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  Slumber

  Copyright © 2014 by Cassandra Dean

  ISBN: 978-1-61333-766-0

  Cover art by Syneca Featherstone

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

  Look for us online at:

  www.decadentpublishing.com

  Decadent Publishing Beyond Fairytales

  Once Upon a Marriage

  A Riddle for Love

  Operation Owl

  Darkest Magic

  You Belong to Me

  Taliasman

  Hunter’s Mark

  The Thief and His Master

  The Star Princess

  Taliasman

  Coming Soon!

  Don’t Call Me Iron Man

  Razor

  Saving Sultan

  Her Real Life Hero

  Bitten by Snake Oil

  Lost and Found

  Also by Cassandra Dean

  Enslaved

  Fool’s Gold

  Rough Diamond

  Silk and Scandal

  Silk and Scorn

  Teach Me

  Slumber

  By

  Cassandra Dean

  A Beyond Fairytales Adaptation of

  The Brothers’ Grimm Tale of The Glass Coffin

  ~Dedication~

  To Decadent Publishing and D. L. Jackson for starting the Beyond Fairytales line. I had a blast writing this, and I’m so happy I had the chance to do my own take of a fairy tale!

  Prologue

  The young man pushed his way to the front of the crowd, offering a quick smile of apology to those who grumbled a protest. He was here. Finally, after all these months, he would see the storyteller.

  Excitement bubbled riotously within him. He’d heard much of the bard of the Black Forest, but only after he’d gathered enough coin had he been able venture into the woods to find the stage of the storyteller. His mother had no notion of his whereabouts this eve, and he’d sworn his sister to secrecy with a promise to tell her of all he experienced and to bring her with him when next he dared to venture into the woods.

  The hard wood of a cane thwacked his arm. Biting back a yelp, he turned, ready to spew an anger-filled diatribe at whoever saw fit to abuse him, only to have the words die on his tongue.

  The old man wielding the cane could only be the storyteller.

  No taller than a child, the bard parted the crowd with ease, each patron stepping from his path with a reverence the young man would have thought reserved solely for a king. Green woolen britches clothed legs bent back like a bird’s while a red shirt acted as canvas for a magnificently snarled beard. The old man hobbled onto the stage, his strangely formed legs not made for the stairs he climbed.

  The young man couldn’t help but stare. He’d never seen such a creature in his life, and he was certain he would not again.

  Standing in the center of the stage, the storyteller leaned heavily on his cane. “Good e’en, young lads and lasses. I be Nicodemus, but I expect you know that.” Wholly at odds with his appearance, the bard’s sonorous voice shivered down the young man’s spine.

  The crowd tittered. The young man looked about with a bemused smile, not quite sure of the jest, but unwilling to admit such.

  The storyteller chortled, too, then waved the steel pipe he held in a quelling gesture. The crowd quieted so much that the sound of leaves rustled by the gentle breeze danced about their heads. A creature of electric blue scurried from the storyteller’s gray mane and settled on his shoulder with a contented purr. With horrified fascination, the young man realized the creature was an enormous tarantula.

  “I expect you be here also for the same reason as those that were here yestereve and the eve before.” The lines on the storyteller’s face cut deeper as his eyes twinkled “So come. Come gather close, and I will tell you of a land far away, a land that slumbers, waiting for a princess to return. I will tell you of the tailor sent to find her, the bear and stag who guard her, and how she was lost in a coffin made of glass. Come. Let me tell you a tale."

  “Once upon a time….

  Chapter One

  The tailor Sebastian found the princess in a coffin of glass.

  He’d not before seen a coffin, as they were used by healers only when their patients were near enough to death as to require a wooden one. Turned on its side, the princess worked inside the coffin, the hundreds of tiny panels that made the coffin what it was distorting her image. Golden light from the wide, high window above refracted through the facets, casting a soft glow about the workroom and lighting the intricate designs of steel and copper that wound through the panels.

  Crossing his arms as he leaned against the wall, Sebastian watched the princess. For a full turn of the season, he’d searched— three months that could have been spent in more useful pursuits. He’d missed the autumn season, and then the mid-autumn season, and looked to miss pre-winter as well. For the tailor, head of the Fashion Houses and second only in consequence to the throne, missing the seasons was as close as it got to a complete and unmitigated disaster, or so his undertailor would have him believe. His second-in-command had a tendency to exaggerate, but, in this case, Sebastian didn’t believe him far wrong. He hated to think of the state of his Houses, not to mention that, for a tailor appointed so recently, such an absence would breed discord and dissent. He’d have a task before him upon his return.

  However, he couldn’t have refused. The king had bid the tailor find and fetch the long-absent princess, and Sebastian could not say no. It was a test, the king still unsure of Sebastian’s appointment. He was too young to be the tailor, to be the head of the Houses, to be in a position of power at all. The king had sixty years plus two, and Sebastian was but seven and twenty.

  His lips twisted. Or eight and twenty, or six and twenty.

  In any event, the king believed him too young, and his position was ineffectual and unstable if the king did not trust him. Dormiraa was a land of fabric and fashion, and those who created it ran the world. He’d sacrificed much to become tailor, had lied and cheated and stolen, and he would not suffer doubt from his king. So he’d undertaken this ridiculous quest, had sought the princess, and would fetch her home to the loving embrace of her father and her kingdom. Never mind that his Houses were in disarray. Never mind he had deadlines to meet. As long as he found the princess and fetched her home, all would surely be well.

  Rubbing his lip with his gloved thumb, he watched her tinker away. He’d heard much about the princess. He couldn’t have avoided news of her if he’d tried. Prior to her Trip, she’d been all the newssheets had spoken of, all the people wanted to hear. They loved their wild princess, loved her extravagant parties, her decadent retreats. When they had read reports of the enormous sailboat devoted solely to her pleasure and her friends, the public had practically fallen to raptures. She’d courted scandal wherever she went, had seemed to
delight in the chaos she created, and her people had loved her for it.

  Then she’d turned eight and ten, and her father could no longer pretend his daughter was simply a motherless child prone to fancy. She had become an adult and, as such, had to learn the ways of maturity. As per tradition, the heir would be confirmed to the throne on her twenty-fifth birthday to begin the arduous task of learning the realm. In ages past, prior to the Confirmation, the heir had been sent on a Trip, a time apart from the trappings of royalty to learn of the common folk. Princess Thalia had been sent on her Trip, but what should have lasted a year or two had turned to seven.

  Sebastian had no notion of why the princess had stayed away so long, why none had been sent to fetch her. There had been speculation in the newssheets, and servants and courtiers alike created their own theories, but none knew the truth. Maybe he could persuade the princess to tell him. What a fine and lucrative bit of information that would be. It would be fair payment for the indignities he’d been forced to endure, the first of which was bloody finding her.

  The princess’s whereabouts was a tightly guarded secret, so much so that even he, the man who was to fetch her, had received a general somewhere west when he’d requested her location. How very helpful the king’s steward had been. The mealy-mouthed man had barely been able to conceal his disdain as he’d looked down his too-thin nose at Sebastian.

  Even lacking the steward’s help, Sebastian had tracked her down to this ramshackle gear shop in Dornse Keep. The city itself was wretched, too large and too busy and too full of people who seemed to believe bathing would melt their skin. He’d spent three bloody days searching the foul streets for her, all the while convinced he would never scour the reek of the city from his clothes, his wigs, his very bones. He was so close to the end of his blasted quest, he could taste it.

  The discordant note of a missed strike rose from the coffin, followed by a terse mutter. By the Maiden, was the princess cursing?

  A sudden, terrible thought occurred. Was it the princess? Surely she wouldn’t curse as if she was a dockworker. Maybe his source had lied about the gear worker being the lost princess. Maybe this wasn’t her at all, and he would spend another three months trying to find the erstwhile royal.

  No. If it killed him, this would be her. He was not going to waste any more time on this.

  So decided, he intoned, “Princess,” in the clear, strong voice he used to quell conversation.

  The woman in the coffin—the princess, damn his eyes—started, and a loud clang split the air, immediately followed by one of those deliciously vulgar curses. Pulling out of the coffin, she glared at him.

  His breath strangled in his throat. Heat stormed through him, his cock hardening in his too-thin breeches.

  Thrice-damned god, but she was arresting.

  Wild ebony hair escaped from the band holding it back while furious black eyes pilloried him, full lips pursed in displeasure. Her worker’s clothes revealed more of her form than they should, the homespun shirt opened to the middle of her breast bone. The undyed fabric seemed too rough for such fine skin, the dull off-white hue a contrast with her dusky flesh. The brown leather harness of her trade nipped in her waist and cupped her breasts, while trousers outlined full hips and long legs, the latter encased in knee-high boots of soft brown leather capped with steel.

  Quite insanely, he wanted to taste the damp skin revealed by her shirt.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

  She had to be the princess. Only royalty could deal such a stare.

  “Doing?” he said.

  She folded her arms beneath her breasts. He tried not to notice how her action plumped her flesh deliciously through the leather. “Do not come into a workroom and startle a gear worker, especially if she’s wielding tools that could harm her, the object she works on, and your fat head once she recovers herself.”

  “My apologies, Princess.” He offered his most charming smile and ignored how the darkening of her scowl made him harder. “I am the tailor, and I have been sent to fetch you home.”

  Scowl deepening, she looked as if she would retort, but then her brow cleared. “Princess?”

  He merely smiled.

  Resignation replaced anger, and she dropped heavily onto the bench holding the coffin. “I am to return?”

  Praise be to all the gods, it was the princess, and, damn it, he was still hard. Arranging his hands before his groin, he said, “Yes, Princess. The time for your Confirmation is upon us.”

  She nodded, her gaze running over him absently.

  Setting his shoulders, he cocked his hip a little, arranged a smug smile upon his features. He knew what she saw. His deep-purple dress coat reached to mid-thigh, broad at the shoulders and nipping in at the waist. It didn’t require buttons to hold it in place, instead flaring open to reveal the bright yellow waistcoat with orange metal buttons and, underneath, a snowy white shirt. His cravat was brown shot with gold, and he wore his best kidskin gloves to disguise the scars on his hands. His trousers fit impeccably, and, so he didn’t overwhelm with brilliance, they were a circumspect dark gray, patterned with the faintest of herringbones. For this occasion, momentous indeed, he’d chosen a wig comprised of chestnut-brown curls, carefully coiffed into a charming profusion about his face. His cosmetics were light, not much more than a darkening of his lashes and the faintest hint of rouge on his cheeks. He was fetching the princess from her den of squalor, not being presented to the betters of the land.

  A crease formed between her brows. “My father sent you?”

  He could hear the disbelief in her tone, faint though it was. “He did, Princess.”

  “He sent the tailor? That is who you said you were, correct? The tailor?”

  “I am,” he bit off. Absurdly, her doubt annoyed him.

  She cocked her head. “I’m to understand my father saw fit to deprive himself of the counsel of the tailor to fetch me? It could just as easily have been done by a steward.”

  “Yes. It could.” Even he could hear the sour tone in his voice.

  She raised a brow at that, and he knew he had in no way concealed his ire at the king for sending him on this quest. Ah well. Better she knew now than later.

  A lock of hair fell from the mass atop her head as she rubbed her forefinger over her bottom lip. “I suppose tradition must be adhered to in all things. My father is a great proponent of tradition.”

  Her thumb stroked back and forth, back and forth. Damnation. Shifting to make himself more comfortable, he focused instead on her words. Could there be discord between the princess and the king?

  Before he could pry further, she said, “You’re too young to be the tailor, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged. He was too young to be the tailor, but he would allow his garments to fall to disrepair and pair silk with burlap before he would admit such.

  “What knowledge do you have of the world that my father should call upon you for advice?”

  “I cannot answer that, Princess, but I can state I am duly appointed by my House members to this position.” He smiled thinly. “I would say someone has confidence in my abilities.”

  She didn’t react to this, merely continued to regard him with that same unimpressed expression. He wondered how she’d ever fooled others into believing her common.

  “You must have some kind of abilities. You found me.” Her gaze narrowed. “Though you’re cutting it a bit fine, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged again. “You could have returned earlier.”

  “The tradition is the heir is ‘rescued’ from the life they chose. I awaited my champion.”

  “And I am here, Princess. Rejoice, as your subjects will rejoice.”

  Her lips pursed, and he had the strangest feeling she stifled laughter. By the Fool, he hoped not. He already suffered an inappropriate affection of her form. It wouldn’t bode well if he developed an affection of her mind as well.

  Of a sudden, her gaze narrowed. “The previous tailor,
Tailor Clothilde…. Where does she reside now?”

  Surprise stole his words for a moment before he recovered. “She passed, Princess. Over a year ago.”

  “Oh.” Her throat worked. “I had not heard.”

  Brows drawn, Sebastian studied her. Odd she’d not heard of the previous Tailor’s passing. It had been the talk of all for a month or more, the grand state funeral bringing dignitaries from far and wide. Ah, well. Maybe it was she had been buried in gears.

  Exhaling, she stood. “Well, Tailor, let us get this thing underway. I will be ready upon the morn.”

  The morn? Damn the Mother and all her bastard children, he’d have to spend yet another night in this godsforsaken hovel? Keeping his opinion to himself, he merely said, “Yes, Princess.”

  “If you would, please send my guardians in. I’m surprised they allowed you access to this room.”

  “Yes,” he said mildly. “I’m sure they will be, too.”

  Her gaze flicked to his. “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged.

  “Did you sneak past them?” Incredulity threaded her words.

  “I wouldn’t call it sneaking, Princess. I found it prudent to find another way to this room.”

  She shut her mouth with an audible snap. “You bypassed Bharia and Stahg?”

  “They are your guardians?”

  She nodded.

  “Then, yes. I did.”

  “By all that is holy,” she breathed. “They will not be well pleased.” And then she laughed.

  Damn it, damn it, damn it. He did not want to like her.

  Gaze still warm with amusement, she said, “Do you have lodgings for this evening?”

  “Yes.” A hovel on a street not far from there, but adequate.