Slumbering Hope
Aurora woke in her bedchamber.
The sheets beneath her were damp and cold. No fire burned in the grate. An uneasy dark made it impossible to see anything but the familiar shape of her furniture. The dress she wore, olive green and tapered at the waist, was not nightwear. Nor were the thick leather boots adorning her feet. Everything before this moment was a fog, blurry and inconsistent. She thought maybe she’d been wandering the castle, bored, waiting for Rapunzel to arrive. Her neck and shoulders ached in the frigid cold and she groaned as she sat up. Looping her hair in a tight bun, she strapped her sword to her waist and went in search of answers.
“Hello,” she called, voice frail against the weight of the quiet.
The castle was deserted. Usually servants rushed along the corridors. Advisors read in the library. Guards followed her. Chattering children played in the courtyard. An uncomfortable chill ran across her skin. She had never been alone before. Not properly. Not in any way that mattered.
“Hello,” she tried again. No one replied.
The castle had become a stranger; gone were the hues of gold and pink created by the sunlight streaming through oversized windows, missing was the scent of flowers, rich and lush. Instead, rust and rot and mould and blood saturated the air. It sat heavy on her tongue as she crept through shadowed corridors. This place was a stark blend of black and greys, seeping into each other like clouds before the rain. Lightning illuminated the courtyard. Beyond the walls, a forest of thorns rang with the screams of men.
Somewhere in the distance, a nail scraped along the stone. Aurora froze.
Shattering glass exploded. She ran.
Noise of her pursuer echoed ahead of it; the heavy thump of feet, broken glass, and violent snorts. The sword did not stay in its sheath for long. The king had raised a warrior princess and that was what she would be. She drew it to the grand dining hall, pushing the tables aside and waiting. When it emerged from the shadows, Aurora took a step back.
The monster’s head grazed the chandelier. Course grey hair covered its body except for startling white claws protruding from its feet and hands. A long snout gasped in oxygen and released it in snorting exhales. Where its eyes should have been were two gaping, bloody holes. The grey fur around the sockets was matted and stained. Sharp incisors hung over its bloody lips. Its black tongue darted out, tasting the air for her.
The first time it killed her was easy; slashing three gashes from her shoulder to her hip. She bled out on the floor as it lapped her blood. She woke in her bedchambers. Time rewound and she knew she was sleeping. That was the worst part. Even with the knowledge she couldn’t will herself awake.
Death happened again and again.
Sometimes she fought. Sometimes she ran. Sometimes she hid.
Each time she died, she woke just a little less.
She was no longer sure of much, but she was sure of this; eventually she would not wake at all.
❦ ❦ ❦
“Only true love will break the curse.”
Rapunzel rolled her eyes and mouthed along with the other fairy’s response.
“We must wait for the right prince to come.”
The words burned. “The right prince,” she muttered.
They had been having this conversation for three damn months. She ran her fingers through her spiked hair, listening to the fairies explain for the seven hundredth time why the curse could not be broken by them. Her best friend was stuck inside an endless sleep, trapped behind a forest of thorns and the king kept sending in princes to save her. Not even top-of-the-range princes. No. These were the ones the royal families were willing to part with. Eight, ninth, tenth to the crown. The camp built just outside the reach of the spell was alive, day and night, with the screams of dying men. It would get on anyones nerves and Rapunzel did not have many to start with.
“When will that happen, though?” Exhaustion weighed heavily on King Philip’s words. “How long can she last in there? How long will these boys keep coming to die?”
The stream of princes had slowed. They’d all noticed it. Word had spread of an unbeatable forest, of sure death. Not even Aurora’s beauty could tempt them closer. Not when there were dragons to fight and wars to win.
None of the fairies had an answer.
Rapunzel watched from the corner of the tent as the king and his advisors failed to strategise. Couldn’t organise an assault on a sleeping ogre, the stupidest of all magical creatures. She slipped away when they discussed fire again. Her muscles clenched and twitched with unused energy. She had done what both her father, the king of the neighbouring kingdom, and Aurora’s father had asked; she had let them try, she had watched them plan and fail and plan and fail. She had even listened to the damn fairies. Watched them promise Aurora’s hand to whoever saved her. That one burned the most.
Fire hadn’t worked. Axes hadn’t worked. Fairy magic hadn’t worked. Princes hadn’t worked.
No one would request the use of witch magic. It was forbidden. Even though everyone knew only witch magic could destroy witch magic, and Maleficent was the worst witch there was.
She pulled open her tent and grabbed a bag, packing it with supplies.
“Where are you going?” Lucas asked, thinking himself sly.
She didn’t point out she’d heard him coming. “Someone has to save her.”
Lucas snorted. “Oh, let the men keep trying. They'll never give you permission.”
“Who said I was asking for permission?” She rooted out her spell pack and buried it at the bottom of the bag.
“If they find you with that, they'll kill you.” His voice was sharp as the blade she tucked into the sheath around her leg.
She stood and smiled. “What? My herbs for my menstrual cramps?” She asked, voice as innocent as a new lamb. “Witchcraft? Oh sir, I would never. These were just an old recipe passed down from my mother. The dead queen I never even got to know. You wouldn’t take it from me, would you?”
Lucas snorted. “I never saw you.”
“Then go away.”
“Bring her back, okay?” He squeezed her shoulder and disappeared out of the tent.
Two people knew she was a witch; Lucas and Aurora. She refused to lose one.
Rapunzel had spent almost her whole life as a captive of a witch; the woman trained her, guided her and coached her until witch magic was second nature. She had thought this woman was her mother. She still found it difficult not to think of her that way most days, in secret. The kingdoms only hated witchcraft because of Maleficent and her curse. Seemed counterproductive to Rapunzel to ban a whole form of magic because of one person, but she was just a mere princess, and a walking tragedy, so she couldn’t be trusted to know her own mind, and Goddess-forbid, have opinions.
The magic falling from the castle burned at Rapunzel’s edges until she felt as frayed as her old baby blanket. She refused to let Aurora endure it any longer. Stealing away from camp with only her knives, her spell kit and a candle, she hiked for two days. No one could interrupt her once she began. The distance gave her time to tune into the forest. Three months of waiting had allowed her to learn of the ebb of its power.
Once she’d ensured she was alone, she built a circle of rocks in the forest’s shadow. She lit the candle and stared into the flickering light, letting her mind empty of everything but her power and the power of the thorns. The war Rapunzel was fighting felt impossible; her power was nothing but a spark compared to the blazing inferno of the forest. Three days and three nights she sat without movement. Not sleeping. Not eating. Change was a slow and arduous thing. A tap of her finger. The twitch of her eyebrow. An uneven breath.
Ever so slowly, Rapunzel absorbed the power of the curse. Bathed in it. Soaked her body in its harsh light until the forest could no longer tell the difference between her and it. She stood on shaking legs, politely bowed and asked for entrance.
The thorns allowed her to pass without any hesitation.
❦ ❦ ❦
Aurora felt it as soon as she woke. She was so weak. Next time she died, she would not wake. She had no idea how long she had been fighting, but it felt like forever. She was so, so tired.
She gritted her teeth against it and stood.
She would not die this time, because she had no choice.
❦ ❦ ❦
The castle was the same as always. Bright and welcoming. Sleeping bodies lay everywhere; fallen where they stood the moment Aurora had touched that damn spindle. Rapunzel had warned her to wear the protection bag she'd made, but Aurora thought it too smelly to be carrying around.
"Fool," Rapunzel muttered to ease some of her nerves. She moved carefully through the bright corridors, dagger in hand. She made it easily to Aurora’s room. It was empty. “Dammit, Aurora.” she pulled out her spell pack. Drawing a circle of salt on the stone floor, she sat and sprinkled a mixture of rosemary, thistles and nettles.
“Faigh í, máthairdhia.” She rolled her wooden runes in the palm of her hand and focused on the spell, focused on Aurora; her dark skin, soft and warm, the quirk of her mouth that said she was so amused by you, and the bite of her words when she was annoyed. “Faigh í, máthairdhia.”
Shaped like dice, her runes each had twelve sides and could be read like tarot cards. They gave answers to those who were willing to learn the ancient language. Rapunzel had long been fluent. She lit her candle again and dropped the flint on the herbs.
As they burned, she rolled the runes. She frowned when she saw the answer.
Aurora was somewhere in the room.
❦ ❦ ❦
The wound was deep but she wasn’t dead yet.
She clutched her side and stumbled down the corridor. She could hear it slamming against the locked door where she’d trapped it. If she was going to die, it would be in her bed, alone.
It would not have the pleasure.
She fell through her bedroom door, landing on the hard floor. The room smelled different. Like the herbs Rapunzel always carried. A sob burst free at the thought she’d never see her again. She crawled across the floor and pulled herself up onto the bed, letting the darkness claim her.
❦ ❦ ❦
Rapunzel felt her.
She shut her eyes and pushed through the wicked spell Maleficent had cast. With her eyes closed, her magic seeing for her, she watched a bleeding Aurora pull herself up onto the bed. She allowed her magic to pulse out of her.
“Faigh í, máthairdhia,” she whispered over and over. “Faigh í, máthairdhia.”
Aurora fell onto the bed and didn’t move.
Slowly, so slowly, Rapunzel crept across the stone carefully enough to not break the tenuous magic linking them. Aurora’s chest barely moved.
Love’s true kiss.
Rapunzel leaned forward and caught Aurora's lip with her own. At first it was like kissing air, and then warmth, and finally, she was there, solid beneath her, kissing back.
Aurora gasped. “I knew you’d come for me.”
Rapunzel’s knees buckled with relief. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“Would it get you to kiss me again because then maybe…” she trailed off.
“Hey, Aurora,” she grinned. “There was a prize for waking you.”
Aurora quirked an eyebrow.
“How do you feel about marriage?”
The sound of Aurora’s laughter echoed bright and free though the slowly waking castle.
Fran Quinn is a chronically ill writer based in Dublin. She spent four years interning in Big Smoke Writing Factory. She took part in Penguin WriteNow 2020, and more recently, the DHA New Writers Week 2021. She writes YA about witches and magic.