Roses

  There were no outlines to direct her and she rambled through the castle’s never-ending depths. At one point, she opened a set of double doors and gasped, finding herself in a ballroom of magnificent décor and proportions. After staring for a moment at its tall, painted ceiling, she turned and continued her search.

  “Beast?” she called another time, but still she heard nothing.

  None of the candles were lit and she fumbled in the dark, her heart thumping in her chest. As she stumbled through a drawing room and across another hall, she heard voices and froze.

  “I cannot keep it from her much longer.”

  That was Beast’s rumbling growl. He was standing in a quad below and one window of the hall was ajar. Beauty edged closer to it, pressing her ear against the pane.

  “You must,” replied another voice. It was light and sharp and it seemed to come from the air.

  “But she will guess!”

  “You must deny all knowledge.”

  “I cannot keep her here. I cannot subject her to my torture.”

  “She took the rose—she took the life.”

  “She did not take the rose.”

  “No matter! You remember the spell, do you not?”

  “How could I forget?” snarled Beast.

  “Without just one rose—without just one life, we die. All of us.”

  Beast growled.

  “We are lucky to still be here after all this time,” said the voice. “There are evil spells in this castle that try to—”

  “We are not lucky, we are cursed!”

  At Beast’s roar, the window in the hall slammed shut and Beauty jumped away. The castle was breathing again and the rug beneath her feet was pulled out, knocking her to the ground. She heard high-pitched laughter and staggered to her feet. This was not the presence that guided her about the castle each day; this was not the friendly outline that waited on her; this was altogether different. The hairs on her arms tingled and she ran.

  Doors slammed in her face, the corridors twisted away from her, and she heard high-pitched laughter all around. Archways became walls and passageways led to dead ends. Beauty felt something pull at her hair and try to trip her feet.

  “Beast!” she cried. “Beast!”

  He was there and instantly she felt safe again.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I—I woke and my room felt empty. There were no outlines—I could not see them anywhere.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “I just stepped out of my room,” she said, as she did not want him to know that she had heard him in the quad. “I called for you, but you did not come.”

  “Forgive me, Beauty.”

  “I do, but I felt something else just now,” she whispered. “Something that was not the outlines.”

  “It is the evil in this place.”

  “There is evil here?”

  “Where there is good, there must be a balance of evil. I am sorry that you had to feel it tonight, but do not fear. It is gone now.”

  “Where has it gone?”

  “Back to its corners. You may return to bed safely.”

  She noticed that the candles around them were being lit by the comforting, pale shape of an outline.

  “Will you accompany me to my room?” she asked.

  “If you wish it.”

  She stepped close to him and he instinctively moved away.

  “No! Stay near. I am scared.”

  “If you wish it.”

  They walked through the corridors to her room and its door opened for her as they approached. Inside she could see that her bed had already been straightened and there was a mug of steaming tea set on her bedside.

  “Do you feel better?”

  She nodded.

  “Good night, Beauty.”

  “Good night, Beast.”

  Part Four

  The battlefield was awash with bodies and blood gushed in great, scarlet streams. The air was saturated with the moans of the dying, the crack of bones, and the terrified shouts of soldiers. They did not call it the Red Wars for nothing.

  They had taken up position on this barren stretch of wasteland the day before. It was cold and boggy here and the men, who had been trained in Sago, were not accustomed to the weather. They had marched straight from the capital—called as emergency back up—and had not had time to acclimatize. Many were sick and sniveling before they had charged into battle that misty morning. They were all dead now. Dead or had deserted.

  The general sat on his horse before the battlefield. All of his troops had been wiped out, but there were reinforcements coming now. He had thought that he could go ahead and push these evil creatures back before they arrived, but he had not understood their tactics. He felt the loss of his men deeply and knew that he had been too rash, too hasty. But how was he to know what these things could do? How was he to know that they could break every bone in a man’s body just by wishing it to be so?

  He waited with his horse until the second unit of troops arrived. It was beginning to snow by then and white flakes fell to the ground, turning to red slush. The men quaked when they saw the carnage laid out in the field and he did not blame them.

  “General, where are the rest of your soldiers?” asked their leader.

  “Gone,” he said.

  “Gone?”

  “I am the only one left. I was lucky that my horse carried me to safety and none of those under-realm things could get their claws into me.”

  The troops muttered and shuffled their feet, their armor clanging.

  “Quiet!” yelled their leader. “General, what do you advise we do?”

  He looked across the expanse of death to the distant horizon where the creatures had retreated after massacring his troops. He knew the Forest Villages well—he had been posted here before on various expeditions—and he guessed that they must be hiding in woodland a mile or so away. During his first visit here, he had received the scar that made him renowned in a small battle with some Magic outlaws in that woodland. He touched the silver slither that cut across the middle of his eye for luck.

  “I suggest we attack immediately,” he said. “They will not be expecting it.”

  But the Magics were expecting everything. When the State army marched across the battlefield and through scrubland to their camp in the wood, they were waiting. There were trolls and griffins and fey, but there were humans, too, and they were the worst of all: Magic Bloods. They were the worst because there was no telling what they could do. Some of them could simply destroy you with a blink of their eyes or send you half crazy with visions.

  The general watched as the State men were butchered once again. They ran across the open scrubland, their axes and swords raised, only to fall prey to the creatures standing in the fringes of the wood, watching them come.

  “Charge!” he yelled, gathering a bundle of men and leading them running for the woods. He heard the terrible crack as those around him had every bone in their body broken, and the screams as some of them began tearing out their own eyes due to horrific visions, but he pushed onward.

  Suddenly he was in the woods, and he saw the startled gaze of many Magic Beings before his horse disappeared from beneath him. He scrambled to his feet, alone in a glade of tall, yellow trees and there was snow at his feet. He circled about, thrashing his sword through the air, knowing that this was a vision and what he saw was not how things were. At any moment he expected to be attacked.

  “Halt, I wish to speak with you.”

  He jumped at the sound of the voice, which seemed to come from all around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure approaching him, a man as tall as himself with white hair, dark skin, and eyes that sometimes looked silver, sometimes gold, and sometimes violet.

  “I will fight you to the end!”

  “That will not be necessary, general,” said the dark man. “We have won.”

  “You have not!”

  “We were always going to win, it i
s written in scripture. That is the problem with your race. You think yourselves above the gods and that is why you always die.”

  “My race? It is your race who are scum!” He spat on the ground and swished his sword so that the air hummed.

  “Why do you hate Magics so?” asked the man, stepping closer. “Do you fear them?”

  “I fear nothing.”

  “You should fear me.”

  “I do not. I stare straight into the eyes of death. If I die, then I die honorably.”

  “There is no such thing as an honorable death.”

  The general could feel the hilt of his sword growing slippery in his grasp.

  “I will make you a deal,” said the dark man. “If you call off your army, if you demand that the State bring peace between Magics and humans, then I will let you go. You are an infamous general and I know that they will listen to you.”

  “I thought that you had won this battle! You lie, and I have no desire to make deals with the likes of you! I would rather die.”

  “You will not die.”

  “I do not care! Come and fight me, you demon thing! Come and fight me, you beast!”

  The man raised his hand and he smiled.

  “Beast?” he said. “I am not the beast.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The Thaw

  One afternoon, Beauty entered the library and Beast was not there. She wondered if she should call him, but if he was busy then she did not wish to disturb him. He often came a little late and she did not like to think herself so spoiled that she could not wait.

  She walked over to their table and touched the book they were currently reading that sat on top of a pile with a ribbon through it, marking their place. They had paused on a cliffhanger and she could not wait to read the next section. She was sorely temped to begin now, but she liked to see the look on Beast’s face when the plots unraveled themselves, so she forced herself to wait.

  Instead, she began strolling through the bookshelves, mentally noting other volumes that she would like to read. She had asked Beast once if he thought that they would be able to read all the books in the library, and he had replied that he supposed they could if they were here for eternity, which had not been the answer she desired.

  She passed deeper into the library, running her fingers along the spines, and it was as she moved between two cases that she noticed the chest of maps lodged in one corner. She remembered how one day Beast had shown her drawings of the whole realm and she wished to look at them again. She wondered if she could copy one onto a piece of parchment. She could write competently now, but she had not yet tried to draw.

  Opening the dusty chest, she began hunting through the scrolls. It was only when she caught sight of an unrolled piece that she realized these were not the maps. She frowned, picking up the parchment that had caught her eye, and tried to read what it said. There was writing scrawled all over it in thick calligraphy and she remembered the scrolls that the preacher used to carry around with him in Imwane. Her fingers trembled as she tried to make out the swirling words.

  The gods did build the hills for those,

  That does good deeds for one they chose.

  She gasped and rocked back onto her heels, clutching the parchment tightly and humming along the Hilland tune in her mind as she read the words:

  They shelter with old spells and might,

  For one who comes to them to fight.

  They know not what that thing might be,

  It comes to keep their people free.

  Beauty frowned, for the words were different from the verses that she knew. She read them quickly, her mind swimming with the tune of the song.

  It shall lead the Magic to task,

  And wage war with a silver grasp.

  Deaths shall rein and family ties

  Will be broken by one with violet eyes.

  Then the writing stopped. She turned it over, but the ink was faded and she could make out nothing. Her heart thudding, she scrambled through the other scrolls in the chest, wondering what she had happened upon.

  Violet eyes . . . silver grasp . . . war.

  Suddenly, she heard the doors of the library opening and the tap of Beast’s claws against the floor.

  “Beauty?”

  She threw the parchment back into the chest and slammed it shut before hurrying through the bookshelves.

  “Forgive me, I lost track of time,” said Beast when she appeared. “Is something wrong?” he added, noticing her flushed cheeks.

  “No, nothing at all.”

  She was surprised to find that it saddened her to have to lie to him, but she knew that he would not be happy to hear about the chest of scripture. They must both have their secrets.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  She picked up their book, settled herself in a chair, and began to read aloud.

  The next day, before she went to the stables, Beauty asked the outlines to take her to the library. Once there, she weaved between the bookcases to see if Beast were present, and when she was satisfied that she was alone, she retraced her steps from the day before.

  But the chest was gone.

  Thinking she might be mistaken, Beauty tried another section, but still she found nothing.

  “Where is it?” she asked the air, but received no answer.

  She wondered if the outlines had hidden it from her. Or Beast.

  Violet eyes . . . silver grasp . . . war.

  The words ran through her mind, but she dismissed them.

  I am here for eternity, she told herself grimly. Those words mean nothing to me.

  She left the library and went down to the stables, hoping to ride away her worries. Champ was pleased to see her and they went clattering out of the courtyard and into the grounds of the castle at a gallop. As usual, they raced through snowy meadows, jumped over fences, and thundered across lush green grass. Beauty was beginning to shake off the eeriness of what she had read when Champ abruptly skidded to a halt.

  Clinging to his mane to stay astride, she whipped her head around, wondering what had spooked him. Before them she saw the deep, smoky moat and on the other side of its bank was a high stone wall.

  She slid from Champ’s back and waded through the snow to the edge of the moat. Its bank was steep and the dark, misty water in its depths swirled and gushed strangely. She quickly stepped back.

  “Beast!”

  He was there before she had finished speaking, a dark figure crouching in the snow.

  Champ tensed and his ears flattened.

  “Steady, boy,” said Beauty, moving to his side. She patted his neck to reassure him and whispered soothing words.

  “If I had known your animal were here then I would not have answered your call,” Beast growled. “It is cruel to subject him to me.”

  “I would not have called you but . . .” She pointed to the moat and the wall and he started in surprise. “What is it?” she asked.

  “It must be the boundary of the castle.”

  “I have never come across it before.”

  “Nor have I.”

  They were silent for a moment, looking at it.

  “Does it go on?” he asked.

  “I do not know.”

  Grabbing a chunk of Champ’s mane, Beauty led them along the length of the moat. The stallion quivered and skirted a little to have Beast so close behind him, but he otherwise behaved himself.

  “It continues,” she confirmed.

  “The castle has never had borders before,” muttered Beast.

  “Is this good or bad?”

  “I do not know.”

  Beauty sighed.

  “For once I wish that you would tell me something,” she said. She stared into his human, hazel eyes and he looked away.

  “I am surprised at your animal,” he said. “To stay so close to me he must be a brave creature.”

  As if he knew that he was being discussed, Champ nudged her with his nose, knocking her over fa
ce-first in the snow. She scrambled back to her feet, her cloak covered in white flakes, and laughed. The high peal echoed across the grounds, bouncing through the stillness, and the icicles that hung on a tree beside them shivered and fell. They hit the earth and shattered, melting to water.

  Beauty gasped and Champ shied away.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Beast watched her closely.

  “I do not know,” he replied.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The Ball

  The season shifted to winter, but the snow at the castle continued to thaw. Beauty noticed it disappearing as she rode Champ each day. It was gradual, but eventually whole fields that had once been covered were clear and she no longer had to wear a cloak when she stepped outside.

  Without the miles and miles of limitless fields to gallop across, Beauty was forced to circle Champ around the grounds several times, following the boundary of the deep, misty moat. Even then, he was never worn out. Once, she tested him and rode and rode until evening, but still, he was not even out of breath.

  Meanwhile, with Beast’s guidance, she was steadily working her way through sections of the library. After reading about the Western Realm, Beauty was anxious to learn more and she asked for book after book that described its hot, rocky landscape until she had almost exhausted the archives.

  “See, I knew that he would die at the end—did I not tell you so?” she said, snapping a volume shut one evening.

  They were in the dining room and Beauty had insisted on finishing the book that they had been reading that afternoon, as she could not bear to wait until tomorrow to know what would happen.

  “You did, yes,” said Beast. “But it was a foregone conclusion.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “He loved her. If he did not die saving her then his love would be fake.”

  “I suppose.”

  Beauty pointed at a dish of roasted potatoes and a selection jumped onto her plate.

  “Soon I will have been here four whole seasons,” she said, keeping her voice light and her eyes down.