The Sleeping Beauty - Book 1 - Chapter 21
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said to the dozen or so pixies buzzing around my head. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
Fairy tales are real.
Rose Briar is a diabetic college student without insurance. She’s been scraping by through a combination of maxing out credit cards and relying upon the kindness of strangers.
Unfortunately, she’s spent every dollar at her disposal. There’s no money left to buy her life-saving insulin.
Without her medication, Rose falls into a diabetic coma. She tumbles into a deep slumber and wakes up in a fantastical place called the Dream Realm, where fairy tales and legends of old are still very much alive.
She has one chance to wake up.
She must trek across the world, visit the most powerful object in the land, the Obsidian Spindle, and entreat with the fates; the only beings powerful enough to send her soul back to Earth.
But evil forces don’t want her to leave. They will stop at nothing to capture her and make sure she never goes home again.
Now, with the help of her half-gorgon girlfriend and a mysterious red rider, Rose must race across the land fighting dragons, monsters, and the forces of the Wicked Witch, Nimue, in order to reach the Obsidian Spindle before her body dies on Earth and she’s trapped in the Dream Realm forever.
Will she be able to wake up? Can she survive? Find out by reading The Sleeping Beauty today. If you love mythology, fairy tales, and dark fantasy, then you’ll love the first book in The Obsidian Spindle Saga.
Paid subscribers can access the entire archive of this series from the beginning, along with other series and every article I’ve ever written. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you can access the archive for free with a 7-day trial.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said to the dozen or so pixies buzzing around my head. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
They didn’t answer. They just stared at me; their weapons drawn. Some had little swords, and others short lances, but they all were comically small compared to me. Still, I knew that pixie magic was strong. Even if their weapons were tiny, that didn’t mean they couldn’t hurt me— even kill me, if they got off a lucky shot.
“I’m sitting down now,” I said, never taking my eyes off the pixies as I sat on a log next to the castle.
Pixies existed on Earth, too, but I had never run into them in the flesh. I had never seen talking critters or anything like that on Earth, either, but I suppose they could have existed. Pixies, however, I knew all about them, and how tricksy they were, down to the core of their being. Even the good ones were not to be trifled with, and the bad ones…well, you didn’t want to tangle with them if you could help it.
“How long have you been here?” I asked out loud to no one in particular. I didn’t receive a response. It was impossible to parlay with them if they didn’t want to speak with me.
I hoped that Rose was okay. If these truly were the Seelie, they would ask her for a favor in exchange for helping her reach the Obsidian Spindle. When she completed the favor, they would concede to her request. But if these were Unseelie, then after she completed the favor, they would simply kill her.
Why did I let Rose go in alone? She had no magic, no power. She doesn’t know anything about the world.
Actually, that’s exactly why I let her go in alone. The favor they asked of her would be smaller for than what they would ask of me, as a magical creature. She would need to leave the castle to carry out the request of the queen, and then she would have to tell me what the favor was.
Of course, they might take her hostage, too. If she didn’t come out, I would destroy the place, but I could only do so from out here. Strong, magical energy wafted from the castle. It was protected by powerful spells. If they shrunk me, I couldn’t hope to generate enough power to break the shields. At my full size there was a chance I could match their might.
I didn’t know much magic, but I was fluent in destruction and offensive magic. Smashing was my thing. At the very least, I could smash through, grab Rose, and run away. I would worry about getting her back into her true form later.
A twig snapped in the distance. Everyone, including the pixies, turned their attention to it. Pixies didn’t walk, they flew, so it couldn’t be one of them. Even if they were on the ground for some reason, they weren’t heavy enough to break twigs.
A cloud of smoke billowed out from the clearing in front of us. The pixie guards coughed and started to fall to the ground, where they convulsed and spasmed.
When the dust settled and the pixies were silent, a woman dropped down from the hilltop. She wore a long red cape and held a bottle with a pixie inside. Her hair was dark red and matched her lips, but her skin was alabaster and her clothes black. She struck an intimidating figure against the forest.
“Are you the one that came here?” the woman said. “Are you the dreamer?”
She must have been from the Wicked Witch’s army. I opened my hands and closed my eyes.
“Flammis venit ad me.”
My hands lit up with orange flame. Far from being frightened by the flame, the woman cocked her head. “Are you stupid? This is a forest.”
“You won’t take us without a fight.”
“Yes. You are stupid. Thank you for answering me. I’m not here to take you. I’m here to rescue you.”
“We’re doing a fine job of that by ourselves.”
“Are you? And where is your friend?”
“She’s talking with the queen.”
“The queen of the Unseelie! Are you crazy?”
“What do you mean, Unseelie? They said—”
“I know what they said,” the woman said. “Damn it. The Unseelie are tricksters. You should know better, mage.”
“And why should I trust you?”
“You’re trusting everybody else. Why am I any different?”
“Good point,” I said. “What do we do?”
“You do nothing. You’ll just get her killed. I’ll save her and bring her out of the castle.”
“I’m here to save her, and I’m not just giving up on her.”
The woman sniffed the air. “You smell…different. Why?”
“I’m a gorgon.”
“I can see that, but that’s not it. You reek of sweat like—" she paused, her jaw dropping. “You came into the Dream Realm with your body.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You came here with your body. Do you have any idea how stupid that was?”
“Um…no?”
She pressed her fingers to her nose. “In order to enter the Dream Realm, one must deposit their god spark inside the core of this world. Nobody inside the Dream Realm has that spark left inside them. Nobody…except you. Since you didn’t deposit your spark, it still flows inside you, making you the most powerful and dangerous person in all of Urgu. The queen is no doubt after you already, endangering us all.”
“That’s not my—”
“This might work to our advantage, though.” The woman put down the glass bottle and tightened her cape. “You have your body, which means you have powerful magic. The pixies and the Queen’s Guard will be looking for us. Keep them distracted until I get back.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“Save your friend.” She pulled a potion out of her pocket. “Don’t burn down the woods while I’m gone.”
The woman tilted back her head and drank down the potion in one gulp. A second later, she was the size of a thimble, and I watched her rush toward the castle gates.
“I guess I have no choice in the matter,” I said, balling up my fists. I looked down at the pixie trying to escape the glass jar. “Just chill out, okay?”
Fairy tales are real.
Find out by reading The Sleeping Beauty today. If you love mythology, fairy tales, and dark fantasy, then you’ll love the first book in The Obsidian Spindle Saga.
Paid subscribers can access the entire archive of this series from the beginning, along with other series and every article I’ve ever written. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you can access the archive for free with a 7-day trial.