Hailey sat at the king’s bedside. The closed curtains left the room feeling gloomy, but maybe it made the king more comfortable. He lay in the largest, most elaborate bed that Hailey had ever seen. It was carved to look like the throne, the same dark wood, the same elaborate shapes carved in the wood. Even the blankets were the royal blue of Taivalon. She wondered if he even liked the color. Maybe having to wear it all the time and having everything around you the color of your country would make you tire of it.

The king looked even thinner than he had the last time she had seen him. He leaned back into his pillows. It looked like they might swallow him whole. His doctors were not currently hovering over him, the way they had been recently. “Do me a favor and open those curtains,” he pointed with a crooked finger at the window.”

Hailey rose and opened the velvet blue curtains, letting in the morning light. Taivalon was beautiful, even with bare branches poking through the spruce and firs. She loved this view and she had snuck up here on more than one occasion when she was the only person who could roam these halls, just to see the view from the king’s window.

“The fool doctors think that the light might make my condition worse.” He coughed, a wet, choking thing.

She hurried to his side. “I’m sorry I can’t do anything to make you feel better.”

“I am sure there is only one thing that will make me feel better and I am not yet ready to take that cold embrace.”

Her heart ached at the thought of losing this man. He was a good king and for the most part, his people loved and trusted him. Even if the princess were awake, she doubted that the kingdom would not suffer when he died. The queen was capable, but running an entire country would be taxing on a widow. And she would be angry at Hailey if the king died and her daughter was not awake. As much as possible, Hailey avoided the woman.

“How is my daughter?”

Hailey sat back down in the chair next to the king’s bed. “Every time I think I have something figured out, a way to undo the spell, nothing happens or I realize I’m not looking at it correctly. There has to be a way. It drives me crazy that Barinon knew what it was, knew how to free the princess, but he didn’t say anything, nothing to give me a clue on how to do this. It seems like I spend all my time running around and healing people, tending to the wounded, talking with the soldiers and putting spells along the shimmer. I worry that I won’t be enough for any of it, that I’m starting to…” Suddenly she remembered who she was talking to. He may be a kind old man, but he was still the king and he didn’t need her worried on top of her own. He had just been talking about facing death. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to add to your concerns. I am just a little tired. Everything is fine.”

He gave her a knowing smile and took her hand. “I know that your lying,” he said. “Take it from an old man who spent much of his days worried about things he was not able to take care of. You must take care of yourself. I can see the redness in your eyes. You’re getting frazzled and I worry that you will go over the edge. People cannot live without sleep. Eventually, it will make you crazy.”

He coughed again and she waited until he was finished before she spoke. “I’m fine. I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry about me, your majesty. I’m sure I will figure it out soon.”

He squeezed her hand again. “You’re still not listening. Do I need to command…” he cut off.

There was the sound of lots of people in the hallway. They were making a ruckus and the king needed his rest. “Excuse me, your majesty. I’m going to go see what all that is about.”

Hailey hurried to the princess’s room. A crowd of people stood outside the doorway, waiting as others made their way inside. She clenched her hands into fists and then made her hands relax. What were they up to? It was mostly women, which led Hailey to believe that Prince Frederick was inside. Maybe he’s trying juggling this time, she thought ruefully. She wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what he was doing but he seemed to have drawn a bigger crowd. Maybe it was just that he had been here longer and that word had reached the edges of the kingdom or maybe he was up to something else.

She shoved her way into the room, frustrated to see the princess’s large room crowded with people. She would not make a scene in front of all of the people if she could help it. Women clustered around the room, watching the prince in curiosity or looking at the princess with pity in their eyes. She was shorter than the women who were blocking her view. There were a few men as well. The woman she had squeezed past to get inside blocked her path, turning her back on Hailey and not letting her through. She was a handspan taller than Hailey and everyone else was taller. She could not see the bed, the prince or anything.

She tried a different side of the room, and again was blocked by tall women. Whatever the prince thought he was doing, he was causing a very old man to worry. It was unkind and she would send him back downstairs or into the throne room, anywhere but here.

Finally, in frustration, she picked up the woman in front of her. She gasped and Hailey put the woman back on her feet a pace behind her. The other women who had formed a rough circle around the princess’s bed glanced back and moved out of Hailey’s way.

Finally, reaching the front of the crowd she saw the prince. He was dressed much like the men of the court, but more elaborately, with a long orange jacket and brown trousers that came all the way to his shoes this time. Lace was at his wrists and the floppy hat from the time she had seen him before was gone.

He noticed her in the crowd and smiled to see her there. She rolled her eyes, but wanted to know what he had up his sleeve this time. He held a book in one hand and gestured with the other hand. “I had a dream that told me exactly how to wake the princess. I think I could actually do it.”

A murmur ran through the crowd. Hailey looked around for the woman who had glared at her the last time she was in this room with Frederick. Sure enough, behind the prince was a woman with dark hair and features. She glanced at Hailey and Hailey looked away. She didn’t have to apologize to someone’s servant. The man who had been beside her was there again, a sword on his hip and a hand resting on the pommel. She hadn’t noticed the sword before. Maybe that one was his bodyguard and the woman was his servant?

“My mages helped me figure out what the dream meant.” The prince held up the book, so that Hailey could read its title. It was a children’s fairy tale called Sleeping Beauty.

Well, thought Hailey, at least he isn’t doing anything reckless.

“This has been done in the past. In these pages, a spell or rather curse is described to keep a beautiful princess sleeping. The woman you see here is beautiful and she is a princess. She has to be the one the book was talking about. She can be awoken with a kiss, just like the princess in the book.”

Then the prince knelt before the princess. Hailey was stunned. He wasn’t really going to do this was he? He bent and kissed the princess. As soon as their lips touched, he fell, dropping to the floor with a thud. One arm stretched out, remaining inside the spell and keeping the prince asleep.

The crowd gasped as a whole and fans were brought out. One woman even fainted. Hailey rolled her eyes and pushed her way forward, just as the prince’s servant, the one who had glared at her, did the same.

She looked terrified.

“I can wake him,” Hailey said, “but he’s going to scream. It won’t harm him, it’s just the way this particular spell works.”

The girl looked at Hailey appraisingly for a moment, then nodded.

Hailey took the prince’s hand and he screamed, sitting up panting and out of breath. “Step away from the spell,” Hailey told him.

“What happened?” He said, looking bewildered and then his face contorted. “What did you to do me?”

Hailey could not control her anger. “What did I do to you? I stopped you from being trapped in the same spell as the princess for eighty years.”

“So, you knew that this would happen, knew I would tumble to the ground unconscious if I kissed the princess.”

“Yes. Would you have listened to me if I told you this was a bad idea?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I still think that it was worth trying. Handsome princess are always breaking spells in the fairy tales.”

“That’s just it. You think you’re living in a fairy tale, and maybe you are. You have your parties and nothing to worry about. But there are those of us who are living in reality. Spells don’t just disappear because someone really wants them to.” She feel a twitch under her eye.

The prince seemed surprised at her outburst. “I don’t think that’s fair. Aren’t you grasping at straws, trying to figure out how to undo this spell? Well I’m doing the same.”

“No, you’re not. If I hadn’t been here, you’d still be sleeping, stuck in that spell and anyone who touched you would also collapse. I don’t need a whole room of people who can’t manage to stay out of trouble.”

The prince rose to his feet, refusing to be flustered by her accusations. “Thank you, my lady for helping me out of the spell. My lady, don’t you think…”

She cut him off. She was so tired of running into parties, of the halls being clogged with all of the women who constantly swarmed around him. “I do think, yes, but clearly you don’t.”

Hailey looked around the room. All eyes were on her now, waiting for what she would say next. “That goes for the rest of you. I have enough to worry about dealing with the borders, the princess and everything else. Any one of you who touches the princess may just get the opportunity to stay asleep as long as she is.”

The crowd gasped. “Go somewhere else and have your party, do whatever thing you people do. I will continue to work myself to the bone so that you don’t have anything to worry about other than your dresses and your hair.” Hailey was panting now and so angry that she could see red, but suddenly she realized what she had been doing. She was shouting at the prince of Yapuris again, a man who had never shown her anything other than curtesy.

The room began to feel very small, and every eye was watching her. Some of the women were talking to each other in low voices behind their fans. She had made a scene in front of half the nobles in Tailvalon.

“Are you well?” The prince asked her, but she could not look at him. What had gotten into her? She shoved her way back through the crowd, the ladies parting as if she had a disease. Tears streamed down her face as she made her way back to her rooms. She was so tired, so frustrated and she had taken it all out on people who didn’t deserve it. Worse, she had taken it out on people who probably couldn’t understand what she had been raving about.