AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rapunzel raised an eyebrow, remembering something. “What about that clock thing you mentioned? The eclipse?”
“Ah, yes!” Millie retrieved a parchment from her bag.
“You brought instructions?” Rapunzel teased.
“No,” Millie shot back with a glare at Rapunzel. “These are just my notes when I asked Ensley about the drink.”
Rapunzel’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wait, you’ve never done this before?”
“I know what I’m doing,” Millie insisted.
Rapunzel eyed Aurora with a hint of worry.
But a comforting hand settled over Aurora’s, and she looked down to see Millie’s reassuring touch. “I said I know what I’m doing. Now, did you get something that belonged to your father?”
Aurora nodded and extended her hand toward Rapunzel. Rapunzel retrieved the object from her pocket—a golden, bee-shaped ring.
“Will this work?” Aurora asked, showing the ring to Millie.
Millie recognized the jewel and nodded with a knowing smile. “That is perfect.”
For as long as Aurora could remember, that ring had never left her father’s finger. It was a cherished possession of sentimental value. She also knew that time was of the essence. The moment her father noticed it was missing, their window of opportunity would slam shut like a trap.
“So, what do I do with the ring?” Aurora asked.
“Take it with you into the tower,” Millie instructed, glancing down at her notes. “Then, when you confront the illusions, ask them about your father’s powers. Ask how to rid him of them.”
Rapunzel hummed skeptically. “And they’ll just tell her, like that?”
Millie looked up from the parchment with uncertainty in her eyes. “Let’s hope they do.”
“And if they don’t?” Aurora asked.
“Then you'll have to fight them for the answers,” Millie replied. But then her tone turned cheery as though trying to grasp at the minimum positivity. “But once you have that information, and we can finally get rid of your father’s gold, you’ll have your prince back. Focus on that.”
Millie reached for the bowl in front of them, and together, they took in a deep breath.
“Are you ready?” Millie asked, handing the bowl over to Rapunzel.
Rapunzel eyed the bowl skeptically, but took it. “You’re sure this isn’t poison?”
Millie rolled her eyes. “Shut up and drink.”
Rapunzel hesitantly sipped the silver liquid, her face twisted in distaste as if bitterness coated her tongue. Millie retrieved the bowl from Rapunzel and then handed it to Aurora. The moment hung heavy in the air as she accepted it with trembling hands.
Aurora watched with bated breath as Rapunzel succumbed to a deep sleep, collapsing onto the floor beside her. Trusting Millie, she gulped down the drink, feeling the encroaching blackness pull at her consciousness.
The world shifted and swirled as Aurora gave way to the consuming darkness, only to awaken by the edge of a cliff with Rapunzel towering over her. Millie’s voice, her only anchor to reality, resonated in her mind like a distant echo.
“Listen to my voice,” Millie’s words seeped through Aurora’s drifting consciousness. “When you hear the tolling of a bell tower, you have to jolt yourselves awake.”
But Aurora never made it into the tower she was supposed to have entered. And when the bell tower rang, despite Millie’s incessant pleas for Aurora to wake up, she didn’t listen. Millie had warned them about the illusions and how they worked. Aurora had expected those illusions to come at her with all forms of sharp blades, but what unfolded before her was a cruel twist.
Hendrick stood by the edge of the woods, resplendent in his royal wedding attire, his brown skin radiant beneath the silvery moonlight, and his blue eyes beckoning her into the heart of the forest. Memories of their wedding day surged through her, and the temptation to reach out to him was almost irresistible. Rapunzel hurled herself at Aurora, tackling her to the ground in a desperate bid to halt her from going after him. But Aurora was consumed by desperation. She was not going to leave without Hendrick, but she also knew Rapunzel wasn’t going to leave without her. So, Aurora had no choice but to push Rapunzel off the cliff, ensuring that she woke up.
Inside Aurora’s mind, Millie’s voice grew frenzied. That was when she heard the screams. Millie and Rapunzel were in trouble in the real world.
As the bell tolled with a deafening resonance, Aurora’s father's voice echoed through the heavens, a bellowing bark that shook her very core. He had caught them. The night sky ignited with bolts of lightning, a celestial battle raging overhead, no doubt mirroring the chaos unfolding in reality.
