Sleeping Beauty (Not Quite the Fairy Tale Book 7)(25)

He laughed when the robot obeyed. “I’ve always found them creepy. I kept them immobile or hidden away.”

Rory shrugged. “He’s okay when you get used to him,” she replied. “Now if you please, I’d very much like to resume what we were doing.”

“As Her Highness demands.”



Mal should be downstairs, attending the wedding like the rest of the world. All of Ferren, it seemed, had come to celebrate the beginning of the new rule. Aurora, whom they’d always respected, and Rupert, whom they had the sense to love and fear, couldn’t have been more popular if they’d tried. The footage of their adventure had been watched through Europa like a movie rather than a surveillance video. And who could blame them? Robots, dragons, princesses, and Kings.

Mal should be merry. After a hundred years of penance, her gravest mistake was finally starting to be put to right.

Only starting, though.

In the highest tower, behind all the spells she could weave, lay a little girl, frigid and timeless, sleeping in beauty. Mal knelt before the door, her own spells preventing her from walking in. Only the King could cross this threshold.

Whatever Rupert said, it was all her fault and she’d fix it, somehow. What had occurred between Rupert and Aurora Cinders had made her realize how. It wasn’t a matter of studying magic. Her curses couldn’t - wouldn’t - be thwarted by anything but love.

She had to find the little girl’s true love.

She sighed. What were the odds of that, when the child had been asleep for a hundred years? He could have died long ago.

Closing her eyes, Mal forced her mind to blank out. She’d meditated for years. Searching her mind and the nature around her for a power stronger than hers, in vain.

Now her search was very different. She envisaged the adorable child she knew well, recalling her eyes, her voice, and the feeling of her little hands in her palm. Her soul. Such a beautiful ray of energy.

And then, she opened her mind up, expanding her reach so far a bead of sweat fell down her forehead. Through the entire world, through the ages and space.

Millions of souls, most lonely and broken.

Her mind found one of these, focusing on it. She opened her eyes, looking around.

“Little goddess. What are you doing in my domain?”

Mal had never felt fear. Nothing and no one in her world could threaten her. She knew this thing could. Instinctively, she looked down and took a knee.

“Hades,” she said reverently.

The lord of the Underworld didn’t strike her right then, by some sort of miracle.

“Where are you coming from?” the god asked sharply.

“One of the mortal realms, sir. A world called Gaia.”

“Rise,” said the god.

She obeyed and lifted her eyes again.

“So, what? Has my brother done something, again?”

She frowned. “No, I’m here because of a child who…”

The god lowered his thundering voice threateningly. “Do not dare summarize the issue. I want the whole story. No spoilers.”

So, Maleficent told everything to the master of the Underworld, and awaited his answer.

“You want a soul back.”

She nodded. The god smiled. She knew that expression. She often wore it. It wasn’t a nice, friendly sort of smile at all.

“Well, well.”



The End