Once Upon a Dream Read Online Free

by the fireplace with long, elegant legs.
    There was also a bookcase full of books that hadn’t worked properly since the world had ended.
    Most were missing great patches of text and illustrations. Many were simply blank. The words that remained were often in languages that weren’t even real. An effect, Maleficent had explained, of the world-destroying evil magics that King Stefan and Queen Leah had unleashed. They had literally broken the land and the minds and inventions of men. The queen’s powers were not great enough to restore everything fully—they were barely enough to keep the remaining population alive.
    And so the books remained mostly blank, and cloth had to be woven from thread summoned by magic. Spinning wheels hadn’t functioned the way they were supposed to in half a decade.
    Right then, Aurora’s bed looked especially inviting—the servants had made it up all plump and pretty. And she
did
love dancing, and she
was
going to be up late that night.
    There was also the little matter that when she wasn’t twirling, her favorite thing was lying down and dreaming the hours away. Her bed was always her favorite place to be; she could spend the entire day in the dark under its covers. Eventually night would come and sometimes things were more interesting at night…as much as anything was ever interesting in the castle at the end of the world.
    And when the nights weren’t particularly interesting, well, at least she had passed another of the endless days away.
    She gave in, collapsing on her back onto the fat mattress full of feathers. She twirled the blue feather in her fingers. She had never seen the minstrel in any of the outer courtyards or baileys. He tended to stick to shadows, internal rooms, secluded areas—like a burglar or a cat. Bright light hurt his addict’s eyes, and he was more uncomfortable than most looking up at the giant vines that blocked the sky.
    Perhaps that’s what he meant by being “outside.” Not…
Outside.
    Poor crazy, drunken fool.
    She sighed and reached up over her head to grab one of the broken books, one with an easily memorable design on its cover, and started to place the feather between its heavy, insane pages.
    At the last moment, she changed her mind and put it in the little silver pouch attached to her girdle by her chatelaine. A once living thing, wherever it was from, didn’t deserve to be pressed like an inanimate object—filed away like an ancient manuscript. The princess would keep it with her until she figured out what to do with it.
    She thought of a different feather she owned and let out another sigh.
    Instead of going to sleep, she sat down at her pretty little table, took up her white swan quill, and set herself to solving the math problems on the precious scrap of vellum before her.
    After fortifying the castle, making living arrangements for all within, and working out whatever magical source of food she managed, Maleficent had turned to Aurora’s education. The king and queen had neglected everything for their unwanted daughter—basic reading and writing skills, needlework, the sort of useful hobbies royal ladies were supposed to know, even etiquette and geography. The new queen immediately set out to rectify this with a half-dozen tutors, adding things to the mix that weren’t necessarily “princessy.”
    Like math.
    Which Aurora was terrible at.
    Some things came to her naturally: singing, playing the recorder, kindness, patience in sewing—even if it would be years before her needle skills were up to that of a twelve-year-old’s. Her fingers were often covered in tiny pinpricks from embroidery, and Maleficent had suggested, with a kind laugh, that she put off carding and spinning until she could be trusted with the sharp point of a drop spindle.
    But numbers…and anything having to do with numbers…that was another thing entirely. Aurora privately wondered if there was a reason princesses weren’t taught math or alchemy or the workings