by C. E. Murphy
She laughed beneath my warning, and gasped as I took her more ferociously. Only after, her lips against my breast, did she murmur, "I've heard the rumor, but I've not seen the girl, so perhaps she doesn't exist. He'll still come, Nell. It remains his duty."
I rose from the bed cold and angry, determined to win protestations of love and promises of forever from the boy I had raised to manhood. I shed the form that Irindala loved as I walked to his rooms, replacing it with the curves and large eyes that had captured his heart, and I was welcomed into his bed by eager hands. My anger could not quite hold as I admired the beauty of his face, and in holding my breasts to his tongue, I knew I could win from him the promises I desired.
And then came a thing I did not expect: Irindala at his door, Irindala who had followed me, Irindala who saw through my enchantment, and cried, "Nell!" in horror as I rode above the lad and let his fingers work between my legs.
The saying of my name shattered the magic holding me in my young lover's preferred form. His face contorted in abhorrence as I became the minder he had known all his life. He cast me off him with the strength of disgust, and seized a blanket as he came to his feet, covering himself from my gaze. "Aunt Nell, what—what have you done to me?"
I spat, "Nothing you weren't eager for," but he shook his head, dark eyes large and horrified.
"No. No, I wanted my little Helen, not—" A shudder ran through him. "What a fool I am. Nell. You might have called yourself Cornelia, too, or Ellen, and I never would have thought. Mother, Mother, I—I didn't know, I didn't want—!"
"You are never to blame," Queen Irindala said. For the first time I saw her as a queen, as a great and terrible warrior, and I knew that in a handful of heartbeats, her wrath would fall upon me.
"Traitor!" I shrieked at her son, knowing him to be the weaker of the two. "I raised you, I loved you, you desired me—"
"No more than I desired a beast!"
A wicked laugh shot from my throat. I pointed at both of them, Queen and Prince alike, and whispered, "Oh, but your mother knows love for a beast, do you not, Irindala? I curse you," I spat. "I curse the blood that runs in your veins, child, that it shall never let you die. I curse the body that you live in, that it should be as a beast's. I curse the walls that you call home, that they should forever be an unsolvable maze. I curse those who serve you that they should be as unseen as they are unappreciated. I curse the very land that you walk upon that it should be as if salted."
A maelstrom rose, the prince's cries at its heart. All the beasts of the forest and plains fought to become a part of him, his bones breaking and stretching, fur erupting from his skin as he screamed. Power flowed from me, ripping away the vestiges of humanity I had so long worn and revealing the immortal, ethereal beauty that was my own, for in no other form could I convey deathlessness upon a mortal creature. I shrieked in outraged pleasure, then, through the howl and the wind, through the shattering of stone and the falling of walls, heard Irindala whisper, "This land is mine," and I knew I had made a mistake.
I had given her the spell myself, told her how to waken it, how to bind the borders of the land against her enemies. She had bled for it, buried bones for it, spoken prayers over it, and made it her own. It was a spell to last forever, holding the borders of her country so long as the blood of the queen who laid it ran true in the veins of its royal family.
But as much as it bound the land to her, it bound Irindala to the land as well, and not even the faery queen herself could contain all the power of the earth within her mighty grasp.
"You can't!" I cried. "You cannot! The borders will weaken, your reign will end! You cannot, Irindala! It loses you all you have fought for!"
"It gains me my son." Soft, implacable words, and with them she tore from me the darkest aspects of my curse: that immortality should only last so long as the beastly form, and that the form itself could be undone by a lover's willing touch. That the maze of his home should become an endless palace, the servants offer what solace they could, and the land barren but for gardens of roses.
We fought, myself with the power borne within me, and Irindala with the power of the land. Forest grew around us, and a palace rose, and all the while the prince roared and sobbed and struggled with his transformation. I seized the roses, making them mine: should any traveler seeking shelter enter this sanctuary, they might leave safely unless they plucked a rose. Irindala poured strength into the forest, extending it as her beastly son's demesne; I took away his freedom to roam it, but could not prevent her making him its protector, and the protector of all the beasts within. I stole his rationality; she returned a thread, which grasped, might lead him back to thoughtfulness. On and on we went, until she cast the last and greatest counter to my spell: the land itself rejected me, casting me beyond the borders into my own land, and her voice lingering in my ears promised me that I should never return unless love itself carried me past the bone-bred barriers.
I howled protest, digging my hands into earth I had not set foot on in a hundred years or more, and wept as a rising spring showed me a face that was my own.
I opened my eyes with a head on me like a drum, and for some time lay where I was, with no idea and not much interest in where that might be. Only my head hurt. It seemed like my belly ought to, where I'd stabbed it, but when I flexed the muscles there, I felt no protest of pain, or even bandages. Looking hardly seemed worth it. Not when I could see, as if at the backs of my eyes, the vision I had been left with.
I'd known the eyes, the quirk of the lips, the unevenness that made it compelling. I had not known the highness of the cheekbones or the slight length of jaw; those things belonged to Pearl, not me. Neither had I known the ears, long and slender and pointed, not unlike the Beast's. But the face, yes. I had known that face, because it was my own.
I tried to sit up with the grim intention of finding the Beast, and discovered two things: one, sitting up was all but beyond me, and two, the Beast sat beside me as if he had not moved for hours. He was reading, in fact. He wore a carefully constructed set of spectacles, and was reading aloud, though I had hardly heard him in the midst of my own thoughts. I recalled the last words he'd said with a hazy memory: something of morning and evening mists, and now, as he made to close the book, I said, "I'm afraid you'll have to start again. I seem to have missed most of the story."
"Amber!" He cast the book aside and caught one of my hands in both of his enormous paws, engulfing half my arm in the effort. "Amber, thank the stars."
"I'm having a hard time moving. I feel like I've been sleeping for a week."
"Not a week." His voice lowered, vibrating through me. "Ten days days, Amber."
"Ten days." I understood him, but in the same way I had when he had first captured me and told me I had to stay: I understood the content of the words without them meaning much. Then, as his worried expression made it clear I must have, indeed, been asleep a very long time, I said, "I suppose I must be very hungry, then. And that I need very badly to pee."
Both of those things, having been considered, became violently true. I still all but lacked the strength to stand, but the Beast whisked me from the bed with the grace of practice, and deposited me over a chamber pot. I squatted there for some time, too relieved both literally and figuratively to be humiliated, and simply said, "Help," when my bladder had emptied and I couldn't yet push myself up. The Beast lifted me again, his head close to mine as he rumbled, "The bed or a chair?"
My eyes closed as I inhaled his scent. "You're still wearing my perfume."
"I hoped it would comfort you." He sounded pleased that I'd noticed, and I clung to his shoulders a few moments before sighing, "A chair, I think."
Only when he carried me into the sitting room did I realize we weren't in my rooms at all: there were no perfume potions anywhere, and the decorating was in different colors. My confusion showed, because the Beast said, "These are my rooms. I found you outside my door, the morning after my bath," as he tucked me into a chair.
"I told you the enchantment might try to kill you, if it couldn't make you fit into its story. I brought a few things from your rooms. Your rose water, and your amber mirror." The Beast fetched a platter that had appeared while he tucked me in. It was my usual breakfast, with a pile of bacon taller than my hand, and with my hand mirrorr and a vial of the rose water placed neatly on its side.
I touched the mirror's back, but didn't pick it up. "I doubt I want to look at myself." Nor did I wish to conjure up images of my family, not right now. Instead I offered the Beast some bacon. Somewhat to my surprise, he accepted. For a while we sat together and ate, before I finally pushed the plate away. "I'm not sure it was trying to kill me. Beast, my mother's name was Eleanor."
I had never seen him swallow before, not the way a human did when they were startled or afraid. A long, cautious silence passed, before he said, "My mother banished her."
"My father fought in the Border Wars."
The Beast came to his feet in a swift motion, knocking his chair backward. He caught it with one quick hand, settling it before stalking the outskirts of the room as if it had suddenly become a cage. Nervousness twisted my stomach, but not the fear I'd once had of him. When he reached the window, he asked, "Do you know what caused them?"
"The Border Wars? No. I mean—no. I know the queen…" I knew a great deal more about the queen now than I had the last time I'd been awake, and spent a moment determining what I had known. "Everyone knows she fought off invaders after the king died, and that the borders were safe for decades after that. But forty years ago they began to weaken again, and by thirty years ago they had to be re-established in the Border Wars. I know they say some of our enemies weren't human, that they were faeries, but I never used to believe that. There are hardly even any witches, how could there be faeries? But now I know that there were faeries. Beast…I have to leave. I have to go talk to my father. I need to know…what he knew about my mother."
"I need to show you something." It wasn't a refusal, though in truth, at this stage I didn't expect to be refused. Too much had happened, here and between us. I put my hand out, and he returned to not only take it, but once more scooped me gently into his arms. He brought me to his balcony, and I saw immediately what he wanted me to.
Roses had run amok, in the days that I slept. They were no longer fighting the forest at the estate's perimeter: instead they swept toward the palace like a pernicious weed. The long drive and the beautifully maintained ponds were blanketed in greenery; if that greenery hadn't been spotted with color I would have thought it to be greedy, grasping ivy. It covered the ground in the same way, layering tendrils that stuck to the earth and cement and stone. Ivy, especially new ivy, could be torn up relatively easily, but I knew from experience that the rose vines were protected by vicious thorns.
I caught motion from the corner of my eye, but it stopped when I looked directly. I glanced away again, watching side-eyed, and saw pieces of encroaching roses being scraped away from the palace walls in swaths, like someone was running the edge of a spade along the building and loosening them. No one was there, or at least, no one visible: the servants fought to keep the palace safe in whatever way that they could.
Their handiwork had not, though, been able to disguise the roses' trajectory. They were growing purposefully, coming from all directions, and from the shrinking circle where they had not yet reached, it was clear that their destination was where the Beast stood with me safe in his arms.
"They've been coming for me since you fainted," he said softly, but I shook my head.
"They're Nell's roses, Beast. They're not coming for you. They want me to finish her story."
"No." The Beast released me when I made to squirm away, but his deep voice reverberated despair as he did so. "Amber, no. You said yourself that the roses didn't like you."
"That was before they knew who I was. Before I knew who I was." I took a shaking step to the balcony's rail, leaning on it. I extended my hand, and we could both see the leading vines grow, adding six inches as they tried to reach me. I closed my fingers again and they faltered. "You see," I said quietly. "I'm sorry. She found a way to get to you. I'm the villain, Beast."
He growled, "Really," but I knew the growl wasn't for me. "Did you deliberately lose your family's fortune? Set fire to your home? Plan to force eight people to a remote hunting lodge? Conjure a snowstorm so you were driven to my palace? Then you are not the villain." He closed a massive paw on the balcony rail. "At worst, you're a pawn, like myself, Amber. A victim of someone else's game."
"But she was my mother."
"She was all but mine as well, and more." The Beast shuddered, and I forgot the threat approaching us to put my hand over his.
"I'm sorry, Beast. For what she did to you. That was wrong."
"I should have known."
A little smile crept across my face. "Now, you can't have it both ways, Beast. Either we're both innocent of being victim of her manipulations, or neither of us are, and you seem determined that I am."
He looked down at me a long moment, then turned his hand under mine, clasping it. "Very well. I have…a great deal of unlearning to do, if that's how it's to be. I've blamed myself for—"
"A very long time. Over a century, and yet Irindala still reigns beyond this forest. How?"
"Enchantment." A brief smile curled his mouth at my exasperated look. "Beyond that I don't know. I was not…thoughtful…in the aftermath of Eleanor's curse. The magic has told me time and again how I was brought here, but it can't finish the story. It can only try to make the pieces it has fit the story it knows so far, and it doesn't seem to know what happened after the curse struck."
"Which is why I must go to Father. He must know something. He knows my mother—and Maman, for that matter—both knew the queen, once upon a time. He must know something more."
The Beast looked askance at me. "Both his wives knew my mother? Your father moves in high circles, Amber."
"He used to. You can come with me, can't you?" I asked, suddenly eager. "You protect this forest and its beasts, don't you? So you must be able to leave the palace grounds."
"No longer. It is your world, a world apart from mine. I used to be able to." The Beast reached toward the roses, which surged toward him with thorns sharp and wicked at the fore. He pulled his hand back again and the vines settled. "It's been like this since they began their attack. I think they cannot kill me, but I believe they can bind me. Keep me here. And that they will kill me, if they can. Which is another reason I don't believe you're the villain, Amber. The roses have always fought the forest, never coming for me. Now they've turned their focus inward, and—can you walk?" he asked. "You should see this from the observatory."
"I think I can. Wait." I collected my mirror and the rose water, though the mirror seemed more likely to be useful. We might be able to see beyond the forest with it, or find a way through the roses with it. The rose water went into my bodice, but I had to find a reticule for the mirror, and tied the purse at my hip before we left the Beast's rooms. I meant to ask him why he had brought the mirror, but between my weariness and the obvious answer—that he knew its properties, and always had—I couldn't muster the effort. Even without wasting energy speaking, I tired halfway to the observatory. The Beast unhesitatingly carried me to its narrow stairway, which I had to ascend myself; his bulk was too great for him to climb the stairs carrying anything. He stayed just behind me, in case I fainted, but we reached the glass dome in safety, and I saw at once what he meant.
It wasn't only the roses racing toward the house. The lands had shrunk beneath the forest's encroachment as well. In places it was clear a war was being waged: swiftly-growing saplings were being throttled by roses, but their branches bent to scrape the vines from the ground. Here and there they'd reached a stalemate, horrible tangles of rose
s and trees no longer trying to reach the house, but instead growing higher and higher, each trying to dominate the other. "All this in ten days?"
"The snarls are from when I ventured out. It seemed to help: the roses stopped where I was, and the forest was able to catch up, to hold them in place. But staying still in their midst that long…" The Beast exhaled. "As I said, I think they can't kill me, but they could bind me. And I was afraid what would happen to you, if I let them take me. So I came back." He was silent a little while before saying, "I am not certain whether I am a coward or not."
"Beast! No! Of course not. If the roses did take you, she'd have won, wouldn't she? And if she won, the palace would go to ruin and I would die too. It's not cowardice to leave a battle you can't win, not if retreating saves lives. Even one life." I considered that. "I suspect I may feel especially strongly about the matter when it's my life."
That earned a chuckle from the Beast, which was all I wanted. "I have to go see Father," I said again. "If it was the full moon I could wait on Pearl conjuring a mirror-spell again—"
The Beast, cautiously, said, "Have you learned anything of your mirror?"
"I have. Oh!" I pressed my palm against the mirror's purse, then sank onto one of the low cushioned seats, putting my face in my hands. "Of course. That's why it worked for me, isn't it? We're all Eleanor's daughters. Of course Pearl's witchery didn't awaken out of nowhere. I knew—I knew, once you said the stones were bespelled, that the pearl was magic, that you hoped she would learn to use it and be able to break the enchantment here. If I go to Father I can bring her back, Beast. She can help you. She can fight the curse from within."