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WHEN THE WHITE LIGHT dissolved and Aurora’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, she realized that the scenery had changed completely. In fact, she found herself facing an entirely new dilemma. She was no longer standing in front of Meg, rather, she was lying face-down on an opulent four-poster bed.
And she wasn’t alone.
There was a man lying beside her.
With shock-ridden eyes, Aurora stared at the man as if he was something unearthly. The room was dark, barely lit by a trickle of moonlight shining through a narrow window. The man’s profile was mostly concealed, but she could make out the contours of his face. He was asleep. Aurora was sure of that.
She silently debated which of her concerns was the most pressing. Should she worry about Meg? Was the cottage on fire? Was her aunt coming to kill her? Should she worry about how to get home, or should she worry about how she ended up here? Her mind was filled with dilemmas, each one more urgent than the next.
“Maybe my most immediate concern should be getting out of here,” Aurora whispered to herself. She wondered if it was possible to slip out of bed without disrupting the sleep of the strange man lying beside her.
If it was possible, she missed her opportunity. The man rolled over, and though his eyes were still closed, he muttered something to himself.
“Mmmgrmm.... Pooka Bear.”
Before she could move an inch, the slumbering man draped his arm across her waist, holding her in place.
“Pooka Bear?” Aurora repeated in a whisper. As her eyes continued to adjust to the dark, she saw what he might have been referring to. There was a large, stuffed bear perched at the foot of the bed. For a moment, that realization made her forget all her troubles. In her opinion, no self-respecting man past the age of twelve would share his bed with a stuffed toy. Another glance at the man lying next to her confirmed that he was, without a doubt, well beyond that prepubescent age. And yet—
“Mmmmm...Pook... ums... so soft.”
“Or maybe I’m jumping to conclusions,” she whispered. “Maybe that’s his pet name for someone, and he’s mistaking me for...”
An eye snapped open. And then another.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!”
Aurora nearly fell out of the bed when she heard his screaming. She clapped her hands over her ears and tried to shush him, but her attempts were drowned out by his bellowing.
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
She clamped a hand over his mouth, and that seemed to do the trick. “Quiet!” she exclaimed. “With all that screaming, you could wake the dead!”
His brow pinched, the man removed her hand from his mouth and tossed it aside. Fortunately for Aurora’s ears, he didn’t start screaming again. “What is the meaning of this?!”
She answered in total honesty, “I have no idea.”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY BED?!”
Aurora sat up and pulled the blankets to her chin, as if to guard herself from any oncoming accusations. She didn’t understand the situation any more than he did. “I don’t know!”
The man gave his blankets a tremendous yank, which nearly sent Aurora flying from the bed. Pooka Bear did, in fact, tumble to the floor. “Get your hands off of my bedsheets, you scheming harlot! These blankets are made of exquisite silk, and should not be touched by filthy, vagrant hands!”
“Well, PARDON me!” she hollered at him, leaving no doubt about her sarcasm.
“How did you get in here?”
“Well...” Aurora leaned toward the edge of the bed and picked up the wayspinner, which had fallen off the bed when he tugged the blankets. “It’s a little difficult to explain.”
“You didn’t climb through one of the windows...it’s impossible! You aren’t that skinny, I’m afraid!” He dramatically tilted his head toward the ceiling, as if in despair. “You must have a friend in the palace... there is a spy in our midst! I knew it!”
Aurora’s ears picked on a key word. “The palace?”
“Who is the spy? What’s his name? Tell me!” her bedmate emptily demanded. “What are you plotting? You could be an assassin... OR WORSE!”
Aurora shook her head at the audacity of his words. “Those are some bold accusations. Besides, what could possibly be worse than an assassin?”
“I knew it! I KNEW IT!” The man squealed like a pig being dragged around by its tail. He crossed his arms over his chest and lay on the bed with his eyes closed, as if impersonating a sarcophagus. “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with! I always knew this day would come!”
“I’m not going to kill you!”
“Do it quickly, please, and painlessly if you can! I will go bravely into the night! I won’t put up a fight! Heaven waits for me!”
Aurora leaned toward his ear and shouted, because she obviously wasn’t getting through to him in normal volumes. “DIDN’T YOU HEAR ME? I’M NOT HERE TO KILL YOU!”
“You’re not?”
“No!”
“Then you must be here to rob me. I have many treasures in my trove. Name the one you seek!”
“No treasure!”
“No treasure?” The man sat up and glared at her, his gaze unwavering. “Then do explain to me, vile woman, why you’re here in the emperor’s bedchamber. No...even worse! You’re in the emperor’s bed! If that isn’t evidence of some nefarious plot, I don’t know what is! Maybe you were trying to seduce me... to lure me into your web of desire to your own wicked ends! You disgust me!”
Aurora couldn‘t help but be offended by his disgust. “Honestly, would it be so bad if I was trying to seduce you? I’ve never seen a man get so upset to see a woman in his bed!”
A momentary confusion passed over his countenance, as if she’d finally said something that made sense to him. But after a few seconds, his pinched brow returned. “An assassin is an assassin, regardless of gender!”
“I’m not an assassin!”
“Well, that might be the case,” he said with a sigh. “You don’t seem particularly malicious. Nevertheless, I want you out of the palace at once!”
“Oh... but wait!” Aurora held up the wayspinner. “I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where to go! I don’t have anyone to turn to. Please, if you’d help me...”
She should have known her pleas would fall on deaf ears, considering how he’d reacted so far.
“OUT!” he demanded. “Out of the palace, make it snappy!”
Frowning, Aurora slid from the bed. “If you would just listen...”
The man hopped out of bed and stood in front of her, and though his build was slight, he towered over her in height. “Are you trying to tell me, the emperor, what I should and should not do?”
“Well, no. It’s just a suggestion, because I’m really at my wits end and—”
The emperor held a hand in front of her face and tapped his thumb and forefinger together. “Talk talk talk. You’re still talking. I thought I told you to leave the palace!”
“Oh, well excuse me for thinking you had the heart to listen!”
And now she’d gone too far. She knew she should have retreated before she tested his shred of tolerance.
“GUARDS!” he hollered, looking shamelessly ridiculous as he stomped around his bedroom in his long johns and mismatched night shirt. “GUARDS!”
“No, please! Don’t do that!”
“Well, I asked you politely if you would leave, and you refused!”
“Politely?!” Aurora laughed in his face. “Are you kidding me? Ever since you opened your eyes, you’ve been anything but polite!”
A pair of turbaned guards came rushing into the emperor’s bedchamber, swords drawn.
“You insult me!” The emperor turned his back to Aurora and addressed the guards. “Do tell me...what do you think I should do to an insolent girl who not only sneaks into my private chambers, but manages to offend me with every word that slips off of her poisonous tongue?”
“I offend you? This is completely absurd!”
The first guard wasn’t afraid to voice his opinion. “I think you should cut off her head, my lord. Make an example of her.”
Aurora looked down at the wooden rod in her hand. Her situation grew stickier by the second. She wondered if it was time to turn the dial again. Didn’t Meg said it would save her from a dangerous situation?
“I’d arrest her, my liege,” the second guard suggested. “Teach her a lesson.”
The next time he faced Aurora, the emperor was grinning. She was starting to get the impression that he enjoyed watching her squirm. “A beheading and an arrest. Both are equally appealing. Which one do you think I should choose, wench?”
Aurora’s thumb found the wayspinner’s dial. She closed her eyes and gave it a spin.
Nothing happened.
She tried turning it again.
Nothing. When she opened her eyes, her predicament was the same. Even the emperor’s grin was the same.
“Beheading!” the first guard cheered.
“The dungeon!” demanded the second guard
The second time she opened her eyes, Aurora saw the emperor do something laughable. As nonchalantly as he could, he kicked Pooka Bear under the bed and Aurora, in spite of circumstances, found herself choking back a chuckle. He must not have wanted the guards to see his strange bedfellow. “Be glad that your emperor is merciful, wench! I’ve decided to let you off with a warning!”
“You have?”
“Guards, take her and toss her out! You need not be gentle with her. She did try to assassinate me, after all!”
As the guards descended on her, Aurora shot a venomous glance in the emperor’s direction, but she held her tongue. Losing her dignity was better than losing her head, so she decided to keep her mouth shut.
She should have kept her mouth shut tighter than that; however, for when the guard tossed her out of the palace—literally tossed her—she fell face-first into a mound of sand. Aurora got to her feet, dusted herself off and, with a mouthful of sand, she tried to soak in the surroundings. Though it was dark, she saw enough of the landscape to know she was nowhere close to home. Her first look at the emperor’s palace nearly knocked her off her feet. It was the largest structure she’d ever seen, and it towered over her so high, Aurora made herself dizzy when she tried to see the top of it. Pearl-white in color, the palace was topped by large, round domes and soaring, golden spires. It irked her to think that such an amazing place belonged to such a despicable man—assuming he was who he said he was. But she had no reason to doubt the emperor’s status. After all, it was by his order that she was thrown from the palace.
With the palace to her left, and an endless sea of sand to her right, Aurora had no idea where to go. So she approached the guard at the front of the palace.
“Um....excuse me?” She addressed him as politely as she could. “I was wondering if you could help me.”
“I don’t help criminals.”
Discouraged, Aurora continued, “I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of Avalon.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” the guard informed her. “And even if I had heard of it, I wouldn’t tell you. I don’t help criminals.”
If looks could kill, Aurora’s glare would have sucked the breath out of the guard’s body. Somehow, she managed to maintain her composure. “I’m not a criminal, sir. Please, you have to help me! I have no one else to turn to! I don’t even know where I am! I don’t know where I should go!”
The guard never made eye contact with her, he just stared straight ahead. “I’ve never heard of your town, miss.”
“Well, can you tell me where I might go to get directions? Surely someone’s heard of it!”
“Ohmaromabahbala is two miles south of here.”
“Ozmarosabahboola?”
“Ohmaromabahbala,” he repeated.
“Ohmaromaboobahla.”
“Ohmaromabahbala.”
“Bahbala.”
“Ohmaroma-”
“Okay!” Aurora shouted, stopping him before he could repeat it again. “Can you just tell me which way is south?”
“That way.” He pointed in the opposite direction of the palace.
“Okay, thanks. Wish me luck!”
“I don’t wish luck to criminals.”
As she turned away, Aurora grumbled a few unladylike curses under her breath, and she thought about burying the wayspinner right then and there. Rather than whisk her away from danger, Meg’s gift seemed to cause more problems for her. Would she ever make it home? How were her aunts faring? At the moment, she was concerned for their safety as much as her own.
After an hour of trudging through the sand, a favorable outcome seemed bleak. She swore she must have walked more than two miles, but there wasn’t a town in sight.
To add insult to injury, a sandstorm started blowing from the west. Aurora could hardly see a foot in front of her, and the feeling of sand lashing at her face wasn’t exactly pleasant. She had no choice but to backtrack and take cover in a cave she spotted early in her trek.
“What’s next?” she whispered to herself as she huddled in a corner of the cave. “Wolves? Bears? Pirates?”
Little did she know, she would eventually encounter all three.
And much worse.