Rodric kissed Aurora’s hand. Foreign lips among speckles of blood. Their eyes met. His cheeks were pink. Aurora curtsied without a word.
The prince bowed. His footsteps clattered down the corridor as he and the king walked away.
“Ruth, please find a room for the princess,” the queen said. “In the east wing, if you would. Third floor. And find her a maid—someone we can trust. Or at least, someone no one else will.”
The maid curtsied.
“I have a room,” Aurora said. Even that tiny protest took enormous effort, and as she spoke the words, she wondered why, out of all things, that was what she chose to say. She had spent her whole life in that tower, dreaming of the day she would be allowed to leave. But her spotless, ageless bedroom was her only remaining connection to the past. It was the only thing left that was hers.
The queen would not allow her even that small concession. “Oh, you don’t want to stay in that dusty old tower,” she said, and she turned and looked at Aurora. Really looked at her, into her eyes. Her smile was so thin that her lips vanished into her cheeks. “Allow us to take care of you. We are so happy to have you here.”
Aurora looked at her feet. Heavy silks ballooned around her, so she took up three times as much space as the other women of court. The small group of nobles watched her expectantly. Waiting for her to speak. The silence pressed in. “Thank you,” she said. She could think of nothing else to say.
The nobles continued to watch her. Two women, with matching purple feathers skewered into the knots of their hair, leaned together, covering their mouths with their hands.
“She does not seem quite bright,” one of the women murmured. The other giggled and smacked her with her fan.
The queen smiled. “Carina, Alexandra,” she said. The woman who had whispered stood up straighter, her gloved hand falling to smooth her skirts. “You are no longer needed. I am sure the princess will call upon you if she requires any of your ample wisdom.”
The women flushed. They curtsied to the queen, and then hurried away. Nobody spoke after that.
When the maid returned, she was followed by a girl with huge eyes and bushy brown hair. She looked about fourteen.
“This is Betsy,” the first maid said. “Her mother has worked in the castle for years. She is young, but hardworking. I think she will be a good fit for the princess.” Betsy kept her eyes on the floor, her knees half-bent in a perpetual curtsy, but even her skin seemed to glow with pride at the praise.
“Very well,” the queen said. “And you have a room prepared?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Then we will go now.” She turned to the nobles who lingered around them, some still watching Aurora with fascination, others plucking at their sleeves and staring absentmindedly at the walls, as though they had tired of the proceedings. “Thank you for joining us for this occasion,” the queen said. “If the women return to our suite, I believe the maids will have laid out lunch. I will join you as soon as I can.”
The watching women curtsied, almost as one, and the queen swept Aurora away.
“Insufferable,” the queen murmured. “But we do what must be done.”
Once again, Aurora was led through the winding corridors of the castle, past paintings in gilt frames, of forests and queens and conquering heroes. Small tables covered in flowers waited around every corner, filling the hallways with a dying sweetness. Guards and maids bowed and curtsied as they passed, but the queen did not pause.
Eventually, they emerged from a staircase onto a corridor that was empty except for a few paintings and a single door, midway between the stairs and the point where the corridor turned. An ornate silver lock rested below the handle. The door was slightly ajar.
“Here we are,” the older maid said. “All ready for the princess.”
The room was large and square, with all the clinical tidiness of a space kept ready for any temporary guest. A four-poster bed filled one corner, and a couple of soft chairs sat around a low table in the center. Logs had been placed in the small fireplace, but the tongs and shovel and extra wood were missing. A few lonely books slumped on an otherwise empty shelf, and a plain-faced clock ticked out the seconds on the wall. The windows had been thrown open, but the fresh air did little to mask the musty smell of disuse.
“It will do,” the queen said. No one asked Aurora’s opinion. “Betsy, make sure that Aurora is refreshed before her dinner with my son. Ruth and I will find something suitable for her to wear.”
Aurora gripped the sides of her skirt. She had been wearing the same dress for over a hundred years. Part of her itched to tear it off, to throw the heavy skirts away, but the fabric was familiar against her skin, her legs protected by layers upon layers of silk.
“Your dresses will be too old-fashioned for comfort now,” the queen added, “even if the moths have left them. And you will not want to linger in the past.” She rested a hand on Aurora’s shoulder. “The best way to deal with change,” she said in a lower voice, “is to embrace it. Forget what you knew before. Your place is with us, Aurora.”
Ruth and the queen left, Betsy filled an iron bathtub with hot water, and Aurora sank into it, letting it scald her skin red. Betsy washed the dust from Aurora’s hair, her fingers gentle against the tangles, and began to chatter, quietly at first, but then louder and with more confidence, about Aurora, about how honored she was to work for her. Aurora did not take in a word. She stared at the unburned wood in the fireplace, not really seeing it at all.
“Would you please leave me?” she said softly, once her hair had been towel-dried and she sat in a robe. “I want a moment to myself.”
Betsy bit her lip, but she curtsied without protest. “Of course, Princess.”
With the maid gone, Aurora waited for the hollowness inside her chest to turn into tears. The pressure grew, bursting against her ribs, and Aurora sank into one of the chairs, but she did not cry. None of it felt real enough for her to cry.
I am here, she told herself. I am here, and I cannot go back.
The fireplace stared blankly back at her. The clock ticked on the wall. But Aurora did not cry.