The Sleeping Beauty - Book 1 - Chapter 53
I didn’t want to tell Rose that I knew what was best for her, but I knew what was best for her.
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 didn’t want to tell Rose that I knew what was best for her, but I knew what was best for her. The Dream Realm was just that—a dream. A silly dream that she would eventually wake from and realize that she didn’t have a body, or the ability to get back to Earth.
I didn’t know what happened if you died when you weren’t asleep, but it had to be better than Urgu with its petty sniping and wicked witches.
“Come on,” I said, leading Rose down to the beach below the jagged glass wall, away from Oz. Balor and I found a small rowboat and took painstaking efforts to line it up at the smallest part of the sea, just like Red had done so many years ago. “You’ll feel better when we’re across the sea.”
“Will I?” Rose asked. “I hope so, because I don’t feel so good about leaving right now.”
I pointed across the sea to the Obsidian Spindle, where it spiraled high into the sky, broken and crooked like Bellatrix Lestrange’s wand. “That’s home, okay? I know you don’t like Earth right now, but at least there you still have a body. You still have a choice. I promise it’s going to get better once we’re back.”
“When?” Rose said. “When is it going to get better?”
I didn’t have an answer, so instead I helped Rose into the boat. I could still make out the Emerald City in the distance. The coastline was a crescent shape, with Oz being the furthest point in the center.
“Just because yer at the smallest crossing point of the sea doesn’t mean the crossing’s going to be easy,” Balor said to me as I hopped into the boat.
“I know that,” I replied without looking at him.
He clenched the side of the boat. “I wish ya’d reconsider. We could really use your help.”
I shook my head. “I came here with a mission, and I intend to see it through.”
“Even if it’s not what Rose wants?”
“She doesn’t know what she wants,” I snapped. I sat down and picked up the oars. “Just kick us off, okay?”
Balor didn’t say another word. He shoved hard and we floated into the sea. I started to paddle, but the water was dark like oil and gooey like sludge. It was hard to make headway. With every stroke a moan blared from the water, as if it were alive and we were hurting it. Balor had told me horror stories about the cursed lake, and of the mermaids who roamed the deep, waiting to feed on brave travelers.
I had never met a mermaid before, but knew about them from my mother, who told me stories of them dragging travelers down to the depths. I had no intention of being dragged into the depths.
“Hey,” I said, smiling at Rose. “It will all be over soon.”
“And then what?” Rose sighed. “Then, I’ll go back to being a nothing burger from nowhere.”
“It’s not so great being wanted. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.”
“Seemed pretty cool from where I sat.”
A stiff breeze gusted across the water, and the oars jerked violently in the sea. I lifted them from the water, and noticed a long, jagged claw mark in the left one. The mermaids knew we were here. They were coming for us. I would have to use magic to cross the sea. Most of my magic was defensive or offensive in nature, but I had practiced a propulsion spell with my mother.
Before I could say the words, a familiar screech came from above us. I recognized the sound from our time in the woods. It was a dragon. A moment later, it ducked below the cloud cover and divebombed for us. The dragon was enormous, even from a hundred feet in the air.
“Aqua scutum!” I shouted and the water rose from the lake to create a shield around us. The dragon slammed into the shield and rose higher into the air. I held the shield in the air with one arm and pointed behind the boat with the other.
“Jet aquae!” The water above me fell back into the sea and began to move behind us, creating a turbine like we had a motor.
The dragon divebombed again. “Aqua scutum!”
I cast another shield with my free hand, but it was nowhere as potent as the last. I didn’t have the strength to maintain both spells, and the dragon was too powerful. With its third dive, the dragon broke the shield apart and slammed straight into the boat, throwing it into the air.
“Rose!” I shouted as I was thrown into the water.
I sunk down into the black sludge. Below the surface, a hundred glowing blue eyes stared at me, closing in on me as I descended into the deep. Mermaids. They were not kind or beautiful like the movies say, but heinous and deformed. They had hideous scales down their bodies and their webbed feet propelled them in the water faster than I could evade them. I used what remained of my strength to swim up to the surface. It was like swimming through quicksand. Before the creatures could catch me, I broke through the plain of the water.
I took a deep breath, inhaling water. A dozen small claws grappled with my legs. “Tutela bulla!” I shouted before I fell back under the water. Instantly, the bubble formed around me, knocking the mermaids away from me. Floating inside the bubble, I crested back to the surface and swam to the boat.
“Rose! Rose!”
I grabbed onto the side of boat and heaved myself up. But Rose and the dragon were both gone.
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.