A Curse of Thorns

by Nicole Mainardi

  I swallowed and nodded, words eluding me. She was right; I’d have to apologize a thousand times over to get back an ounce of the trust that I’d lost last night. And the thing was, I wanted it: his trust. Something from the visions I’d seen last night had convinced me that there was more to him than just being a heartless king that had been cursed to be as hideous outside as he had been inside, and I wanted to know it. Despite what I’d said to Sophie in the storage room, I was beginning to feel sympathy for the Beast.

  It seemed that the old woman had convinced me after all.

  “Alright,” I said. “Take me to him. It can’t be as bad as last night, right?”

  She cracked a smile that brought out her wrinkles and finally lit up her eyes. I wanted to tell her that she needed to smile like that more, but I bit my tongue.

  Sophie took my arm, leading me past the tray that waited patiently at my door with breakfast, and could swear the silverware was watching me go forlornly. We passed through the dining hall again and entered the corridor that I’d gone down last night in my haste to escape the Beast’s wrath.

  “This is the way to the greenhouse, you know,” she told me over her shoulder. “You would’ve made it there if you’d just gone around one more corner.”

  I laughed. “Of course.”

  We made it there much quicker than I expected, and without another word spoken until we stopped before the open doors. As I stood at the stone threshold, Sophie beside me, I could almost feel the magic in the plants and blood-red roses springing from the green-tinged sun. But I stopped when I saw the Beast’s back facing us, his paws poised tightly behind him. His hood was back up over his head, and it made him seem more like a dark, ominous shadow than a living thing.

  I knew he had to have heard us coming, but he still didn’t turn. I took an unintentional step away, when I felt Sophie’s hand on my back guiding me forward, as if to tell me, “Don’t be afraid.” But I was afraid. I was terrified.

  She cut half the space between the Beast and I by dropping my arm and pushing one of her strong hands into the small of my back. Stumbling forward, I turned to her in panic as she smiled encouragingly, then walked out of the greenhouse without looking back. I watched the empty hallway for a moment, willing her to reappear.

  But then the Beast cleared his throat.

  I twisted towards him reluctantly and was met with the blackness of where his face should’ve been. He was hiding from me again, and a sudden flash of his true form from the night before appeared in my mind, making me swallow hard. He shifted uncomfortably.

  “Belle, I—” he began, his voice soft and low and full of regret. I liked the way my name sounded when he said it…but I immediately shoved that thought away, wondering how he knew it in the first place since I’d never properly introduced myself to him. His chest moved as he took a deep breath, and I watched as he flexed and released his gloved fists. “I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean—”

  “Yes, you did,” I said in a small voice. I looked away, because even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I could imagine that he was looking at me. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have gone into your room without your permission. It was insensitive of me, and I’m sorry.” I walked away from him and further into the greenhouse, hating myself for not being able to face him as I said these next words. It wasn’t because they were a lie—it was that they were the truth, and that frightened me. “But I thought that if I could see more of you, then I could understand you.” I laughed humorlessly. “I’m so used to my sisters telling me everything, and it infuriates me that I know practically nothing about you. The real you.”

  I felt him come up behind me, and thought I’d said too much, that he’d become angry again and try to hurt me. But then he whispered, in a low voice close to my ear, “I’d like to change that.”

  My heart sped up at his words and his nearness, but not because I was afraid. I couldn’t understand the feeling that came over me then, and I didn’t want to. I shook my clouded head as he came to stand in front of me, and instead of that hood there, I imagined an older version of the face of baby Bastian in the painting. Not the haughty prince I’d seen in the visions, but someone kinder, gentler.

  His hood lowered a bit as his head bobbed towards me.

  “Your hands,” he growled, and I looked down. I’d almost completely forgotten about them, but as soon as he said it, they started to itch underneath their bandages.

  I heard him swallow. “May I?” he asked quietly and I carefully held my hands out to him. I didn’t know what he was going to do, but I knew I needed to gain his trust again, and that meant proving that I trusted him in return.

  “For the record,” he said, taking my trembling hands into his. I could feel the heat of him through the leather gloves that he wore, and I shivered. “I am sorry about last night. I’ve always had a bad temper, and as you can tell, I’m still quite vain despite all the time I’ve spent with this affliction. Sometimes I forget what it’s like to be curious about someone.”

  “Are you curious about me?” I blurted out softly, and immediately regretted my words. I didn’t even know why it mattered if he did.

  His hands flinched beneath mine, but his voice sounded like he was smiling when he spoke again. “Of course. Now, close your eyes.”

  But they stayed open. I wasn’t sure I trusted him enough for that yet.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he assured me, and at that my eyes fell closed on their own.

  He grasped my hands gently in his, and behind my eyelids a light grew. I wanted to open them to see what he was doing, but I reminded myself again that I needed to trust him. So, I kept completely still.

  Then, suddenly, my hands stopped itching and the light began to dim. I waited.

  “You can open them,” he said in his gruff voice, and I did.

  I unwrapped the bloody bandages from my right hand first, keeping my eyes on my palm. When the last piece of the bandage had fallen to the floor, I gasped at what was there: nothing, not even a scratch or a scar. I took off the other one quicker and saw the same thing. I didn’t know black magic could do anything like this.

  “I—how did you…” I shook my head. “I mean, thank you…” I trailed off, not sure what I should call him now. Him healing me—that was more intimate than anything I’d ever experienced. But it didn’t feel right calling him Bastian.

  “You can still call me the Beast,” he told me like he knew what I was thinking, and I looked up at him in surprise. “I don’t expect anything from you, Belle, and I haven’t exactly proven my moniker to be false.” He started to reach for me, but he must’ve decided better of it and dropped his hand back to his side. “You’re a part of my home now, and if you’d ever like me to leave you alone, you only need to bid me gone. Anything you wish or desire, I am at your beck and call.” He took a bold step towards me, but I didn’t feel the urge to shy away. “Every day you spend here will be one more than I could’ve ever hoped for.”

  My lips parted in disbelief at the gentleness of his words, but I couldn’t speak. He stayed for another moment before bowing and slipping past me. I didn’t watch him go—I didn’t want to think about what his words meant. And how they cut straight to my heart.

  Chapter 16

  Do Not Trust Too Much with Your Eyes

  BASTIAN

  “ Well,” Sophie prodded as soon as I entered the corridor to my chambers. “What happened? What did she say? What did you say? For heaven’s sake, Bastian, speak!”

  I chuckled, feeling lighter than I had in months—years. “You might not be as crazy as I thought, Soph.” I sighed. “But I can’t get my hopes up either.”

  “Of course you can,” she sputtered, following me as I sat on my bed and shook off my hood. I went to smooth down my wild fur, but to no avail. For the millionth time, I wished that I could cut my mane, but each time Sophie or I had tried, it’d grown right back.

  “She’s the one. I can feel it,” she said dreamily, as if Belle
and I were in one of the epic love stories from the books in my library. But that would involve me being a handsome prince, and I was anything but.

  “She likes you,” she kept on, and I peered at her in surprise. Had Belle said something to her? “She just doesn’t quite know it yet.”

  I scoffed. Yeah, right.

  “Don’t believe me?” she continued. “Check the mirror.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to watch her when she can’t see me. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “Why?” she shrugged. “You did it every time you went near the village and she was out hunting.”

  “That’s not the same thing and you know it,” I growled.

  She sighed. “Fine. But what if I look through first, to make sure she’s not doing anything you shouldn’t be seeing?”

  The image of Belle undressing appeared in my head, her pulling the fitted gray sweater she’d had on in the greenhouse over her head, her golden-brown hair falling out of her loose bun in the process and catching in the sunlight—

  I shook my head to dispel the fantasy. I couldn’t think about her that way, not when she’d never think of me that way.

  “Fine,” I barked, but my tone didn’t seem to affect Sophie; nothing did anymore.

  She grinned triumphantly and hopped off where she’d been perched on the edge of my bed, pulling back the curtain next to it. There’d once been a window there, but after a few months of being the Beast, I’d replaced it with a mirror I’d made from my magic. I’d thought it might show me as my old self, without the fur and the scars. But I must’ve gotten the spell wrong because instead it showed everyone but me. As long as I knew the person’s name, the mirror would show them, no matter where they were.

  “Show me Belle Fairfax,” Sophie commanded. The mirror flooded with purple smoke at her request, and I looked away as Belle’s room came into view. It still felt wrong, and if she ever found out that I’d been watching her without her knowing, she might never speak to me again. But, as I’d admitted to her in the greenhouse, I was curious about her.

  “Come look,” Sophie told me, and my gaze snapped back to the mirror.

  She was already in one of the only pair of pants I’d had Sophie leave in her room, though she’d kept the gray sweater on, her hair loose and flowing to mid-waist. I swallowed thickly; she was so beautiful it hurt to look at her.

  Sitting on the edge of her bed, she was staring at her hands as if they no longer belonged to her. Painfully, I thought she might’ve regretted me healing them, but then she smiled slightly and stroked her thumb over her other palm. She looked…happy. But then she shook her head as confusion crept onto her face, dropping her hands into her lap before threading them through her hair in what looked like frustration.

  I couldn’t watch anymore.

  I waved my hand at the mirror and her image was consumed by the purple smoke. Sophie didn’t say anything, but I knew she was giving me a pitiful look. I put my head in my paws and she took that as her cue to leave.

  Seeing Belle like that—so raw, unsure—made her more beautiful to me, and I now understood that I was in way over my head. I couldn’t think of one solitary thing to get this girl to fall in love with me, and I was running out of time. My hopes of breaking the curse felt like they were slipping away.

  Chapter 17

  My Cruel Misery

  BELLE

  I was in the middle of breakfast when the Beast joined me.

  When I’d woken up this morning, my leg had felt infinitely better, and when Sophie had come to get me from my room, I’d asked her to help me out of the cast. I’d been unsteady on it first, and the skin underneath felt raw, but now there was very little pain. I thought about standing up to greet him, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood for pleasantries.

  His hood was up, still hiding his face from me, but his shoulders were more slumped than usual, and I wondered fleetingly if he’d slept well last night. I hadn’t slept well either—I was curious about what had kept him awake.

  “Morning,” I said when I was done chewing. My voice echoed shrilly along the empty stones and I cringed at the sound. His head snapped up, and I didn’t think he’d realized I was there because he straightened.

  “Morning,” he said back, unenthusiastically.

  We were silent for some time after that, with only the sounds of our clanging dishware to fill the void, before I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “So,” I began, pushing my eggs around my plate. The fork evidently didn’t like that very much because it tried to carry a piece of the egg up to my mouth.

  “I—I noticed the books in your room,” I continued when I’d set the fork down. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to bring up so soon after it happened, but I wanted to know if they were pre-Regime. They had to be.

  A smile in his voice as he said, “Yes, and…?”

  “Are they…” I wasn’t sure if he knew the phrase.

  “Pre-Regime?” he guessed. I was surprised he knew it, considering the Regime hadn’t started banning books until after they’d taken over Briar in his absence. “Yes, they all are.”

  “All?” I asked eagerly.

  The Beast chuckled. “I’m guessing you read?”

  I rolled my eyes at him, finding that I was grinning. “That’s like asking a bird if it flies.”

  I imagined that he’d smiled in response. “Come with me.”

  He stood, but waited for me to follow. I shot up from my chair and bounded up to him. I was wearing a tighter pair of pants to keep my leg stable and the sweater from the day before, completely underdressed for dining with a king, but it didn’t seem to bother the Beast. He held out his arm for me, and I took it without hesitation. The part of me that wanted to pull away from him was growing smaller with each passing day, and his warmth greeted me like an old friend as we started down another corridor I had yet to see.

  This was the closest we’d been to each other since my coming here, and as the high ceilings of the dining hall disappeared into the lowered ones of the corridor, I felt heat crawling up my neck and splashing onto my cheeks. Why was I so nervous? It’s not like I’d never been arm-in-arm with a boy before.

  But the Beast isn’t a boy.

  In so many ways, he was unlike anyone I’d ever met. A part of me still blamed him for hiding away in his castle, and letting the Regime suffocate us in its corrupt hands. Another part was still afraid of him—of the Beast. But the man that was hidden beneath all the fur and jaded anger deserved to be seen, and I had to give him that chance.

  We soon came to a large wooden door. The Beast pulled his arm away and my hand fell to my side. I eyed him curiously, hating the fact that I couldn’t see the expression on his face, and watched as he moved behind me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He laughed low in his throat. “Don’t worry, Belle. I’m just building up the suspense.” I felt him move closer.

  All I could do was swallow nervously.

  He let out a throaty laugh before the door opened on its own, and I was met with a dark room.

  My feet moved forward on their own accord, and he followed, our footsteps echoing louder than they had in the corridor. The air was cooler here, but the temperature of my skin remained hot. When I’d gone as far as I dared into the darkness, I stopped and so did the Beast.

  For a moment, nothing happened and nervousness flitted around in my stomach. He came to stand beside me, and I heard a rustling of his cloak before floor-to-ceiling length drapes that matched the ones in the dining hall flew open—I couldn’t help the gasp that escaped me.

  It was a library. A vast and gorgeous library.

  The shelves reached higher than I could see, and the room was a thousand times the size of Alinder’s place. I moved towards the shelf nearest me and read the first spine I reached: Paradise Lost by John Milton. I stroked the brown leather once and sighed happily at the feeling of it beneath my fingertips.

  “Oh,” I breathed, and turned to
the next book, and the next. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer in green leather, The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer both in red, Grimm’s Fairy Tales in purple. I’d practically gone through all the titles at the bottom row of that first shelf when I remembered that the Beast was still there.

  I turned around, seeing that he was in the same spot where I’d left him, his hands clasped behind his back. I approached him, forgetting the books for a moment.

  Only a couple paces from him now, I asked, “Why do you always wear that hood?”

  He didn’t answer at first, and I began to wonder if he was going to answer at all, when he replied quietly, “I don’t want to frighten you.”

  I think that ship has sailed. I thought about how he’d looked when he’d caught me in his room, how he hadn’t been able to hide his features from me then. But I knew that wasn’t the real Bastian. I knew now that there was so much more to him than that. His face had frightened me the last time I’d seen it, but this was different circumstances. This time, I was choosing to see him.

  “I know it might seem hard to believe after the other night,” I said, “but it takes a lot to scare me.”

  I reached for the top of his hood, but his paw caught my wrist. “Belle, don’t…”

  Without waiting for him to finish, my other hand shot up quickly and pushed back his hood before he could stop me.

  The first thing I noticed once I looked past the fur was that his face was covered in scars; some silver like mine, others red and puckered like they’d never healed properly. There was a thin layer of fur covering them, but it didn’t grow thick until his hairline, making him look like he was half wolf and half lion. His eyes, though—his eyes were impossibly blue. Like sapphires. They were the most human thing about him.

  “I’ve seen worse,” was my gut response, and I didn’t realize I’d said it aloud until he let go of my wrist. My hand grabbed his arm gently before he could move away from me.

  “Look,” I said, and pointed at the silver scar on my cheek. “This runs all the way to my hip.” I pulled down the neckline on my sweater to show where it spread out along my collarbone.