Chapter 18
The palace shuddered with the unsteady breath of waking.
Within the great marble hall, chaos reigned, servants dashed from corridor to corridor with trays held high above their heads like shields, noblemen and women wept into silks that had not known touch or tears for two decades, and guards stumbled through the aisles, their swords clattering against ancient armor as if their limbs weren’t quite their own.
My father’s voice soared above the cacophony, already calling for feasts, for banners, for all the trappings of celebration.
It was as if the weight of that single lost hour, that first hour after twenty years of stone, should be filled to bursting with every joy the palace denied itself.
But I knew better: the kingdom needed more than noise and revels. It needed time to remember how to live.
The man at the heart of the uproar was my father.
He was untouched by the dust and the ruin, as though the curse had passed over him like water over glass.
He stood in the center of the great hall, his spine straight, his gaze already set on the future, demanding plans, proclamations, and new laws.
All the while, the newly-restored citizens of his court flickered with the pain of their own reanimation, as if waking from an endless winter of sleepwalking.
The tension in the air vibrated around me, and I longed for the quiet, feral certainty of my other self, the part of me still shaped like a bear, who could walk away from this confusion into the silent, icy trees.
But I was a prince again. I was the son of a king, and the only one who could keep him from driving his newly-awakened people back into despair.
Later, when the initial madness ebbed and the castle’s pulse stilled, I found my father seated by a hearth in the royal solar, a room whose tapestries had faded but whose warmth still clung to the walls.
He appeared as I remembered from childhood, his features sharp, his hair a riot of gold and iron, his hands moving, restless even when idle.
For twenty years, I had held the memory of him like a talisman, but seeing him now, truly alive and moving, fractured something inside me.
He looked up when I entered, and his eyes cleared at my sight. “Derrick. Come here. Sit. There is much to be done, and you know these corridors better than anyone.” His voice was already the voice of a monarch, commanding, but weary.
I approached, careful to temper my stride so I would not seem to challenge him.
The old courtly habits returned, even as part of me bristled against them.
I set a hand on his arm, light but insistent.
“Father. Please. The people are only just waking. They need time to recover.” I gestured toward the window, to the gardens still rimmed in frost. “Everything is unfamiliar to them. Their bodies are stiff, their minds clouded. You cannot expect them to leap from stone to celebration in a single hour.”
For a heartbeat, he frowned, just a flicker, almost hidden. But I saw the truth in his eyes. There was fear there, and relief, and the bruised humility unique to men who have survived the impossible.
He looked away, into the fire. “I forget myself,” he said, the words so soft I almost missed them. “I am too eager for command. I want to make everything right in a moment, as if it would erase the years we lost.”
I sat across from him, feeling the weight of every word.
“We will set it right, together. But the people must come to grips with what’s happened.
The servants need to see healers. The kitchens must be restocked; the cellars checked for rot.
Wagons must go out for food, for firewood, for salt and flour and meat.
If we are to feast, it should be a true celebration.
If we are to rule, we must let the kingdom learn to trust us again. ”
As I spoke, I saw a shift in his posture, the king yielding to the father, just for a moment.
“You are wise, my son. Wiser than I, perhaps. Had I listened to you twenty years ago…” But he let the thought die there, unwilling to linger on the past. I had warned him that we needed to be better prepared for the wrath of the Bluebeard wizard, but he hadn't listened.
The silence that followed was punctuated only by the crackling of the fire and the distant calls from the hall: the palace, as always, pulsed with its own life.
I was about to excuse myself when I saw Rose, framed by the doorway, her hair a halo of red in the firelight.
She was too polite to interrupt us, her hands folded delicately at her waist, but her eyes were bright with hope, and something like fear.
She had always looked beautiful to me, but now, dressed in a courtly gown, she was simply dazzling.
My father followed my gaze, and his face softened. “The woman who woke the man within the bear,” he said, half to himself. “Does she know what she’s done to you?”
Rose startled, uncertain. “Your Majesty,” she managed, dipping into a curtsy made awkward by unfamiliarity.
He laughed heartily. “We have not used that title in decades, my dear. Come, sit with us. I am told you saved my son’s life, and the rest of ours, besides.”
She hesitated, but stepped into the room; her movements were graceful even when she was tentative.
She kept her eyes on me, and my heart twisted.
I wanted to run to her, to pull her into my arms, to tell her everything I had never allowed myself to say.
But I waited, watched her navigate the space as carefully as I did.
She sat on the edge of the settee, small and alone.
For a moment, I felt the old distance between us, the gulf of class and circumstance, and then I thought of what we had endured together: the wolves, the darkness, the long, silent winter.
We had been alone in the world together.
The court, the hierarchy, the rules—they meant nothing now.
A moment later, a footman entered with a tray of spiced wine, the first harvest from the cellar in two decades, and still good. We drank, the three of us, our first toast in a lifetime. My father raised his glass and said, “To the end of winter. To waking.”
"One more thing. We should send a carriage to fetch Serilda and Snow White. They should be here, too." I reminded him.
My father's face brightened at the name Serilda. It seemed that after all these years, after all that happened, he still held a soft spot for her.
I watched Rose’s hands as she sipped from her cup, watched the way she smiled when she looked at me, how her entire body seemed to lean towards mine. At that moment, I knew without a doubt that I never wanted to be without her again, not for a single moment, and knew what I had to do.
I set my cup aside and took her hand. “Rose,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Will you walk with me?”
She looked surprised, but nodded, and together we left the warmth of the royal solar and stepped into the cold gardens.
The palace was lit from within, every window aglow, but the grounds were cold and silent, rimmed with moonlight and the memory of winter.
We walked in silence, past the icebound fountains and the rows of dead roses.
I could feel her hand tremble in mine, but she did not let go.
When we reached the edge of the garden, I stopped her. The world was so quiet, I could hear our breathing; the stars above us glittered like fragments of the vanished curse.
“There is something I must ask you,” I said, turning to her. “Something I have wished for since the day you first found me.”
She tilted her head, a lock of red hair falling across her cheek. “What is it?”
I dropped to one knee, not out of obligation, but because my legs gave way beneath the force of it. “Rose,” I said, the words catching on my tongue, “will you marry me?”
For a moment, she was frozen, as if the curse had found her after all. But then her eyes widened, and her lips parted in shock. “You—you want to marry me?”
I smiled, unable to help myself. “I want nothing more. You are my courage, my fire, my salvation. When the world saw a beast, you saw me. When I was lost, you gave me back my name. I am yours, wholly and without end.”
A sound escaped her, a laugh and a sob mingled together. She pressed her free hand to her lips, tears streaming down her face. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Derrick. A thousand times, yes.”
And then she leapt into my arms, nearly knocking me backward into the frozen grass. I held her close, my heart slamming against my ribs, and for the first time in all my cursed years, I felt truly, utterly whole.
We stayed there, tangled in each other, until the cold seeped through our clothes and reminded us of the world beyond ourselves.