Night had fallen upon the kingdom and in their chambers, the King and Queen argued fiercely, doing their best to not wake their sleeping child.

"I told you that inviting her was a bad idea!" Stefan hissed, "You saw what she did to our little Aurora!"

"Yes! And I also know that if we didn't invite her, her curse would have been much less indirect!" Leah replied.

"Indi-she cursed our daughter to doom everyone once she reaches sixteen!" her husband spluttered.

"If she's not trained in how to use her magic! We can ask King Arthur if Merlin is willing to train her, or the Three Good Fairies!" Leah hissed back.

"Which wouldn't need to happen if you hadn't invited her!" Stefan was practically red in the face by now, doing all he could to not explode and wake his newborn daughter.

Leah sighed deeply, sitting onto the bed, looking drained. "I know." she said softly.

Stefan's face softened, sitting next to his wife, putting a comforting arm around her, "So why did you do it? What could she have done that was so terrible that makes you think that not inviting her would have been worse?"

The Queen looked up at Stefan with a haunted look and spoke three words. "The Black Death."

The black-haired regent went white as a ghost. "I beg your pardon?" he whispered.

"She caused it." she nodded.

Ice filled the King's veins, breath shortening from terror unparalleled. The Black Death. A plague that had wiped out millions, leaving kingdoms barren and desolate. And all of it had been caused by one woman's wrath.

She shuddered, shutting her eyes tightly, remembering that day that she would never be able to forget. "It, it was years ago."

…

The corridors were cold, the hour late. Princess Leah had been lucky. The Plague that had been sweeping the land had spared her, but she had been unable to sleep. But her grandfather hadn't been so lucky. Much less her grandmother, who had just died of it. She was going to see if her father could read her a bedtime story, but she heard a voice she didn't recognize before she could knock on his door. It was a woman's, cold as ice and reverberating as if in a cave.

"Well, quite the glittering assemblage you have here, King Stephen. Your kingdom in shambles, your wife dead, and your spirit broken." she heard the woman say. "So terribly unfortunate, to think all this could have been avoided had you bothered to teach her some manners."

"What do you want?" she'd never heard her father sound so defeated.

"Want? Nothing. You've sufficiently entertained me for now. You're on your last legs, your kingdom is dying, and soon enough, so will you. Such a pity."

The King just let out a rattling cough, "Then, why are you here? To gloat?"

"No, simply to inform you." the temperature dropped, "I know you have a daughter."

Leah's blood ran cold.

"And if she crosses me the same way your foolish wife did, well," a dark chuckle escaped the mystery woman's lips, "you had best hope her manners are better than your late wife."

A small squeak of fear escaped the young Princess' lips before she could stop it.

The door opened, a woman draped in darkness and exuding a cold to rival the most bitter of winters walking out the door.

Leah couldn't breathe, much less move. Her heart felt like it was going to explode from her chest from terror she didn't know was possible.

The woman glanced down at her with the same disdain one might afford an insect. Leah couldn't look away. She wanted to scream, run, curl up in her bed and cry, but she couldn't so much as blink.

A moment that felt like an eternity passed and the woman walked past her.

…

"Oh, merciful Lord." whispered a horrified Stefan. He brought his arms around his wife in a comforting hug.

"I know. I know." Leah whispered.