Princess Awakening: Tower of Sand

Checkmate

The sun sank, low and red, kissing the top of a distant mountain. Aurelie watched it, waiting, though she hardly remembered why. She only remembered that this moment meant something to her. And she was captured by its beauty.

A wooden object was placed into her hands, and she felt Seraphine guide them, showing her how to turn the thing. Aurelie glanced down and realized that she held the food platter—the wheel. It was bound by a rope to the hairpin, and Seraphine was tying her cord of wool from the staff onto the pin. Aurelie gripped the wheel and gave it a turn. The rope slipped off, but she put it back on the wheel and turned the thing again. As she continued the motion, her fingers began to take to the work, spinning the wheel and balancing the tension of the rope so that the hairpin would spin. The monotony of the challenge dulled the pain of her shattered spirit. It seemed that agreeing to Seraphine's plan had been the easiest way after all. Aurelie only wished that she could lie down now and go to sleep.

Seraphine's fingers moved deftly, smoothing out the lumpy cord and letting it twist with the movement of the hairpin. The thread wound tighter and tighter, and then, at last, Seraphine let out a yelp, and she wrapped up the spun yarn in a coil around the pin. "It works!" she crowed. "My spinning wheel works."

She started to unravel more cord from the distaff. Then she paused, staring at Aurelie. "It's enough," she said. "It's already a spindle. Are you ready?"

Aurelie nodded, and she smiled to herself, a secret, inward chuckle. One drop of blood was nothing compared to all that she had already lost. And now, somehow, she would welcome a long sleep.

Seraphine sucked in a breath. "It's time." She held up the spindle, wrapped in wool. The ruby cross sparkled under her fist. Above it, the bone shaft jutted its sharp tip.

Aurelie reached out, finger hovering over the point. Her eyes strayed back to the sun, glowing like a living coal, half melted into the mountain. She felt its sunset rays touch and warm her face.

"Steady," Seraphine said. "Don't try to go back on our bargain now."

Aurelie shook her head. "I'm not," she said. "It's just so beautiful. Even prettier than the window." She laughed softly. "Foolish gods! Silly Devil. They didn't realize their mistake. They must not have known. I am not the one who lost today. Because I chose love. And love never fails." She looked back at Seraphine. "I am Aurelie, Princess of the Free Country, and I choose love."

Seraphine's face hardened. "Do it."

"Caritas numquam excidit," Aurelie said, and she pressed her finger into the spindle.

A single drop of blood rolled down the spike and added its stain to the dirty white wool. Nothing happened.

Seraphine's eyes widened. "Prick your finger."

"I did," Aurelie said. She pressed down again, harder, and she felt the sharp bone of the spindle part her flesh. Another drop of blood oozed down the shaft. She waited for sleep to come and claim her, waited to be relieved of her pain.

The church bell began to clang.

Seraphine's hands, holding the spindle, started to shake.

Aurelie looked at her finger, at the tiny wound, still dribbling blood. Her finger hurt, but the pain was small and measurable. It felt so different from the unfathomable, unbearable pain that rent her mind and heart. She noticed that she did not feel sleepy anymore. She did not even feel faint. A laugh bubbled up inside of her, wild and uncontained, and it burst from somewhere deep and broken and free inside. "I have won," Aurelie said. "I have won, Madame Seraphine. You have lost. The curse has failed."