The Sleeping Beauty - Book 1 - Chapter 55
By the time I dragged myself onto shore, I was a soggy mess. I had been swimming for gods knew how long.
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.
By the time I dragged myself onto shore, I was a soggy mess. I had been swimming for gods knew how long. The muddy water made moving horribly slow, and with every stroke of my arms the mermaids tried to pop the bubble which protected me from them. It took what remained of my will, but I had survived. Now I had to find Rose.
“Are you okay?” Balor said. He came running up to me from the beach and supported me as I pushed up to my knees.
I coughed water into the sand. “No. What happened? Where did that dragon come from?”
“I don’t know.” He helped me stand up. “I was headed back to Ozma when I saw the dragon. It came on you two like lightning. I rushed back to help, but by the time I had, you were under water and the beast had carried Rose away. I stayed on shore in case there was another attack, but none came back for you. Perhaps you are not very important.”
“Thanks.”
There was a brilliant flash of light in front of us. Red jumped out of it and slammed onto the ground. She pushed to her feet, daggers in hand, and screamed like a ferocious and untethered beast.
“Ozma!” she shouted.
“Quiet, child!” Balor said. “You’ll wake the dead.”
Red lunged forward when she saw me. “You. It’s you. What have you done?”
“Me? I didn’t do anything. Rose was just captured by a dragon. What did you do to her?”
“Nothing! I did—wait. Let me see you closer.” She grabbed at my face.
“Get off me!”
“Hold still,” Red stepped forward and peered deep into my left eye, then my right. Dissatisfied with what she found, she turned her attention up onto my head and studied each snake on my head, until she grabbed onto Albie and pulled him close to her.
“Ow!” I shouted. “Get off of him. He’s been through enough!”
“I know the Eye of Hera is upon you.” Red dove into one of the purses on her belt and pulled out a yellow tonic. “Drink this.”
“No!” I shouted. “I don’t—”
Red squeezed Albie tighter, and I dropped to my knees. “If you want to get Rose back, do as I say.”
I took the tonic and downed it. It tasted like warm piss. Once I swallowed it all a scream filled my ears until I heard a glass shatter inside my body. A shockwave went through me, and I collapsed to the ground.
“What happened?” I said, trying to stand.
“The Wicked Witch found a piece of you and used it to make a connection between your snake and her magic mirror. It’s a simple spell to counter, or prevent outright, but you are so new she must have realized you would not be immune to it.”
“So, she saw…”
“Everything you saw, and it led her right to Ozma, and Rose.”
“What do we do now?” I asked, rising to my feet.
“We get them back,” Red said with a snarl.
“That’s suicide,” Balor said.
Red glared. “Only if we fail.”
“Aye, that’s why I said it.”
“Then we won’t fail,” I growled. “Whatever you need, I’m in. Let’s take this witch down.”
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.