“Where is she, Alvaro?”
Alvaro stood and stalked towards the fire. “Manok, just listen to me. Wait.”
“Where is she?” Manok asked again, just as calm and inoffensive as before.
The giant of a man studied him from behind his mask. His heart hurt. His chest ached. Everything within him bled in agony. No. It was too soon. She would be gone. He had not expected, had not dared to hope, that she would stay forever, but he had wanted just a little more time. He sighed. Manok was second only to Menawa. He could not defy the eldest son. “She is here…come out, Keturah.”
Keturah stayed in her corner. She had turned off her ears, everything, because if she listened to the words she heard, she knew that she would make a sound, make a mistake. He knew. He knew what she was…and he was going to take her away. No. Maybe if she stayed hidden, if they could not find her. It was childish, like a little girl who thought that if she closed her eyes that others could not see her.
“Keturah,” Alvaro called again, more firmly this time. “Do not think you can hide from me. Did you think that I would not know you were here? In my home? Surrounded by my magic?” He turned and looked straight at her little alcove, although he could not see clear enough into the darkness and the heavy shadows cast by the fire to see her eyes.
Keturah blinked, returning to the present, and she swallowed before pulling herself out of her nook. She stood and took a slow, steady breath, moving out of the shadows and into the light. Manok turned in his seat and looked to the small creature emerging. That was her. The girl with two-toned eyes and hair like a midnight sky with a new moon.
Alvaro looked to her, and Keturah glanced at him for only a moment, but it was far too painful a sight. His brown eyes held such sorrow, such pain and frustration for her and because of her, that she could not look at them and instead faced the stranger in the room. Manok remained seated, and he was a bit shorter than Keturah while he sat. Only Alvaro was tall enough to be her height sitting in one of those chairs. She stood before him almost protectively, and that made Manok smile just a bit. “Keturah,” he greeted.
“Bastard,” she replied in a low snarl.
“Keturah,” Alvaro chided, a warning in his voice.
Manok did not seem insulted or even bothered, really. Instead, he leaned forward with his hands clasped before him. “Keturah,” he said once more. “I know who you are… what I came here to find out is…do you?”
She frowned at him, glaring really, not understanding what it was he was asking of her. She just looked to the man with dark, wood-brown eyes and shook her head. “I do not understand what you want me to say.”
Manok considered her and nodded slowly. “I understand…Alvaro,” he looked up to the man standing behind her, “explain to her why women are not allowed here. Go on, tell her.”
Alvaro looked back at him helplessly. “Manok, why are you doing this? If you must report her existence here, then do so, but do not torment me this way.”
Manok looked back at him, unable to convey his thoughts, unable to relinquish his younger brother from pain. He merely sighed. “Alvaro…as heir to the clan…I order you to tell her.”
Alvaro recoiled at that, and a look of betrayal crossed his face. Keturah turned and looked to him with confusion, not understanding what lay between them. Alvaro sighed and clenched his hands in bitter surrender. “Keturah…” he said softly, looking down at her with those warm, brown eyes. Keturah wanted to kill the bastard who had made them so heartbroken.
“It is a sorcerer who cursed me, the same one who taught me magic. My father broke his word to the Dark Sorcerer, and so I was cursed. And then…on my own behalf, my mother made a bargain with the Beast…in return for my being raised as his heir of magic, gifted with spells my people consider cursed…the Dark Sorcerer was to find for me a suitable mate…” He shook his head. “But the Beast returned only with the Hawthorne rose, saying that it belonged to the beauty. He did not tell us her name or her family or anything. We did not know who she was. And then…he was gone. We did not find him again.”
Keturah let the words sink into her with both dread and elation. All of the puzzles began to fit together in her mind, something which had been forming for nearly two decades. All for this moment. She shook her head slowly, backing away from him because she did not want to remember. She did not want to remember the Dark Sorcerer who had ruined her family, who had abandoned her, given her false promises. She looked back to Alvaro’s wounded eyes with anger and sorrow, not for him, but for the one who she blamed for her suffering.
Alvaro watched her and forced himself to continue, “Since then…women have been forbidden here until…until she can be found. My father did not want anything to get in the way of keeping his promise to the Beast…but…” he smiled faintly beneath the mask, “but then you came here… Keturah, you are…nothing else—nothing else matters…I fell in love with you, Keturah…”
“No,” she said, watching him. “You told me that you had no desire for human women. You told me that I was safe here…”
“Keturah…” he reached for her, but she moved back, glaring at him. “I…you are safe here. I would never harm you. Never. I couldn’t hurt you. Never, Keturah, listen to me.”
“You lied to me…” she whispered, glaring at him, because she was too angry at things she did not want to remember and had nowhere to direct it to but the man in front of her.
“Keturah,” he gasped past the lump in his throat. Seeing her look at him like that…seeing her back away from him with so much pain and anguish in her eyes—it was unbearable. All he wanted was to make it stop, to wipe away that look in her eyes. As the first hot tear rolled down her cheek, he nearly lost control.
“I…I’m sorry…” he whispered hoarsely, not even sure if she could understand his words with how rough and harsh his voice was in a whisper. “Keturah…” he reached for her once more, and again, she pulled away from him. “Forgive me…Keturah, I—Keturah!”
She turned from him all at once, bolting out of the room. She threw the door open and ran past it, ran barefooted down the plush, carpeted halls. The whole manor trembled in his sorrow, the walls creaking and moaning, floors trembling beneath her feet. Keturah fell once, crashing to the ground, and then was up once again and running.
“What have you done…?” Alvaro whispered, not certain if he was speaking to himself or to Manok. He trembled there in the room, tears soaking his face beneath the mask. He looked to Manok who sat in the chair, looking down at his hands with an unreadable expression. “What have you done!” he roared, and the whole room shook with the sound. Windows cracked, and the stone fireplace shifted in its setting. Alvaro landed on Manok with blind fury, hauling him up and shaking him by the collar of his throat.
“Was it not enough that you had to take everything from me! Was it not enough to have ruined the only thing in this world that I desired! Could I not have one comfort in this world!” He roared at Manok, and his older brother stared back passively, letting the torrent rage. Alvaro stared at him and then dropped him back into the chair, turning away and facing the fire. “It was enough to take her from me…why did you make her hate me?”
“You are the one who lied. I would not have had to come to you if you two were not so insistent on keeping secrets,” Manok said, getting out of the chair with a grunt and sighing, straightening his vest. He watched the back of his host with pain in his eyes.
He did not enjoy such suffering, but he could not stop it. This had to be her own choice, in clear conscience. It was his own fault that she had suffered so much, and he would not hold her to her promise after all that she had gone through. For it was not Manok who stood in that room with Alvaro. It was the Dark Sorcerer in Manok’s form. He watched the boy he loved and trained for years hit his knees before the fire and sob, pulling the mask away from his face and covering his eyes with his other hand. But there was no other way.
“I should go,” said the Beast, still in Manok’s f
orm, and he left Alvaro there at the hearth and returned to the halls once more.
Keturah had run from the room and down the stairs, down through the open doors and out to the garden, to her sanctuary. The spring was bitter and cold. She had arrived several months ago in mid fall, but still the remnants of winter remained, and a frozen death had descended upon the mountains. It was nothing to be trifled with, certainly not in only a tunic and breeches with no cloak or shoes. But she stood out in the cold because it was the only thing that brought any peace to her mind.
And that was when she saw it.
There, on the thorny monster she had worked so hard to tame, a single bloom had formed. She had no idea how or why, for it was far too cold for any plant or flower to blossom. But on that bush of thorns, a beautiful, dark violet bud had burst into a full flower. She surely had not seen it earlier today, but there it was all the same, more lovely than anything she had ever before in her life seen.
“So that’s what they are…” she whispered softly to herself, moving towards the bush. She had not seen them in so long, not since her days in Hawthorne manor. “…they’re roses…” The ugly, terrible bush had revealed a beauty unlike any other.
“So now you know,” said the Dark Sorcerer, stepping into the gardens in his true form. She turned and looked to him, and her eyes filled with alarm and horror and rage at the same time. Wrapped in his cloak, even with the fading light of day against him, all was dark and fathomless against him. Only the blue of his eyes could be seen.
“You!” she screamed at him, drawing her arms up to her chest and staring in both shock and loathing. “You vile son of a bitch!” The Beast frowned a bit. She certainly had expanded her vocabulary in the most undesirable manner since last they met. “How dare you come here! How dare you face me again!”
He watched her calmly. “Is that all?” he asked her. “Are you so angry with me that you screamed at Alvaro?”
She recoiled from him and then hissed. “Don’t you dare speak his name. You have ruined everything! My life and his! You’ve tormented us!”
He turned his head just a bit. “And how have I done such a thing?”
She took a step boldly towards him, screaming, “How! Even after I gave you my word, you destroyed my family! We lost everything! My father died and I was thrown out into the streets! Where were you, then, Beast! Where were either of you!”
He watched her with great pain in his eyes and shook his head. “That was not of my doing, my lady, I assure you. The demon who hunts you, Alexzander. He ruined your father’s business and saw to it that the late duke was poisoned and his daughters all stupidly married off to his own men. It was by his design that no one took you in.” She watched him in horror, reclaiming her step back once more. “I knew nothing of this. When I decided to check on your family…it had all happened so fast. One year, you were prosperous and well… and by the end of it…your father was dead, your sisters murdered, and you…you were nowhere to be found.” He sighed, looking at her miserably. “Had I but known that Alexzander’s spell was used to hide you, I could have easily broken it. But I had not guessed any sorcerer was fool enough to cross me.”
“No…no…” she shook her head, cursing Alexzander’s name, tears burning down her face as she watched him, unable to not listen to his words.
“Isabella…”
“No!” she cried, gasping back a sob. “No…I have not been Isabella in a long…long time.”
He closed his mouth with a sigh but then tried again, “Keturah, then…I searched for you all this time…I have done nothing but scour the earth for you, dearest child…I enchanted the Hawthorne rose to find you and sent the Darkwaters looking for you as well…”
“The rose…” Keturah whispered softly. “That was how she knew who I was…Lady Darkwaters…”
He smiled just a bit. “Indeed it was. She knew the moment she saw you who you were…betrothed to her second-borne son.”
Her eyes widened just a bit. “Alvaro…he is… Menawa’s son.”
He nodded. “Indeed. And I have done as I have said. I have informed the Lord and Lady Darkwaters that their son’s beloved has returned to him…you will not be taken from Alvaro…that is…if you wish to stay.”
“What?” she hissed, glaring up at him, no longer crying but her face red and her eyes still liquid pools of darkness.
He inclined his head to her. “When I made that bargain …it was with the understanding that you would be raised as a duchess, safe, protected. I have failed you, Keturah…and I will not hold you to your promise to me. I consider our agreement null and void…” She merely watched him, staring him down. “I know what demons haunt you…and if you wish to leave this place…I will not stop you…”
She turned her back to him, shoulders trembling, mind racing. She turned her face up to the darkening sky, letting so many emotions flood through and around and out of her again. “Alvaro…he is the beast you spoke of…”
“Yes…the form of a monster and the heart of a man…he is what I promised you.”
Keturah looked at him then, and her eyes were pitifully sad and bitter. “But I am not what you promised him…I am neither maiden nor lady, nor am I anything desirable in a wife…Alvaro is only too lonely to see that.”
He shook his head at her. “And who are you to decide such for him, Keturah? What insight have you to know the hearts of mortals?” She opened her mouth, but he silenced her with a booming voice, “Listen, child, for now I will speak. What worth have you? You are brave and loyal. You have darkened your own soul to protect a child who was never yours to protect. You have given grace to a monster who has been shown none. You have taken a prison and turned it into a home—a place of laughter and warmth.”
She watched him, shaking her head slowly but watching him, silent.
“Nothing else matters. Let him decide if you are worthy to be his wife. But you cannot tell me that you are not. You do not know his heart. You have not seen the years of his suffering as I have. Do not pretend to know his thoughts, you who have lived but a mere second of time.”
She turned away from him once more, facing something he could not see, whether by cruel fate or Alexzander’s design. “Who am I then?” she asked softly, helplessly.
He sighed, feeling at last that he might have reached her. “You are Keturah, you are Ketan, and you are Isabella. You have never changed. No one ever really changes who they are. You are still the brave, bold little girl who smiled at me when her whole household trembled in fear…just as a rose…beautiful and frightening and fierce…”
“A rose…” she said softly, her eyes on the violet bloom with crimson red in the center. She closed her eyes and smiled, somewhat sweetly and somewhat sadly as well. “Do you think…” she said softly, “that perhaps…this time…I could give him my own?” He frowned at her, not understanding her meaning. “You gave his mother my mother’s rose…this time…I would like to give him one of my own roses…”
He moved towards her, confused because roses did not bloom that time of year, at least not outside one of the glass houses. And the garden certainly bore no evidence of anything living at all. But when he moved closer, he saw it, the dark, velvet rose on the dead bush. “No!” he cried as she reached for it. “Do not touch that flower!”
But he was too late.
As Keturah’s hand clasped the stem, the once small-looking thorns thrust out from the stem and pierced her flesh, sinking their dark poison into her blood. Red-hot fire seared her flesh and poured into her blood, and Keturah screamed with the agony of it, arching her back, her eyes going wide. And then, she collapsed into the arms of the Dark Sorcerer, cold and unbreathing.
A Beast’s Tale
“I have returned to you, madam.” My voice is grating and low when I step slowly into the manor. My boots thump upon the ground, a sound that echoes in the open room. My cape gives a little snap as it parts, revealing a fragment of the shadow lingering beneath. Such a beautiful manor as this one is il
luminated like a cave. Heavy drapes cover the many windows, and the mother stands in darkness, holding a small candelabra in her hand.
She is here, and I can sense no other with the exception of the boy, who is now seven years old. He is as tall as his mother’s chest and wider than her, his face just as deformed and twisted as the night I first saw him many years ago, his brown eyes just as sad and lonesome. He looks upon me without speaking, dark eyes hidden beneath dark brows, tiny fangs protruding from beneath his lips.
I do not know why they are up so late, but I turn to where they had been going and catch sight of the gardens beyond the glass. Even in the moonlight, I can see flickers of color, beautiful blooms on tall vines and fat, green bushes. The fountains bubble behind me, and night-creatures shift about in their sacred darkness.
“You!” she gasps, alarmed, standing in all of her regalia, her beautiful dress, her ornaments and perfumes, pushing her son behind her and straightening to her full height in order to face me. Slowly, I turn back to her and watch those steel-blue eyes pin me in my place. So few have ever dared to stand against me. Both of the Lady Darkwaters are the only women to ever do so. Them and my beloved.
But I bow low at the waist, although I am not much smaller for it. I hold out my hand, offering the delicate Hawthorne Rose to her, an object which the little duchess had needed both hands to hold and which now lays like a tiny ornament within my palm. “I give you, my Lady Darkwaters, the beauty’s rose.”
“The…beauty’s rose?” asks she, reaching out hesitantly with her free hand and grasping the stem. Although it is not half so small to her, the brooch is still fairly large in her hand, as if somehow having grown to accommodate its larger mistress. She stares down at it, studying the magnificence and beauty of the thing.
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