Before Beauty (7 page)

“
I’m worried about her, Ansel.
I’ve never seen her like that.”

Isa’s father gave a loud sigh, and
Isa could imagine him running his hand through his graying hair.
“Me, too. But she’s a strong girl. She’ll get through it. She has
to.”

Dawn was slow to come the next
morning. Isa had drifted in and out of a tearful slumber, and the
light brought little relief. Finally, Megane got out of her bed and
crawled in with Isa. Isa held her little sister tightly, which
released another set of tears. Megane watched her anxiously, but
was silent until it was time to get dressed.

“
You should fold that nicely,” she
said as Isa crumpled the wedding dress and threw it in the drawer.
“Then it won’t be wrinkled for the next time.”

“
There won’t be a next time,
Megs.”

“
Why not?”

“
Because men don’t want crippled
women for their wives.” Isa spat out the words before she
remembered whom she was talking to. Megane’s eyes grew wide and she
hurried out of the room. Isa felt badly for speaking to her sister
in such a way, but she couldn’t cleanse the bitter words from her
mouth.

As she collapsed back onto the
bed, she felt her anger grow. Not just for Raoul, but for all the
girls who had told her cripples don’t get husbands, and for those
people who stared at her sympathetically every time she walked the
city streets. The women who had nudged and winked at her as the
wedding day had approached. For her small bed that should have laid
empty last night. But most of all, for the prince.

If it hadn’t been for him, she
never would have been a cripple. She would have continued to dance,
to run, and to grow and laugh with the other children. She would
have been called beautiful by more than Raoul as she became a
woman. The touch of a loving husband would have been hers by now,
and maybe even children, as some of her friends had. It didn’t
matter that no one had seen the prince since the Fortress had gone
dark. Isa suddenly hated the man with a vengeance she hadn’t known
herself capable of until that instant.

The day didn’t bring much
improvement for the family. After they spent all day cleaning up
what should have been a wedding feast, Ansel came home from the
city council meeting with grim news.

“
The chancellor wants someone to
visit the other cities and towns to see if their tradesmen have
suffered as we have since the Fortress went dark.”

“
And let me guess,” Deline sighed,
“he chose you.”

“
He’s just angry that you stood up
to him last night!” Isa’s younger brother, Launce, muttered over
his stew.

“
I believe you’re right,” Ansel
said to his son, “but whether he’s angry or not makes no
difference. The other council members agreed to it. I leave
tomorrow.”

“
How long will you be gone, Papa?”
Megane asked.

“
Quite a while, Sweetheart.” Ansel
lifted his youngest daughter out of her chair and into his
lap.

“
You’re not going all the way to
the western coast are you?” Deline frowned. “Surely they wouldn’t
make you go that far!”

“
Unfortunately, yes. I’ll probably
be gone until the leaves change color. But do not worry.” he kissed
his wife. “I will do my best to be back before the first
snow.”

So Ansel left the next morning
with all his provisions in saddle bags on one of the family horses.
Goodbyes were tearful, all except for the one he exchanged with
Isa. Isa felt as if there were no more tears left to shed in the
whole world.

The family watched as he made his
way east towards the mountain pass, but Isa turned and went back
inside. Looking at the pass meant seeing the Fortress as it rose up
out of the mountain side. And looking at the Fortress meant looking
towards Prince Everard.

CHAPTER FIVE

Asylum

Ansel wrapped his cloak around himself even
tighter as he started down the mountain. His journey had taken even
longer than he’d thought, and the eve of his return looked like it
might be have to be postponed. The black clouds above him were
heavy with snow, and a long descent still stretched out ahead of
him. Even in good weather, it would have taken him two hours to
make it down the mountain to Soudain, but the biting wind whistled
eerily, as if to guarantee him that his return would take him much
longer than that.

The trip had not been encouraging.
The other cities and towns Ansel had visited were also suffering.
Trade and travel had slowed to a crawl after the Fortress went
dark. Without the protection of the Fortress and its kings, fear
had driven many of the smaller towns to close their borders, and
those that had remained open saw few tradesmen or merchants. Ansel
would be forever grateful that the darkening of the Fortress had
spared his daughter’s life, but he now hoped that he had enough in
his own mercantile to feed his family, much less those who came to
purchase food throughout the winter.

Another large gust of wind
interrupted Ansel’s thoughts, and when he looked up, he realized
white flurries were already beginning to descend. Within moments,
it was nearly impossible to see the road. He quickly considered
what he should do. There were no cottages this high up the mountain
that he could seek shelter in. In fact, the only thing that he
could possibly reach before the blizzard fully struck would be the
Fortress. And the Fortress was dark. More icy mountain air hit him
as he considered this, making it hard to concentrate.

After the Fortress had closed, the
townspeople had whispered to one another of curses and all other
sorts of dark magic. Ansel had paid little attention to it, at the
time, simply thankful that whatever had happened had kept Isa
alive. Besides, he was a practical man. He didn’t have the time to
sit around fretting about gossip borne of idle minds. Now that he
was suddenly faced with the choice of visiting the great Fortress,
however, Ansel had to admit that he felt a bit of unease. Even if
there was nothing to the rumors, his family’s last run-in with the
prince had turned out to be more than disastrous.

Still, he reasoned, he had no
choice. No matter how he felt about the prince, he had friends
there among the servants. Surely when they saw who was knocking
upon their doors, they would be willing to open up and provide him
simple respite in their quarters until the storm passed. The prince
need not even know.

It wasn’t long before Ansel was
able to make out the post that marked the way to the servants’
entrance. He coaxed his tired horse onto the dirt path, which was
now nearly invisible for the snow, and not a moment too soon, he
was at the stables.

Ansel should have felt relief at
making it safely to a shelter, and yet a wave of anxiety hit him as
he pushed open the heavy wooden door. There were a few dim torches
lit, but no grooms came to greet him, and his sense of dread
increased. Everyone knew that like his father, the prince was an
avid horseman. He surely would have left at least two groomsmen to
watch over his favorite warhorses in such a storm.

“
Hello?” Ansel called out. No one
answered. His disquiet grew as he guided his horse into an empty
stall. The other horses whinnied at him. They looked strangely thin
for being the king’s animals. Peering closer, Ansel saw that they
had feed in their troughs, but not much. The Fortress must be
suffering from food shortages as well, he realized.

In accordance, he took only enough
to give his beast a few mouthfuls. He would pay the steward back
when he found him. After brushing his animal and making sure he had
clean hay, Ansel bundled back up to make the cold trek to the
servants' entrance.

The Fortress’s greeting was eerily
similar to the one he had received in the stables. When no one
responded to his knocks, Ansel let himself in. As soon as the door
was shut, however, he found that unlike in the stables, not one
candle was lit. And not only was it as dark as night, but it was
just as quiet, too. No voices echoed down the stone halls. There
were no whispers of children, or even footsteps to break the
silence.

Something, a suspicious feeling,
kept him from calling out. So instead, he felt his way down the
corridor to where he knew the servants’ kitchen would be. There was
one lone candle lit on the long wooden table, and a weak fire in
the large hearth. As long as Ansel had been visiting the Fortress
to do business and speak with friends like the steward, there had
always been people and food in this place. Women were always
chasing giggling children away from the freshly baked bread, and
hungry young men Launce’s age were always hanging about looking for
leftovers.

But now, aside from the small
strange flames, there was no one. After a long, uneventful wait on
the threshold, Ansel slowly walked into the large room. He found
some old bread and aged cheese in one of the cabinets. The food was
so dry it was nearly inedible, but Ansel was hungry enough to try
and stomach it.

A flicker of light against the
wall caught his eye. There was something about the way the shadow
danced that unnerved him. It was too much like a human shadow.
Shaking his head, he went back to eating. The exhaustion and cold
must be getting to him, he thought. When the shadow moved again,
however, more boldly this time, Ansel froze with food still in his
mouth. Fear made his limbs feel strange, and he began to shiver
harder than he had outside.

After a long moment of staring, he
finally gained enough courage to swallow the rest of his bite.
Unable to ignore his morbid curiosity, he stood up slowly to face
the strange silhouette.

It was really too large to be cast
by the poor flames of the hearth or the candle, and that bothered
Ansel. After he’d stared at it for a long moment, it moved again,
jumping three feet down the wall towards the door. Another long
minute later, it moved even farther. Ansel got the feeling he was
supposed to follow.

The game continued out of the
kitchen and down the hall towards the servants’ chambers. Unable to
see the shadow in the dark of the hall, Ansel lifted the lone
candle and stood, for that seemed to be what the shadow wanted him
to do. After coming this far, what other choice did he
have?

As he followed, he got the feeling
that this shadow wasn’t the only one. The farther he walked, the
more invisible eyes he felt on him. Even stranger than that,
however, was the sensation that the eyes were familiar. And though
the predicament should have sent him running back into the storm,
he instinctively felt he could trust the strange apparitions.
Either that, or the ancient food he’d just eaten was meddling with
his ability to reason.

Unlike the shadows, however, the
Fortress itself was as unfriendly as he’d ever seen it. The
darkness was nearly suffocating. Walking in it felt like walking
deeper and deeper into a tomb. The air was musty and damp, and it
smelled as if neither a door nor window had been opened in decades.
What had happened to the kingdom’s beacon of shining light, the
sacred place of protection? What kind of power could overcome it?
This thought set him trembling more than anything else he’d
encountered. Perhaps the gossip was not as farfetched as he’d first
believed.

The shadow kept him moving quickly
down the corridors, but he paused before the throne room. There was
one light, the brightest of any he’d seen yet that shone through
the high windows above the throne. All of the other windows were
covered, their tapestries drawn closed. It was moonlight, Ansel
realized, that was coming through the highest of windows. The storm
must have abated.

As his eyes began to adjust to the
new light, he realized the grand room had been decorated and left
that way. He could only guess it had been set for the great
coronation ceremony, as that was the night everything had gone
dark. He had turned to go back into the hallway when a voice spoke
from behind him.

“
And how is it that a commoner
escaped the curse of the Fortress?”

Ansel slowly turned to see that
the throne, though hidden in shadow from the moon’s rays, was not
empty. A dark figure sat hunched in it. Its voice was soft and
terrible, and Ansel trembled so that he dropped the candle, and it
sputtered out upon the floor.

“
I beg your pardon, my lord?”
Ansel timidly called back.

“
All of my servants, my soldiers,
and even my home itself were cursed into this blackness. No one has
come or gone for months. And yet, you come in as if you own the
place.” So the prince had survived.

“
I beg your forgiveness, Sire,”
Ansel quickly hurried forward and knelt, bowing his head. “I sought
shelter from the storm. If I’d stayed outside I would have died. I
did not mean to intrude.”

Two thin rings of blue fire
appeared through the darkness, fixing their depths upon him, and
Ansel’s trembling nearly overwhelmed him.

“
What is your name?”

“
Ansel Marchand of Soudain, Your
Highness.”

“
And what are you doing out in
such a storm?”

“
I sit on Soudain’s city council,
and I was sent to visit other parts of Destin to inquire about
their matters of trade.”