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

by Emma Hamm

  “What is this?” The King of the Dread reached out, a single claw catching the droplets. “Tears for me?”

  “No,” she said, choking on the words. “If what you say is true, then I killed my father for no reason. No matter what choices I made, my fate brought me here. You will never change me into one of the Dread because I remind you of what you once were. My father might have been one of your kind, but I could have worked to cure him. Instead…” She swallowed hard, pushing back the anguish that threatened to overwhelm and destroy her. “Instead, I killed him.”

  The King stepped away from her then, turning his gaze back to the statue. “You cannot know that to be the truth.”

  “If I hadn’t set the city on fire, would the Dread have captured me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if they had brought me here, would I still have reminded you of something? Would your memories still have returned?”

  The King ground his teeth, a muscle on his jaw jumping. “Most likely.”

  “Then my father is dead because of my own decisions, not because of you.” The pain in her chest swelled, pressing against her heart and lungs, forcing its way through her ribs like fingers pushing them apart. Amicia pressed a hand against the ache. “I can’t blame you for that, any longer. I can only blame myself. I could have saved him.”

  “Believing such things can only end in regret,” the King hissed. “The more I remember, the more choices I hate myself for. Bury those memories, petite souris. Until they disappear.”

  She couldn’t imagine forgetting this. She couldn’t imagine ever forgiving herself for all the things she had done. And yet, staring at the pointed horns on his head, the bulging muscles and claws that opened and closed, she wondered if redemption would ever be possible for either of them.

  All the hurt he had caused, all the pain and the anguish… And yet, he was still trying to remember.

  “What have you remembered?” she asked. Perhaps his memories would distract her in this moment when she couldn’t breathe or think of anything but her own mistakes.

  He moved as though wounded, or exhausted beyond measure. The King lowered his body down to the edge of the broken statue. Seated like that, he almost looked human if it weren’t for the wings, horns, and clawed feet.

  Amicia corrected herself. He didn’t look human at all in form, but his expression was one she recognized.

  Sadness.

  “I told you some,” he replied. “Omra and the places I have traveled. But since then, they’ve started flooding my mind. I wasn’t always like this. I was the first, and I was the one who infected the world with my mistakes.”

  “Infected?”

  He tilted his head to look up at her. “I assume you read the book I was reading, the little blue one.”

  Amicia lifted a shoulder. “You shouldn’t have left a book in a library if you didn’t want others to read it.”

  “Have you?”

  “Read it?” At his nod, she shook her head. “No.”

  “It’s about my people, although I’ve never been able to read it. The words jumble together, as though I’m not the one meant to read its contents.” The King shifted his wings, spreading them wide and letting them fold down until they rested upon the ground. Wings of a broken angel, one who had fallen from the Heavens only to find the world was not as pleasant as he’d thought. “You should read it. Perhaps it will explain a few things more clearly than I can. My memory of the Fall is hazy.”

  Questions bubbled to life, popping inside her skull repeatedly. What was the Fall? What had he been before this? Was he human or something else?

  She needed all these questions to be answered, but the only thing she blurted out was, “What else do you remember?”

  The question surprised her. So many other questions were more important. And yet, the one she wanted to know was only to know more. It didn’t matter what he knew of his history; she had the book. She could find the answers out for her own.

  But she wanted to know what she reminded him of. Was it good things? Had she inspired memories of light or memories of war?

  The King cleared his throat. “I remember white and gold, images flashing in my mind of carvings, gilded swords, and hair white as snow.”

  “The chateau in its prime?”

  He shook his head. “No, I believe it to be something else. I don’t remember what, however.”

  “Is that all?”

  The King froze, hesitating for the briefest of moments before he let out a long, slow breath. “I believe I remembered my name.”

  His name?

  The Dread had no names, that’s what Bernard said. Not a single one of them. She’d even gifted one to her manservant, so he had something to remind him of his humanity.

  But the King of the Dread had remembered the most precious thing a human had. The one thing that set them apart from the masses.

  He had a name.

  She felt as though she needed to sit down as well. The realization that he had been something, someone, before all of this made her knees weak. Amicia leaned hard against her crutches, thankful she had something to hold her up. “You have a name?”

  “I believe so.”

  “What is it?”

  He met her gaze, red eyes glowing in the darkness. “Alexandre.”

  Lord, knowing his name somehow made all of this real. He was a person now. Not just a monster who had tried to kill her. A person with a name, a history he couldn’t remember, and one who needed help.

  She tried to still the shaking of her hands at the crutch rungs, but couldn’t. Mouth dry, she coughed out her own name. “Amicia.”

  The King of the Dread, no, Alexandre, drew his wings in to his sides once more. “Amicia, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “And I, you.”

  She didn’t know where to look, now that he had become something more than a storybook horror. He was… Alexandre. A cursed man, one who had been turned into a monster, perhaps even against his will.

  “If I…” Amicia hesitated, then plunged forward with a plan she’d never once thought she would voice. “If I find out what happened to you, and if there is a way to mend what was broken… will you let me go?”

  Alexandre stood, his height still intimidating and far too tall, but less fearsome than before. He stooped so he could look her in the eye, horns pointed forward and wings spread wide. “Yes, petite souris. I will let you go if you discover what happened here. But I fear if this is a deal you wish to make, then you will remain in this cursed place forever.”

  Amicia had other plans. She would find the answer to this curse, and her own freedom. “It’s a deal."

  Chapter 21

  Amicia tossed the little blue book aside, a headache blooming between her eyes so powerful it made her nauseous. She’d tried to read the damned thing, but it refused to be read. Three days she’d wasted trying to decipher the words. Three days trying to catch the wiggling lines that shifted and warped until her eyes ached.

  He hadn’t been joking when he said the book didn’t want to be read by him. But it didn’t want to be read by her either.

  She couldn’t understand what the book was. The moving lines were clearly handwritten. The swirling letters were elaborate, leading her to believe this was more likely a journal than it was an official document.

  Most of the books in the library seemed to be accounts of townships, with a few storybooks along the way. Very few were journals or diaries.

  Amicia glared at the book. Maybe if she just figured out how to intimidate it, then it would reveal the secrets held between its covers…

  Nothing happened.

  She snarled, then reached for her crutches. “Damned book,” she muttered, shoving the padded ends underneath her arms. “I can’t stand looking at it one more minute when it’s just mocking me at this point.”

  Her skirts tangled in her legs, forcing her to stop and jerk them aside. Her usual cotton pants had disappeared suspiciously from her room a few nig
hts ago. Until that point, she had decided upon wearing her own clothes.

  Now, she was forced to wear the silken gowns provided by the Dread and their leader. Alexandre made it clear she was lucky to wear such finery. That most women would have been pleased.

  Amicia was uncomfortable in the watery fabrics. They made it difficult to walk when she was used to her skirts rigidly staying in place when she moved. Silk and velvet adhered to her body like she’d touched sap on a tree. The dresses clung to her and made movement difficult. She had to walk slower, more delicately, when all she wanted to do was charge forward.

  “Damned skirts,” she growled, tempted to rip them apart and walk around in nothing more than her shift. “Damned creature making me wear god knows what kind of dresses. My mother is rolling in her grave at the indignities.”

  Amicia didn’t know where she was going, only that she couldn’t stay in her little room any longer. The pretty wallpaper, the gilded edges, all the delicate glass, it was swallowing her until she couldn’t think or even breathe.

  She didn’t belong here. She wanted to go back to the kitchens where it was warm and smelled of earth. The herbs hanging over her head had grounded her. The heat of ovens warmed her bones. The scent of bread cooking and dough rising only reminded her to be thankful for the food on her table.

  Here, she was lost. A block of dirt staining marble, silk, and glass. This wasn’t where she was meant to be, and yet, she was chained to this glamorous place as if it were a prison.

  To her, it was.

  Walking helped. Movement centered her thoughts and drew them away from suffocating fabrics and frustrating books. At least she could focus on something other than what happened to the Dread.

  She was no closer than she had been that night Alexandre had brought her to the rooftop chapel. She could still see him standing there with sadness in his eyes and the defeated droop of his wings.

  A creature such as he should never look so weak. It was unnerving to know even the great King of the Dread was decidedly human. She wanted to think of him as some storybook monster who didn’t know the difference between wrong and right.

  Instead, she had discovered he was eerily similar to a man. A voice in her head whispered that might be the answer to all of this. He might be a man after all. A cursed one whom she could save.

  But that answer was far too simple. The secrets hidden in this chateau couldn’t be so easy.

  Could they?

  Clacking through the halls, she found her feet leading her deeper into the shadows. Back into the belly of the chateau where all her troubles had begun.

  Back to the crypt where the strange and beautiful body lay.

  Since that night, Amicia had dreamt of the man who waited there. He was a figment of her imagination, conjured by lack of water and food. No corpse could have been so pristine unless…

  Unless he had just died.

  She wondered whether he was a human, like her. She’d seen the Dread change people into one of their own. There was no reason for a man such as him to be laid out on display.

  Alexandre didn’t seem the type to keep trophies either. She had seen nothing from other towns or worlds here. If he had wanted to take memories from the people and townships he had destroyed, then he would have at least a few souvenirs lying around.

  So who was the man? Was he some lost, forgotten soul who should have long since died? Was he cursed like the rest of them?

  “Good idea, feet,” she whispered, making her way carefully down the dark stairwell that led into the crypt. “Perhaps if we find out who the man is, then we will know more about the curse. At the very least, he must be connected somehow.”

  The stairs were much more difficult to traverse when she only had one good leg and one good arm to balance the crutches upon. Her ribs were much better, and she’d even removed the bindings now that she could take a deep inhale without it hurting. The arm and the leg were another story. Bones were slow to knit themselves back together.

  Clicking down, she paused to lean against the wall to balance herself. She tried catching her breath. The heaving of her lungs refused to calm. So she continued to wind down the stairwell into darkness. Finally, she saw the crypt, still lit from her last time here.

  She assumed. Every torch affixed to the wall shook with fire that made the gilded room glow. Could fires last so long?

  A shiver traveled down her spine at the mere thought someone else might be in this haunted place with her. Someone, or something, staring back at her from the shadows.

  “Pull yourself together, Amicia,” she snapped. “No one is here but dead things.”

  And yet, she remembered all too well the voices whispering in her ears. She could still feel the press of spirits from where they rested within the carved walls of the crypt. Each tomb marked by a sigil of the sun.

  She didn’t want to hear the voices of the dead again. Their cold touch along her arms was well and good once. Amicia had been reminded and assured that life after death was coming for her. But once was enough.

  The long hobble toward the sarcophagus seemed unending. As though she had to struggle through time itself to make it to the edge where she could peer down once more.

  She wondered if the body would still be there. Whether he would still be as beautiful as she remembered, or if she had conjured his image.

  Reaching the edge of the sarcophagus, she took in a deep breath before looking down. “Please don’t be a rotten body,” she murmured.

  It took all her bravery to look down over the edge at the man who laid out in the small space as though he had fallen asleep. She hadn’t imagined him. Worse, she hadn’t remembered him as glorious as he was.

  A curled lock of golden hair had drifted down over his forehead. She longed to reach out and readjust the errant strand, too pretty for a man and yet somehow perfect on his flawless face. Not a single scar nor mark of acne made him anything other than a marble statue.

  But he wasn’t marble. He was breathing.

  Amicia stared at his chest in horror as it lifted up and down. It wasn’t possible the man was alive. Was it?

  A gust of wind shoved hard at her back, pushing her forward. She dropped the crutches onto the floor with an echoing clang and caught herself on the edge of the sarcophagus, suddenly much closer to the man who was everything she’d always dreamt of, and more.

  He was a golden hero. A man who stepped out of a storybook and told a woman he would take care of her forever. The hero everyone knew could save the city. Just one look from him was enough to reassure he could fight a dragon if he wanted.

  Amicia was so caught up staring down at his perfect features she almost missed the leathery sound of wings rubbing against stone walls. The gust of wind hadn’t been some kind of ghostly intervention.

  One of the Dread was in the tomb with her.

  Swallowing hard, Amicia looked over her shoulder, but she already knew who it was. She could feel him the moment her mind turned away from beauty.

  Dark shadows clung to his shoulders and horns. They dripped like ink off him as he stepped forward into the light. For a moment, the shadows clung to the top of his head, creating what looked like a crown. He was a monster. A beast.

  A king.

  “What are you doing down here?” she asked, although she had no right to the question.

  “Seeking answers.”

  Her hand slipped, falling deeper into the sarcophagus but never touching the strange, sleeping man. “Did you find any?”

  “Not until you arrived.”

  Amicia wasn’t made of answers. She’d spent the last three days trying to read a book that fought back. She feared there were a hundred different ways to find the answers he sought, and she could have left long ago.

  No matter what she did here, she felt very much as though she wasn’t good enough. Not for the clothes they had dressed her in. Not for the room they bid her sleep in. And certainly not for this strange quest that could only end in heartbreak.


  She gulped, then asked the question burning on her tongue. “What answers did my arrival give you?”

  “Uncomfortable ones.” He strode forward and stood beside her, staring down into the sarcophagus with a disgusted look on his face. “What do you make of this?”

  “The body?” She looked with him at the strange dead man who wasn’t dead at all. “He doesn’t appear human.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He’s too perfect,” she whispered in response.

  The man appeared to be able to open his eyes at any moment. He was breathing, therefore it wasn’t such a stretch to think perhaps he was resting. That this poor man would awaken with a strange, broken woman and a terrifying monster staring down at him.

  A long sleep sounded lovely to her when it was all she could do to get through a single night without nightmares banging at her skull.

  “He’s not human,” Alexandre confirmed. “He’s one of the Celestials.”

  “I’ve heard that name.” She wracked her memory. The spirits of those who had lived here were the first to whisper the name, she remembered. But what else… Amicia yanked her hand out of the sarcophagus and snapped her fingers. “The book! The blue book you were reading, the one neither of us can decipher. That book was titled The Celestials.”

  Alexandre turned a narrowed gaze upon her. “You can’t read the book?”

  She shouldn’t have admitted that. The book was her only way of finding out what was going on, or at least, he was convinced of that fact.

  Amicia cleared her throat. “I’m working on it and making progress. It’s just not as easy as I thought.”

  Namely because the book didn’t want her to read it. She was unsure if maybe it didn’t want anyone to read it at all, or if there was something wrong with her. Maybe she wasn’t the one meant to read its pages.

  That was almost worse than being captured by the Dread. Being deemed unworthy to read a book was the ultimate condemnation.

  When Alexandre continued to stare at her with a disgruntled expression, she turned back to the man in the sarcophagus. Amicia furrowed her brows. “Did he move?”