In the Garden of Gold & Stone

by Ryan Muree

  In the

  Garden of

  Gold & Stone

  A Beauty & the Beast Retelling

  Ryan Muree

  In the Garden of Gold & Stone © 2018 by Ryan Muree

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  Here's to mimosas by the pool.

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  Also by Ryan Muree

  The Last Elixir Series

  What Blooms in the Dark – Shenna’s prequel novelette

  What Rises from the Ashes – Izan’s prequel novella

  The Last Elixir (Book 1)

  The Fallen Gate (Book 2)

  The Shattered Core (Zoi & Aramil's prequel novel)

  Fairytale Retellings

  In the Garden of Gold & Stone - Beauty & The Beast

  Kingdoms of Ether Series

  Kingdoms of Ether (Book 1)* Coming soon!

  CHAPTER 1

  ROWEC SLUNG HIS EMPTY LEATHER PACK over one shoulder, slid his clean, curved peicha knife into his belt, and grabbed his leather-wrapped spear. It wasn’t too long before that he was grabbing these things to prepare for a fight against another clan. A darker time. A bloodier time that he, even in his twenty-fourth year, understood wasn’t best for his people.

  Raz, his tiny, pink-bellied kurimolle, stretched and yawned on his shoulder.

  “Better sleep in my pocket, Raz, or a bunch of fruit could end up crushing you.”

  The white, furry rodent with beady, black eyes stepped onto his palm and into his front vest pocket. Raz spun around in his confined space until finally settling down for the night.

  Rowec turned to the curtained entrance of his straw hut and found his lanky—if not gangly—brother, Maur, leaning against the frame. His long black hair was tied back, but the thin scruff on his upper lip was still too sparse even for his twenty years. Black ash had been smeared on both of his cheeks.

  Maur twirled his knife and grinned. “Ready?”

  Rowec rolled his eyes. “It’s not a raid. We’re harvesting fruit.”

  “In the jungle.”

  “Like we have a million times.”

  “At night. We could run into some of the Crola clan. I’m ready.”

  Rowec shoved Maur aside and strolled out of his hut and toward the far side of the village.

  Everyone else was winding down for the night, tying up their working animals and coming down the path from the side of the mountain where the tiered paddy fields had been worked all day.

  His brother wasn’t wrong about the possibility of running into a rival clan. Their chief had started sending the warriors out for harvesting certain resources, since some of the other clans had gotten restless and eager to test their tenuous treaty. A treaty his father had fought to secure before his death.

  Still, it was gathering fruit. Not hard. Not complex. And if they did run into the Crola, or any of the other Yvelkian clans for that matter, the treaty dictated they politely split the resource and leave.

  “Come on,” Maur said, following on his heels. “You know you hate the treaty, too.”

  “It’s smart.”

  “Look at you!” Maur held his hands out wide. “You used to be the best warrior in our village. We’ve trained our whole lives to fight. What happened to the good times?”

  “Since when is killing good?”

  “Since when—?” Maur’s mouth gaped. “Seriously? Did my brother, the famous Yvelkian Zchi warrior, slaughterer of fifty men, just say… ‘Since when is killing good?’”

  Since their screams, their last breaths, echoed in my mind and told me, one day it will be me on the other end of that stick.

  “I’ve changed, Maur.” He nodded to a neighbor grinding coarse grain and continued for the village’s west exit. “I’ve grown. Peace is good. Killing should only be when necessary, and it’s not necessary when we’re harvesting fruit. We’re just being sent to get in case something happens.”

  “Dad killed to save us and our village hundreds of times.”

  “And he fought for the treaty, too. He didn’t want us to follow in his footsteps forever, Maur.”

  His brother sniffed and adjusted his dirty leather pants as they walked. “Eh, whatever. Animals are fair game though, right? If I find myself a slitherskin, I’ll finally get new boots.” He bit down on the spine of his knife and tugged his belt out a few inches for Rowec to see. “Shee? New beld.”

  Rowec yanked the blade from his brother’s mouth and slid it into his belt loop for him. “Don’t be stupid. It’s too cold. They’ll be asleep.”

  “Not true. They eat paratils when they’re desperate. They could be hiding in the bunches. If one drops down on me — whoosh!” He made a slicing motion with his hand.

  Rowec shook his head. “You’re unbelievably stupid. I’m going to laugh when one bites you, and you’re squirming on the ground in your final moments of death.”

  Maur grabbed him by the bicep. “Just promise me you won’t tell the girls if I wet myself.”

  Rowec yanked his arm free and rolled his eyes. “You’re so dumb.”

  Etta, the chief’s daughter, had turned the corner, and his heart sunk. He had been so close to the edge of the village, so close to not having to deal with her. Now, there was no avoiding it. He shook his head.

  Maur elbowed him. “Hey, hey. Here’s your girl. Spirits, she looks like a damn dream this evening.”

  Etta’s jet-black hair fluttered behind her in soft curls. Her deep-crimson skirt had neither one thread out of place or one smudge of dirt on it. Such was the luxury of being one of the Zchi ruling family.

  She smiled and nodded at the villagers cooking on their porches. To them, she was perfect and precious. To him, she was nails grating down stone.

  She approached with a smile and bowed with her chest dipped low. Her long black eyelashes batted over dark eyes, and her small fingers went to the fragile, pale skin at her neck.

  Maur leaned on Rowec. “You’re looking lovely this evening, Etta.”

  Rowec snorted. More like underworked and privileged.

  “I know.” She grinned, and her focus wandered to Rowec, as did her hands to his chest. “When are you two planning on digging out the foundation for my father’s extra room?”

  If I had a say? Never. “Can’t wait to abuse some more free labor?” he cut.

  She narrowed her eyes. “I just like your company, Rowec. I like watching you work. We need the extra room for—”

  He huffed. “Tilly and Vin have needed a new roof since last year’s rainy season. Kipper has needed her walls repacked since the fire. The training hut has needed the floor smoothed because we’ve created so many holes with our spears and knives that the warriors twist their ankles while sparring. But I
’ll get right on that extra room for your father.”

  She blinked and said… nothing.

  Silence. Sweet silence. Had she finally understood—

  “Well, how long does all that take?” she asked. “Like a day?”

  He squinted at her, shook his head, and went to move past her.

  She stepped in front of him with a softer gaze. “Are you going hunting tonight?”

  “We’re going out to get paratils f-for the holy day.” Maur swallowed hard. “It’s, uh… it’s, uh, in a few weeks, so we need them to ripen—”

  Rowec sighed. “She knows when the holy day is, Maur.”

  “Right.” He licked his lips. “Right.”

  Etta ignored him but giggled at Rowec. A fake laugh. A lie. A ruse.

  “You’re so big and strong,” she cooed. “One day, I’ll make sure you won’t have to lift a finger unless you want to.” Her fingertips traced the lining of her dress, which barely contained her breasts.

  Rowec, done with the lack of entertainment Etta thought she had provided, moved around her to head out for the jungle.

  “Be safe, you two,” she called after them. “I wouldn’t want my future husband and brother-in-law to get hurt.”

  Rowec nearly stopped, but his orders for the evening were already taking him farther away from that parasite.

  As soon as they were out of earshot at the edge of the jungle, Maur punched him in the arm. “Brother, you have got to be one of the luckiest jerks on this planet.”

  “Funny how you measure luck.”

  “Etta? As a wife? Come on. You have it made.”

  Rowec slid his peicha knife out and cut a path through the brush at his knees. “Not if I can help it.”

  Maur made his own way through the jungle a few lengths beside him. “I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I’d never leave the hut. Coming home to that after every raid?” He whistled. “Not to mention she’s the chief’s only daughter. You’ll be well taken care of forever, and eventually, chief. I mean, that’s the life. She’s perfect in every way.”

  “Until she opens her mouth.”

  Maur snickered. “I happen to like—”

  “She knows absolutely nothing about anything.” He sliced through a branch with fervor. “She doesn’t do anything. She and her family leech off the village, even in droughts. If I become chief, things will be a lot different.” A drooping leaf near his head bobbed as a creature slipped under it.

  He just had to uphold the treaty, prove he was more than just a fighter. More than his father, and his father’s father. If he proved he was more, he could petition the elders and the chief to let him out of their stupid arranged marriage. He could request travel, learn from other cultures, bring back ideas and solutions to help with crop rotation and watering systems. He could stop the clans from needing to fight for certain resources in the first place. He could do more for the people, more for himself, than being chained to that idiot.

  “Can you imagine Etta doing anything?” Maur laughed. “At least she’s nice to look at. And think about.”

  “Imagine how I feel knowing my brother would kill to spend five minutes alone with her, and yet, I’m supposed to marry her.”

  “I know. It’s an absolute nightmare for me. Whack!” Maur liked making annoying sound effects as he chopped his way through the jungle.

  They cut their way toward the patch of paratil trees they knew to be just off the village. But as they neared, it seemed each tree had already been stripped bare. Not one bud. Not one seed left over by animals. Nothing. They’d been picked clean.

  Maur slid his knife into his belt and shimmied up the trunk with its hairy ridges. “They’re all gone,” he called down.

  Rowec followed the trail of trees, using his spear to knock around the leaves above his head. They were all empty. “Did you know the patch went back this far?”

  Maur jumped down from the tree he had climbed with a grunt. “Nope. And it’s too dark to see past ‘em. What do we do?”

  Rowec checked the sliver of moon poking through the canopy. “It’s not too late. We still have time. Let’s follow and see where the patch of trees ends. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “You think it was the Crola? Maybe the Brevtok?” Maur punched a nearby trunk. “Oh man, if I get my hands on one of them again, I’ll teach them what the Zchians do to stealing jerks like them.”

  Rowec scoffed and walked deeper into the darkening jungle. “Ah yes, like stare at them intently while you drop your knife in the dirt? Is that how you’ll teach them a lesson? Because I distinctly remember—”

  “That was one time!” Maur blurted.

  They walked deeper still, past the twisted kingwood trunks and their ashy leaves dipping low with moisture. It was difficult to see, but it was surprising how far the patch of bare paratil trees actually went. They’d never needed to travel this far, this deep. It went on for miles. Or had it circled around?

  They shouldn’t be out this far.

  He checked the sliver of moon. Had it been hours? Damn.

  They had walked all this way into the jungle for nothing, and now the moon was too high, and they had to walk all the way back to the village. He wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.

  “I don’t get it. Who would take all of the fruit?” Maur asked.

  Rowec shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just for the holy day. There’s still plenty of other things to eat from the farms. The chief, however, will need to pick a substitute before the celebration.”

  “What’s over there?” Maur trotted through the jungle somewhere behind Rowec.

  Rowec slapped a buzzing gryllid at his neck and pulled out his canteen of water. “Don’t go too far. We have to head back. We’ve walked for too long.”

  His brother slashed through the brush with additional sounds for emphasis, and then there was silence.

  “Maur?” Rowec called over his shoulder. “We don’t have time for this. If you didn’t find fruit, then we need to—”

  “I found fruit!” his brother squealed from a decent distance away from him. “You’re not going to believe this!”

  Rowec debated joining him since his brother usually enjoyed getting overly excited about the most mundane things. Still, if he’d found paratils, he’d need help carrying them back.

  “Stay there, I’ll come to you,” Rowec said, replacing his knife to his belt loop and his canteen in his bag, and he followed the sound of his brother’s voice.

  Maur burst through the brush at him. “Look! Paratils!”

  Maur’s arms were full of the palm-sized orange orbs; his face was positively radiant. “You are not going to believe what I found. We can take them all. There’s tons!”

  As much as Rowec’s stomach burned and begged him to eat some, as much as his mouth salivated at the thought of sweet juicy nuggets of paratils in their rinds, he simply grabbed them and stuffed them in his pack. “No, we need to get back before it’s too late. Just shove what we can in my pack and we’ll come back—”

  “But there’s a whole field of ‘em. A square place behind a wall full of them.” Maur turned back for the paratils.

  Rowec followed after him. “Wait, Maur. Slow down! What do you mean a wall?”

  “A wall! A great big wall. I scaled it, and on the other side were as many paratils you could eat in a lifetime!”

  When he caught up with his brother, Maur was already halfway up the crude stone wall. Merely two huts high, the wall wasn’t that great, as per usual. Maur always exaggerated.

  “Come on,” Maur urged.

  “No, I don’t think it’s smart. Why is there a wall in the jungle?” Rowec eyed the stonework. Yellow. Smooth. Not Crola. Not Brevtok. Not Manut or Cilta. What in the world was this?

  The other Yvelkian clans wouldn’t go this far into the jungle either. This was… different. He swallowed.

  The elders had their stories of cannibals and evil spirits. But they were stories to keep them from wandering into the forest as
children, to keep them safe from the carnivorous and poisonous creatures.

  Maur was already down on the other side and chucking fistfuls of paratils over the wall at him. Rowec caught them and stuffed every last one into his pack.

  A leaf moved to his left, then a bush to his right.

  He slid his knife out of his pocket so that both his spear and his knife were ready for anything. Low light in the shadow of the canopy, they would be fighting blind. Whoever this wall belonged to would not take kindly to them stealing.

  “Maur, let’s go! We have company!”

  Maur grunted as he reached the top of the wall and then slid down the outside. His mouth was sticky with paratil juice, and he held his hands outright. “Go, go,” he said with a nod.

  They started for the village. Rowec led back through the broken brush with Maur a few feet behind him.

  “Pull out your weapon,” Rowec commanded. It felt like someone— or something—was watching him, following them. He couldn’t hear or see them, but the shiver up his spine told him to run faster. He picked up the pace until a sucking noise followed by a pop made him check over his shoulder. “Are you licking your fingers clean?”

  Maur had fallen behind by twenty or thirty feet. “I couldn’t help it. The paratils were right there. We have to go back tomorrow. We have to see—”

  A shadow tackled Maur to the side; he screamed.

  “Maur!” Rowec turned back, immediately following the trail of his brother’s screams. He struggled with the dense foliage of the vines and tree trunks.

  Maur’s voice was moving. Was he being carried? Dragged? Who the hell was out here? Who could tackle a grown warrior and drag him away that easily?

  “Maur!” he shouted again, following his brother’s cries.

  He turned again toward his brother’s voice, the brush too thick, too dark, to keep up.