Sweet Briar: A Dark Fantasy Romance Sleeping Beauty Retelling (Awakened)

1. Killian

“That,” I point up at the castle perched upon a treacherously high mountaintop, “is insanity, Your Highness.” For emphasis, I cross my arms over my chest and shake my head, adding, “Not happening.”

Prince Alistair, to whom I have sworn fealty and served ever since we were lads, gives me an innocent look.

“Are you saying you can’t get us up that mountain, Kill? The greatest knight and monster-hunter Belterre has ever known can’t clear a path up a mountain to help me rescue my princess?”

He knows exactly how to prod me into doing his bidding. He’s ruthless. Calculating, though he hides it behind a genteel demeanor—most of the time.

Why in hell he got a wild hair to climb up Thorn Mountain, I cannot fathom. Supposedly, there’s a pretty girl at the top. Alistair has his pick of pretty girls anywhere in the land. He doesn’t need that one.

Yet here we are, staring at a thicket of spiked vines dotted with wilting roses as if we’re actually going to risk our necks over a myth.

“I’m saying there’s nothing up there worth dying for, Highness.”

“You won’t let us die.”

Truth.

“There’s nothing I want at the top of that mountain.”

“But there’s something I want,” he counters.

I can practically see the wheels turning in his clever mind as he searches for the right motivation to get me to do his bidding. I might be Alistair’s sworn knight, but I didn’t get there by taking on stupid quests. Not a week goes by without some fool challenging me to a test of mettle, or a damsel throwing herself at my feet begging me to save her from a monster.

Sometimes, I’ll do it. For the right price. And payment comes in many forms. More than one supposedly virtuous lady has discovered she was less attached to her chastity than she previously believed, once she saw me in battle. I take what’s offered and then take my leave. Tears don’t sway me to stay.

If the ladies of Belterre Castle call me an unfeeling bastard, I can’t complain that I haven’t earned it.

“Permission to speak bluntly, Highness?”

He indulges me with a wave of his hand. “Do you ever speak otherwise, Sir Killian Ironheart?”

No. I don’t speak much at all. Blunt words only upset people, and I’m no court poet. Alistair appreciates my directness, even when it borders on rudeness, which is most of the time. In turn, I appreciate the freedom to speak my mind.

“What if I were to grant you your freedom?”

I turn my head and spit. “Didn’t you dangle that promise last time?”

He has the decency to look away sheepishly. “The time we slew the dragon?”

The time I slew the dragon, and he took the glory. I came away with burns that took a healer a full week to repair and a newfound hatred of lizards. Not that I was overly fond of them to begin with.

All in the name of gaining my independence, only to realize that I had no reason to want it in the first place. When Alistair reneged on his promise to release me from my sworn oath, I didn’t protest.

If I’m going to live and die as a knight, I may as well do so in service to the second-most powerful man in the country. His father won’t last much longer. The ailing king’s wish is to see his son wed to a suitable princess before he passes. Ensure his royal line continues and all; Alistair is his sole heir. Alistair’s been resisting the pressure to marry ever since his balls dropped. Quite successfully.

This excursion is nothing more than one more excuse to delay his nuptials.

Alistair has declared publicly that if he cannot awaken the Sleeping Beauty of legend, he will take no wife at all. A promise he’s stubborn enough to keep in the technical meaning of the word. He’s bored, and rescuing the lost princess of Isanthia is a singular challenge.

Standing between him and his ambition are miles of steep paths covered by thorns, populated by the kinds of monsters parents tell their children about to scare them into behaving.

The kinds of monsters I’ve been fighting since I was a boy.

Goblins. Ogres. Trolls. Harpies. Once, a dragon. Whether they attack from below or above, I’ve defeated them all.

But dreadful creatures crawl that mountaintop. Chimeras. Basilisks. A gryphon has been sighted in the area. I’ve never fought groups of them before. Worse, the enchanted thorns grow back as soon as you cut through them, trapping you. Countless men have tried to fight their way to the top of this mountain to claim the prized beauty supposedly slumbering at the peak.

None have ever returned.

“If you can get me to the top of this mountain in one piece, Killian, and back down with the girl, I will release you from your sworn oath of service to the crown.” Alistair tips his face upward. “By the demons, if you can conquer Thorn Mountain, I’ll give it to you.”

“Fat lot of good a decrepit castle on an untillable, overgrown mountainside would do me.”

He knows it tempts me, though. I’d fight my way through the underworld itself for a chance at property. I would never speak of it, but Alistair knows what I desire most.

Peace. Solitude. Pride of ownership.

Things I’ve never had, like permanence.

The closest thing I’ve ever had to a home was the orphanage my magic-addicted whore of a mother dumped me at when I was born, a wretched place I ran off from as soon as I was old enough to survive on the streets of Belterre City.

Once cleared of these cursed thorns, this mountaintop fortress would be the ideal refuge for a man who’s as much a monster as the fabled creatures he’s renowned for slaying.

I would take it. Hell, I want it.

As with everything in life, I’m going to have to fight to claim it. Once Alistair takes the throne, who knows what thankless, reckless ventures he’ll send me on as king. One day, my luck will run out and my life will end as it began: in blood, pain, and death.

Unless I win my freedom today.

I peer up through the thorns.

A small part of me is curious to know why the mere story of a beautiful woman is enough to compel generations of men to impale themselves upon the thorns of futility.

“I’ll hold you to that promise, Highness.”

Alistair turns to me with a smirk. “We’d best make haste while there’s still daylight, don’t you think?”

I tuck one thumb beneath the strap of my baldric and reluctantly lead the brave prince deeper into the thicket of thorned vines.