Aurora's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Aurora woke on the library floor with a book open beside her cheek. She did not remember sitting down. The candle had burned two fingers lower. That was the third episode this week. She was a daughter of the Seelie Court, and she had been dropping into sudden sleep since she was small. Her mother called it grace. Her father called it a gift wrapped in thorns. Aurora called it a countdown. Somewhere ahead of her was a sleep she would not wake from, unless she found someone whose kiss would stay when staying cost them something. She had not found him yet. She did not know how long she had. She pulled the book upright. It was the household record of her curse, copied out in her aunt's cramped hand. Her family had never let her read it. She had taken it from the archive that morning. The page under her cheek was smudged where she had drooled on the ink. She read the smudged line twice. Spindle. The word sat there, small and specific. She read the paragraph around it. The curse would not take her fully until she pricked her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. Until then, the fainting spells were only warnings. After the spindle, the sleep would be deep, but not death. Deep, but harmless. Waiting for a kiss. Aurora sat back on her heels. For years she had believed each faint might be the last. She had run through her life like someone running out of a burning house. The book said she was not burning. She was only smoking. Then she read the next line and her hands went cold. Misread the terms, and the terms bite sooner. The curse listened. If she believed the wrong thing about it, it moved. A knock hit the library door. Rapunzel stepped in without waiting, hair trailing behind her like spilled milk. Aurora had written to the tower a month ago and gotten no answer. Now here she was, thinner, quieter, a small crease between her brows. "The flowers stopped singing," Rapunzel said. "I came down to look for the reason. I heard you fell again." "I read my curse," Aurora said. She turned the book so Rapunzel could see. "A spindle. That's the trigger. Before that, I'm safe." Rapunzel read the page. Her finger stopped on the second line. "And this one." "I know." "Then don't decide yet what it means." Aurora closed the book. She had come in believing her death lived in every faint. She was leaving with a door and a key and a warning not to name either wrong. She had time. She had a shape for the thing. She also had a rule she could break by accident. She stood up. Her knees held. "I need to stay away from spinning wheels," she said, "and I need to find him before someone puts one in front of me."