Gilded Rose: A Beauty and the Beast Retelling (Celestials Book 1)

by Emma Hamm

  She couldn’t make her way out of the chateau now. They would search for her outside as well as within. Which meant she needed to find some kind of safe nest and give herself a few moments of peace. .

  She didn’t know what kind of safe place she could make with the spiders crawling through their homes, long legs scratching along the ceiling and floor. A few other skitters suggested there were rats. Amicia swallowed hard. Rats were among the few creatures she feared. The tiny beasts always found themselves in the storerooms at her father’s home. She’d always refused to kill them, no matter what project her father was working on.

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Pick a tunnel and continue on, Amicia.

  Turning right, she made her way down a hallway, identical to the one she had just left. This place was a labyrinth, and she could find herself lost if she wasn’t careful.

  She caught her foot on a loose stone and nearly tumbled forward. Biting her lip against the sudden, jarring pain, she leaned against the wall. Amicia reached down to rub her toes, only to realize her hand braced against the stones was touching not just a textured rock but a pattern.

  Stooping low, she stared at the small marker. It was a bunch of grapes. Crudely done, yes, but it was grapes with a small arrow pointing to the left, back down the hall from which she’d came.

  Clever. The grapes must be a direction for the kitchens. Which meant she could look for another clue to see where she was going.

  Wind whistled down the tunnels, ending in a low moan. The hairs on her arms rose. She could see through the faint moonlight the spiderwebs hadn’t been disturbed in years. But that didn’t mean she still wasn’t afraid of the spirits that walked these halls.

  Amicia straightened and continued down the tunnel to distract herself. She didn’t know where she was going, or why she had chosen this route, but she could find out where it went. The small nugget of information would satisfy the curiosity that still sat in her chest.

  Even now, she could feel the dim light of her soul glow brighter with direction and purpose.

  Father’s curiosity, she thought as she walked through the walls. Mother’s bravery. Auntie’s dreams of the future. Uncle’s kindness. She listed all the things that made her the person she was, the things she could never forget. All the traits she had taken from her family, and thus had turned her into the woman she was.

  All the things that made her stronger. Not just the lost woman in the walls.

  The next four way meeting of tunnels held three new symbols. A book, a diamond ring, and a crescent moon.

  Amicia pondered for a time. The book must be a marker for a library, which she would greatly enjoy seeing if the circumstances were different. But she knew if she went, she would give up. It was better to die doing something she loved, such as reading a book, than hiding in the walls like a mouse. She simply wasn’t ready to die yet.

  The diamond ring stumped her, although she supposed it could be a symbol for one of the nobles who had lived here. She didn’t want to find a room to sleep in, for that could only end the same way as the library. They would sniff her out.

  Which meant the only other option was the moon. The strangest symbol of them all.

  Breathing out a low breath, she picked webs out of her hair as she traveled straight forward and followed the markers of the moon. Strangely, she came to a set of stairs.

  The spiral staircase had seen better days. There were small grooves in each step where thousands of footsteps had worn the stone into a different shape. Somehow, that was the most reassuring thing she’d seen in this place yet.

  This chateau was not cursed. It had once been a place for the living, a home where people had walked through these walls to serve those they worked for. This was a place she could live if the Dread hadn’t destroyed the world.

  Amicia reached out a hand and pressed it against the wall where it had been smoothed by thousands of hands steadying themselves. Her fingers caught on the smallest of carvings, unlike the others. E + S. A love letter, perhaps? Smiling, she made her way up the dark staircase.

  The light faded behind her until she couldn’t even see her hand where it rested. But she continued, picking her way in the blackness and focusing on her breathing.

  Finally, she turned a corner, and light assaulted her eyes. She blinked against the haze of brightness, lifting a hand to shield herself from the gleaming moonlight.

  She looked down at her dust and web-covered skirts, only to see a rainbow of colors cast upon the worn fabric.

  “What?” she whispered, stepping into the most beautiful room she had ever seen in her life.

  White marble pillars stood at attention, one after the other against the wall where they had been carved into tree trunks. Where leaves might have been, stained glass stretched toward the ceiling. Intricately placed glass shards made it look like a hundred colors decorated each individual tree.

  It was a forest of glass and stone. Man made, and yet so beautiful that it rivaled nature itself.

  Jaw agape, she stepped into the room and pressed her hands against her mouth. But her body wanted to gasp. Somehow, not acknowledging the artistic achievement of the room felt sacrilegious.

  The room was empty. No furniture. No paintings. Nothing more than glass, stone, and the moonlight filtering through the false leaves. And yet, this room was the first she had seen that did not appear to have fallen into disrepair.

  Exhaustion nearly swallowed her whole. She was so tired, her limbs aching. Perhaps, for a few moments, she could rest her head here.

  Amicia made her way to the farthest corner, close to where the servants’ stairs began, and curled up into a ball on the cold marble floor. Tomorrow, she would investigate this place further. Tomorrow she would find out why these creatures were in this chateau, and perhaps if they had more of her people hidden away.

  Tomorrow. But no sooner.

  Chapter 6

  The King of the Dread braced his hands on the remains of the table, a crack down the center long forgotten. Had he done that in one of his rages? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember much these days.

  The sound of the Dread hunting filled the halls of the chateau. Hours upon hours of the same noise. Howls, brays, the calls of animals, even though they were not.

  Something in his head reminded him they weren’t beasts. They weren’t meant to lose their minds and thirst for the thrill of the chase, for blood on their tongues and for meat in their bellies.

  Once, they hadn’t been like this.

  But he couldn’t remember why he thought such things. Some memory in his mind was always just out of reach.

  He stared down at his clawed hands. They hadn’t been like that always, had they? Thoughts like this were dangerous. They could drag him down into a tunnel he would lose himself in. It would be months before he surfaced, finding his people wandering about the kingdom with no direction.

  No. He wouldn’t allow his mind to wander once again.

  Pushing away from the table, he stared around the ruined remains of his room. There was little here for him. A bed once graced the corner. Four posts had been carved with images of the hunt, hounds chasing rabbits up each lovingly created piece. Now, the bed and its crimson sheets were little more than scraps. The rug had long been tainted by earth and dust. His clawed feet had marked even the stones.

  He didn’t know why that disappointed him so much. He didn’t care about the state of the chateau. This place wasn’t his home. It was a means to an end, that was all.

  And yet, sometimes it felt as though it were more. As though he remembered it in a different light. Once golden and shining with beauty, instead of ruin and rust.

  The braying of his people broke through his concentration once again. Just when his mind might have offered a tidbit of a memory, something that might give him answers for why he was the way he was. Why his people were—

  Something crashed, breaking against the floor like a hundred glasses all striking the ground at once.<
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  “Enough!” he roared. His guttural voice echoed through the halls.

  The King of the Dread crashed out the door of his private quarters, thundering into the hall with animalistic screams of rage. No more sound. He couldn’t suffer through any more sound.

  The first of the Dread he found was a smaller creature, with thin legs and hungry eyes darting from side to side. He snatched it from the ground, holding it aloft with his hand around its throat. Shaking the creature hard, he tossed it aside.

  Its head struck the wall, and the creature stopped moving. He didn’t stop to see if it was still breathing. He didn’t care. They were making noise and damned if he could handle it anymore. A little blood wouldn’t hurt the cursed beasts. They were nearly impossible to kill.

  Over and over, he stalked through the castle, shaking the creatures so hard he was certain their teeth must have rattled in their skulls. He hadn’t been so brutal to his own people in a long time. He couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted to tear them all limb from limb.

  When he finished, he stood in the center of the Great Hall with all the marble statues staring at him. A cold wind blew through the broken windows and chilled the sweat slicking his chest. The chandeliers dripping ice above him clicked, their music not enough to calm the anger in his chest.

  What was different? He had completed changing all the humans in this kingdom, other than a single one who had escaped his horde. Just one more little human, and he would be cured. His curse lifted.

  But he couldn’t remember what the curse even was. He felt as though he’d always been this monster. He’d always had claws and wings, always had these horns that could tear through bodies if he wished.

  Was it turning the man? Surely not. He had turned a thousand men into the Dread before and felt no remorse or guilt. They would live a happier life with him, anyway. Their needs cared for. Their inner demons allowed to break free and run loose as they wished.

  A flash of memory lanced through his mind with blistering pain. A pale face peering through the doorway at him as he gave the signal to turn the man into one of his own.

  He didn’t remember this. If a small human had found her way into the chateau, he would have known it, would have sent his creatures to hunt her even as they hunted one of the humans who had escaped the dungeons below.

  But this human he hadn’t recognized. He had walked through the dungeons himself, counted every human and remembered their faces before he turned them into the Dread. As he always did.

  This one wasn’t from the dungeons. Her heart-shaped face was one he couldn’t forget. The red bow of her lips, the high cheekbones, and dark arched brows, perhaps too thick for her face. He would have remembered the tumbling chestnut curls, and the dirt smudged on her cheek.

  He would have remembered.

  So this was what his mind had been trying to tell him. Why his body wanted to break things and rage coursed through his veins.

  The one human they were missing had come to find her brethren and perhaps release them. But she was here, and she was the one his Dread were trying to find.

  A sudden burst of energy had him spinning, wings spread wide and a wicked grin on his face. He reached for the first Dread he came upon. Clawed hands speared through the fabric of its tattered shirt, and he lifted it up to his face.

  A memory bloomed, another precious and rare gift. Of a place high in the towers of the chateau where he had once found solace. A forest indoors, glowing with the light of the sun.

  “She’s in the sanctuary,” he snarled. “And she’s the last one.”

  “Master?”

  “She’s in the sanctuary!” He dropped the Dread and joined the hunt himself. “Go. Now!”

  Chapter 7

  Amicia only managed a few hours of sleep before the haunting calls of the Dread woke her. The trilling hoots and guttural howls could only mean they were still searching for her. She huddled into a ball at the corner of the room, staring at the door that led out of the beautiful, glass forest.

  Wind howled outside and rattled the delicate glass panes. The storm surrounded the chateau in full force now. She couldn’t imagine how much snow it had dumped upon the world, but it didn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon.

  The Dread could burst through at any moment, having caught her unique scent. Eventually, they would find her.

  In the hazy fog of exhaustion, she wondered if there was any reason to be running. They would capture her no matter what she did. They would hunt her down, find her in a heartbeat, and then she would be just like them.

  The creatures didn’t appear all that… well, sad. In fact, all the creatures appeared to remember nothing of what they were. If they did, they wouldn’t hunt humans down. The thought only served to create more questions in her mind, namely, what did the Dread eat?

  She pushed herself up onto her feet, holding onto the wall for a bit of balance, and then took a single step to the wooden door.

  Her father’s voice whispered in her ear. She wasn’t this kind of person. She couldn’t give up this easily. Life was worth living, even if it was only for a few more days.

  There were secrets here. Things she could discover to distract herself. And perhaps, she would be the only human alive to know the secrets. That was enough to keep herself awake and going.

  Knowledge was the meaning of life, her father always had said. Humans were meant to discover, and that meant she needed to find answers for herself.

  Who were the Dread? Why were they here of all places? What were they doing with her people?

  She already had one answer. They were turning the humans into their own kind, but the answer wasn’t complete. Perhaps they couldn’t have children of their own, although she had yet to see a female Dread.

  Questions like this were a start. She could breathe a little easier knowing she had a purpose more than running away from the monsters and waiting until the storm had passed.

  Instead of taking another step toward the door, she turned back to the alcove that led back down into the hidden area where the servants had traveled. Carefully, with her back curved, she slunk back down into the realm of spiders and webs, wary of the peepholes.

  The light had dimmed to complete blackness as the storm blotted out even the thin moonlight lighting the room before. Soon, she found herself in nothing more than a tomb. Sounds whispered through the walls. Only her ragged breath kept her company, and the rough walls beneath her fingertips. The tips ached with cold and were gritty with dirt.

  She smoothed her hand over the first marker on the wall, the grapes, which meant there was a crossroad around her. Her eyes saw only darkness. Her heart beat faster as fear tinged her bravery.

  Could the Dread see in the dark? Their eyes were strange, inhuman, yellow, and slitted like a cat’s. She would never forget the way one of the creatures had stared at her through the broken door of the kitchen. There had been only hunger in its gaze, no kindness, no thought, just rage that its prey had eluded it.

  Shivering, she ran her fingers over the next symbol. A small open book with an arrow leading forward.

  Libraries were always a safe place to start. There might be books about the Dread, and if there was the slightest of chances, then she had to try.

  They will not stop hunting you, Amicia. So you must be brave.

  She put one foot in front of the other, continuing onward and forward. Just as her father would have wished.

  The passage of time seemed to slow. Or perhaps speed up as she made her way through the walls of the chateau. She couldn’t tell how long she shambled onward, only that her legs were tired and her back ached. The chateau had been massive from her view outside, but this felt like a long journey through a building that must eventually end.

  When she reached the library, she was ready to fall over. If only she had a few hours to lay her head down and sleep. She wanted to dream of a time when she hadn’t been frightened and there had been people surrounding her with love and support. Not
monsters who hunted her, listening to the plaster walls as if she were a rat they needed to catch.

  Finally, her fingers bumped against a loose stone. Just like the one that had opened the small hatch in the kitchens.

  Now, she thought, staring down at the rock even though she could see nothing in the inky darkness. Do it now, or you will rot in these walls forever.

  She pushed the stone in and watched as a person-sized stone shifted to the side. The light burned her eyes, but she kept them open wide. She didn’t want to be caught unaware if one of the Dread was waiting for her.

  When nothing growled or raced forward at her, she took a deep breath and stepped into the library.

  The chateau itself had glimmered with grandeur, therefore she had assumed the library would be splendid. Something that was meant to be admired but never used. Such was not the case of the library of this haunted place.

  Gothic windows made up an entire wall, their arched peaks looking as though they were taken out of a church. The storm blustered outside. Hail and snow slapped against the windows and made the view nothing more than a blanket of undulating white.

  Bookcases surrounded the rest of the room. Warm wooden bookcases, lovingly crafted with no carvings or exaggerated beauty. They were nothing more than sturdy and made to last. Leather-bound books filled their shelves, but only a few feet higher than a person, so everyone could reach a book.

  She had expected everything to be covered in a fine layer of dust. Or at the very least, the books to be shredded like the rest of the chateau. But this place was like stepping back in time. Everything was pristine, old perhaps, but still clean.

  The smell of old parchment paper filled her nose. How long had it been since she’d smelled parchment? All the books her father had were written on vellum to preserve them longer. Parchment was rare, and only the churches had those delicate pages in their grasp.

  She took a few more steps into the library, listening for any sounds other than her own. She heard nothing, not even claws scraping the floors outside the impressive mahogany door leading out into the chateau beyond.