Once Upon a Dream (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell

A DRAGON WAS DEAD.

A giant black and purple fire-breathing dragon from the very pits of hell itself was dead somewhere outside the castle. Thorns were falling from the battlements like rain, making curiously pleasant wooden sounds on the grounds of the bailey. Many strange and dire things were happening to an ancient keep that had already endured enough unusual treatment for the past sixteen years.

The handsome prince had killed the dragon with the help of the three strange little fairies he now followed. Without them, he would have done no good whatsoever.

Without them, he would never have been able to hurl the sword magically into the one spot that would easily kill the beast. Without them, he wouldn’t have had the enchanted sword in the first place. Without them, he would have still been rotting in the evil fairy’s dungeon, waiting impatiently for a hundred years to pass so he could break his true love’s spell—as a doddering old man.

Still, the dragon nagged at the back of his mind like a mosquito. A slain dragon should be something. There should be a pause, an astounded moment of silence, when he and the fairies and anyone else watching would take a breath and acknowledge the incredible deed that was just accomplished. He had no illusions that it was all due to him; still, he was a prince, it was a dragon, the dragon was dead—shouldn’t there be an intermission? Something?

And also. There were some unresolved details about the dragon and its death. The fire, for instance—it looked like the dragon had set most of the forest alight. Was it still raging? Would it ignite the woody thorns that surrounded the castle and the village? Was the whole place just one giant bonfire waiting to explode?

Was there, in fact, any dragon body left at all, or had it turned back into Maleficent?

Had he been battling a dragon that had temporarily been in fairy form, or had the fairy transformed herself into the beast?

Was it really from hell? Or was that more hyperbole on the fairy’s part?

And yet still he climbed steps in the silent, drowsing castle. The girl who was destined to sleep a hundred years had only been unconscious for a few hours, along with the rest of her kingdom. Already the inside air had that cool, musty smell usually associated with the bedrooms of those who didn’t move much: very great-grandmothers, for instance.

The fairies’ wings fanned up tiny tornados of encroaching dust.

The dragon faded in his mind as he fought off the strange presence of magical sleep, the good fairies’ spell affecting even those it wasn’t meant for. Murky, dim halls only added to his feeling of swimming through the castle while kicking his legs toward the sun.

For that is what he attained in defeating the dragon: the girl—sunlight herself.

He first saw her in a ray of sunshine. She was dancing and singing in a forest clearing, her golden hair sparkling as it swirled around her. Her voice was the very essence of a happy, sunny day distilled into song. She was as weightless on her toes as golden motes in a drowsy beam, floating their way up to the ceiling.

Very soon now he would kiss the girl, break the spell, wake the girl—wake everyone—and they would marry, and there would be happily-ever-afters for all.

Or something. The fairies weren’t exactly explicit when they had come out of nowhere, freed him, helped him kill the dragon, and led him to this set of stairs that they were presently climbing.

Somehow his girl from the clearing was mixed up with fairies and witches and dragons and castles—this familiar castle, where he had been taken as a child to see the drooling baby he would someday marry. It turned out the forest girl was the princess—not that it mattered to the prince; he was willing to upend convention and marry a peasant for love.

This was, however, a lot more convenient for everybody.

As he entered her bedroom, these thoughts were discarded to the same mental pile of ashes where the dragon lay.

For there was his sleeping beauty—no peasant girl she. Now she wore the proper attire of the princess he must have somehow always known she was. A blue gown as pure as the sky, white wings of cloth above her shoulders like an angel’s. Lips closed but not tight, dreamless, without the tension of any emotion.

Phillip paused, overcome by her beauty.

Did a fairy make a noise? Did he feel some external force pushing him to