***
The tower seems to go on forever. The rough stones rub her fingers raw before she's halfway up. It could be worse, she tells herself. The tower was made for a difficult climb, but not an impossible one. The walls could be smooth as silk. Instead they jut out at odd angles from each other, providing handholds.
Still, by the time she reaches the top her skin is covered in sweat.
She levers herself onto the ledge, gasping. She might have been the best climber in their village, excepting for Mr Moore whose job it was to fix the roofs, but climbing a tower is a lot different than climbing a tree. Her arms and legs feel like jelly. How did the King expect anyone to slay a dragon the size of a castle, then climb this thing? Who would go through that much effort for a wife?
Metal bars stand firm behind the ledge, surrounding a small balcony. Flowers of a dozen different sizes and colours decorate the dark metal and rise up to climb the walls. Pretty wooden boxes border the edges in such numbers that there remains only a small patch of smooth marble right in the middle of the floor. Each one has a different plant. She recognises carrots and strawberries, but most are foreign to her.
Gingerly she steps over the balcony onto the patch of marble. Behind the balcony is a giant pair of ornate doors, bordered in gold, and filled almost completely up by coloured glass so dark that she can see the merest of shapes behind them. She ignores them for now, turning back to the railing to tie one end of the rope hung over her shoulder around the bars.
It's a good thing Neven brought so much rope. She drops the other end and it falls just short of where tiny far away Neven waits on the ground. They’d decided only one of them should make the climb, and both of them knew it had to be her. Neven’s a lot stronger than he looks, but she beats him hands down at climbing - or any physical activity for that matter.
The dragon sits watching them both with curiosity in his black eyes, but makes no move toward either of them. The spell may wear off, but for now it’s holding. Bonnie takes a deep breath, turning away as Neven clambers up the wall to grab the rope.
The glass of the doors is cool under her hand. They open at the lightest touch of her fingers, as if waiting for her to come. What’s behind the door takes her breath away.
The room is gigantic. The curved walls are a soft cream with the same gold edging as the doors. Shining staircases wind around the walls, reaching up to door upon door. The furniture in the main room is beyond beautiful. One circle shaped bed sits in the centre of the room, big enough to hold six grown men without danger of anyone of them touching the other. A gold encrusted vanity table holds a mirror taller than Bonnie herself. Various elegant tables dot around the room, each one groaning under the weight of plants. Plant pots cover the floor as well, and a pretty climbing plant that looks like a bright blue coloured ivy spirals all the way up the giant winding staircase.
And right there in the middle of it all stands a girl, frozen mid step with her hands around a plant pot nearly as big as herself. She’s as beautiful as the room. Tightly bound ringlets, as dark as Gelert’s eyes, tumble over the shoulders of a blue gown. Bright green eyes stare wide in shock from a heart shaped face, their colour as vivid as the most polished of emeralds.
Slowly the girl puts the plant pot down.
“My apologies,” the girl says in a voice as finely tuned as the rest of her. Everything about her, from the elegant way she holds herself, to her rosy pink cheeks reminds Bonnie more of some fanciful painting than a real girl. The only tarnish to this perfect image are the smudges of soil on her face and hands, but as she watches, even those fade as if they’d never been there. “I am Princess Alice. I wasn’t expecting company. I fear my stomach is too delicate for blood, or I would have watched your courageous battle and known to expect you. Please enter my brave champion.”
Bonnie squints at the flowery words, but understands enough to know she’s been invited in. She steps into the room, taking in all the sights she hadn’t of yet. Over in a corner a watering can was hanging in mid-air, drifting from pot to pot to feed the plants. Perched on the corner of a table not completely taken over by plants, a silver spoon circles around and around in a small china cup. Up on the staircase, a sheet is hanging itself up to dry on a banister.
A sudden warmth covers her skin, almost painful. She glances down to see Neven’s clothes are spotless and well mended for the first time she can remember. The murky grey trousers are now a pale brown, and the top a gleaming white. She raises her hands to her face. The skin is pink and burns like someone has come along and scrubbed all the dirt off, then a couple layers of skin for good measure. Her nails are trimmed, buffed to a shine, and have not a spot of dirt under them.
It’s weird. If this is what magic does, she wants as far away from it as possible.
“This isn’t right,” the princess says, frowning. She turns to glance at a mop hopping past with a bucket. “My father said that when my true love passes over that threshold all the magic would cease.”
True love. Gross. “Look. None of that matters now,” Bonnie says. “I need to get the dragon to the City, and whatever spell you have going on here means he won’t leave without you. So pack your things and let’s go.”
Panting comes from behind her as Neven clambers his way onto the balcony. The scraping sound of wood on marble tells her he’s knocked one of the plant beds.
Princess Alice blinks rapidly. “You did not slay the dragon?”
“Long story,” Bonnie says. “Now, could you hurry-”
Neven steps into the room beside her, breathing heavily while taking in his surroundings with wide eyes. His mouth drops open as he stares at his newly cleaned clothes and skin. Then the mop falls over, along with the bucket, splashing water toward them. On the other side of the room the watering can clatters to the floor in mid pour, then all around the room objects held together by magic fall to the ground.
The tower shakes, trembling under her newly mended shoes. Crashes resound left and right as plant pots fall off tables and smash into pieces. Shudders hammer the room until her very bones quake. An ugly cracking sound like thunder echoes off the curved walls, and just like that the walls are tearing apart, and chunks of ceiling rain down around them.
“What is that?” Neven shouts as he hurries to grab the princess’s hand and pull her toward the balcony. Even in the chaos, he still finds time to blush at the contact.
“True love,” Bonnie says, dodging a chunk of ceiling as big as her and rushing to the rope.