The prince was about to kiss Sleeping Beauty.
He was tattered and sweaty, still bleeding from the wound on his arm. She, his reward for battling the dragons that guarded her castle, was pristine and beautifulif blandly so.
He walked toward her, his boots sinking ankle deep in dust. All about the garret, in the gray light that filtered past the grime on the window, cobwebs hung as thick as theatrical curtains.
He was the one who had put the details in the room. It had mattered to him, when he was thirteen, that the interior of the garret accurately reflect a centurys neglect. But now, three years later, he wished he had given Sleeping Beauty better dialogue instead.
If only he knew what he wanted a girl to say to him. Or vice versa.
He knelt down beside her bed.
Your Highness, his valets voice echoed upon the stone walls. You asked to be awakened at this time.
As he thought, he had taken too long with the dragons. He sighed. And they lived happily ever after.
The prince did not believe in happily-ever-after, but that was the password to exit the Crucible.
The fairy tale fadedSleeping Beauty, garret, dust and cobwebs. He closed his eyes before the nothingness. When he opened them again, he was back in his own chamber, sprawled on the bed, his hand atop a very old book of childrens tales.
His head was groggy. His right arm throbbed where the wyverns
tail had sliced through. But the sensations of pain were only his mind playing tricks. Injuries sustained in the imaginary realm of the Crucible did not carry over to the real one.
He sat up. His canary, in its jeweled cage, chittered. He pushed off the bed and passed his fingers over the bars of the birds prison. As he walked out to the balcony, he glanced at the grand, gilded clock in the corner of the chamber: fourteen minutes past two oclock, the exact time mentioned in his mothers visionand therefore always the time he asked to be awakened from his seeming naps.
In the real world, his home, built on a high spur of the Labyrinthine Mountains, was the most famous castle in all the mage realms, far grander and more beautiful than anything Sleeping Beauty ever occupied. The balcony commanded splendid views: ribbon-slender waterfalls cascading thousands of feet, blue foothills dotted by hundreds of snow-fed lakes, and in the distance, the fertile plains that were the breadbasket of his realm.
But he barely noticed the view. The balcony made him tense, for it was here, or so it had been foretold, that he would come into his destiny. The beginning of the end, for his prophesied role was that of a mentor, a stepping-stonethe one who did not survive to the end of the quest.
Behind him, his attendants gathered, feet shuffling, silk overrobes swishing.
Would you care for some refreshments, sire? said Giltbrace, the head attendant, his voice oily.
No. Prepare for my departure.
We thought Your Highness departed tomorrow morning.
I changed my mind. Half his attendants were in Atlantiss pay. He inconvenienced them at every turn and changed his mind a great deal. It was necessary they believe him a capricious creature who cared for only himself. Leave.
The attendants retreated to the edge of the balcony but kept watch. Outside of the princes bedchamber and bath, he was almost always watched.
He scanned the horizon, waiting forand dreadingthis yet-to-transpire event that had already dictated the entire course of his life.
Iolanthe chose the top of Sunset Cliff, a rock face several miles east of Little-Grind-on-Woe.
She and Master Haywood had been at the village for eight months, almost an entire academic year, yet the rugged terrain of the Midsouth Marchdeep gorges, precipitous slopes, and swift blue torrentsstill took her breath away. For miles around, the village was the only outpost of civilization against an unbroken sweep of wild nature.
Atop Sunset Cliff, the highest point in the vicinity, the villagers had erected a flagpole to fly the standard of the Domain. The sapphire banner streamed in the wind, the silver phoenix at its center gleaming under the sun.
As Iolanthe knelt, her knee pressed into something cold and hard. Parting the grass around the base of the flagpole revealed a small bronze plaque set into the ground, bearing the inscription DUM SPIRO, SPERO.
While I breathe, I hope, she murmured, translating to herself.
Then she noticed the date on the plaque, 3 April 1021. The day that saw Baroness Sorrens execution and Baron Wintervales exileevents that marked the end of the January Uprising, the first and only time the subjects of the Domain had taken up arms against the de facto rule of Atlantis.
The flying of the banner was not in itself particularly remarkablethat, at least, Atlantis hadnt outlawed yet. But the plaque, commemorating the rebellion, was an act of defiance here in this little-known corner of the Domain.
Shed been six at the time of the uprising. Master Haywood had taken her and joined the exodus fleeing Delamer. For weeks, theyd lived in a makeshift refugee camp on the far side of the Serpentine Hills. The grown-ups had whispered and fretted. The children had played with an almost frantic intensity.