The candidates’ box was overcrowded now. Briar was vaguely aware of Matilda and Frieda in a tense one-sided argument in the corner, Matilda berating her, Frieda with her head bowed in submission—but her eyes occasionally drifted to Briar.

Briar ignored her. Ignored the Prince Electors who tried to offer condolences or words of comfort. Ignored Merryweather, who grumbled about how long jousts took, and why wouldn’t they wrap it up after such a traumatic turn?

She ignored everyone.

Until Johann touched her elbow.

“I will use my magic to help you,” he said gravely.

Briar’s eyebrows drew together.

He leaned closer, conspiratorial. “I will make you disappear from the balcony.”

A soulless smile pulled at her lips. “Thank you. But that is unnecessary.”

Ben must have gotten Phillip back to the suite by now. Was the surgeon with him? How wounded was he?

“It was not an offer. It was a warning,” Johann said, a beat before he grabbed the edge of the balcony and heaved himself up to stand on the railing.

Briar blinked at him.

His attendants chirped in alarm.

Johann whirled, brocade flaring like a sorcerer’s cloak, facing the crowd on the balcony. There was a quick, stifled gasp.

“Begone,” he mouthed at Briar, and flicked his fingers, then looked at the Prince Electors. “My vassals told me that you only want me to be emperor because you think I’d be easy to control. Which is just stupid.”

“Zauberer—” one of his attendants tried, but Johann kept on, red rising in his cheeks.

“Have any of you Electors spoken to those who are tasked with guarding me? Why would you have made the assumption that I’m easy to manipulate? Mecklenburg is grossly offended and I hereby declare a curse upon all the houses of those who underestimate me—”

Queen Aurora would stay.

She would stay and ensure the reputation of Austria.

Briar started walking.

Merryweather was briefly stunned by Johann’s ever more impassioned speech that was now rolling into a list of his strengths, Mecklenburg’s resources, the things they truly had to offer. Briar had to admit it was an impressive display. She hadn’t heard Johann speak so maturely yet, had not seen him have this presence before.

Merryweather came to and slipped off behind Briar. “I am surprised you lasted that long,” she whispered as they headed down the stairs.

Briar stopped and whirled on her. “I was supposed to stay. You told me to stay!”

It came out winded, desperate.

Merryweather’s face slackened. “I asked what you wanted to do. I reminded you of the options before you.”

“You implied—”

“Briar.” Merryweather set her soft hands on Briar’s cheeks. “What do you want to do? Right now? What are you doing?”

“I’m going to see my husband,” she said, and was surprised at how confident, how definitive her voice came out.

“Then go. Go, and let that be your choice.”

That question beat in Briar’s mind as she went. As she lifted her skirts and started running, propriety be damned.

What do you wish to do?

What will you do, Briar, Aurora?

So far she had been incapacitated by uncertainty, and that was far more grotesque than making the wrong choice. These versions of herself had been at war for so long, neither side gaining ground, and the casualties were now spreading out beyond her. How long until more than those closest to her suffered? How would Austria fare thanks to her indecision? Or the empire, should she be elected to rule it. What events would she allow to happen while she was alternating between a past and a future that didn’t feel like hers?

Tears welled in Briar’s eyes as she wound through the halls and stairs of the castle, up, up, until she burst into her suite. “Phillip?”

The door to the bedchamber was open, and as she hurried across to it, Ben came out. Behind him, she could see Phillip seated on the edge of the bed, a surgeon tying off a bandage that wrapped around his stomach and shoulder.

“He’s fine,” Ben told her instantly. “Some bruised ribs, nothing broken, miraculously.”

“Thank heavens,” Merryweather said. “I will update the vassals. Briar, if you have need of me—”

“I’ll be fine.” Briar gave her a tight smile in dismissal. She shouldn’t be angry at Merryweather. But that question lingered in her aunt’s gaze now. What do you wish to do?

Briar turned back to Ben as Merryweather shut the door behind her and it clicked, locking.

“Is he—” Her mouth hung open. She wasn’t even sure how to finish that question.

Ben glanced back into the room for a beat, then stepped closer to Briar, angling so they were out of earshot of the door.

“Do you remember when Viktor came back from the eastern border skirmish?”

Viktor, one of Ben’s older brothers.

Briar frowned. “No, I don’t think so.”

“You might not. We’d just started our little trio in the woods.” Ben sniffed, and Briar noted his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, the spare bandage he was knotting and unwinding around his hands. “Viktor wanted to be a soldier, so he went off to war. It was only a few weeks, that battle. But still. When he came back…”

He trailed off. His eyes wouldn’t hold on her, his face sunken. She had never seen Ben serious like this. It sent prickles of warning up her spine.

“When he came back,” he said again, and twisted the bandage, around, around. “When he—Damn it.” He released an exasperated huff, and Briar saw his eyes were sheened with tears. “Rolf said battle changes soldiers. Everyone said that. Everyone knew. But Viktor—it was like part of him didn’t come back from that border fight. He’d be fine sometimes, and then something would happen, a loud noise or a strong emotion, and he’d snap. Just start raging, breaking things, yelling. These violent, horrible outbursts.”

“Why are you saying this?” she whispered.

“Because…I’m not saying Phillip’s the same, he isn’t being violent, but it feels the same. It feels like he went somewhere when he battled Maleficent, and part of him didn’t come back. I mean, I didn’t know him before whatever it was, but that’s why I said that stuff about Viktor—because it’s an awful lot like that.”

Briar steadied herself and asked, “What happened to Viktor?”

Ben shrugged one shoulder. “He’s still in Hausach. Rolf tries to keep an eye on him, soldier to soldier, but how do you get back that piece that got left behind when you don’t even know what it was?”

The surgeon came out of the bedroom. He bowed at Briar, medical bag on one arm. “I recommend rest, as much as possible, Your Majesty. No physical exertion for at least a week.”

“Thank you,” Briar said absently.

The man left, and Briar put her hand on Ben’s arm, squeezed hard.

She didn’t know what to say. About Ben’s brother. About any of this.

So she looked up at Ben and smiled through her tears. “Thank you. For being here, for helping him. I don’t want to do any of this without you.”

Not I couldn’t do any of this without you.

Ben pulled her into a hug, quick and harsh. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Now go see your husband. I’ll be in the stables. I’m sure Samson is rattled, too. Call on me if you need me. Or, no, I’m sorry, summon me, should you have anything further to ask of me, Your Most Exalted Majesty.”

He said it to make her smile. So she did, even though she didn’t feel any of it, and Ben saw that, too.

He gave her arm another squeeze, and left.

Briar walked into the bedroom, heart knotted excruciatingly, and saw Phillip, still sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the window with shades pulled open, showing the afternoon sky over Frankfurt. Sharp rooftops peaked into the distance beyond the warped pane, a haze of ripples and spikes.

Briar sat next to him on the bed. She kept her eyes on the window, her hands in her lap, though she wanted to touch him, to initiate contact; she wasn’t sure what he needed.

“Who’s here still?” he asked, a croaked whisper.

“No one.” She looked down at her hands, nails that had been shaped and smoothed, no longer dirty, fingers no longer calloused.

Phillip reached out to take one of those hands, threading their fingers together. She twisted to face him, and he curved toward her, and then they were sitting with foreheads together.

“The dragon,” he whispered between them. It was all he said.

Briar stifled her need to gasp or sob or have any strong emotion, focusing wholly on Phillip. “I don’t know how Bavaria knew that would unsettle you so much.”

“I know.”

She pulled back to look at him, but he kept his head down, eyes shut, hands interlaced with hers.

“I know,” he said again. “Because I make it easy to see. I do not hide that weakness as I should. I’ve tried, I’ve tried day in and day out since it happened. But it’s everywhere, all the time, and everyone can see, and that confirmed it. I may as well introduce myself as the prince who slayed a dragon and will always be mortally terrified because of it.”

She tightened her hands on his. Tightened and held on and stayed quiet.

“I see it, still. Whenever I try to sleep. A forest of thorns, engulfed in green flames that don’t burn it, but they burn me. I’m burning up, swallowed in green fire that becomes Maleficent’s dragon mouth, the thorns her teeth, and there’s thunder cracking and lightning and her laugh…”

He stopped, tears slipping down his cheeks.

Briar held on to him, silent, breaking.

“I thought everyone was dead,” he continued after a moment, voice pinched, tears coming stronger now. “I rode into the castle, and everyone was unconscious I know now, and I know it was the fairies’ doing now, but then? I thought Maleficent had killed everyone. I’d fought her and defeated her and this was what I came back to? To be the only person to survive her attack in the whole country? And so I went up to that tower, because the fairies told me to, and I knew you were there. But I had no idea what would happen when you woke up. Would you even remember me? Would you be terrified and start screaming because a stranger had kissed you awake? And then we would be the only two living people in Austria, heirs to an empty land. Or would saving you bring everyone back, too? I didn’t know. What would have happened if I’d failed? I’d never fought in a battle before that day. Lorraine never had need for me to. But there I was, the sole defender of both your country and mine, against a dragon. Against a curse. Doing these impossible feats like I was meant for it. But it turns out I didn’t win, did I? She did. She won, because I can’t…”

He sobbed, freeing his hands from Briar’s to press the heels of his palms to his eyes.

“Any time I think about it, any time I try to fight, have to stand up as I should, I can feel myself withering. And I scream at myself not to, to be stronger than that, but I can’t stop the rise of it, and then I watch myself disintegrate and all I can think is how weak I am.”

Briar couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed his wrists to peel his hands away from his eyes, then took his face in her palms, thumbs brushing the tops of his cheekbones, wet with his tears.

“You are not weak, Phillip,” she told him. “You are not.”

“I can’t protect you.” His eyes slammed shut. “I can’t fail you, I can’t fail our people, but I will, I know it.”

She tilted his face so his eyes met hers.

“You are not weak,” she said again with as much surety as she had ever felt. “Fear is not weak. What you endured was more than anyone should have ever been asked to take on, and if you had come through that unaffected, it would have been disturbing, honestly. Of course it changed you. But it did not make you weak.”

Her words to him doubled back on herself.

If you had come through unaffected.

Of course it changed you.

She teared up. She had been changed by what had happened to her. She had been changed and she assumed that was it, that she was either Briar or Aurora with no option to meld the two.

What if it was not one or the other?

What if she was still her, only altered? Not someone new. Not someone old. Someone braided from both.

Phillip swayed, fingers encircling her forearms, and her mouth stayed open, willing a great solution to come forth, a way she could help him face these fears and overcome them.

But there was no easy fix. No easy fix for what had been a massive, terrible destruction.

“I’m here,” she said, softer. “Fate brought us together, over and over, and so whatever you are bearing now, let me bear it, too. I cannot fix this for you, but I will carry the weight with you as it heals. You’ve let me in by telling me this. So let me stay there, with you, and maybe, we’ll be able to breathe under this weight. Together.”

After a long moment, he took a shaking breath, and his tension began to ebb.

“Together,” he whispered.

Briar convinced him to lie down. Not that it took much prodding—he was exhausted, physically and mentally, and his eyes were closed the moment he leaned back on the pillows.

She gently stretched out next to him, not wanting to risk hurting him more by putting her head on his chest, and settled for splaying her hand flat on his stomach.

He took her hand, eyes still shut, and tugged. “I won’t break.”

Briar scooted closer, body alongside his.

“No,” she told him, resolute, “you won’t.”

And neither will I.

His eyes cracked open and caught hers. He held there, watching her, until his eyelids fluttered, exhaustion sinking down his features.

“I don’t know what I did,” he started, “to deserve you.”

“Deserving has nothing to do with it.” She rested her lips on his bare shoulder, feeling it rise and fall. “I’m yours whether you deserve me or not. There is no getting rid of me, no matter what you do.”

His lips slanted in a smile that faded quickly. “I love you,” he said, as expected as his next heartbeat.

She smiled. “I love you, too, Sir Knight.”

His brows pinched, and she thought he might have tried to say something else, but he was, finally, asleep. Deeply so, his face relaxed, hand going heavy where it rested over hers on his stomach.

Briar stayed there next to him, watching him sleep, and even with all that had happened, she felt lighter. He did, too. She knew now what plagued him, what weight he bore, and he would no longer bear it on his own. Much like her own burdens—she did not know how she would endure any of this without Phillip, without Ben.

Some things were impossible to suffer alone.

The thought hit her, memories of her dreams from Maleficent. All those great women, all their supporters and friends.

Whom did Frieda have now?

Briar waited until she was sure Phillip was in deep sleep, making certain he didn’t jolt awake from nightmares. After a while, she gingerly pulled her hand out from under his, tucked the blankets up over him, pulled the curtains around the bed, and slipped out.

What do you wish to do?

What will you do with this, Briar, Aurora?

She wanted to confront Bavaria. She probably should have had more far-reaching plans, but in this moment, she wanted to scream at Matilda for the trick she’d pulled on Phillip, and get some semblance of vengeance for the constant barrage of cruelty.

But that was how wars continued, wasn’t it? An attack masked as vengeance, another masked as reprisal, and on and on, and when did it stop? That was how the fighting between Austria and Bavaria had carried on for years.

Briar had gotten halfway to the main door of her suite before she realized Merryweather was sitting in the corner. She stopped, eyes going to her aunt’s, and a cool sense of calm fell over her.

“You and your sisters magicked everyone in Austria to sleep,” she said without pretense.

Merryweather jolted. “Y-yes? What does that—How is Phillip?”

“Asleep. And he will be fine. No thanks, as it turns out, to you and your sisters.”

Merryweather walked forward. Didn’t fly. “Briar—”

“You magicked everyone in the country to be asleep. Why? What purpose did that serve except to leave him alone in that final battle? The whole army. There was a whole army that could have stood by him, and you left him alone.”

“We didn’t know how long you would be under Maleficent’s curse,” Merryweather said. She wasn’t defensive, but she was fighting to keep her voice level. “We kept the kingdom in stasis to hold them in place with you.”

“And Phillip? Once you had freed him from Maleficent’s dungeon, why did you not awaken at least the soldiers? Why did you give him a sword and a shield and send him off against a sorceress dragon alone? Why, why is everyone else capable of seeing the flaws in your actions except for you?”

She tried not to shout, so aware of Phillip sleeping in the other room, but her words were snapping and vicious and she was so angry. At Matilda, at Frieda, at this whole blasted campaign, but this, she could control. This, she could resolve, right now.

Merryweather nodded, her eyes glistening. “We did what we believed best.”

“So did Maleficent.”

The words were out of Briar like an arrow from a bow. She saw them strike Merryweather physically, her chest caving in, her eyes widening. But it was not hurt she saw—it was fear.

“What do you—” Merryweather stopped. Breathed. “What do you mean?”

“Maleficent did what she thought best,” Briar expanded. “In cursing me. To get whatever convoluted result she wanted. Stefan and Leah did what they thought best in sending me away and having all spindles destroyed. Matilda has done what she thought best for Frieda, in twisting all our interactions so she distrusts me. Doing what you believed best does not absolve you from the pain your actions inflicted.”

“We are not the same as Matilda and Maleficent,” Merryweather snapped. Her cheeks reddened. “Do not group us together. The choices we made were out of love for you.”

“And that makes it worse, doesn’t it?” Tears pricked Briar’s eyes. Merryweather saw, and her anger deflated. “Because you claimed to love me, and hurt me anyway. At least Maleficent and Matilda only ever claimed to hate me, and so I expect them to hurt me. But you, and Flora, Fauna, Stefan, Leah—all of you gathered around me and heaped love upon me and then gutted me.”

Her voice was rising. She felt the rip, the strain of it, and she rolled her eyes shut in a wince and paused, listening to the bedroom. Phillip didn’t stir.

So Briar exhaled, and opened her eyes to see Merryweather with tears running down her cheeks.

“I don’t know how to reconcile that,” Briar whispered when Merryweather said nothing, merely sniffled. Then Briar laughed, dry. “I don’t know how to reconcile much of anything. Briar Rose with Aurora. Your love with the pain you inflicted. How can all of these opposing forces coexist without tearing me apart?”

Merryweather considered that. And she finally spoke, though she said only, “Sometimes they don’t.”

Briar frowned, her eyes heated, but her own tears didn’t fall.

Merryweather looked out the window, sucked her teeth. “Sometimes forces oppose each other so greatly that they do tear apart their bearer. And what is left are…shards. Shadows of what should be. And those shadows make mistakes and they flounder because they are incomplete. That is what we should have taught you.” She faced Briar again, apology ripe in her expression. “We should have prepared you, every day, to endure all of the conflicting forces you would be at the mercy of. We should have—”

Briar lurched forward, rage iron-tinged and bitter. “I am at the mercy of nothing,” she spat. “Not again. Never again. That’s why I’m here at all, fighting like hell to win a crown I don’t even want. That’s why I concede to petty propriety and play these stupid games. It may seem like I’m at the mercy of these larger forces, but I am not. I am choosing to do these things. You misunderstand what I have been saying—I will not let any of these things destroy me. I am done being the victim. I am the hero now, Merryweather.”

Hot, heavy tears streamed down Briar’s cheeks, and she only felt them when she sucked in a quaking gasp, her lungs prickling like they were full of needles. She felt every ounce of the pain that the past few hours had thrown at her. She felt every minute of lost sleep.

But Merryweather stared at her in awe and adoration, and it didn’t fit at all with the conversation they had been having. The argument.

“We thought—” Merryweather’s breath wavered. “We did not know that was why you were giving in to your vassals and us as well.”

Briar scrubbed the back of her hand across her damp cheek. “You think I’m weak. That I’m bowing to you all for lack of a spine.”

Merryweather pressed her lips together.

Briar shrugged. “Sometimes, a little. But mostly it is because I don’t know what the hell I am doing, here or in Austria. I am not too proud to admit that. And so I will listen to suggestions—from my vassals, most of whom have ruled their own provinces longer than I have been alive, and from you three. When I do what you say, it is not simply because I have no other ideas; it is because the ideas you present have merit, and I trust you. Should I do all this on my own? Should I ignore the support I have? What do you want from me?”

They had been asking her what she wanted to do, and each time she had felt she didn’t know.

But she realized: She had known all along.

She was here, fighting to be empress. Facing the ghosts of her past. Yes, she still had moments of doubt and indecision. Yes, she still wrestled with her instincts versus the choices advised. But she was making choices, learning from those choices, and growing. She was taking pieces from each mistake and each horror and all of the people in her inner circle, and she was evolving.

She wasn’t the old Briar Rose anymore. She hadn’t been for a long, long while. Yet neither was she this new Queen Aurora.

Perhaps all these labels only hindered her. Perhaps it was far easier than they had all made it out to be.

Perhaps she was simply Briar, and what that meant could change daily.

Merryweather placed her palms on Briar’s cheeks, hesitating for a moment, as though she expected Briar to shove her away. But her aunt’s soft touch felt like her childhood and safety and always would. Briar closed her eyes, a few more tears slipping free.

“I think,” Merryweather started, her voice frail, “that we have misjudged you, Briar. We owe you an apology. Many, in fact, so let me begin with this: I am sorry we have not seen what you have been doing as queen and candidate. I am sorry the expectations we placed on you clouded your truth.”

That apology may have been meant for this one wrong, but it branched out, became a connecting web over every pain in her life. It touched bruises she had learned to avoid, prodded wounds she had never expected to close. It was more painful than soothing in this moment, and Briar did push Merryweather away now.

Bleary-eyed, exhausted, Briar turned for the door. “I’m going to speak with Matilda.”

Merryweather choked. She might have argued, but the reality that their conversation had uncovered hung in the air around them, thick as smoke, and so she did not question Briar.

Briar ripped open the door to her suite and went stock-still.

A figure pushed off from the wall opposite the door. A beat before Briar could cry out, she recognized it.

Frieda.

Briar glanced up and down the dark hall. Evening was coming in, and the windowless gray stone was lit by torches against the coming night, but Frieda was alone.

Merryweather moved over to glance around Briar, and gasped. She tried to yank Briar back, but Briar resisted, fingers anchored on the doorframe.

“What do you want?” Briar asked, hollowed out.

Frieda stepped forward, her palm rubbing against her skirts. “I wanted to make sure your husband was all right.”

Briar stared at her.

Frieda’s eyebrows peaked. “King Phillip. Is he all right?”

“He’s fine. Sleeping.” Briar wilted. “Finally.”

“I’m jealous.”

It came so softly that Briar almost didn’t hear it. When she frowned, Frieda shrugged.

“Well.” She smoothed her skirts awkwardly and looked once, quickly, into the suite behind Briar. She saw Merryweather and straightened. “You are heading out. I won’t keep you.”

“What do you mean?”

Frieda’s lips parted. “I meant that I won’t hold you back from—”

“Not that, you fool.” Briar had no patience left, not for anyone. “When you said you’re jealous of him sleeping.”

“Oh.” Her eyes held on Briar’s, silence stretching, and a mask fell. Slipped, really. “I have dreams. Plaguing, restless dreams.”

“You said she gave you the same…gift,” Briar stated.

Frieda hesitated, before nodding.

“She was dead, though,” Briar said. “Phillip killed her before your sixteenth birthday.”

Their birthdays were a week apart. It had been one of the things that had bonded them early on.

So if Maleficent gave Frieda the same curse—to die on her sixteenth birthday—it would not have taken effect, because Phillip destroyed the sorceress before Frieda turned sixteen.

Frieda’s head tipped, and she smiled, sad, tired. “Matilda was furious about that,” she whispered. “She heard what Phillip did, and thought it meant the gift would not come, that it would all have been for naught. But…” Frieda shrugged and looked away, but not before Briar saw the sheen across her eyes. “My sixteenth birthday came, and as it ended, her gift came upon me even in her death. I collapsed and could not be woken. In that state, I dreamed. I awoke on my own, after some time had passed, and I had dreamed so much I could hardly distinguish truth from fiction.” She sighed. “And I dream still.”

When Phillip killed Maleficent, it hadn’t broken the spell Briar was under. She hadn’t immediately woken up—she had only done so once Phillip had kissed her.

So maybe it was not unthinkable for Maleficent’s curse to take Frieda regardless of whether Maleficent was alive.

“What do you dream about?” Briar asked. She heard some of the tension leaving her voice. Behind her, Merryweather kept all that same tension, but Briar was talking with Frieda, talking about this impossibly terrible thing someone else had experienced, too. And not just someone else, but someone she loved, someone who had once known her soul.

Frieda’s shoulders stiffened, her lips parting.

Briar continued before she spoke. “A woman in a blue dress. Another under shooting stars.”

“And one throwing a pail of water onto a fire,” Frieda finished, her face blank, but with the unpleasantness of a repressed memory. She said nothing else. Set no foot upon the bridge Briar had built.

They had the same dreams.

Maleficent gave them the same dreams.

Frieda had come here to her suite, she had chosen to come here, and now she was acting antsy and like she would bolt, like Briar had been the invasive one.

Briar’s jaw set. Frieda stayed silent, her eyes on the floor and feet shifting, and Briar rolled her eyes.

“Why are you here? Why did you come? You’ve made your opinion of me very clear, Princess Clara, and if this is a ploy of your mother’s to go after my husband, I will destroy you both. Mercilessly. That is a promise of war you can take back to Bavaria.”

Merryweather screeched behind her, but Briar didn’t care.

Frieda whipped a look back up at her. “That’s not why I’m here. She doesn’t know I’m here, in fact.”

Briar was done forging connections. Let Frieda fight for her, for once. “I’m shocked you’re still able to think without her say-so.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Is it? You broke my heart. You broke Ben’s heart. And now you care, when my husband was nearly killed by your mother’s cruelty?”

“Yes.”

Briar stopped up short. She had a whole argument building up in her throat, but she snapped her jaw shut.

Frieda folded her arms, glanced around the empty hall, and whatever anxiety she’d had in her bearing overwhelmed her. “I know what my mother did with the dragon and the jouster was wrong. I know that. And so I acted on it. Because so much else is uncertain. And I know that you were visited by Maleficent, like I was, and given the same cur—gift. The same gift. I’m trying to act on what I know now, instead of what I’ve been told, and it turns out…I know so little.”

“You don’t,” Briar snapped. “You know me. You know Ben.”

Frieda’s eyes went watery, bloodshot. “But you don’t know me.”

“Of course we—”

“I died. Under Maleficent’s gift. I died, because no one amended it for me when she gave it.”

Briar went so slack her hand slipped off the doorframe. “What?”

“And no one woke me up; I came back to life on my own. I was dead, and then I rose out of my deathbed. Do you know what it feels like to die and come back, Briar? It isn’t like sleeping and waking. It…hurts.” Frieda’s voice dipped, went jagged with remembered pain, and she took a beat, swallowing down the emotion, before she spoke again. “And I’d seen these intense visions of women I didn’t know—and heard cackling laughter—and then my mother was there, this woman I had never met. She told me it was all right, that this was meant to happen. That the pain of dying and coming alive again, that me growing up in poverty among the people, was worth it because Maleficent had told her that was how I would become the greatest ruler in the empire’s history. That’s why it happened to us both, you and me—because one of us is a backup. A spare.”

“And you believe that’s me, I assume?” Briar’s tone was deadened.

Frieda snorted. “My mother believes so. Your gift didn’t take all the way, did it? You didn’t actually die, just slept, and Phillip woke you up. According to her, that makes me more worthy. According to her, you shouldn’t even be here, and I should be revered as some kind of goddess. So, Briar”—Frieda lurched forward, but her tone was not accusing; she was beseeching—“there are a great many things I don’t know, but I do know that you don’t have to do this. You aren’t fated to it like I am. You can leave. You can stop this and protect yourself and your husband and go.”

Briar rocked backward, letting Frieda’s words process. She quickly saw through them, saw past the sincerity, and it was a knife straight into her stupid, fragile hope.

“Clever, really,” Briar forced herself to say, instead of scream. “Tell your mother I commend her on this turn of phrase.”

“This isn’t—”

“Aggressive tactics aren’t working, so you come at me with empathy and compassion? As though I would believe a word of it from you now. Clara.”

Frieda winced. “You don’t have to believe me. But you realize you aren’t chosen for this role, don’t you? You didn’t complete the curse. You woke—”

“So now you say it is a curse?”

“Gift, I mean, Maleficent’s gift—”

“No. It was a curse. It was a curse, for us both, and she destroyed our lives. All these outside forces have done nothing but destroy our lives, and you’ve given in to them all rather than believe in Ben and me and the fact that we’re here for you. You’ve chosen all this over us, over the man who loves you still, and what I know is that does, indeed, make you Princess Clara. So do not try to seek understanding with me. You and Queen Aurora are not friends, we have no history, and I do not have to listen to a word you say.”

Frieda gasped, hands tightening into fists crossed over her chest, eyes tearing, but she didn’t cry. She didn’t try to speak again, and Briar watched her mind work, wondered what thoughts were racing through her head.

She was so close to understanding what Briar saw. That they were the same and could help each other.

But not like this. Not with Frieda thinking that anything good could come from what Maleficent had wrought.

Briar turned to tell Merryweather to get rid of her just as a clatter of armor and booted feet thundered up the hall.

Frieda’s shock at the sound was all that kept Briar from calling her a traitor, but moments later, soldiers of the Frankfurt castle rushed past, angling around them both for a wing farther up.

“Candidates.” One soldier stopped, giving a quick bow. “We must ask you both to return to your suites and stay in place. There has been an attack.”

Briar’s chest lurched. “Who? Where?”

“It is isolated and appears to have ended, but please, for your safety, stay locked in your rooms.” The soldier hurried off with the rest of the men.

Merryweather took her arm. “Come, Briar—”

But Briar watched the path the guards took. And dread welled up, toxic in her chest.

An attack.

Another assault, another attempt to remove a candidate from the campaign. One had just been stabbed, as Merryweather had told her before the joust—was it the same attacker? The victim wouldn’t be the same candidate—

There were only four left now. She and Frieda were here.

Which left Eckhardt of Hesse.

And Johann.

Briar shot into the hall.

“Briar!” Merryweather plunged after her. A beat, and Frieda’s fast footsteps followed, too.

The soldiers’ armor left a noisy trail that Briar followed, begging her instincts to be wrong.

Two halls over, the group of soldiers melted into others already pouring into and out of a suite with the door thrown open.

Beside the door, an insignia hung on a banner. A bull’s head in a crown.

Mecklenburg.