A Sword In Slumber, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by Disney, Enterprises, inc.
All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 77 West 66th Street, New York, New York 10023.
First Edition, September 2024
Designed by Marci Senders
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 2024932202
eBook ISBN 978-1-368-10114-1
Visit www.DisneyBooks.com
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One: Four Years Later
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen: Phillip
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen: Phillip
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
No spell needed—you’re already enough
Three things filled the dawn-drenched glade: the plucked strings of a lute, the fragrant sweetness of picked wildflowers, and the force of the girl’s personality.
From where Maleficent perched within the gnarled, shadowed branches of a spruce tree, she had a view of the performance. In truth, other than a few wayward forest creatures, she knew she was the only viewer.
The twelve-year-old girl bounded around the clearing, bare toes tearing at spring-soft grass, her flower crown cockeyed on hair of sunshine gold as she danced and sang.
“O good Sir Knight, O good Sir Knight,
A sword made wild and free;
Thy valor leads from tree to Rhine,
By dream you walk with me.”
A boy who played the lute came in with a rolling repetition of “Way, way, way lay lie; way, way, way lay low.”
Another girl, this one with dark hair and a dirt-smeared face, popped up from where she had been sitting on a log. In one hand, she brandished a stick fashioned to look like a sword.
“ATTACK!” she shouted, and dove at the first girl, whose song faltered on a giggling shriek.
Briar Rose, the golden-haired one called herself. She continually drew Maleficent’s attention, making her helplessly flinch, like at the first light of dawn.
Which was appropriate. Given her true name. A name the girl herself did not know.
Aurora.
“Frieda!” Aurora ducked her friend’s attempt at play-fighting as the boy continued with his lute. “We’re meant to be rehearsing.”
“And it was you who said we should pretend this rehearsal was at a grand ball,” Frieda countered. “And it just so happens that this grand ball is up at the castle here, and the Bavarians are attacking!”
She let loose a battle cry and charged again.
Aurora feinted left before hurling herself at Frieda. Instead of fighting, she hooked her arm with Frieda’s and spun them in a circle while she caught the song back up.
“Fortune favored, adventure blessed,” Aurora sang. “Refrains of mighty deeds—”
Maleficent’s finger tapped on her thigh. In time with the music.
One-two-three.
Counting. Counting.
One-two-three.
Frieda stumbled, dropped her sword. Aurora spun them faster and added jerking swivels of her hips until Frieda laughed at her own efforts to keep her footing.
“Such gallant turns are sung of you.” Aurora’s voice was perfectly pitched and lovely. “Though seldom all they seem.”
The boy on the lute joined again: “Way, way, way lay lie; way, way, way lay low.”
He continued to play as he spoke. “If the castle was attacked, are we to imagine that the two of you are now singing while in the middle of a bloodbath?”
That made Frieda snort laughter.
Aurora stopped her chaotic spinning to give a look of mock affront to the boy. “How outlandish, Benedikt. Certainly not—the moment the attacking army heard our song, they dropped their weapons and joined the dance.”
“Ah.” Frieda disentangled herself from Aurora and swiped her fake sword from the ground. “So our music will bring peace to the empire, is that right?”
Aurora managed another look of mock affront, though her eyes sparkled. “How could it not?”
“Next time you’re cross with me, I just need to sing to earn your forgiveness, then?”
Aurora’s lips pursed, her eyes narrowing in a way that said she saw what Frieda was doing. “If I say yes, will you actually sing and stop trying to stab me?”
“Agreed.” Frieda stuck her fake sword through the belt around her dress. “And let me use this blanket forgiveness from you to admit that you didn’t lose that shawl your aunt made for you. I dropped cherries on it, and it got a stain, so I hid it under the armoire in your cottage.”
Aurora’s teasing look plummeted. But not in anger—in confusion. “What shawl?”
Frieda’s shoulders were level as though she was prepared to stand her ground in defense, but at Aurora’s immediate bewilderment, she relaxed. “Oh. The one that started wide on the end and went narrow for some reason? It was a rather sickly color—I think your aunt tried to dye the yarn herself.”
A pause.
Then Aurora burst into laughter, and the last of what barely restrained tension Frieda had vanished.
“You’re the reason it went missing?” Aurora said through her laughter. “Do you have any idea how relieved I was that it disappeared? Tante Fauna did try her best when she made it, but good Lord, it was hideous.”
Frieda cracked a smile. “You’re not cross with me, then?”
Behind them, Benedikt laughed. “She’s been stressing about it for months, Bri. Months.”
Frieda flushed bright crimson. “Traitor,” she shot at Benedikt.
Aurora collected herself, straightening her flower crown. “It’s under the armoire, you say?”
“Mm.”
“Excellent. I can reuse the yarn and turn it into something that can actually be worn, without hurting Tante’s feelings. She dismissed any hope of me ever finding it after, and I quote, a vile sorceress must have snatched your birthday present.”
From her hiding place, Maleficent’s heart beat hard suddenly, a single throbbing jolt.
“Though you should dye it a nicer color,” Frieda said. “I may have actually done you a favor with the cherry stain.”
Benedikt chuckled but never broke off playing.
Aurora cupped her hand around her ear. “You have been forgiven, and yet I hear no singing.”
Frieda rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t have been angry with me at all!”
“That was not our deal. There shall be peace in the realm, but only if you sing.”
“You’re thinking too simply, Briar. Peace should be harder to come by than that.”
Aurora pouted, but stiffness had taken over her posture, like excitement tumbling up against nervousness. “Please. Games aside, we finally get to sing at the tavern tonight. I just want us to do well.”
Frieda sighed and nodded. “We will.”
Aurora raised her eyebrows at Frieda in silent prodding, who sighed again and finally began to sing as Benedikt hit a low note. She belted words that must have been the wrong verse, as Aurora snorted and picked up the right words:
“O good Sir Knight, O good Sir Knight
In dark your eyes do gleam—”
Frieda joined her, her softer voice pushing on Aurora’s to uplift it. Soon, the girls twirled around each other, Frieda following Aurora’s lead.
It truly was an active choice not to get sucked into Aurora’s energy—she emitted a fascinating fervor, helplessly mesmerizing. This was a girl who had found her place, who loved and shared that love and looked out at her future with intoxicating wonder.
Was that a flicker of guilt in Maleficent’s chest?
Hardly.
What would unfold was necessary. Her hand had been forced. Everything was set, the pieces arranged on the board, the game underway.
All she needed to do now was wait. In a few years, destiny would crystallize.
Or it would shatter.
She smiled, teeth sharp. One-two-three, tapping her thigh.
Always three. One-two-three.
It haunted her. Stalked her.
“Allow us to walk how we once did,” Aurora and Frieda sang. “Upon, upon a dream.”
“Way, way, way lay lie,” added Benedikt. “Way, way, way lay low.”
He finished with a flourish, hitting the strings in an overembellished arch of his arm. He used that flair to swing out, snatch Frieda as she danced past, and spin her into a one-armed dip. She gave a bright shock of laughter, flushed and happy.
Maleficent’s eyes, as always, returned to Aurora, who watched her friends with a grin, her dancing slowed to gentle sways of her skirts.
She turned away while Frieda and Benedikt spoke softly.
Did Aurora’s eyes meet Maleficent’s, where she was hidden in the darkness?
No. Surely not. Dozens of times, Maleficent had come to check on the progress of her plan. Dozens of times, no one had noticed, no one had suspected.
Aurora stared at the tree a moment.
Then turned away, humming the song to herself, effervescent with happiness, with life, with purpose.
Purpose she did not yet fully understand.
Maleficent leaned back. Drumming her fingers on her thigh again. One-two-three.
It would be her. She knew it would be. She had known all along.
Briar Rose—Aurora—would be empress.
For that, she needed Maleficent’s help. Would she be grateful? Of course not. But gratitude had nothing to do with it.
One-two-three.
One-two-three.
One-two—
There was a woman, and she was a stranger.
She ran down an alley in a dress as blue as the sky, her face twisted in horror at what she had seen. Or heard. Or felt, and that feeling rippled through the air in a tangible fume, the tang of a crowd in upheaval, driven to mania like a startled horse in a stampede. It could not be stopped, that was the worst part—it could not be stopped, this terror, and the girl ran.
The fear was familiar. It made this girl not a stranger but a mirror.
The scene blackened, changed, and a night sky unfolded, star-speckled and beautiful at first, then rocked by five shooting stars ripping fire and flame across the darkness. A woman looked up in unsuppressed horror, and then she was running, too, running across battlefields strewn with bodies, that same horror resonating on her face.
Again, familiarity bred unity. They were one and the same.
Another woman overtook a new scene, her white-knuckled fingers clasped around a pail of water, a hearth of fire burning before her. She looked down at that fire, beseeching, afraid, confused—her face did not clear as she threw the water onto the fire, snuffing it out.
All of the woman’s emotions congealed into expectation—something was coming. A shadow, a presence, a threat.
It could not be stopped.
It had happened already, or would happen already, around and around and weaving back in on itself.
“It cannot be stopped, Briar. Aurora.” Maleficent’s voice was all crooning and cackles. “These girls face the same struggles as you did. As you will. What will you do with yours, hmm? What will you do? What will you—”
Briar bolted upright, sweat-soaked and gasping, muscles wrenched to fight.
But all that tension quickly shifted inward, to self-hatred.
She’d had those dreams again.
The first few nights after breaking free of the sleeping curse, she hadn’t been surprised to still see the same images that had haunted those long, restless days. Images of places she had never been, women she had never seen, each dream choked by fear or anxiety or a looming presence she could never find, a shadow waiting, waiting, waiting on the edge. The only solace was in that sense of familiarity she had with the strangers in those dreams; they shared the same emotions, the same terrors, the same obstacles. Were these other women Maleficent had tormented?
It was not enough that the sorceress had knocked her unconscious—no, she had to plague her with the horrors of others, too.
Now, six weeks out from Phillip defeating Maleficent in her dragon form and rescuing Briar from her sleeping curse, the dreams had lessened but still splintered her sleep most nights.
The curse was broken. She was free.
But one of the cruelest realities that the curse had painted was that being free physically did not equate to being free mentally.
Briar caved forward over her knees, the dense silk bedding too tight, too heavy. That was the problem—these blankets strangled her. And this nightgown, it was too thick; and the room, it was too dark, too quiet, too—too—
Too much. All of it.
Too much, and she couldn’t breathe.
Briar froze, bent over, fighting for a single, deep breath. As though breathing would make everything better. But what else could she do?
Her chest ached, lungs trembling, and she had a disconnected, exhausted thought—could she sneak out of the castle? It had been so easy to sneak out of the woodcutter’s cottage. But then, she had only had her three aunts to avoid—no, not aunts, were they? Fairies.
Magical fairies, disguised to watch over her.
Briar kicked the blankets off and swung her legs over the side of the bed, fighting for one more breath.
Even if she did manage to get out of the castle, Frieda and Ben didn’t want to see her.
Briar stumbled from the bed and crossed the room—such a massive, cold, dark room—and felt her way to a desk by the window. One paper crinkled as she pulled it out, but it was far too dark to read. She knew it by heart, anyway, and she held it in front of her like the words would…would do something.
Materialize relief.
Bleed comfort from the ink into her arms, down across her chest.
Magic was real. She knew that now. It was real and it had upended her life, so why couldn’t it help her, why couldn’t it calm her down?
The messenger’s recorded letter from Ben had his usual tone, as though he had gone off on a stream of thought and only realized near the end that he had meant to be short and curt. From that, Briar knew, at least, that he was well, the tavernkeeper missed the business she brought in, everyone in town thought she’d run off, no one knew she had really been the missing princess the whole time—
But you lied to us, Ben had written. You could have told US. Bri—Aurora—Princess Aurora.
Don’t worry about us. You didn’t before.
Frieda hadn’t sent any message back at all. Ben hadn’t even mentioned her in his letter.
Briar slammed the paper back into her desk and staggered into the middle of the room, hands in her hair. Her braid was in tatters, and she freed it in an angry tear.
She needed to go. To get out. To—to not be in here, in this bedroom that wasn’t hers, in this castle that wasn’t hers, in this life that wasn’t hers.
Briar found the armoire by kicking it with her toe. She grimaced and yanked open the door, and even though she couldn’t see the contents, her grimace deepened.
Of the many revelations that now took up too much room in her head, she knew that she was responsible for the fabric shortages that had plagued Hausach and the surrounding villages her whole life. Spinning wheels had been banned since before she could remember, out of fear of a curse claiming the missing princess, which said that she would prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. She was that princess. It was her fault she had felt guilty for outgrowing her old kirtles, her fault the weavers in Hausach had to run their businesses underground, her fault everyone had to use and reuse even the slightest scrap of fabric; her fault. All of it.
And now she had a full armoire of stunning, rich gowns, linens and silks and wool, and shoes by the dozens, and jeweled necklaces, rings, bracelets—more and more each day. Gifts from the king.
No, not the king. He insisted she call him Father.
Feeling in the dark, she heaved aside half the princess’s wardrobe, still flinching at the thought that her fingers would dirty things so fine—but there, at the back, wedged in despite the protests of her lady’s maids, was her old kirtle. Patched and threadbare, but hers.
Briar undressed and tugged it on and threw her hair back into a simple braid.
It did help. A little. A familiar weight, the feel of the rough wool.
If she couldn’t sneak out and talk to Frieda and Ben, what could she do?
There was only one place that felt even moderately like home in this massive castle. It was where she always ended up. Night after night. For the past six weeks.
Why even fight it?
With a resigned sigh, Briar slipped out of her room.
The halls were empty, and Briar knew now where to duck to avoid the soldiers posted at windows and doors. There were many, even with the villain Maleficent soundly defeated and the kingdom freed from the threat of her evil—but that had not settled the paranoia of the king and queen.
Father and Mother.
Briar, at least, understood their worry. It was over; she had been awoken from the sleeping curse and rescued from the tower; but every sleepless night, every crash of noise, every flash of shadow out of the corner of her eye told her that Maleficent was still here. That she would come back, swooping in with another curse, and this one would hit its mark.
