The Sleeping Beauty - Book 1 - Chapter 29
One of the advantages of being a witch was the ability to travel to wherever you wanted to be whenever you wanted to be there.
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.
One of the advantages of being a witch was the ability to travel to wherever you wanted to be whenever you wanted to be there. Moments before, I had been inside the woods, staring down the rubble of the pixie queen’s castle, and now I was back in the emerald castle which I had called home for a hundred years as queen, and several hundred as royal advisor to the crown.
One hundred years? Had it really been so long since I sold myself to the goddess Hera and took the throne from that brat queen?
The disappearance of Hypnos gave us an opening, but it was I that carried out the sacking of Oz and the removal of Ozma. She played at being just a child, but she was hundreds of years old when I met her. I saw right through her pomp to the vain woman she truly was. Imagine, being so vain as to claim the name of Oz when you ascended to the throne.
“Nimue.” I heard the whisper in my bedchamber. It was my god, my Hera.
“Yes, your majesty,” I said, dropping to the ground. There were none I feared in Urgu except for her. With her blessing, I could carry out incredible acts. Without her, I would be powerless, like the worm I was before we met.
Two purple eyes materialized in the darkness. “Did you find the girl?”
I took a deep breath in. Though she knew the answer, she wanted me to admit it. It was the same form of power I held over my subjects, and I had learned from her. “No, your majesty.”
“Pitiful. To think I chose you above all others to carry out my bidding.”
“I’m sorry, your grace. I will find them.”
“I know you will,” my goddess said. “You have grown too accustomed to your power to risk losing it now…not when we are so close. That girl is the one we need to finally break free of this place, and when we are free, I will control the universe, and you will rule by my side.”
“Yes, my goddess. I will do everything in my power to make that happen.”
“See that your power doesn’t fail me,” Hera replied. “Or, I will see to it that it runs out, and I will choose another to touch with my countenance.”
Her eyes faded into the darkness and she was gone from the room before I stood. Her absence left me with the empty feeling of dread that had accompanied every one of our encounters for the whole of the last century.
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.