The Sleeping Beauty - Book 1 - Chapter 49
I sat across from my magic mirror, watching the gorgon slip on the necklace. The tooth Diedre handed over allowed me to form a bond between the mirror and the snake’s eyes.
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 sat across from my magic mirror, watching the gorgon slip on the necklace. The tooth Diedre handed over allowed me to form a bond between the mirror and the snake’s eyes. Everything it saw, I saw, too.
It was a very good disguise. However, the snake still existed beneath it, masked from view, which meant I could see everything. Credit was due to the creator of the charm. They were quite skilled. Or perhaps, I would burn her cottage to the ground and take her for my own means.
Yes, that sounded like more fun. I would make a point to tell the generals about it.
There was a sudden flash in the room, and out of the light, a swirling cloud of smoke molded into the goddess Hera. Her skin was flawless and nearly translucent in its whiteness. Her eyes shone a bright purple. She wore a long, black toga, having long foregone her traditional white.
“Goddess!” I said, kneeling before her. I did not like to grovel, but she could snap me out of existence with merely a thought. I had no other choice but to avoid any degree of petulance and bow to her power. She was vindictive and petty, destroying whole civilizations for an imagined slight.
“Where is my dreamer?” Hera said. “Has she slipped through your fingers yet again?
I looked up at her, careful not to catch her eye. “We are narrowing in on her. Any moment we—”
Hera sneered. “You have disappointed me for too long. Perhaps it is time to find another.”
I shook my head. “No. Look.” I pointed to the mirror. “She comes to us. Soon, she will be within the confines of the Emerald City and we will have her without expending our army to find her.”
Hera smiled. “Very good.”
“And on top of that, she brings the Red Rider, and they head for Ozma.”
“Ozma!” Hera said. “We can finally destroy that insolent cur, then?”
“That is my plan, my exalted one. I just need more time.”
Hera looked down on me, her purple eyes searing into me. The longer they looked at me, the hotter I became, until it was sweating profusely under my collar.
“You have time, but not much. If the prophesy is correct, then Hypnos will return soon. We must snuff out our enemies before that happens.”
“It will be done.”
Hera walked toward the mirror, releasing me from her gaze. “Imagine, we can end Hypnos, the Ozma threat, and return to the universe all with the help of one little girl. Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yes, my god. That is my plan.”
Hera turned to me. “Make sure it’s done right this time.”
She snapped her fingers and was gone. I dropped to the ground and took in a deep breath, happy to have survived one more encounter with the fickle god.
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.