Once Upon a Dream (39 page)

“Maleficent hasn’t paid enough for her crimes,” Aurora Rose murmured after she kissed and hugged each of the children, unable to do anything else for them in the moment.

Finally, she came to her own tragedy: the bloody and lifeless bodies of King Stefan and Queen Leah, still propped up on their thrones. No one had dared touch them. No one knew what the protocol was.

Aurora Rose leaned over and looked into their faces, but the dead told no secrets.

“I forgive you,” she whispered, because…because there was nothing else she could do. She kissed each one on the forehead, then summoned a servant to cover them and take them away.

King Hubert had apparently fallen asleep near the royal couple, having been in discussion with them as they waited for Aurora’s arrival. His face was sopping wet with tears, but now he was talking to a guard, to a servant, to a dazed-looking noble, to anyone at all who would listen.

“
Years
I lived in the wilderness, after that blasted fairy exiled me.
Years.
Once I ate some mushrooms out of extreme hunger…didn’t know what they were…but they didn’t kill King Hubert! No, I tell you! Takes more than that to take
me
out! Hey, Phillip, my boy!”

His eyes lit up when he noticed the couple.

“I was just telling this lad here…one of the many Israelites I was leading through the wilderness. Like
Moses
, I was. Eh, boy?”

“Absolutely, Father.”

“Say, I don’t suppose your mother came back with the rest of us, did she?” he asked eagerly, looking around the room. “She was lost somewhere, too, but maybe…maybe she came back?”

The prince looked searchingly into his dad’s face. Something was broken in the old man. Roaming the forests of the dreamworld by himself for years had indeed altered him—just as he had suggested.

Phillip wrapped his father in a tight embrace. Aurora Rose saw, for just a moment, tears quicken in Phillip’s eyes before he screwed them shut and willed them away. He sobbed a huge, shuddering sob of loss for all the things he had endured but didn’t name.

The dreamworld had changed everyone. Even the boyish, unflappable Phillip.

“But what’s wrong, lad?” King Hubert asked in wonder. “We’re all all right now.”

“Father…”

But whatever he was about to say next was interrupted by someone calling desperately from across the room.

“My lady!”

The guard Aurora Rose had sent off to organize the search for Maleficent’s servants came running back to her, looking a little pale despite his exertion.

“We found something that might be…the remains of Maleficent or the dragon,” he said unsteadily.

Aurora Rose set her shoulders, feeling grim. “Show me,” she ordered.

She and Phillip and the three fairies hurried after him, picking up a half dozen of the more quick-witted guards as an escort. Back through the chaotic throne room, past the tables in the great hall, out to the courtyard and then through the gate, over the drawbridge—like it was no big deal. The princess tried to keep from gawking. She was just
walking
out of a castle she had seemed to be trapped in for so many years….And the thorns on this one, receding now, were small and pretty and covered in flowers.

On the other side of the outer wall, bushes and fields still smoldered from Phillip’s battle with the dragon. A blackened, steaming crater outlined where the dragon had fallen. Phillip’s sword was still there, pinning the tattered remains of Maleficent’s capes and robes to the earth.

But instead of Maleficent lying among them, it was Lianna.

In this realm, she was more pig monster than human. Though she still had her beautiful black hair and wore the vestments of a lady, tusks protruded from her mouth at awkward angles and her delicate hands ended in strange claws.

She looked over at Aurora Rose without moving her head and smiled faintly.

“You’re still alive,” Aurora Rose said, kneeling beside her.

Lianna gave a painful snort. “I…was never
alive
. In this world or the other. I’m…just a piece of Maleficent and some dark magic.
Semantics.
I’m dying now, or a reasonable version thereof. And the last of Maleficent dies with me.”

Aurora Rose took Lianna’s hand-claws in her own hands and squeezed them.

“Why…why did you save me?”

“You were my friend,” the creature said simply.

Aurora Rose felt the tears welling up, more than the day could hold.

Lianna’s eyes turned toward the sky as if she didn’t want to see.

“I
learned
that. I
learned
that you can care for someone, and be cared for by someone. Even…if you’re not…
created
with that as part of you, you can learn that. Maleficent could have learned that, too…but she never did. Things could have been so different.”

Her breathing was ragged now and growing shallow, the sound made worse by the tusks. She shifted uncomfortably.

Biting back a sob, Aurora Rose gestured to Phillip. Without needing to ask, he ripped off his cloak and handed it to her. The princess folded up the cloth and placed it as best she could under the girl’s head, tucking it around her neck.

A look of relief spread over the creature’s face.

“Thank you. For this and…everything.”

And then, just like that, her eyes grew filmy and still.

Aurora Rose let out one desperate cry, a shriek of helplessness, anger, and loss. Phillip put his arms around her and held her tightly.

“Look,” he murmured.

Lianna’s face began to shift and melt—her whole body did.

But instead of dissolving into the black, hissing soot and filth the demons usually became, her features transformed.

Lying dead on the floor before them wasn’t a pig thing. It was a young woman with beautiful long black hair and high cheekbones—and black horns sprouting from her skull. A tiny, pleasant smile sat on her lips. She looked at peace.

“It’s Maleficent,” Aurora Rose whispered. “As she was, originally. As she could have been.”

Phillip shook his head and swore, kicking the dirt in frustration.

“This,”
he muttered. “
This
is our happy ending?”

AURORA ROSE SAT
at the head of the ponderous, heavy table, arms resting gracefully, regally on the edges of the throne. She regarded the men putting forth different thoughts on the economic ramifications of consolidating the kingdom’s power under a single princess—no,
queen
…no, wait,
girl
—with a gaze that was just a shade warmer than cool, amused detachment.

It wasn’t an unconscious decision to adopt some of Maleficent’s trademark moves; why not learn from her, even if she had been an enemy?

Behind her throne, to the left, stood Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. Their presence added just the touch of mystical power that kept people in line whenever they started to think about using the term
princess
.

On her right sat Phillip, honored guest of the kingdom. But he sat away from the table and didn’t speak. If anyone tried to address him, he replied with his usual affable demeanor and directed them to their queen.

A tapestry was pulled aside from the door, and a trusted butler entered.

“Your Majesty, it’s time for the speech. All able subjects have been gathered in the outer bailey.”

“Thank you, Christer,” Aurora Rose said, trying to sound more
polite
than
incredibly relieved.
“And thank
you
, gentlemen. We shall continue these discussions later, after the coronation.”

She said this warmly and with a smile that made each man in the room feel like he, personally, was being thanked. Only a few looked unhappy as they filed out.

As soon as they were gone, she sank down in her throne, hand to her head.

Not that long ago, she could have conjured a mug of cider or caused the scrolls on the table to fly around the room amusingly like a flock of sparrows.

But then, of course, she had woken up.

“Oh, that was marvelous, simply marvelous,” Fauna said, putting a delicate, weightless hand on Aurora Rose’s shoulder. “You certainly have a knack for this whole leadership thing.”

“Yes, it was very well done,” said Flora. “You have them eating out of your hands.”

“I think you should turn the one in the corner into a toad,” Merryweather said, bunching her fat little face into a scowl.

Aurora Rose nodded with a faint smile, taking their praise as graciously as she could. They
did
love her. She had just sort of outgrown their ministrations.

“I still haven’t forgiven you for lying to me about my parents all those years,” she warned them. “Don’t think you can flatter your way into my good graces.”

“No, of course not, dear,” Flora said with a sigh. “Please see it from our perspective, however. While we are here, we are bound by the laws of your kingdom. And it was what your
parents
wanted, Rose.”

“What my parents wanted? Did they
show
any great insight or ability in
parenting
?” she demanded. “Whose idea was it to lock me in a bedroom by myself on the eve of my sixteenth birthday and not even
introduce
me properly to my own parents?”

“It made some sort of sense at the time,” Fauna said thoughtfully, a finger on her lips.

Aurora Rose stared at them blankly for a moment.

“I pricked my finger on the spindle because I thought I would never see Phillip again and my life was over!”

“Yes, well,” Flora said, looking chagrined. “We didn’t expect that to happen. Honestly, we never realized how sad you were. You were our first baby.”

Phillip muttered something unprincely and
very
rude.

“Well,
you
try being bound by human kings and human law,” Merryweather snapped. “Which of you brilliant house-apes came up with the idea of people just
inheriting
the rule of a land? Instead of choosing the best person for the job? We had to do what the king said. Your own rules, people.”

“We
loved
Rose. We still do. Even if we didn’t make the best choices as parents,” Flora said wistfully, touching Aurora Rose’s hair.

“We’ll do better with our next baby,” Fauna promised.

Aurora Rose felt her heart stop.

She loved her aunts. She forgave her aunts. She was growing less bitter and angry with every second she spent with them. She
did
have, in her own way, a freer childhood out in the woods than many a princess did.

But she would never
ever
give up any child of hers to them.

If I ever have a daughter, you can be sure I will keep her close, and teach her well, and school her in the arts of reading and math and kindness, and make her strong and powerful enough to protect herself, and I would never let anything come between us.

She smiled as she thought the words.

“Come on. Let’s go,” Aurora Rose said, rising from the throne and heading to the door. Phillip’s face still brightened at seeing her moving so gracefully, her golden hair now pulled back in a more businesslike braid down her spine.

In the antechamber to the speaking balcony, King Hubert was seated comfortably on a padded stool. Several polite-looking young men, nobles and servants alike, clustered around and listened.

“The thing is, lads, the thing is, once upon a time. Once upon a time I was in an endless dark forest. No—
actually endless
, I tell you! In another world! I wandered for ages all by myself in the woods. My wife died years ago, you see. I don’t know where my oldest boy was. My little girls and lads were safe at home, I think.

“Once upon a time we were all together, in a castle, you know, but things change. Wives die and eldest sons grow up and chase after princesses and peasant girls, riding away from you forever….”

“Good afternoon, King Hubert,” Aurora Rose said, kissing him on the cheek.

“Young lady!” Hubert said with delight, taking her hands in his. “I was just telling them. Are you the princess…no…” He looked at her and paused, searching her face. “No, my mistake. Are you the
queen
my son is going to marry today?”

“Not today, King Hubert,” Aurora Rose said with a smile. She brushed a stray lock of snow-white hair out of his eyes.

“Oh, well, soon then, I hope. Grandchildren will fix everything, I think,” he said pensively. “Grandchildren
love
stories.”

“We’ll see you in a moment, Father,” Phillip said with a quick, formal bow. Then he patted him on the shoulder, unsure what else to do.

They looked toward the balcony, where horn blowers stood at the ready, gold and blue pennants streaming from their polished instruments. A maid appeared in front of Aurora Rose with a crown resting on a pillow. It wasn’t the small princess one the fairies had gifted her with, nor was it the giant golden crown of state she would be given later at the official coronation. She had gone through the treasury very carefully and chosen an ancient gold circlet, simple and thick, that would be unmistakable as anything
but
a crown to the crowds below.