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

by Emma Hamm

  She checked to make sure the creature hadn’t moved closer. But she was surprised to see the creature’s back was to her. It continued to stir the pot of boiling soup as if it hadn’t heard her snatch something to eat.

  What was this game? She hadn’t seen a single Dread who didn’t hunt her, all humans, to change into monsters like themselves.

  And yet, this one remained cooking without a care in the world. It didn’t look in her direction, although she could see its head was still tilted toward the wall.

  Could this be some game where the monster was trying to fatten her up before it lunged?

  The Dread picked up the pot of boiling soup. Both hands on either side of the metal handles, and no covering to protect it from the heat. It brought the large container over to the table nearest to her. If there hadn’t been a wall between them, she could have reached out and touched the monster’s back.

  “Not all of us want to be monsters.” The guttural voice that rumbled out of the creature was like that of stone grinding upon stone. She’d only heard such a sound once, when a rockslide had nearly overtaken Little Marsh.

  All the hairs on her arms rose in fear. Slowly, the words processed.

  What could the beast mean? Of course, they didn’t want to be monsters. Who would choose to be one of the Dread?

  But Remy… When they’d changed him, it hadn’t appeared that he’d recognized who he was. That was why she’d theorized all the Dread were mindless beasts, enslaved to the ideas and desires all the others had.

  If this creature claimed otherwise… Well, her theory wasn’t correct.

  She pressed herself closer to the wall until she could see the entire room. The Dread was alone, unarmed other than a pot of boiling soup. Of course, the beast could also kill her without having to worry about a weapon. It could pick up boiling pots with its bare hands.

  Clearing her throat, she whispered against the wall, “Can you understand me?”

  “I can. It’s not safe for you to wander around the chateau, mon chat.” It never turned around. Not once.

  “I have no food,” she replied.

  “And I have given you food so you might not need to endanger yourself further. Tuck yourself into a small corner of the chateau and wait for them to grow bored. Then run.”

  She desired nothing more than to run. She would have fled from this place if she could have, but the storm raging outside made that impossible. Had this creature not seen the storm blowing snow against every window in the chateau?

  “I am not so hardy as your kind,” she admitted, her tone begrudging and her teeth grinding. “The snow will kill me.”

  “Then find another way,” the creature urged.

  “If there was another way, I would have found it by now.”

  The Dread picked up a knife and began to chop an onion on the table before it. “Leave, little human. This is not the place for you.”

  “Why are they hunting me?” The question blurted from between her lips before she could even give it permission to flee her body. She pressed so close to the wall that every breath squeezed her ribs against the stone. “What could be so interesting about a single loose human?”

  The Dread froze in place. Its hands closed more firmly around the knife. The movement seemed involuntary.

  The Dread cleared its throat. “Return later on tonight, mon chat. It is too dangerous to answer questions when so many are still hunting.”

  She wanted to push. She wanted to know what the creature did, but something had spooked this Dread. She didn’t want to linger when the nightmare of monsters arrived.

  She picked up the basket of food and made her way back through the walls until she could find the small stained glass nook where she would await the darkness of night, and her answers.

  Chapter 9

  “Master.” The growled tones didn’t speak well of the report he was about to receive. “We cannot find the woman.”

  “She’s in the walls,” he snarled. “How hard can it be to find a single woman, still within the chateau?”

  “We’ve searched everywhere, even torn into the walls. But she slips past us every time. We’re too big to fit where she hides.”

  “Search harder!” His shout echoed through the rafters of his private quarters. Perhaps he was being too harsh on the creature who wanted nothing more than to please him. And yet, he couldn’t stop the rage that coursed through his veins.

  This was a human woman. Not a human general who had studied the tactics of war and secrecy. This was just a woman, a small one who had tucked herself into some nook in his home where they could not sniff her out.

  He had never been bested by another creature before. That part of his memory, although hazy, remained. The righteous indignation that someone like her could survive this long without his army finding her?

  The Dread were the most terrifying beasts in the land. Humans trembled at the mere mention of his forces, and yet this woman had managed to not only evade him, but send a wave of uncertainty throughout the ranks.

  He hunched over the remains of what might have been a desk in his chambers. His wings opened and closed, flaring rhythmically behind him. He didn’t know what to do in this moment. Punish the messenger?

  He curled his claws into his fists. The need for blood and screams swelled in his body, lifting his chest and opening his wings wider than ever before. He could crush this minion who cowered before him, and yet it wouldn’t be a worthy fight.

  The creature would die screaming. And then all this frustration and need would remain built up in him until he couldn’t think. Couldn’t function.

  “Get out,” he snarled. The King of the Dread did not admit defeat. He couldn’t. “Bring in the newest of our ranks.”

  “As you wish, Master.”

  The Dread commander left the room, closing the door behind him.

  For once in his life, he wanted someone to not tiptoe around him. The Dread knew they were required to do so or he would rip their throats out of their bodies. But perhaps someday he would find someone who wasn’t afraid. Someone who could treat him less like a god and more like….

  A man?

  No that wasn’t the right word. He didn’t want to be human, nor did he believe he had ever been human. That wasn’t the correct word, and yet there was something dancing out of his reach. Something in his mind that hovered at the brink of existence, taunting him with a memory that could change everything.

  He wouldn’t let the past get the better of him. He’d never remember the things hidden in his mind. The curse prevented any of such secrecy being revealed to him. Which meant spending time thinking about such things would only make him angrier.

  The door cracked open and a pale gray wing inched through. “Master?”

  The new recruit had learned the appropriate way to address him. The King leaned back in the ruined chair he sat upon and waved a hand, though the newest of the Dread couldn’t see his gesture. “Come forward.”

  The Dread that stepped through the door was… scrawny to say the least. His people were strong in form and mind. They were an army that functioned without the need of a Master most of the time. They knew how to move and what he desired without him having to ask such things.

  This boy had a long way to go before he would ever be like that. The wiry muscles on his form were, perhaps, satisfactory, although they were that of a man who hadn’t worked in the fields just yet. Most of the ones from Little Marsh were the same as he.

  They had few farmers in this kingdom. They were more likely to be artisans, or have a small garden in the back. Those who lived safely within the walls were little more than pretty baubles, or carried the others on their backs.

  He heaved a great sigh and leaned his chin on a fist. “Do you know who I am?”

  “The King of the Dread.” The boy held his wings snapped shut so tight to his back they might suction onto his shoulder blades if he wasn’t careful. “I have heard of you.”

  “From whom?”
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  “The others.” The boy gestured back to the door. “They say you are the greatest of our kind.”

  “Our kind?” he repeated, shifting a little. His wings began to open and close behind him once more. “Rather early for you to already be claiming to be one of us.”

  “Am I not? Where else would I go like this?”

  The boy had a point. As the King of the Dread, he had never had a moment where he could leave them. This chateau and his people were a prison and a responsibility. A deadly combination creating more resentment than he wished to admit.

  Such a memory stung in his mind’s eye. He’d never resented the Dread. They were his pride and joy. He knew where they came from, what had created them, and he knew their value. Why then could he remember the vague taste of disappointment? Of entrapment?

  Of fear?

  The King of the Dread shook himself and stood, his great height towering over the boy that had only just begun to grow into his wings. He strode toward the child and tucked a finger under his chin.

  “You are one of us now,” he drawled. “But you still have to prove yourself.”

  What he saw in the child’s eye was the same as so many of the others. Hope, that his new king wasn’t really a monster. Dedication, for he didn’t want to enrage the beast with claws grazing his throat. And the lingering edge of sadness, at the loss of a life he hadn’t chosen to lose.

  “Anything, Master,” the boy replied. “I wish to serve you.”

  Dangerous words.

  The King of the Dread lowered his hand from the boy’s chin and patted his shoulder. “You knew the girl once. You should know how to hunt her down, even if you don’t remember why. Can you do that for me?”

  The boy’s wings drew even tighter, if such a thing was possible. But he nodded and replied, “Yes, Master. Anything.”

  Chapter 10

  Amicia waited until nightfall to slip back through the secret passageways toward the kitchens. She wished her father was here with her. He would have appreciated the mystery around this place. He would have gone through these servants’ quarters with her, a mischievous grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye. She would have giggled even though they were supposed to be silent.

  Amicia followed the grape carvings in the wall and could almost see the ghost of her father ahead. He slipped through the corridors and told her to continue forward, to find out the mystery of this place and satisfy the burning need inside her to know.

  He’d always wanted her to do that. No matter what question she had, he let her know it was valued. A woman shouldn’t be kept away from schooling, he’d always said. They were just as important as the men, and they should know the answers to their questions.

  The shadows had lengthened in the corridors. Candles might have lit them from the small holes in the walls, but the chateau appeared to have fallen asleep. Barefoot still, making certain she was almost impossible to hear, Amicia made her way back to the strange kitchens.

  Her father had always had a way with words. She, not at all. Amicia had always listened to the stories with rapt attention, but she had never replicated the fervor of words. Painting pictures with her voice wasn’t a talent she’d ever acquired.

  The story was burned in her mind as she rounded the last corner and pressed her eye to the hole. The kitchen on the other side of the wall had fallen into darkness like the rest of the chateau. No candles were lit, nor was there anyone else in the space.

  The creature had told her to meet it in the kitchens, when the sun fell. So why wasn’t it here?

  Amicia pressed closer to the hole, peering through and hoping she hadn’t been wrong. Surely, this wasn’t a trap. Surely, there was someone in this god forsaken place that she could trust.

  Or was it just her heart had wished to not be so lonely?

  On the table where the creature had been preparing the food was a small sliver of paper. It gleamed in the moonlight, folded until the edge was sharp as a knife.

  A message? Had the King of these beasts, the one who looked like a mountain, somehow caught the Dread who had given her some food? She hated to think anyone could be so cruel, and yet she was certain that creature would have punished any of his people who had not joined the hunt. Let alone one who had helped her evade them for even longer.

  Glancing around, she tried to find a way to enter the formal kitchen. There didn’t appear to be any hidden secret doors to this room. The servants weren’t permitted to leave this place without exiting the proper way.

  Strange.

  She had always thought hidden corridors behind the walls were for servants. Now, she wondered if this one was less for the servants and more for their masters.

  The only way she could get into the kitchen beyond had been made by the creature itself. The hole in which it had slid the food to her was large enough to fit through. She sank onto her hands and knees, then crawled through the opening.

  Plaster scraped against her skin, catching on her ragged and dirty clothes, only to crumble into white dust. She wished there was a way to save her clothes. Or at least to wash them free from the grime that covered her from head to toe.

  A waste, she thought as she made her way to the table. This used to be a decent enough dress. Perhaps not for royalty, but it would do.

  It had been her favorite dress, but complaining about that seemed rather spoiled. She was alive. That was enough.

  Quiet as a mouse. She reached above her head, slid her hand over the surface, and snatched the note off the table.

  Amicia didn’t waste time reading it. Not yet at least. She scrambled back toward the hole in the wall and slipped back into the safety of the corridors beyond. All without a single problem nor noise.

  Finally, she had found her way in the chateau without giving herself away to the hordes of Dread looking for her. All but one, at least.

  Once she was back in the safety of her wall, she unraveled the note, and her lips quirked into a half smile, the first since this ordeal had started. No words graced the paper, only scribbles of symbols. Someone else might not have understood what the message was. A grape, a moon, and the symbol of a cross. But Amicia was already using these passages as if she’d been born within the chateau walls.

  This wasn’t a message or a note. It was directions.

  Oh you are clever, aren’t you?

  She crumpled the paper and shoved it into the deep pocket of her frock. An adventure then. How lovely.

  If the Dread wanted her to see something within the chateau, then so be it. The night had fallen, but she was awake and ready to find whatever it wanted her to see.

  The directions took her farther into the chateau than she had tried to go thus far. Deep into the center of the building, where she had first seen the Dread change Remy. She peered through the holes in the walls, watching for moving shadows or Dread who might still hunt her.

  Instead, she found the chateau had more hidden secrets and wonders than she might have imagined. She passed by a room filled to the brim with paintings. They were stacked ten, fifteen high atop each other. Some were leaned against the wall, others still hanging by a single nail.

  Another room had once been a great lady’s room. Immaculate brocade in great swaths of blue hung from the ceiling to bracket a bed made of gold. The four poster bed was carved with flowers and leaves so delicate the beauty of nature itself had been captured forever.

  She hadn’t known such splendor was still alive in this world. Still there for people to see and experience. She’d always thought… Well, she’d always thought it was gone.

  On and on she went, looking at whatever rooms she could find until the precarious map led her to a stairwell once more. Except this stairwell led down.

  She had seen nothing that went down yet. All the other stairwells had gone up into the second and third floors of the chateau, but she hadn’t any reason to think there was a basement.

  Or worse, a dungeon.

  The hairs on her arms raised. Was this an elaborate
ruse after all? Was the Dread making her travel to the dungeon on her own where they would capture her and lock her away with all the others?

  Be brave, Amicia, she thought. The words bounced back at her in the small chamber between the walls. You have to be brave.

  The adventure was in not knowing what might happen, that’s what her father always said. Small adventures could be taken every day, and it didn’t matter how little they were. Each time she stepped forward and did something that frightened her, she was making herself braver.

  So she lifted her feet one by one and descended into the darkness of the stairs. Very quickly she had to place her hands against the wall to balance herself. She took her time, feeling out the next step so she didn’t tumble down the stone stairs and break her neck.

  The bottom of the stairs did not open into a dungeon where a hundred Dread awaited her. Instead, she could just make out a luminous glow where moonlight peeked through a crack in the wall. The beam of weak light hit a small portion of the wall where a torch lay beside a tinderbox.

  “Oh!” Her gasp might have been a little too loud, but the possibility of a fire, of warmth, burst forth in a sound of appreciation she couldn’t have held back if she tried.

  Amicia bolted forward and snatched the tinderbox from the ground. This could change everything. She would have light; she would have some kind of heat. She could stay alive longer because now she had the means to make a fire. Although, she would have to be careful as the Dread would see the beacon. A risk and a reward.

  Amicia turned to leave. She could make her way back up the stairs, all the way to her hidden nest surrounded by stained glass. Once there, she could build a fire that would heat her cold bones and maybe save the freezing toes on her feet. Such things were a blessing, and she should leave while there was still a chance.

  But something in her said to stay. Something deep inside her breast told her to look down at the torch on the floor, lean down, and pick it up.