A mix of spidersilk and herbs. The scent of lilac and magic. Strange words muttered over a smoking pot. That was the promise the old woman whispered into the eldest princess' ear.
And the prospect of a life without her younger challenger made her eyes gleam when she, in turn, whispered the words into the younger son's ear. Gradually entwining him int her web.
But what she did not know. What the eldest did not know as she coated her sister's spinning wheel with the potion, was that magic, even the good magic of which this was not, always had a price.
As she chanted her rhyme of death, she did not realize that she placed a piece of herself into the enchantment.
A soul is a soul
But place the soul deep
Ne'er to wake, ever to sleep.
It was only the last line that was meant for her sister.