“You will not have my daughter!” said the king. “She is not my wife’s alone to bargain with. She is ours, not yours. She will never be yours.”
The fairy’s eyes darkened. “We shall see. Very well, Your Majesties. You may keep your child. She will be yours for seventeen years. But hear this: on the day of her seventeenth birthday, the princess will prick her finger on a spinning wheel, and fall down dead.”
“No!” The queen clutched the baby to her chest, who squirmed and wriggled, oblivious to the curse that had just been thrown upon her.
The fairy smiled. “Seventeen years you will have to love her, to watch your affection for her multiply by the day. And when that day comes… when you see your beloved child lying dead at your feet… ask yourself if it was worth it. If you wouldn’t have much rather given her to me seventeen years ago.”
She vanished in a flash of darkness.
The king turned to the remaining fairies. “Help us,” he said. “Take away the curse, I beg you!”
The fairies looked amongst themselves.
“We cannot,” said the stately one. “You cannot undo a curse, only break it. But all curses can be broken.”
“How… how will we break this one?”
“True love always works,” said one fairy. “But that is a rare thing. Why, you could wait a hundred years for that to happen…”
The final fairy sighed. “I have an idea,” she said. “I can… soften the curse, though not undo it. If… if I may?”
The king and queen nodded vehemently, and the final fairy crept towards the princess, still held tightly in her mother’s arms.
“Little princess, you shall not die as the curse commands, but fall into a sleep like death, to be awakened by the kiss of one with a noble heart. In this slumber you shall remain for one hundred years, and awake as if no time has passed at all.”
She sealed the protection with a kiss of her own.
“A hundred years?” said the queen.
“It is as many as I can manage. It is as much as I can do.”
“Will… will any kiss awaken her?”
The fairy shook her head. “Would that it were that easy. No, it will have to be a special kiss, something pure… else anyone, including yourselves, could break it. Dark magic is seldom easy to break.”
“A hundred years,” wept the queen. “We may never see her awaken.”
The stately one sighed, and placed a gentle hand on the queen’s arm. “In seventeen years, we shall return. We shall place the kingdom in a similar slumber, to awaken when the princess does. You shall never be without your child.”
“Thank you,” said the king. “A thousand thanks and more.”
“Do not thank us yet,” returned the fairy, “but let us pray that you may one day have cause to rejoice. Call on us if ever you have need. Until that day, farewell.”
Part One:
Dusk
Let’s run quickly, it’s late, towards the horizon,
to catch at least one slanting ray as it departs!
But I pursue the vanishing God in vain:
irresistible Night establishes its sway,
full of shudders, black, dismal, cold:
an odour of the tomb floats in the shadow,
at the swamp’s edge, feet faltering I go,
bruising damp slugs, and unexpected toads.
--Charles Baudelaire--
Chapter One:
The Quest Begins
A hundred and seventeen years later, minus a few weeks, Prince Leopold of Germaine and his entourage reached the village on the edge of the forest that now divided what remained of the Kingdom of Verona from the rest of the world. The story of its downfall was legendary, how the princess Briar-Rose had been cursed from birth to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a death-like slumber, and how the entire kingdom slept behind a forest of thorns, waiting for her to be awakened with a kiss. By royal decree, whoever rescued her would win her hand, a binding agreement, a prize worth the danger that lurked within the forest.
Over the years, hundreds had braved the forest. Many had perished. Those that returned spoke of untold horrors, of an evil that inhabited every shadow. It was said that the wicked fairy who cast the curse still resided within, preventing it from ever being lifted.
Stories told that when the time was up, not only would the inhabitants finally succumb to the ravages of time, but that the evil fairy would be freed to wreak havoc on the world.
King Albert, Leopold’s father, was keen to avoid such an occurrence. Germaine sat right on the borders of the Kingdom of Thorns. They would be the first to fall. For years, knights had been sent into the dark, but none prevailed. Finally, he consulted a good fairy, who told him to send his son. She could not tell which one.
Everyone expected it to be his eldest, Wilheim. He may have been the crown prince, but he was the bravest and the strongest. If anyone stood a chance of surviving the woods, it was surely him. Wilheim knew this. He heard the fairy’s words, nodded, and promised that he would do it for his kingdom.
But waking the princess meant having to marry her. It was binding. It could not be broken. Wilheim was already in love, and Jakob was too young. What kind of brother would Leo be, if he was prepared to jeopardise one brother’s happiness, and another’s life? And what kind of prince would he be to risk the heir to the throne?
A cowardly one, he thought.
He could see the forest now, behind the village, stretching for miles and miles, the kingdom swallowed by the trees. It looked like a dark shadow on the land, a stain on the fields. What was he thinking? He was not built for this. Yes, he had been trained in combat, but no amount of training could stop the tremor in his legs.
Wilheim would not have been so afraid.
He took a deep breath. “We should stop for the night,” he told his party. “One final comfortable sleep. Begin at first light.”
No one argued, though there was plenty of light left. They made their way to a nearby inn. It was too early to be busy in the tavern below, but a group of the king’s men entering the room sucked any chatter away entirely. The people of the village knew the deadline was looming, and didn’t know if they should be elated or horrified by the presence of the young prince in their midst. Was the king truly that desperate?
Leo ordered a round of drinks and something warm to eat. “Have many travelled into the woods of late?” he asked the barkeeper.
The man nodded solemnly. “Many a last-ditch attempt these past few weeks.” He pointed to a group of three men, huddled in a corner by the fire, their eyes dark and hollow. “Those three came out a week ago. One’s still upstairs recovering. But most of the folk here have tried it at some point.”
“I didn’t know there were so many survivors.”
“There aren’t,” said the barkeeper darkly. “That group of men by the fire? Ten went in.”
Leo swallowed, thanked the man for his intel, and went to speak to the group. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said. Only a couple of eyes glanced his way. “I am sorry to disturb your rest, but my companions and I are bound for the forest and–”