sin Archives - Kristen Anne Glover

{29} Beyond Rescuing

Beyond Rescuing: Day 29 of 31 Days

For Day 1, click on the image above

Jewel fell back on her knees and stared at the box before her. Dust and ashes, ashes and dust. She could not understand it—she knew there was treasure here before.

“Didn’t find what you were looking for?” a voice said in her ear.

She fell down, terrified, and looked up. It was the Enchanter, looking calm and collected next to her dirty, frazzled body.

“I don’t understand,” Jewel stammered. “It was here. I left it here. I buried treasure in this box, but when I opened it, well, look!” She shoved the box at the Enchanter, who clucked his tongue and shook his head.

“He should have told you this would happen.”

“What do you mean? Who should have told me what?”

“Your prince. It’s a trick of his, you know. Once you see his treasure, your treasure is like dust. You can never come back to it and be satisfied.”

“You mean it just disappeared?”

“I mean, you never had it to begin with.“

Jewel looked at the box in disbelief. “But I did! I…I saved it myself.”

“You stole it. Or at the very least, you did all sorts of things to earn it that would make a good princess blush. You know it, and I know it. That is not treasure, Jewel, it’s plunder. Blood money. It’s no good in his kingdom.” He came a little closer to her and whispered, “If your prince knew where you got it, he would turn away from you in disgust.”

“How dare you, you who sold me first! How dare you accuse me!”

“How dare you pretend I’m not justified in doing so,” the Enchanter laughed. “Oh, Obscurity! Do you really think you can erase your past, just because you put on new clothes and a crown?”

“My name is Jewel.”

“Ironic. You do not look very much like a Jewel now.”

Jewel looked down. She was covered in filth. Blood oozed from scrapes and scratches, and she realized that one of her fingernails had been torn off completely. Worse, her dress was ripped beyond repair. She had worn her oldest dress, the very first dress the prince had ever given her.

It was her wedding dress.

“You know,” the Enchanter cooed, “I have more riches than I know what to do with. If it’s treasure you seek, I can make you rich beyond imagination.”

“I don’t want to be rich,” Jewel said. “I came because I wanted to do something for him.”

“Of course you do. He’s done so much for you, after all.”

“Yes.” The thought of it made her wretched.

“Although, I can’t help but feel he got the better of me when he took you from me. I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive him for that.”

“Please, if you have anything you can spare, anything at all. I’ve come all this way, and I have nothing. How can I go back like this?”

“How indeed,” the Enchanter said, looking her over with slitted eyes. “I would not want to go in your place. I can just imagine the look on his face.”

Beyond Rescuing

Jewel buried her head in her dirty hands and sobbed. “What can I do?”

“Well,” the Enchanter’s smooth voice curled around her like smoke. “There is one thing.”

“What? Anything!”

His beautiful face contorted so quickly, Jewel gasped in surprise. He grabbed her by the throat and hissed, “Bow down and beg for it.”

Her eyes were wide and frantic. He was fierce and ugly, like the dragons that swooped over his land. Ugly like she had never seen him before. Jewel clawed at him, expecting any moment for him to release her. He was a friend!

“You see, Jewel, I have not forgotten your betrayal. I have not forgotten how you traded me in at the first chance you had to become the bride of the one I hate.” He spat the words at her like a viper. “Do you really think we could be friends after that? Do you really think I will help you?”

He was her friend! He had said so himself. But now there was no air! Was she to die at his hand?

“No, Jewel, I will not help you, but you have certainly helped me! You have led your people right out the gates and into my kingdom.”

He laughed then and released his grip just enough for Jewel to gasp for breath and feel the weight of his words. It was true.

“Do you know, Jewel, there is one thing I love almost as much as having my own kingdom. Do you know what that is? It’s having the prince’s people serve me when they think they’re serving him. They wander farther and farther away from him every day and they don’t even know it. In fact, they think they are more enlightened than ever before! It’s almost too easy!

“What kind of pathetic prince can’t keep his people from traipsing over to the enemy just as soon as the gates are open? Your prince, Jewel, that’s who. He talks a big talk, but he has no power over the desires of men. I do.”

The Enchanter looked into her eyes and scoffed. “And you—you’re the worst offender. ‘Jewel: bride of the prince.’ You came calling so quickly, I’m almost amazed the prince didn’t recognize you sooner for the harlot you are.”

“Let me go,” she begged, her voice hoarse and raspy.

“Let you go? Tell me, Jewel, where would you go? Do you think I am so kind as to take traitors back into my house? I would sooner destroy you. And if you think he will take you back when you have betrayed him like this then you do not know his holy fierceness like you ought. It would be a kindness for me to kill you outright rather than to leave you to his justice.”

He was choking her again, but she was dying with the thought that she might be beyond rescuing by her prince. Of course the Enchanter was right. Why would her prince take her back? She had been so foolish.

“You have been defeated, Jewel. Admit it, and I might let you live long enough to see the embarrassment on your prince’s face.”

The darkness of that night became even darker. The whole world spun and she felt her arms go numb. Jewel could not breathe. She could only exhale one last breath. “Help me,” she whispered just before everything went black.

*Join us tomorrow for the exciting Day 30!

{22} Like a Seal

Like a Seal: Day 22 of 31 Days

To read Day 1, click on the photo above

True to his word, the prince rode out of the gates of the kingdom early one morning. He was leaving on his father’s business, but that did not make it any easier for Jewel to watch. The cold morning mist wrapped around him like a cloud, and he was gone.

Before he left, he came to her to say good-bye. “Be busy about my work until I return,” he said. “It is not going to be easy, and you must be prepared for the fight. The Enchanter has not stopped pursuing you, even though you have enjoyed some time of peace. But he wants to sift you, Jewel.” The prince’s eyes were fierce with jealousy. “But you are mine. I will not let you fall.”

Song of Solomon 8:5

He embraced her in his arms, and she was overcome with the same sense of safety and security she felt the first time he found her and lifted her onto his horse.

“I am not slow to keep my promises to you, Jewel, even though it may seem like it. I will come back again. But when I am away, you must trust that I have provided for your every need—even the ones you don’t know you have.”

Jewel nodded into his chest, but she could not speak.

“I have surrounded you with every treasure in my kingdom, but remember, this is my greatest gift to you,” the prince continued, beckoning his adviser near. The adviser had been silent the whole time, but Jewel had noticed the joy on his face when the prince spoke words of love over her. “He is your Advocate, Jewel. You will lack nothing if you lean into him.”

Then he was gone.

For days afterward, Jewel felt numb. She wished she knew how long he would be away so she could count down the days, so she would know how long she had to survive without him.

But her Advocate came and sat near, and said to her, “The prince does not want you to settle for survival, Jewel. He wants you to live and thrive in his kingdom while he is away.” Then he opened the crackling scrolls and showed her the prince’s own words where he said that it was so.

Jewel poured over the scrolls. She hadn’t realized how much it sounded like him. She could almost hear his voice when she read it, and she felt his nearness to her, like her husband was standing right there in the room with her. Her Advocate smiled and explained, “To some, these words are like heavy stones. But you are his bride, and you can hear the truth. This is his love letter to you.”

The words were lovely indeed. The more she read, the more she knew and understood the prince of the kingdom, and the more she realized what he had done for her.

She noticed too that she was not completely free from the Enchanter’s grasp. Within her head and heart she found traces of his fingerprints, dirty, grease smudges where his hands used to be.

It crushed her, and she wept over the outworking of the lie she had once believed. Still, it was bearing bitter fruit in her life. But the Advocate drew his sword and with every word she read, he cut a dividing line between the living and the dead. With perfect skill, he sliced away the destroyed and decaying flesh and adorned the living with the riches of the prince’s kingdom so she was more beautiful than ever.

It was agonizing in the moment. Every day, there was work to do. Every day, death was found lurking in bride’s clothing, and every day, the Advocate sharpened his blade.

“Will it ever end?” Jewel cried when one day, she realized that a piece of the old flesh had grown back while she was cutting away something else. “How long will I struggle and fight? Why can’t I just be like him? Why do I fail?”

“Do you know why I am here?” her Advocate asked.

“To help me?” she answered, but she was suddenly unsure.

Like a Seal

“I am here as a promise. Just like the ring on your finger is a seal of the prince’s love, I am a seal—a promise—of his perfection. One day, you will be perfect like he is perfect. You can’t see that now, but I can. Jewel, I am the assurance of your freedom from the Enchanter. You will not always struggle. In fact, you have already won.”

“I do not feel like I have won.”

The Advocate’s fiery hair stood on end. “Then you do not understand my power, and you attribute to the Enchanter more power than he deserves. He is evil, that is true, and he has used deception to mark out a small territory where he does not belong. But there is no contest, Jewel. I have overcome.”

She ran to him, weary with the fight, and embraced him. How she longed to be free indeed.

{3} Outside the Gates

Day 3 of 31. Click on the image above to start at Day 1.

The savages who pressed against the gates of the prince’s kingdom did not know that only the prince could open the gate to his kingdom. They thought they could force their way in by means of their own strength and brute might.

They were wrong. If they wanted to get inside, they’d have to go through him. Only he wouldn’t open the doors for a banging, cursing mob. They would have to come one at at time, like invited guests, and knock.

Others had come, and the prince had always thrown open the doors and embraced the seeker so quickly and earnestly, he soon forgot any hesitation in the coming.

But there were still so many on the other side who counted the prince an enemy. If only they knew how much he longed to call them friends.

Every day, the prince looked out over that enemy kingdom and was filled with sorrow and a deep, unfathomable love for these people who had declared their allegiance to an imposter. He knew the truth about the beautiful Enchanter, and he knew that every member of that kingdom was marked for death.

So early in the morning, while most of his kingdom still slept, he put on beggar’s robes, mounted an old horse, and rode out the immense iron gates of the castle walls, seeking out a people to save.

That dangerous, dreadful land welcomed him greedily because it seemed to recognize that this prince had the power to undo it all. This prince had the power to break the Enchanter’s spell.

But the people’s eyes had become so accustomed to the beauty of their self-proclaimed sovereign, they could no longer recognize true royalty. Instead of running to embrace him, they received the prince with violence and scorn.

One day, the prince was returning to the castle, bearing on his body the marks of an excursion that had not gone well. The people he met had cursed him, thrown rocks and sticks at him, and tried to pull his horse down off the road. Blood oozed from a gash in his forehead and trickled down his cheek.

Wearily, he road for home just as the sky was beginning to brighten with the day. The early morning light made the road ahead hazy and more difficult to navigate than it was in the dead of the night.

Suddenly, something caught his eye.

The prince thought he saw a creature crawling in the mud along the side of the road. He looked more closely. It was only the waking shadows playing tricks on his eyes.

Or was it?

He guided the weary horse over, cautiously, to get a better look. It was a wounded animal, and it moaned and writhed in misery. The stench of sewage clung to the creature like the mud on its back.

“Poor animal,” the prince said, wondering how he was going to get a wounded, wild beast home on his already-nervous horse.

Just then, the creature looked up, and the prince found himself staring into knowing eyes.

This thing before him was not an animal at all, but a person.

For a moment, the prince could not move. His mind was stunned by the level of filth and depravity before him. No one in his kingdom lived like this. His temples pounded hot with anger against the powers of darkness that created this hell.

He got off his horse.

“What has happened to you?” he asked, squinting through the mud for signs of injury. All he saw was a fierce blackness staring back at him. Every feature of this person was so disguised by filth and misery, it was impossible to tell if the wretch was sick or injured, young or old, or even male or female.

“Please, I have come to help.” He took a step closer, close enough that the stench of rotten flesh rose up and gripped his nostrils. He felt a wrestling in his stomach and fought to subdue it.

Just as he advanced, the creature retreated further into the shadows.

“Come…” he offered, reaching his hand down into the vileness.

At the sight of his pure, clean flesh, this person, this inhabitant of the enemy kingdom, leaped out at him. Baring animal-like claws and half-rotten teeth, it cursed and shrieked and tore at him like the beast it resembled.

That’s when he knew. It was a woman.

*Join us tomorrow as the story continues. Day 4 is up next!