A woman sat, spinning her spinning wheel, monitoring the silvery thread that came out of the wheel’s end. It was laborious work, spinning the fibers of fate into thread that had order, that followed the wheel of time. The thread snagged, and then snapped, and the woman stopped her spinning.

It wasn’t often that something went wrong when she was spinning fate. As long as everything followed the natural order, the spinning of the wheel of time never stopped, not until she was out of fiber to spin, until the person whose fate she was spinning had reached the natural end of their lifespan.

Sometimes the fate was wrong, or something was miscalculated. The woman considered taking the thread that had been spun and putting it aside, ending this particular fate. She knew her sisters did it often. They were not responsible for errors in the wheel of time, of humans playing with fate. Their job was only to spin, and once the thread was done, make it part of the tapestry of history.

The woman looked down at the thread spun so far. It was different from most human threads. They were all beautiful, some in jewel tones, some the sage greens of forests, some the blues of veins, but then there were those that were above the rest. The thread in her hand was a dull gold. Gold was a rare color to see among threads, and it was rarer still because of how it was dulled. The woman remembered such gold, from her time living as a human. Old gold was darkened by time and wear, but still just as precious, and to her, just as beautiful. Put through the fire, the gold would grow bright again. Perhaps the thread would be the same.

She withdrew the thread from the spindle and the bobbin, and carefully untwisted most of what she had spun so far. With the mess of golden fiber in her hand, the spinning woman began again, rewriting a life that had been cut off midway. She would fix the mistake, and no one would be the wiser.

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Sia sat in the dark, cold, dungeon. It appeared that everyone had forgotten that she existed. She didn’t know how many days it had been since she had seen another face. The hunger gnawed at her insides, and if she could satiate her thirst with her own blood, she would have. Blood, she had realized through an ill-begotten experiment, was salty. And salt only made one thirstier in the long run.

She was at death’s door, and she wished the door would open soon. She heard the sound of heels against the stone steps, and someone appeared in front of the cell. Sia wished she could muster some of the etiquette she had been taught throughout her life. Since she was a child, she had lived standing with her back straight, her hands folded together across her waist, like the perfect doll her parents had taught her to be. Now, she could not even sit up. She saw the woman’s heels, and she knew who it was.

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Her older sister Laureline. Sia had lived in her older sister’s shadow her whole life. Laurel was prettier, smarter, and she was beloved. Sia had never known what it meant to be so beloved. She knew how to love, but she had never received love. At least, not in the manner Laurel had. She was tolerated. Her family fed her, clothed her, and educated her. But their love had been solely for the two older children of the family, Fenix and Laureline.

“Hello, Ardisia,” Laureline said. “I did not expect you to still be alive. It’s always the weeds that just refuse to die, isn’t it?”

“Lau–”

Her voice refused to work. Her throat was too dry, and she hoped her sister could understand. She only wanted a sip of water. That, or a quick death.

“In a way it is good,” Laurel said. Sia wished she could see her sister’s face. Laurel sounded happy, and that was such an unnatural emotion in this dark and miserable place. Sia remembered her sister’s smile. Laurel was easy to smile, easy to laughter. In comparison, Sia had been a gloomy creature. Then, Laurel had been given reasons to smile, reasons to laugh. She had people willing to spend their days in pursuit of Laurel’s happiness.

She had not been abused as a child, nor mistreated. She simply was not anyone’s concern. Her parents had ignored her existence, her brother thought her useless, and Laurel let her follow her since Sia’s presence only brought to light how much better Laurel was.

“The royal family wants to make a spectacle of the witch,” Laurel said. “They want to burn the witch at the stake, to stomp out any ideas of bringing magic back to Opria.”

Sia was not a witch. If she had been, she would have magicked herself out of the dungeon. She would have left behind all the people who had disappointed her, who had let her go through pain and suffering and only watched. Everyone called her a witch. All of the proof pointed towards her. Sia was innocent, but all of her protests had done nothing.

“Sister–”

“Ardisia, give up,” Laurel said. “Your fate has been sealed. You will die at the stake, and end your pitiful life. I will marry the prince, for our family will be rewarded for our loyalty. There are not many who would willingly hand over their own daughter to be punished, and so easily. You are only meeting your natural end, Ardisia. This is the thing you were meant for.”