The Sleeping Beauty - Book 1 - Chapter 25
“Be quiet,” I growled at the gorgon clomping behind me. “Can you do that?”
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.
“Be quiet,” I growled at the gorgon clomping behind me. “Can you do that?”
“Yes,” she snapped. She took her cloak hung up outside the cell and tossed it over her back. “You don’t have to condescend to me. I can handle myself.”
“Can you? I’ve only known you a day. In that time, I managed to get the drop on you, and then you were captured by pixies. I’m surprised you’ve lived this long. Now, be quiet.”
Pixies were arrogant and brash. They didn’t believe prisoners could escape from their cells, which is how I’d escaped a half dozen times in a half dozen ways. They had especially low opinions of humans.
There were few guards inside the castle. The pixies preferred to place guards around the forest than in the castle itself, as the forest was very large and they were very small, so it took a lot of them to cover the whole forest.
If they hadn’t killed or captured every one of their Seelie cousins, then perhaps they could have guarded the forest from others together, but Unseelie didn’t like to share, and they definitely didn’t think to the future.
“Where are we going?” Chelle said.
I spoke to her over my shoulder, my voice a low murmur. “The laboratories are on the other side of the throne room from us, and if you aren’t quiet, we’re going to be discovered before we get there.”
“My queen.”
I was standing outside the throne room and still I could recognize the muffled voice. The Wicked Witch had reported to the castle.
The two pixies guarding the door left their posts and walked toward the queen when the witch arrived. Nobody trusted the evil witch, not even her closest allies.
I peered around the door jamb and saw her standing in front of the throne, dressed in a flowing black gown which shimmered as brightly as the pixie queen. It was subtle enough that only the deftest eye could tell it was on purpose. Nobody shined brighter than the witch.
“Nimue,” Aine said dully, strumming her fingers on her golden throne. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
Nimue’s cold blue eyes were the only part of her that wasn’t made up to look black. She wore dark black eyeshadow and lipstick and enchanted her hair to an onyx black from its normal strawberry blond. She wore a crown of black roses, and a necklace made from melted obsidian. The key around her neck was just as black, glaring against her light white skin.
Nimue stared at Aine, careful to impose her will on the pixie queen and prove she was more powerful. “Let us not split hairs, Aine. No one has been pleased by my company in decades, and neither are you, now. I’m here for the girl. The one you captured.”
“She is my prisoner,” the queen said, her voice hard. “You may have gained the right to rule Oz, but here you have no power to command anything.”
When the witch smiled, her black lipstick parted to reveal the gleaming white teeth underneath. “We are great allies, my queen. I would never presume to demand anything from you. Rather, it is a great favor to me, if you would part with her.”
“She is part of the grand experiment. One you designed yourself. You can have her once we’re done with her.”
“She’ll be dead when you’re done.”
“Only if you’re wrong and she is not the key to piercing the barrier. If you’re right, she might still live, and we will have unlocked a great power. Perhaps the greatest power in the universe.”
“And that is what you want, isn’t it? Great power?”
Aine flew into the air. “What I want is the power to go home, back to Earth. That is what we’re all working for, every one of us, and the only reason we would agree to work with the likes of you.”
The witch snapped her fingers, and fire appeared in her hand. “You will give her to me, or I will burn your precious forest to the ground.”
“Guards!” the pixie queen screamed. “Do that, and you will not make it out of here alive. Your parlor tricks are no match for pixie magic.”
The deadly standoff lasted several tense moments before Nimue laughed and the fire in her hand disappeared. “Look at us, in a pissing match like a couple of kings. Are we not better than this?”
Aine nodded slightly. “I am, at least.”
A guttural scream echoed down the passage on the other side of the throne room—in the direction of the laboratories. It was the dreamer, the girl Rose. From behind me, the gorgon left her place and ran forward. “Rose!”
Chelle darted into the throne room without any thought to her welfare, or mine, and I had no choice but to follow her. She was going to be the death of me, if I didn’t kill her first.
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.