#red as blood or tales from the sisters grimmer

“But as he held her now, the bandaging upon her healed wrists turned to jewels, the sacking robe to velvet. And, as in her dream, her hair grew like a wind and poured over like a tide, a streaming silver that was gold, until it brushed the ground.

The bleached trees parted and darkness ran through. A black horse, flamed with a sapphire mane and tail, and hung with stars, stood against the sinking moon.

He mounted Jaspre before him.

"The soil, the roots of the trees, will open,” he said. “My land lies there, beneath the earth. Whatever the woman told you of it you must unremember. The country is not as once it was, nor as you have seen it.”

Then the horse danced on the ground and the ground gave way. Far off, Jaspre glimpsed—not darkness—but a glimmering multi-colored luminescence, the flowering trees of an endless spring, the towers of a rainbow city, more beautiful than in any book, and winged with a gilded morning, there in the black pit of the world.

“And this is your kingdom,” the young girl sighed.

“This is my kingdom,” said the Prince of Darkness.

And to this they went.”

―The Golden Rope (1983), from the Red as Blood or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer by Tanith Lee

“He had ridden now to the spot where the fountain of hair came down. The horse stopped at once. And he, the god-demon she was to call Angemal, stretched out one hand gloved in silvery mail and with one huge ring upon it, a fiery ring of an apricot color, the stone which was her name. He touched the golden rope of her hair with his fingers. And immediately Jaspre saw, without amazement, the hair twisted and refashioned itself. It became a ladder of silk”

―The Golden Rope (1983), from the Red as Blood or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer by Tanith Lee

“Her hair was the rich dark red of antique burnished copper, her eyes were the hue of the reddishgolden amber that traders bring from the East. When she walked, you would say she was dancing. But when she danced, a gate seemed to open in the world, and bright fire spangled inside it, but she was the fire.”

―When the Clock Strikes (1980), from the Red as Blood or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer by Tanith Lee