Dreamer of Briarfell: A Retelling of Sleeping Beauty (Fairytales of Folkshore Book 7) Read online

  Dreamer of Briarfell

  A Retelling of Sleeping Beauty

  Lucy Tempest

  DREAMER OF BRIARFELL – A RETELLING OF SLEEPING BEAUTY

  Copyright © 2020 by Lucy Tempest

  Cover Art Copyright © 2020 Lucy Tempest

  Editor: Mary Novak

  Proofreader: Line Upon Line Services

  First edition published in 2020 by Folkshore Press

  ISBN: Paperback: 978-1-949554-14-4

  ISBN: Ebook: 978-1-949554-13-7

  All rights reserved.

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  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, stored in, or introduced into a database or retrieval system, in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Disclaimer

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Created with Vellum

  For a man to help others with all his gifts and native strength: that is the noblest work.

  Oedipus Rex, Sophocles

  Contents

  Introduction

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Note From the Author

  Pronunciation Guide

  About the Author

  Also by Lucy Tempest

  Introduction

  Welcome to the magical world of Folkshore!

  Fairytales of Folkshore is a series of interconnected fairytale retellings with unique twists on much-loved, enduring themes. It starts with the Cahraman Trilogy, a gender-swapped reimagining of Aladdin.

  It is followed by the Rosemead duology, a retelling of Beauty & the Beast, Princess of Midnight, a merge of Cinderella and the Snow Queen, and Dreamer of Briarfell, a Sleeping Beauty / Robin Hood crossover.

  Join each heroine on emotional, thrilling adventures full of magic, mystery, friendship and romance where true love is found in the most unexpected places and the fates of kingdoms hang in the balance.

  Coming retellings will be:

  Little Mermaid and Hades & Persephone!

  Before those will be a Snow White novella, The Snow Princess.

  Map

  Chapter One

  Everyone in the Folkshore knew that as they were born, they would one day die.

  Even in Faerie, where they lived long enough as to seem immortal, life’s end was still inevitable. The only uncertainty was when exactly Death would make his claim.

  That was where I was different from everyone else.

  I knew precisely when I was going to die.

  The second the sun set on my eighteenth birthday.

  That was three weeks from now.

  That sentence had been decreed by the curse inflicted on me by a malevolent fairy, to punish my mother’s arrogance and my father’s broken promises.

  That frightful fact had ruled my life and hung over my neck like an executioner’s blade since I was old enough to understand what death meant. The one reason I hadn’t despaired all these years was because this curse came with the means to break it included. Up until a few months ago, I’d thought such means had been arranged.

  I’d been wrong.

  All that false sense of security had done was cost me vital time.

  So here I was, subjecting myself to more humiliation in my efforts to ensure I didn’t end up paying for that cruel fairy’s whims and my parents’ transgressions with my very life.

  “You are indeed a wondrous beauty, Princess Fairuza,” my companion slurred.

  I almost winced at the nasal whine of Prince Jean-Jaques. Besides being the third in line to the throne of the insignificant island kingdom of Ys, he was a pot-bellied drunkard who was older than my father. His dull expression further elongated his grey-bearded face as he leered at me, his bulging eyes slightly crossing, with the rank inebriation I could smell from across the table.

  “I didn’t believe the tales of your beauty until I saw it for myself.” He lurched forward, bridging the distance I’d pointedly placed between us, almost shoving his face into mine. “I can’t wait for your unique features to be immortalized in our wedding portrait.”

  Just entertaining the possibility of such a portrait with that old fool of a minor royal churned my stomach. Especially after I’d lived my life thinking I was destined to marry the young and handsome heir of a major kingdom.

  How far I’d fallen.

  To think I’d crossed the Folkshore only months ago, believing I’d marry Crown Prince Cyaxares of Cahraman. My mother and my uncle, his father, had betrothed us soon after the curse had been cast. I’d always had anxieties about something preventing our union, but I’d learned how to suppress them, leaving me mostly secure in my future.

  Even after Cyaxares had announced he wouldn’t make me his bride outright, and had held that outrageous Bride Search competition, I’d been assured of winning it, and breaking the curse well before its literal deadline.

  But nothing had gone as I’d expected.

  Cyaxares had done everything in his power to end our betrothal, and had fought to choose another. A low-born girl who’d turned out to be a thief and a spy no less, and who’d almost destroyed his kingdom.

  So she’d risked her life to restore it, and after our harrowing experiences together, I could no longer hate her. Still, the fact remained. Between the so-called Lady Ada and Cyaxares—now the King of Cahraman after Uncle Darius’s abdication—they’d cost me my one assured chance of survival.

  I’d had to return home, rejected and defeated, my only hope of preventing the curse from claiming my life resting on the precarious hope of finding another man on par with him.

  But now any hope that remained was dashed. This drunken old goat was among the last in the long list of inferior suitors I’d gone through since my return to Arbore three months ago. After him, there were only his half-brothers, who were also widowed, less noble, and with even more children.

  Just the idea of having to marry one of them was enough to make me think death was the much better fate.

  Raising my teacup to hide my grimace, I gulped down a scalding mouthful to push down the toast rising back in my throat, before putting on my best gracious smile, producing my most lighthearted voice, and thanking him profusely.

  Jean-Jacques abruptly reached out a
nd grasped my wrist, and I lurched with a gasp, miraculously not spilling a drop of my hibiscus tea.

  “You would look lovely in green, positively radiant.” His slurring was accompanied by spittle this time as he pulled my hand towards him.

  Smothering a distressed squeal, my mind’s eye traitorously flashed back to the last time I’d been manhandled. Though it hadn’t been a man I was forced to entertain, but an eyeless, ravenous monster who’d wanted to eat me.

  Reminding myself that Jean-Jacques was more likely to drool on me than bite off a chunk of my shoulder, I tamped down on the remembered horror. Not that the stench of his soured-wine breath was that much better than the fetid rot of that monster.

  With every nerve in my body, I wanted to throw his doughy, clammy hand off me. But I couldn’t risk making a scene amidst the courtiers and the prince’s party, who were taking their morning tea alongside us on the castle terrace.

  “I’m sure I would,” I agreed tightly, looking down pointedly at the hand weakening my grip on my teacup. “Now, if I can have my hand back, please. I’d hate to stain this pearly-white tablecloth…”

  “Pearls, yes. You will wear Mother’s pearls in the portrait.” He tugged at me, his greying face closing in. “And you seem to have pearly teeth. I should like to see them up close, to check on your health and all.”

  As his own yellowed teeth filled my vision, revulsion overtook any courtesy I had left for this man or his companions. Certainly any hope I could withstand him, even to save my life.

  I stopped resisting his pull, letting my wrist twist, dumping the scalding contents of my cup down his shirt.

  Jean-Jacques jumped up squawking in pain, eliciting a storm of amused whispers as he dabbed frantically at the ruby stain on his chest.

  “Oh, dear, what a mess!” I breathed in pretend apology. “I hope you have a change of clothes, Prince Jean-Jacques. Hibiscus is an expensive import from my mother’s homeland of Cahraman, and its stain is permanent.”

  Jean-Jacques swung unsteadily towards me in outrage, but I had already gotten up and was striding back inside.

  Keeping my head high as I passed through tables, I tuned out the gossiping snickers and the prince’s drunken swearing.

  Stepping out of the rare Arborean sun into the empty sitting room, I found my handmaidens where I’d left them watching this train wreck unfold. I waited until I’d crossed out of everyone’s line of sight before I mirrored Agnë’s disappointment with a slouch, and Meira’s displeasure with a scowl.

  “I can’t believe I had to tolerate that disgusting fool,” I seethed, rubbing at my forearm, the revolting ghost of his sweaty grip lingering on my skin. “Checking my teeth, indeed! As if I was some mare he’d come to acquire. And you’d think this was the dark ages, with his preference for wine over water.”

  “It’s a wonder he hasn’t drunk himself to death at his age,” Meira said snidely.

  At that, Agnë smacked her upside the head.

  “Ow!” Meira rubbed her head, ruffling her curly, dark brown hair, brows slanting as they dipped over glaring, same-colored eyes. “What?”

  “You know what!” Agnë squeaked indignantly, before turning to escort me away with a gentle hand, her big, watery-blue eyes sorrowful, sunlight bouncing off her blonde hair in a golden halo. “We still have the other four candidates to go through this weekend. Surely one of them will be the one.”

  Before the last few failed attempts, I would have striven to echo her optimism, or to appreciate her aversion to having the word “death” mentioned around me. But the reality of having no more viable candidates pressed on me like a boulder, and I could no longer bolster myself with flimsy hope.

  There was nothing more to do to stop my impending death. I could almost feel its suffocating fingers squeezing my neck tighter with every breath.

  I exhaled. “His half-brothers are nowhere near noble enough anyway. And they’re even shorter, rounder, and amazingly, more off-putting.”

  “And two of them have not one but two dead wives to boot,” Meira muttered, before squeaking in protest of another smack up the head.

  Agnë turned from reprimanding Meira with a flustered exclamation. “But they are younger!”

  “Yes, indeed,” I sighed dejectedly. “The youngest is only twenty years my senior.”

  With none of us having anything more to add to this mess, I let them herd me away to the last place I wanted to be at the moment.

  Gliding across polished floors spread with silver granite, and following the curving path set by royal-blue carpet, we passed through six sprawling sections of the castle’s middle floor. When we were at the end of the corridor leading to the king’s quarters, it was still too soon.

  My dreaded destination was flanked by two guards garbed in the Arborean black-and-gold royal uniforms. They were holding their spears at attention and staring ahead stoically, pretending not to hear the shouting coming from behind the soaring, engraved mahogany doors.

  I approached reluctantly, each step punctuated with a stilted breath, and knocked with the blooming rose handle.

  My knock went unheard as my mother shouted from within, “Absolutely not! I will not have any more of those things in my home! It’s enough I have to deal with you making that half-breed your princess!”

  A rib-rattling fist slam, followed by a booming growl from my brother Leander made me flinch. “Don’t talk about her that way!”

  “That’s what she is!” my mother retorted shrilly.

  “This morning only keeps getting better,” I muttered bitterly to Agnë and Meira as I gestured for them to leave me, before pushing the door open.

  As the guards rushed to close it behind me, I entered my parents’ royal quarters to find an all-too-familiar scene.

  By the windows overlooking the gardens and Eglantine, our capital, my father, King Florent of Arbore, sat with his back to the whole scene. His spectacles were halfway down the bridge of his nose as he pored over papers in his hands, ignoring the argument between his wife and eldest son.

  Father had always seemed he would rather be on the frontline with his soldiers than in a room with my mother. And until recently, he had been. He’d stayed there, even after the war had officially ended, involving himself in negotiating the peace treaty with our rival kingdom of Avongart to its last, minute detail. I suspected because it had been the best excuse to continue avoiding his wife. Not that I blamed him. Everyone gave Queen Zomoroda as wide a berth as they could.

  But once that deal had been struck, he’d been eagerly herded back towards Eglantine to preside over the war’s end celebrations, and to reclaim the reins of the kingdom.

  I’d gathered they couldn’t push my uncle, Prince Jonquil, off the throne fast enough. I’d heard enough covert comments before I’d left to Cahraman to realize he’d been an inadequate replacement. It seemed that under his rule, the kingdom had suffered, not only from the war’s repercussions, but from his ineptitude.

  I couldn’t help but wonder how different things would have been had my brother gotten the chance to become our wartime regent. The chance he’d been robbed of when his own curse had fully manifested.

  From his efficiency in championing my case since he’d returned from Rosemead, I was certain the kingdom wouldn’t have been so eager for my father’s return. He’d rounded me up every unmarried royal in the Folkshore in record time. That none had worked out wasn’t his fault. He’d gone above and beyond. In fact, he seemed even more desperate about my situation than I was.

  Now the dread of telling him his efforts had failed rivaled the fear of my inevitable fate itself.

  Letting out another ragged breath, I tried to move out of the entryway. When I couldn’t seem to steady my shaking legs, I decided to remain unannounced until I could gather what today’s problem was.

  “When will you accept that she is the best thing to ever happen to me?” Leander paced in front of our mother, hands fisted at his sides as if to curb the urge to shake her, his sonor
ous voice filling the chamber with his frustration.

  He was wearing a loose, white dress shirt, fitted brown pants, and black leather riding boots, the same kind of casual wear he’d been sporting since his return, to our mother’s fierce disapproval. I myself preferred his new informal look, even if he now looked a little wild with his acorn-brown hair escaping his ponytail, and falling over his flushed face.

  Our mother—impeccably dressed in a forest-green gown, and adorned in jewelry studded with her namesake, emeralds—was taking up the couch with her skirts and flat-faced cats, Sheir and Shokkar. A prized breed from her land, favored for their docile demeanor, they looked perpetually annoyed. I would be too if I had to stomach her theatrics all day.

  “After what she’s done to save me, the least you could do is appreciate her,” Leander rumbled.

  “She wouldn’t have had to save you, if her kind hadn’t cursed you to begin with, now would she?” she scoffed.

  So this was about her circling back to her disapproval of his choice of bride. Oh joy.

  At least I wouldn’t be around that much longer to suffer more of her unrelenting intrusions.

  It was also good that Bonnibel was off keeping a visiting duke’s wife company. I would have hated to make uncomfortable eye contact with her in this situation. Again.

  Our mother had always been viciously vocal about her hatred of anything magical, especially fairies, and she hadn’t been holding her tongue around Bonnibel. Not that I could blame her. It was a sentiment she had every right to hold, when a fairy had cursed her eldest children—even if in response to her own inadvisable threats. Before I’d gone to Cahraman, I would have no doubt reacted the same way to Leander bringing one home.