The Puppet Queen: A Tale of the Sleeping Beauty Read online

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  Giggling and gossiping and kicking the water with its rippling veins of sunshine gold, we lingered at the creek for hours. We feasted on fruit tarts and biscuits, stuffed grape leaves and flans and plums plucked from the bowing branches.

  Auralia spun long yarns, detailing the latest rumors she had gathered from the court. As we lambasted that count for his drunken confessions of love to this lady married to that lord, Auralia’s smile sparked with as much mischief as my own.

  As evening stretched into night, we started back to the castle by the light of scattered stars, our soaked clothes sticking uncomfortably against us. Letern Woods yielded to the amber plains that ringed Aquia City’s high hills and with darkening shadows ushering in the coolness of the Autumn night, our teeth chattered in the chill. Each vagrant breeze rattling through the tall grass seemed a personal assault and was met with moans of consternation. The city of Aquia, with houses and shops winding up the hills all the way to the palace walls, twinkled quietly against the lilac dusk. And it seemed oh so far.

  Something snapped.

  I grabbed my sister's elbow. “Auralia, did you hear that?” I stood silently and tried to pick out the noise again.

  Auralia turned her head towards me, the braid snapping like a wet whip. “What, Lina?” Her voice dipped to a frightened whisper.

  A twig cracked and leaves rustled as if a man were moving through the woods, disturbing the usual silence. “Dear Seasons, that! Someone has followed us. Rory, run!”

  Hearts and imaginations racing, we scampered up a rise. Flaming torches wove above the grass.

  “It’s a whole party of bandits, Rory! Or—” I whitened at the horrific thought, of those fey people. “It could be pariyan!” I quickly began hissing instructions. “Remember, they only warn you once, but you must not take anything and—”

  Auralia pulled me low. The long wands of grass masked us.

  My mind leapt to the possibilities. Perhaps we would be sold as slaves. Perhaps we would be killed. Perhaps we would be abducted into the Otherworld. Perhaps we would be held for ransom—or worse. Well if anyone hopes to do any such thing to me, it will be the most miserable experience of his life. Lost in envisioning the confrontation between myself and my supposed captor, I was shocked out of my reverie when I heard a man’s voice.

  “Captain, Captain, I see them! There they are! On that rise!” shouted a man whose familiar violet and white uniform I recognized even from the shadows of the field.

  Auralia and I looked at each other. Blood rose to my cheeks.

  “You idiot.” Auralia could hardly suppress her not unkind laughter as she stood up, fastidiously brushing away the dirt clinging to her skirts. She wiped smeared mud from my cheek. “It’s the guards, you goose!”

  “How was I to know?” I grumbled, abashed. “They never come after me, and I stay out for days at a time. It has only been a little more than six hours.” I craned my neck, trying to spot the retinue of guards.

  “Princess Selene, Princess Auralia,” yelled the violet-clad guard who had spotted us.

  Conscious of our bedraggled state, we approached the regiment.

  “Why are so many of you here?” I asked Matiz, one of the soldiers I was friendly with.

  “Princess Auralia was missing, and Emira Niobe ordered a search.” He rotated brusquely.

  I grabbed his shoulder. “But I stay out for days and nobody comes. Why do you come now? It’s only been a few hours.”

  “Some things are not for a simple soldier to answer.” He turned away again. I knew, I knew there was something behind his words, but even though I wheedled during the walk home, he remained stubbornly mute.