My sense of unease crept higher.
I looked over my shoulder. The stairs stretched up, up, and up to that room with the spinning wheel. Ahead of me, the hallway was long and narrow and deathly quiet. Not just because there was no sound. It was more like sound had ceased to exist. Like noise wasn’t even possible.
“Aaaah,” I said experimentally. My voice sounded tiny and insignificant and was quickly swallowed by the unnatural hush.
I wouldn’t try that again. The silence was better.
I carefully closed the door behind me. Then I walked down the hall.
I’d like to say I was being brave. If this story was about me, I guess that’s what it would say.
But the truth is, I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
I got to my sister’s room just in time to see the prince lean down and kiss her.
I kind of wish I had gotten there thirty seconds later.
It could have been worse. It wasn’t a gross kiss. Just a peck on the lips—polite and distant—and then the prince straightened and stepped back from the bed.
My sister lay unmoving, her eyes closed. Her hair fell in waves around her long lavender gown. (Rosalin always wore gowns, even to study Latin or go riding.) Her face was perfect, her features exquisite, her skin glowing.
I was used to all that. Judging by his rapt expression, the prince was not.
He was pretty good-looking himself. His clothes were surprisingly shabby, and ripped in various places, but he was tall and angular, with thick black hair. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, since he hadn’t bothered to look at me yet, but I hoped they were blue. Flashing, dazzling blue. Rosalin had a thing for blue eyes. After all she had gone through, she deserved that, at least.
“My princess,” he said, which seemed a bit—forward? Presumptuous? Not really, I guess; he had just rescued her from an evil spell.
Rosalin opened her eyes, a slow flutter of lashes. She looked at the prince and smiled.
He put his hand on his heart and dropped to one knee.
I think that was the moment I decided I hated him.
Honestly! Who kisses a girl they haven’t even met? And yes, I know, there was a spell, it was a curse; obviously Rosalin would rather be kissed by a stranger than sleep for the rest of her life. It was the fairy’s fault, not the prince’s.
But I have to say, he didn’t look as if he felt the slightest bit guilty about it.
Rosalin struggled to sit up, her lips still curved in a smile. Then she turned her head and saw me.
An expression of absolute terror passed over her face.
Just for a second, and then it was gone. So fast I wasn’t sure I had seen it.
I must have imagined it. It didn’t make sense; no one was ever scared of me. No one noticed me at all. Usually, when ambassadors from other countries came to the castle, they were surprised to see me. No one had bothered to tell them I existed.
You might think that would upset me, but I was used to it. It was the way things had always been. Rosalin was the older princess, and she was astonishingly beautiful, and she was the victim of a tragic fairy curse. People always wanted to look at her, and hear about her, and say they had met her.
I wasn’t jealous. Well, I mostly wasn’t jealous. The lack of attention left me free to explore the castle and the gardens, which was a lot more fun than entertaining ambassadors.
Besides, we had very few ambassadors. My father kept pressing other princes to propose to Rosalin, and it made people avoid us. While it was true that she was at the age when most princesses would be getting engaged, nobody was interested, because everyone knew what would happen to her on her sixteenth birthday. Aside from the fact that it made an engagement pointless, whoever was engaged to her would be obligated to try to fight his way into the castle and wake her with a kiss. None of our neighboring countries were willing to risk their princes.
A couple of weeks earlier—well, a couple of weeks as I remembered it—a dukedom had sent their sixth son, whom I guess they could spare, to court Rosalin. Unfortunately, he was twelve years old, so she hadn’t taken him seriously. He and I had a fun time—it turned out he was fond of climbing on rooftops, just like me—and for the first time ever, I knew what it felt like to have a friend. I could say whatever I wanted around him, without thinking about whether I would be laughed at.
It lasted until Rosalin announced that she was formally rejecting his offer of marriage and he was sent home. I didn’t speak to my sister for two days afterward, and we finally had it out in a huge fight. She told me she wasn’t going to “string anyone along” and she wouldn’t settle for anything less than a true and noble prince who was an actual adult. I shouted that maybe she should think about what I wanted for once, instead of everything always being about her. Then I threw a wooden bowl at her face. She caught it and threw it back, and after ten minutes of back-and-forth, we were laughing. I laughed so hard I cried.
But no one was laughing now. Rosalin went on looking at me, her face blank, until the prince cleared his throat. Then we both looked at him.
“My lady,” he said. He did have blue eyes, though they were pale, not particularly dazzling. “You have been asleep for a long time.”
“Um, yeah,” I said. “We knew that.”
Rosalin shot me a
