Did the real sun actually have a face?
Aurora wasn’t sure. She couldn’t remember.
In the picture below it, a naked child happily rode a pony over hills so green she was tempted to pick at the paint with her fingernail. His mount was dappled white and black and had a horn and a beard. None of the remaining horses in the castle looked anything like it.
The next card was of a girl who looked, at first glance, like Aurora herself, arms wrapped lovingly around the neck of a lion. The lion was tawny and orange and red, and the girl’s golden hair was so thick and manelike she could have been a version of the sun itself. Aurora knew lions because they were carved into decorations around the castle and inscribed upon heraldic shields.
On the card after that, a girl—who also looked like her—was touching a different beast on the nose. Aurora had no idea what animal it was. Tiny like a squirrel, but with overlong, soft ears that were as ridiculous as the horn on the pony. Its pink nose sprouted long whiskers that were so carefully painted Aurora felt her heart break. She wished she could touch such a creature, like the girl in the picture.
And finally, there was an animal by itself in an open green patch surrounded by trees. It looked a bit like a horse but for its shorter body and more slender legs. It had no mane, and its tail was short and fat. Its head was turned backward, cocked, as if listening for danger.
Aurora looked around quickly, suddenly nervous. No book in the castle had all of its pictures, and even the tapestries were blurry. It seemed like this strange deck was complete. Why these? Why now?
“Princess? Your Highness?” a voice called from outside her door.
Aurora quickly swept the cards into an ungainly pile and, looking around for someplace to stash them, shoved them into the pretty little velvet bag set out to go with her gown that night.
Without waiting for an answer, the owner of the voice swept in: tiny, round-faced, and as delicate as a dragonfly.
Aurora felt a burn of guilt heat up her face and breast. Lady Lianna was her handmaiden and closest friend. And the princess was her only friend; she had been part of a visiting envoy when the end of the world had come, destroying her homeland, her parents, and everyone she had ever loved.
Despite her completely appropriate dress and the very stylish, intricately braided buns of ebon that covered her ears, there was something unmistakably foreign about her large black eyes and grayish skin. Other members of royalty in the castle tended to shun her.
“You’re not even partially dressed yet,” Lianna scolded, but she didn’t click her tongue the way another might have. She flowed from one side of the room to the other, gathering things for a ballroom transformation: brush, ribbons, underskirts, golden tippet, golden shoes.
“Um,” Aurora said. Up until a moment ago, the ball had been arguably the most important—or at least interesting—thing in her life. The one and only event there was to look forward to every month.
But now all Aurora wanted was for Lianna to go away so she could go back to lying on her bed, looking through all the cards.
The handmaiden planted herself behind the princess and began to unlace the back of her day dress.
“Your second cousin, Mistress Laura, refuses to wear the gown you so generously gave her that bolt of cloth for.”
“Really?” Aurora asked, momentarily distracted. “I thought she would look nice in that dark aqua. It matches her eyes.”
“I think it was less the color than who chose it,” Lianna said crisply. Having finished with the laces, she firmly but politely turned Aurora around and started helping her out of the long, buttoned sleeves.
“Oh, bother. Well, she’s just a girl,” Aurora said, shaking her head—and her arms, to get the long sleeves off.
“She’s fifteen, Your Highness,” her friend said with a barely audible hiss. “I would keep an eye on her insolences. You have many years of close confinement with her—and her admirers—ahead.”
Aurora shook her head with a smile. “Lianna, this is not like the court where you’re from. There are no conspiracies. There are no plots. She is a girl who doesn’t want the future queen choosing a dress for her. I understand—I don’t like it when people tell me what to do, either.”
There was a moment of silence. Aurora realized that last bit had come out far more vehemently than she had meant.
Lianna’s large eyes were unreadable, as always.
“Oh, absolutely. And the Exile was just a friendly neighboring king.”
“That was different,” Aurora said, uncomfortable at the memory. “He wanted to take over the castle. He actually tried to organize a coup.”
“It started with talk, Your Highness. He told Queen Maleficent she had no place ruling. That he was better suited. It started with talk and ended with him being thrown Outside for all of our safety. If you truly like Mistress Laura, you will caution her to curb her tongue and to obey those above her without question.”
The princess was silent. All she remembered from that confusing time was a white-bearded, fat little blustery man, shouting and arguing like a storm against the cool, sharp figure of her aunt. The fury of his words had been split and dissipated by the calmness of her demeanor.
And then his cursing when the inhuman servants threw him Outside.
Lianna relented, seeing the troubled look on her mistress’s face.
“Come,” she said. “Get out of that, and we’ll put you in your dress.”
She turned to the wardrobe with the precision of an insect. Aurora shivered out of her dress, letting it fall to the floor. It was a fun, dramatic moment, but Aurora was a good girl and could not resist immediately stepping out of it, picking it up, and smoothing it out. The way she had been taught to take care of clothes.
No, wait…no one had taught her. She had been ignored and left to run wild with the servants and dogs for years.
She put a hand to her head.
“Here, now, look at this,” Lianna said quickly, bringing the new dress over. “This is a dress for a royal princess.”
It was indeed, and Aurora couldn’t help smiling. The skirt and bodice were as dark blue as she imagined the sea had been, dotted with golden shots of thread, the way she imagined the ocean had sparkled under a golden sun. The girdle matched her tippets, both made from the same golden cloth taken from one of the old queen’s dresses.
Palace seamstresses and ladies of the court had worked day and night on it—on all of the outfits for the ball.
“It is so nice for everyone to make this for me,” she murmured.
“It’s generous of you and the queen to give the ladies something to do,” Lianna almost snorted.
“What do you mean? This took weeks of work,” Aurora said, showing her the fine seams.
“Seamstresses must sew. Ladies must dance. Everyone does what they must do or we will all go mad here,” the handmaiden said, holding the skirts so Aurora could step into them properly. “I have seen them work, their needles flashing in and out, like they are driven by the devil. Even the peasants brush their donkeys and slop the pigs and try to grow little vegetable gardens despite the food our loving queen provides with her magic. They cannot stop themselves. Everyone must be what they must be.”
“And ladies in waiting?” Aurora said with a gentle, teasing smile.