Once Upon a Dream (40 page)

Aurora Rose took it and thanked the maid, sending her on her way.

“I wish Lianna were here,” she said, trying to sound a little flippant. Sadness came through anyway, weighing on her as much as the diadem she pressed onto her hair. “She would do something fancy with this. Loops or buns or something…”

“You look
gorgeous
,” Phillip said, taking her hands and squeezing them. “Don’t worry about winning over the people. If they’re like me, they’ll fall in love with you on first sight.”

“You really did,” she said, shaking her head. And perhaps she had once, too.

She thought about their adventures together. How he had never given up on her. How he had forced her on. How he had constantly, annoyingly remained cheerful and upbeat in any situation. How he had killed demons and always talked about his stupid horse and ate porridge that he hated.

No, she hadn’t fallen in love with him on sight the second time around.

It had taken a few days.

“Hey,” she said with a grin. “Ask me a math question.”

“What? Oh—to prove we’re awake.” He grinned back. “What’s four plus four?”

“Eight! Too easy. Give me another.”

“What’s…twenty-eight minus fifteen?”

“Thirteen! Again!”

“All right, Princess Smarty-Pants, what’s two hundred twenty-five divided by fifteen?”

“Fifteen, silly! It’s the square of it.”

They both paused, equally surprised by her answer.

“Well, what do you know?” she said slowly. “I
really am
a smarty-pants princess.”

Phillip took her hands and clasped them in his own.

“No, you’re a smarty-pants
queen.
”

Aurora Rose looked down at their hands and took a deep breath.

“Are you going back home after today?”

“Yes. I think…I think I have my own…ah…transition of power to deal with,” Phillip said, looking at his dad with a sigh. “I think I might finally have to grow up and do all those things I was trained for.”

“Hey, at least you were trained for it,” she said with a wan smile.

“I think you’ll do just fine.”

“You think?”

“Absolutely. Also, I think there’s going to be a lot of talk about our two kingdoms…with young leaders….Young, unmarried leaders…”

“Can we please drop this for just, like,
two minutes
?”

“I’m just saying…”

“I know, I know. You’re right. There are a lot of…advantages to combining things.”

They were silent for an awkward moment. The noise of the people could be heard below, shouts for the queen and exhortations from the guards telling people to calm down. Also just a lot of general yells.

“Hey, Queen Aurora,” Phillip suddenly said, an impish look on his face, “before this all starts…and things get
too
complicated…and we have to figure out what we’re both going to do…”

“Yes?”

“How about a kiss?”

Aurora Rose’s face broke into a surprised, pleased smile.

“Absolutely. But just a small one.”

And Prince Phillip took Queen Aurora Rose in his arms and kissed her, deeply and passionately, and she held him tightly, and they drew strength and love and support from each other.

And they
did
live happily ever after…

…if not, exactly, the way they had originally expected.

AFTER THE SORT OF INTROVERTED childhood you would expect from a writer, Liz Braswell earned a degree in Egyptology at Brown University and then promptly spent the next ten years producing video games. Finally, she caved in to fate and wrote
Snow
and
Rx
under the name Tracy Lynn, followed by The Nine Lives of Chloe King series under her real name, because by then the assassins hunting her were all dead. Liz is also the author of
A Whole New World: A Twisted Tale
, a reimagining of Disney’s
Aladdin
. She lives in Brooklyn with a husband, two children, a cat, a part-time dog, three fish, and five coffee trees she insists will start producing beans any day. You can email her at
[email protected]
or tweet
@LizBraswell
.