Twisted Beauty (A Sleeping Beauty Tale)

Chapter Thirty-Six

The forest was utterly still as the king and his men rode through. Snow fluttered down from the grey sky, which was barely visible through the tree branches. The horses were going as fast as they could, but the frost and snow were slowing them down. They were so close – so close to getting her back.

A soldier was waiting ahead, and once they reached him, he joined the group to report to the king. "She's worsened, Your Majesty," he said. "A shielding spell has been placed around her – she almost killed the men standing guard."

"Is she conscious?" the king asked.

"She slipped in and out of consciousness for the past few days, but it doesn't look like she'll wake up any time soon." The soldier was pale, and it made the king wonder what had happened.

After receiving a message three days prior, he had left almost immediately. Belleza was found unconscious in the snow, just a few kilometres from one of the larger army camps. It was a three-day trip to get there, and the snow slowed things down. And she was not awake.

The camp soon came into sight – dozens of large tents to hold soldiers, a dining hall, and food storages. Many of the soldiers stayed there most of the year, though there would be fewer considering the snow.

It was obvious which tent held Belleza. After hearing the reports, the king's eyes landed on a tent with a cross on the front – the medical tent. The sides were singed and blackened, as if a fire of some sort had hit it. But as he dismounted his horse and stepped inside, the room was illuminated by raw energy.

His fiancée lay in one of the beds, her face pale and twisted in pain. She was unconscious. But her body trembled and bursts of magic shot out from her like lightning, absorbed almost immediately by the gleaming shield of magic.

Belleza had magic. From her fear of it, the king could only assume she didn't know about it. But there she was, releasing raw magic before his eyes. It explained why she hadn't woken – giving off such power would be exhausting for someone who had never used magic. It was draining her.

"What's wrong with her?" the king asked the healer. He was notably pale, the king noted.

"We don't know," the healer replied. "As far as we knew, she never even possessed magic. But now she's ill and can't control it. It's as if . . ." He went a shade whiter and backed away from the bed, realisations dawning on his face. "Ten years ago, Your Majesty. I can think of nothing else."

The king let out a string of words that could curdle milk – not the best thing to do, if his fiancée could hear him in her slumber, but there was no other way to express his thoughts. And he realised the healer must be right – thinking back to what he had experienced, Belle showed the same signs.

"Make every magic user in this camp isolate separately," the king finally breathed. "No one is to enter or leave this camp – we can't risk this spreading." The healer moved towards the door, presumably to tell the others, but the king held out a hand to stop him. "You must isolate as well as the others. Go to your tent after telling a non-magic user."

The healer was quick to obey his orders, and left the king in solitude with his fiancée. He did not fear the illness – after having it as a child, there was no chance of him becoming infected. Passing it on to others, however, was still a risk, so he decided to stay by her side.

Hours passed slowly and painfully for the king. He paced back and forth in front of Belleza's bed, not knowing what to do with himself. Healers had researched the illness when it struck Kallis a decade prior – there was no cure, no way to ease the pain. Nothing he could do. Either she would survive or she would not; something based completely on the amount of power she possessed.

It was around sundown that she stopped releasing her magic. Her body still trembled as if she were in the snow, but the king could take comfort that the first stage had passed. After rummaging around the medical tent, he found thick blankets, which he piled on top of her. It did little to stop the trembling.

Food was left at the entrance of the tent for them, and it was then that the king noticed how thin she seemed. In the week she was gone, had they fed her? He hadn't realised that lack of food could make someone wither away so quickly – or perhaps the sudden use of magic aided in it. Either way, it wasn't a comforting thought.

And so, days passed.

One day, the king found that his fiancée had a fever so hot that pressing his hand to her head burned his skin. Another day, she was choking on her own blood.

But he did not leave her side.