The Sleeping Beauty - Book 1 - Chapter 43
“I’m sorry I lied to you.” I muttered to Diedre from the back of the prison carriage. She was tied to the front of the carriage, a few feet away.
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.
“I’m sorry I lied to you.” I muttered to Diedre from the back of the prison carriage. She was tied to the front of the carriage, a few feet away. We had been riding for hours and the bumps in the ground were making me nauseous.
“Don’t talk to me, monster.”
“I don’t like how you are saying that word. I’m not a monster, at least not in that way. I mean, I am technically a monster, but we’re not all bad.”
Diedre turned toward the front of the coach where there was a small window with thick bars on it. I could see the driver of the carriage through it, and the two horses. “That’s not been my experience. Every time I’ve come up against a monster, they have attacked me. Like that dragon!”
“Yeah? And you attacked first! I’ve never hunted a human. They’re the ones who hunt me.”
“No, no! You were there on the road. You saw it—that dragon came out of nowhere.”
“After you attacked the dream changer’s carriage. And yes, I was there. I saved your life. Do you remember that?”
“I never should have helped you,” she growled.
“You helped me because I helped you. If I hadn’t, you would have been burned alive. And if I didn’t help you with the giant, you’d have been ground to dust—you and all your friends. The least you could do is help me.”
“And get captured in the process.”
“It’s better than being dead!”
“Is it?” Diedre asked, leaning toward me and speaking in a strained whisper. “Do you have any idea what the queen will do to us when she gets us back to her castle?”
“I have some idea. I saw what they did to Rose before we rescued her.”
“It’s going to be horrible.”
“So is this conversation,” I grumbled.
Diedre leaned back against the carriage. “This is why I hate rulers. They think they can just kill their people and it’s not going to matter. They think we don’t matter.”
“I get it. You hate kings. If we get out of here then you can complain all you want, but first, let’s get out of here.”
Diedre slumped in her seat. “How? The queen enchanted this carriage herself so you can’t use magic.”
I shrugged. “It hasn’t stopped me before. I used magic when I was with the pixies.”
Diedre scoffed at me. “Pixies are arrogant and vain. Two things the Wicked Witch is not.”
“I met her,” I growled at her. “She’s both of those things.”
“She’s also smart.”
I cocked my head to the right. “So, you’re what? Just going to lay back and accept your death?”
Diedre turned away from me. “I laid back and accepted it before. That’s how I ended up here. I don’t see why I can’t do it again.”
I chuckled. “If only it worked. Then I wouldn’t have to be hearing this stupid conversation.”
“Just shut up and leave me alone.”
I leaned in toward her. “I would love to, but you’re the only one here, and I need your help if I’m going to escape.”
Diedre gave me a cold look. “You’re not going to escape.”
I crossed my arms. “Says you. I’ve escaped worse than this.”
“You are cocky,” Diedre said, shaking her head. “I’ll give you that.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment. I hate cocky. Cocky gets people killed.”
I was done talking with her. I would just get out of the handcuffs by myself. Then, I would get out of this carriage and leave her to rot with the queen. I yanked on the chains, just as I had a dozen times before, but there was still no give in them.
Diedre pushed back against the wall of the carriage. “You’re not just cocky, you’re stupid, too. It’s not going to work, Gorgon.”
I looked up at her. The snakes on my head hissed at her, and the venom which dripped off her words. “I am a gorgon. Congratulations, you’ve correctly identified me, or at least half of me. The other half is human.”
Diedre snarled at me. “I can’t see that half. Just a disgusting monster.”
I shook my head, sad but not surprised. “You humans are all the same. You hate what you don’t understand.”
The horses pulling our carriage whinnied and bucked. The carriage shook and I fell onto the ground of the carriage as it tilted from one side to the other.
“What’s going on up there?” I asked.
Deidre pushed herself up and looked out the window. “I don’t know. I can’t really see much of anything.”
Something slammed onto the hood of the carriage. The sides of the carriage crumpled as if it were a tube of toothpaste someone was squeezing.
“Hang on!”
The carriage lifted off the ground as I tumbled back and forth, its roof crunching down closer toward us. If we didn’t get out soon, we would be killed for sure.
“Get back here!” I shouted to Diedre. The front of the carriage was nearly flattened, but I had some room in the back of the coach.
Diedre slid toward me just as the back door popped open like a can of Pringles. The carriage tilted and I slid down toward the opening until I hung out of the back of the cart. I heard a loud thud and looked up to see one of my snakes crying. It was Albert. One of his teeth was missing and the blood from his mouth dripped onto my head.
“Albie!” I wanted to help him, but I couldn’t do anything while I was hanging on for dear life. The only thing that kept me from falling to the ground were the shackles that bound my hands.
“Ahh!” Diedre shouted as she tumbled out after me and latched onto my leg.
I looked up to see a Cyclops, orange and hairy, holding the carriage high into the air. My feet dangled, trying to find a foothold, but found nothing except sky. We were at least twenty feet off the ground. A fall of that height would probably kill me, but a Cyclops definitely would if we didn’t break free and escape.
“I’m going to get us out of here.” I grabbed onto the shackles and pulled myself up toward the cabin. “Rubigo!”
The shackles turned to rust in my hands, and I yanked myself free, leaving the manacles to shatter. I was free. I reached out my hand and grabbed onto Diedre’s chain. I held onto her so that she wouldn’t fall away when the metal rusted through.
“Rubigo!”
“Great, we’re free,” Diedre said, rubbing her wrists. “Now what?”
“You’re not going to like this part.”
“I haven’t liked any of this!”
“Jump!”
I let go and plummeted to the ground, sure I was going to die. But the ground didn’t break my fall. Instead of landing on the dirt, I dropped into the meaty palm of the Cyclops. Diedre fell next to me on its hand.
“Great,” I said, standing up and ready to fight. “Now we’re going to die.”
“Are you Chelle?” the giant said.
I cocked my head. “That’s me.”
“Perfect,” the Cyclops said. “Somebody is looking for you.” He placed me on the ground, and I rolled onto to my feet. As I looked up, he shrunk into a normal sized man with a big, bushy red beard. He now had two eyes where he used to have one.
“Sorry for the theatrics. We don’t have time for a proper rescue.”
“Who are you?”
“Name’s Balor. I’m a friend of Rose.”
“Rose!” I said. “Where is she?”
“Come on,” Balor said. “I’ll take you to her.” Balor looked over at Diedre. “Is she a friend of yours?”
I shook my head. “Not even a little, but we shouldn’t leave her out here to die.”
Balor shrugged. “Your call. I’d personally leave her for dead.”
I held my hand out to help Diedre. “Come with me.”
“I don’t think so,” Diedre said, ignoring my extended hand and getting to her feet on her own. “My place is with my people. I must return to them.”
“You haven’t really fulfilled your oath to help me. We haven’t found Rose.”
“That oath was broken the minute we were captured. As far as I’m concerned, we’re square. This…gentleman—”
“—Balor.”
“Balor can lead you the rest of the way.”
“It’s not safe out there.”
“It’s not safe anywhere. Haven’t you learned anything?” She looked at me and twisted up her face. “And…thank you. For your help. Maybe you’re right. Maybe all monsters aren’t evil. Just most of them.”
“I guess that’s the best I’m going to get.”
“Aye,” Diedre said. “It’s probably better than you deserve.”
And with that she ran off, and I was left with a weird man who could turn into a cyclops. But he could also lead me back to Rose.
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.