’s true,” she said, as though she did not quite believe it. “The princess is awake.”
A pause. Then chatter, growing louder and louder, the voices running over one another and rattling in Aurora’s head. A crowd stood beyond the door.
Aurora had not been around more than ten people at a time in her whole life. Her parents, her guards, her maid, plus the occasional foreign visitor when she was younger, before her father grew too afraid. They were all dead now.
The woman grabbed Aurora’s hands and pulled her forward, over the threshold of the tower, into the corridor. Aurora tugged back, trying to slip her hands out of the woman’s grip, but she did not let go.
A tall and portly man stood beside the door. He had a thick brown beard, and his smile seemed to cover half of his face. Men and women filled the corridor behind him. They huddled in small groups, whispering behind hands and golden-feathered fans. They all wore brightly colored silks and rich velvets, and the women were dressed in sweeping sleeves and high-waisted dresses. Jewels glinted around their necks and between the twists in their hair. The whispering stopped as soon as she appeared. Every one of them stared at her.
“Presenting the Princess Aurora,” the woman said with an imperious trill. Her hand tightened on Aurora’s wrist, and when she spoke again, it was so quiet that Aurora could barely make out the word. “Curtsy.”
Aurora grabbed her skirts and bent her shuddering knees, bowing her head and letting her hair fall across her face. She could feel every eye boring into her, judging every inch of flesh they saw. Aurora kept her head low. So many strangers, all staring, all evaluating her like she was some exotic, impossible creature. She squeezed her hands into fists around the cloth.
“Oh, don’t waste time on formalities,” the jovial man said. He had a booming voice, more that of an actor than of a ruler, but his golden crown declared that he must be the king. “You will soon be family, my dear!” Before Aurora could stand up again, he pulled her into a bone-crunching hug that stole the air from her lungs. She stood limp in his arms, her face flat against his chest. He smelled of sweat and heavy perfume. “We are so happy to have you here!” When he released her, she swayed backward, and her hand slammed into the wall to steady herself.
Perhaps if she could sit, if she could close her eyes, this would all fade away like a bad dream, and she would be home again.
“Now, now, John,” the woman said, her voice light but as thin as a needle’s point. “Let’s not smother the girl.” She rested a hand on his arm.
The king chuckled. “Of course, of course. I am just excited to meet our future daughter-in-law in person.”
“Pardon me,” Aurora said. Her voice sounded far off. Even those two polite, meaningless little words exhausted her. “But I don’t know who you are.”
The woman started, a slight frown forming between her eyebrows, as though surprised that Aurora had spoken. She stretched her lips into a thin smile, but the king beamed. “I am King John the Third, ruler of Alyssinia for the past ten years, and this is my wife.” He gestured vaguely at the woman, who bobbed her head.
“You may call me Iris.”
Aurora nodded. Her hair tickled her cheek.
“My daughter, Isabelle, is the young thing hiding over there,” the king continued. “Isabelle?”
“Don’t be shy, dear,” a woman said. “Greet the princess.” She pushed a small brown-haired girl forward. The girl blushed. She looked eight or nine years old. When she curtsied, her whole body shook. “And of course you’ve met our son, Rodric.”
Rodric bowed, his hair flopping about his face.
“Well,” the king said. “Now that we’re all acquainted, I think we had better make the announcement, don’t you?”
The queen looked Aurora up and down, taking in her dust-covered feet and the blood spotted across her hand. “I am sure the people will forgive you, my dear, if you are a little less than pristine. Just this once. You have come rather a long way to join us.”
“Oh, I think she looks lovely,” the king said with a grin. “Quite quaint. Come along then, come along. Sir Stefan,” he said to a man beside him. “Please send out the heralds. A little extra pomp and circumstance, if you please. It is hardly a normal day.”
The man bowed stiffly and set off down the corridor. The king followed him, and then the queen, snatching Aurora’s hand again as she passed. Aurora stumbled forward, trying to keep up with the woman’s hurried pace. The courtiers fell into step behind, and the whispering began again, a surging rush that pressed against the inside of Aurora’s skull and shoved her thoughts aside. The queen held her hand so tightly that it throbbed.
“Say nothing,” the queen said in her ear as they turned onto another corridor and headed down some sweeping stairs. “You only need to smile. We will take care of the rest.”
The rest of what? Aurora wondered, but she could not challenge this severe, elegant stranger. Each footstep echoed in her head, driving in the thought that her parents were dead, dead, and a century had passed.
They reached a large set of doors with standing bears carved into the wood. The hallway felt familiar, an echo of the last time she had seen it before her tower door had been locked, but every difference jumped out, breaking up the picture into a hundred jarring fragments. The bright red of the banners, like blood running down the walls. The guards, dressed in red too, staring at her with disbelieving eyes. The sharp trill of trumpets, muffled and distorted by the door.
The queen pressed Aurora’s hand against Rodric’s arm, squeezing until the fabric bunched beneath her fingers. Then she nodded, once, her eyes shifting to her son. “Well done,” she said softly. “You will make us proud.” She paused, as though she wished to say something else, but then she simply nodded again and followed her husband through the doors.
Aurora and Rodric waited on the threshold. Through the gap between the doors, Aurora could see flashes of color, hundreds of people, all surging together.
“They have been waiting since morning,” Rodric said quietly. “The optimistic ones. I was certain I would have to go out and disappoint them. . . .”
Instead, he was bringing the prize. Aurora wanted to release his arm, to step away, but her hand would not move.
A herald’s voice rose over the crowd, so loud and clear that even Aurora could make out the words. “Presenting, for the first time, the Princess Aurora!”
Hands pushed open the doors. Rodric stepped forward, and Aurora stumbled with him, her feet still tangling in her impractical skirts. All dressed up for a celebration, a century ago.
The roar of the crowd hit her, knocking the breath from her lungs.
They stepped onto a dais, with stone steps leading down to a square below. Everything else was hidden behind the mass of people, filling every space, crammed together into spots of jostling, bustling color, blurring before Aurora’s eyes. And the noise they made . . . the screaming, cheering delight, chanting her name, chanting for Rodric, celebrating like their savior had just stepped out of the mist.
She still had blood on her finger. How improper, she thought vaguely. She burrowed it deeper into Rodric’s sleeve, clutching the material so tightly that her hand ached.
The queen stood to the side, staring at Aurora expectantly. Slowly, carefully, Aurora sank into another curtsy. The roar grew. Hidden behind a wall of blonde hair, Aurora screwed up her eyes, fighting back the panic that clutched her chest, the scream that scratched the back of her throat. Everyone I know is dead, she thought. And yet these strangers act as though they love me.
She held the curtsy for a long moment, her knees shuddering under the skirts. One. Two. Three. Then she released her grimace and stood up straight, pulling her face back into something neutral, if not a smile.
The king was speaking now, his voice booming over the crowd. Words about hope. A new era. How proud he was of his son. Aurora could barely listen. It was important, she knew, to understand what was going on, but she could only stare at the sea of faces, the hundreds and thousands of strangers watching her, like she was something from their dreams.
And then Rodric was bowing, and the crowd was cheering, and the guards were steering them back into the castle. Aurora concentrated on each step, on keeping her knees steady, on avoiding the treacherous, ill-chosen hem.
The door thudded behind them. The queen hurried to Aurora’s side. “I think that went well,” she said.
“And that’s just the beginning!” the king said, half to Aurora, and half to the courtiers who still milled around them. “We will prepare a big celebration for you. An engagement presentation, a ball of some kind, and the wedding, of course . . .”
“I don’t—” The words were no louder than a breath. Every muscle inside her ached in protest, but the feeling was dull, faraway. The pain of another girl, in another time. She could not drag it into a coherent thought, so she let the protest melt on the air, unspoken.
“In the meantime,” he continued, as though he had not heard, “I’ll organize a dinner for our two young lovebirds. Food. Candles. Conversation. Would you like that, Rodric?”
“Yes,” Rodric said. “Thank you.”
“Excellent, excellent.” The king clapped his hands together. “Come along then, son. We have many things to speak about.”