Spin Me Sweet Tales

Chapter Six

When I open my eyes and wake, I'm lying in the four-poster, king-size bed and I'm staring at the portrait. It mocks me, telling me today is my last day alive. Six blood-streamed eyes stare at me, their fear palpable from the art replica. I stare at the empty spaces on the obsidian ceiling, and I imagine my face wearing blood like ruby gems. I see myself in every open crevice, wearing a gown of glorious whites, silvers, and purples, but soundlessly screaming as my life is expunged from this world.

Sitting up in the bed, I force myself to look away from the carnage. Instead, I look at the gold woman sitting in a rocking chair across from me. There wasn't a rocking chair in here earlier, but it manifested upon her arrival. She sits in the chair, which quietly creaks as she moves back-and-forth. She wears a different gold lehenga gown, different jewels, but she's still ostentatiously presented.

Her lips are no longer painted red, but they're black like her hair. Her nails, too, have darkened. "You're late to your own wedding," she says.

Only now, I hear music playing downstairs. Laughter coming from strangers waiting for me to marry their king and die because of their land's magic. Still, I don't move. I stare at the woman who summoned me here, forced me to kill a teenage boy, and strung me in a bird cage to watch over a hundred women die.

"Who are you?" I ask, my throat scratchy and dehydrated.

With black painted lips, her smile is death. "Lahesia," she surprises me with an answer. "I am the Matron of the Daayan coven, and I am the advisor of your future husband." Her dark eyes glance at my wedding dress, which still hangs on the back of the bedroom door, and she muses. "He's waiting for you downstairs, but you had to have a tantrum first."

I flinch at her words with instant regret. "I'm going to die," I whisper to a woman who does not care, but I needed to say the words for myself. To let them sink in and become reality. "Why does it matter if I'm going to marry him if I don't survive until morning?"

"The others died," Lahesia says, facing the ceiling, then me. "But you aren't them. They were outsiders trying to fit into a world they do not belong in, and Oraxto disposed of the outsiders like the trash they were. You, little author, are not trash. I believe you're the one true queen who will survive many days after this one."

"I want to go home," I plead with Lahesia.

That black-tainted grin grows. "Your wish is granted, you are home."

She snaps her fingers, and her gold magic obeys her commands. I'm moved to a standing position a foot away from Lahesia. My hair is flowing down my body in brown curls. A heavy crown is placed on my head, weighing me with the hardships of this new world. The gown no longer hangs on the bedroom door, but it conforms to my curvaceous build. Cinches my waist and trails behind me. The tipped end of the dress's sleeves have rings laid on my middle finger to keep the dress sleeves in place. For the final touch, Lahesia snaps once more, and earrings pierce my lobes.

"You are a gorgeous queen," Lahesia says.

A mirror appears in between Lahesia and me, levitating in the air and forcing me to stare at my reflection. Gorgeousness mocks my sadness in the reflection. Prominently dark, full arched eyebrows surround a plump, yet angular, face that's stricken with vanquishment. Heart-shaped lips painted a nude shade. Hair of shimmering chestnut, adorned with a silver crown decorated in vibrant foreign gems.

There are purple gems, but they're not amethyst or sapphire. They are in that unfamiliar shade of purple. The gem is brighter, almost like lilac petals. Pearls and diamonds dance around the crown's perimeter, but I continue to glance at the new gem. This silver and purple crown accentuates my appearance, adding light where there was once darkness.