The Cursed Queen's Slumber

Chapter 1

Belladonna

The floor of Vaelora Manor spoke in creaks and sighs beneath my boots, announcing my presence to ghosts I couldn't see.

Dust motes danced in the stale air, catching what little light filtered through the heavy drapes.

I adjusted the knife sheath at my thigh, my fingertips tracing the worn leather for reassurance.

The job seemed simple on paper: wake the sleeping heir, collect payment, disappear.

With the money I was making from this job, I didn't care that I'd have to hide in a new kingdom.

I wouldn't have to care about anything, really.

But standing in that cavernous foyer, with its marble floor cracked like ancient skin, I felt the first whisper of wrongness curl against my spine.

The scent hit me next—decay mingled with roses, too sweet and too rotten all at once.

I pulled my collar over my nose, but it did little to block the cloying thickness.

My footsteps echoed as I moved deeper into the house, each step deliberate, testing.

Years of hunting the supernatural had taught me caution above all else.

"Just another job," I muttered, the sound of my voice swallowed by the oppressive silence.

But it wasn't. Not really. The contract had been specific, the Vaelora heir had been cursed, trapped in sleep for decades while the family fortune gathered dust and interest. They wanted her awake. They wanted her home. They'd pay handsomely for both.

What they hadn't mentioned was the weight of the air, thick as mud against my skin, or the way the shadows seemed to follow my movements with hungry interest. Magic lingered here, not the benign kind that powered protection charms or healing spells, but something ancient and patient. Something that had been waiting.

I traced my fingers over the worn wallpaper, feeling the pulse of energy beneath the surface. My sleeve pulled back, revealing the edge of my tattoos… black ink crawling over old scars, a reminder of worse times and harder choices. I yanked my sleeve down and pressed forward.

The grand staircase curved upward like the spine of some massive beast, each step groaning beneath my weight as if in pain.

Above me, a chandelier hung askew, crystals dulled with time, swaying slightly though there was no breeze.

I kept one hand on the banister and the other near my knife.

Magic was never straightforward; it bent and twisted, finding loopholes in intent, punishing the unwary.

And this place reeked of old spells gone sour.

Portraits lined the landing, faces blurred and unsettling, as if someone had taken a wet cloth to their features. All except one… a young woman with golden hair and a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Aurora," I whispered, recognizing the sleeping heir from my briefing materials. The portrait captured her beauty but missed something essential—a coldness, perhaps, or hunger. I couldn't place it, but my instincts hummed with unease.

The upper hall stretched before me, doorways yawning like open mouths along its length. The brief had mentioned a primary bedroom at the far end, preserved exactly as it had been when Aurora fell into her unnatural sleep. I moved toward it, boots silent now on the thick carpet.

The temperature dropped with each step, my breath forming clouds before my face. Frost patterns crept along the baseboards, delicate and impossible in the summer heat. Old magic, winter magic, the kind that preserved and trapped all at once.

I reached the bedroom door, its surface carved with roses, their thorns unnaturally sharp. When I touched the handle, pain shot through my palm. I hissed, jerking back to find a thin line of blood across my skin.

"Cute trick," I muttered, wrapping my hand in a handkerchief before trying again.

The door swung open silently, revealing a room untouched by the decay that claimed the rest of the house.

The air was heavier here, pressing against my lungs with each breath.

It smelled of lilies, fresh as if cut that morning, and something darker beneath…

copper and earth and something I couldn't name.

It was nothing like the decaying rose smell from earlier.

My heart quickened, recognizing danger before my mind could process it.

And there she was.

Aurora Vaelora lay motionless on a massive four-poster bed, the sheets a pristine white that seemed to glow in the dim light.

Vines of shadow coiled around her wrists and ankles, writhing slowly, sinking into the silk sheets like living restraints.

They weren't physical; I realized with a jolt.

They were manifestations of the curse, visible only because of my training and bloodline.

I approached carefully, cataloging details with professional detachment.

Her skin was porcelain pale but with a hint of warmth beneath, as if she were merely sleeping rather than cursed.

Her hair spilled across the pillows in golden waves.

She was too perfect, too precise. Even her lips were full, tinted slightly red without cosmetics.

She was beautiful in the way a perfectly preserved corpse might be beautiful… unsettling in its flawlessness, wrong in its unchanging state. Not alive, but not quite dead either.

"What happened to you?" I whispered, though I knew the official story. A jilted lover, a curse, a kingdom of sleep… the usual fairytale fare. But standing here, feeling the weight of magic press against my skin, I knew there was more. This wasn't simple spite. This was containment.

I circled the bed, noting how the shadow vines pulled tighter when I came near, possessive in their grip.

My sleeve rode up again, exposing the edge of my tattoos.

The black ink seemed to shift under the strange light, the old scars beneath them tingling with remembered pain.

The shadow vines twisted toward me, curious, hungry.

I yanked my sleeve down again. "Not your business," I told them, feeling foolish for addressing a curse directly.

But the shadows responded, coiling back, as if acknowledging my words.

That wasn't normal. Curses weren't sentient, weren't supposed to react directly to anything but their breaking conditions.

I'd dealt with dozens over the years—simple ones that required rituals, complex ones that demanded blood or sacrifice, even the rare hereditary curse that passed from generation to generation.

This was something else entirely.

My breath came slower now, my pulse an echo of something I couldn't name. Magic prickled over my skin, an electric hum that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. I felt observed, evaluated. The air shifted, the temperature rising just a fraction, just enough to make my mouth go dry.

I swallowed hard, staring down at Aurora, uncertainty curling in my gut. The briefing had been frustratingly vague on the specifics of breaking the curse. The family representative had smiled thinly, saying only that "traditional methods" should suffice.

Traditional methods. A cold kiss to cold lips. A fairytale remedy for a fairytale curse.

"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered, running a hand through my short hair.

But the magic pulsed in response, a silent affirmation. The shadow vines writhed faster, more agitated, more eager. The temperature rose another degree. Sweat beaded at my hairline.

This wasn't how I normally worked. I used rituals, counterspells, physical artifacts to break curses—not... this. But the magic was insistent, pressing against me, urging me forward. My skin felt too tight, my heart too loud.

I leaned closer, studying Aurora's face for any sign of movement, any indication that breaking the curse would be more complicated than it appeared. Her features remained still, perfect, waiting. The shadow vines retreated slightly from her face, an invitation.

"If this backfires," I told her sleeping form, "I'm doubling my fee."

My lips hovered just above hers, breath ghosting over velvet skin.

Hesitation warred with curiosity in my chest. Part of me—the professional, the pragmatist—screamed that this was wrong, that curses were never this simple, that there had to be a catch.

But another part, the part that recognized the ancient power thrumming through the room, knew this was exactly what the magic demanded.

I pressed forward, a featherlight touch. Her lips were cold against mine, but not unpleasantly so… like drinking from a mountain stream, shocking but sweet. For a moment, nothing happened, and I felt foolish, kneeling over this sleeping woman in a decaying mansion, playing at fairytales.

Then her lips warmed. The shadow vines snapped tight. And the world tilted.

Her eyes opened, an icy blue piercing my soul. A gasp tore from my throat as darkness rushed in, drowning everything in ink and fire. The floor dropped away, my body plummeting into nothingness, the wind roaring in my ears. I wasn't in the manor anymore… I was falling.

Falling through darkness. Falling through memory. Falling through a century of dreams and nightmares, none of them mine.

I hit hard, knees slamming onto cold, damp stone, my vision spinning as I struggled to breathe.

Pain shot up my legs, a very real pain that made little sense.

I gasped, sucking in air that tasted of ash and copper.

My heart hammered against my ribs, adrenaline flooding my system with a demand to move, to run, to fight.

I looked up, disoriented, trying to make sense of my surroundings.

The bedroom was gone. The manor was gone.

Instead, I knelt on the stone floor of what might have once been a castle…

walls crumbling, ceiling open to a sky that made no sense.

Above me stretched a void of endless black, split by jagged cracks of blinding light, like someone had taken reality and shattered it with a hammer.