Roses (21 page)

He licked his dry, cracked lips. “I sold all our horses and made for home, but a storm were coming. I wished to be in the hills, and I thought I’d make it but it crept up on us. I gave Sable the reins and she walked, gods bless her. We were lost in a forest and then I saw . . . a castle.”

Beauty could smell the red rose already. Its perfume was clogging the room with a sweet, light scent that made her senses ache.

“It were like nothing I ever seen before,” Owaine continued. “The castle were huge. Sick and starved, I goes to it and it . . . welcomed me. I woke next morning to leave and then I saw a garden full of red roses. I remembered my Beauty asking me bout them once. There were so many, I never thought anyone would mind me taking just one.”

“Who would mind?”

Owaine’s face crumpled. “A beast—a great and terrible beast!”

Beauty clutched her head, her vision lilting before her eyes.

“He said I stole that rose. He said I must pay, but I were so afraid, I barely understood. I prayed to the gods to save me, but he said I would suffer—said that if I did not stay at the castle then I’d die.”

Owaine coughed. He seemed to be getting weaker by the second. Beauty took his hands in hers.

“Owaine, you are . . . dying?” she whispered.

“Hush, Beauty. Hush.”

“I must go to this castle and see to this beast.”

“No!” he cried, spluttering and wheezing.

“I must. There is no time to explain, but I will not let you die, and either way, I need to flee Imwane tonight, for something terrible has happened.”

“My child, I cannot let you go.”

She held his withered hand. “You are my father, and you once saved my life. It is my turn to save yours.”

“No, Beauty. No!”

“Do not fret, I know I will be safe, for I have dreamt it,” she lied.

“My child . . . my child . . .”

She kissed his dry, papery cheek. “I am only sorry that I must leave you in this state. But lie still. I will bargain with this beast and you will feel strong again. As soon as you do, go to Hally. He will care for you.”

“Beauty . . .”

A sob caught her throat, but she swallowed it. She took the terrible red rose from his fingers and felt the heaviness of it in her hands. The soft, full petals spiraled out from its tight center, interweaving in folds of scarlet, and it had one purple thorn on its stem that glittered in the firelight.

Without it in his hands, Owaine’s body slumped and his head lolled against the floorboards.

“Goodbye, Papa,” she whispered.

Then she heard a shout from outside. Running to the door, she saw that it was snowing again and heavy flakes were raining down. Across the hill, lights were dancing around the temple, and she guessed that the State officials had found Eli. She looked over her shoulder at the cottage once more before shutting the door and whistling Champ to her side. He came easily, as if he had been waiting for her call all along.

Straightening her fur cloak, she clambered onto his back and placed the red rose behind her ear. Burying her hands in Champ’s mane, she tried to ignore the intense fear churning in her stomach.

“It is now, boy.”

She barely needed to press her heels into his sides before Champ was galloping toward the forest. It loomed before them in the black night, thick and dense. She could see nothing in its depths but brambles and trunks and darkness. Champ ran straight at it, his hooves kicking up fistfuls of snow, and there were now shouts and cries behind them. A slither of a milky moon lit their way and it shone lonely in the sky, abandoned by all the stars.

The forest rushed closer and Beauty refused to shut her eyes. She stared at it, meeting it headlong with a narrow, challenging gaze. There was a whine of wind and then suddenly they were swallowed whole, and the darkness was all about them.

Part Three

A woman walked out of the glaring sun and into the mountain temple, her red gown sweeping about her sandaled feet. She turned a prayer wheel at the entrance in the direction of the moon, as was customary, and pressed her thumb and index finger together.

Inside, the temple was shadowed and cool. The woman patted her damp brow with the back of her hand and breathed in the smoky scent of incense. It made her nauseated. Everything made her sick to her stomach at the moment, and she swallowed down the bile at the back of her throat with a grimace.

Taking off her sandals, she padded into the inner temple, cooling her feet on the colorful, ragged carpets adorning the floor. She had walked to the temple from the mountain camp, and the rocky passes and midday sun had worn her out. She remembered with a wry smile that she used to be able to hike whole days effortlessly, but things were different now.

She flexed her sore back and moved farther into the temple, passing colorful streamers that hung from the ceiling, ducking under fringes of fabric, and weaving between wooden prayer benches. She could see the golden feet of the goddess’s statue at the opposite end, but it would be a while before she reached it. She accidentally knocked an oil lamp off a table and it clattered to the floor.

“Asha?”

She froze. She thought that she was alone and she turned, hoping that it was not the teacher.

“What are you doing here? I thought that this place would be deserted!”

It was the traveling professor from the University of Magic in The Neighbor. The woman smiled, relieved.

“Hello there, Pa,” she replied in their Western Realm tongue.

“Oh no, please let us speak in the mountain dialect. I must return home soon and I wish to master it.” He spoke haltingly and with incorrect verb enunciation.

“Of course, as you wish.”

“Thank you. I wanted to travel to all the temples one last time.” He gestured to a pocketbook in his hands. “I wanted to record as much of them as possible so that I never forget.”

“I thought that you collected species.”

“I seek to understand and record many things.” He straightened out his robes. “It is so hot here. Were it not also so beautiful then I doubt that I could stand it. You fair very well.”

“I have experienced many climates.”

The professor raised an eyebrow. “Well, we might all fair well at a sorcerer’s side?”

Asha flushed.

“What are you talking about?” she asked too quickly.

“I have heard rumors.”

“A man of learning should know better than to listen to rumors.”

“The teacher said something to me once also. He asked if you ever left the camp at night. He asked how powerful you were.”

She had wondered if the teacher suspected her. She caught him watching her sometimes, staring into her brown eyes as if he might read her soul.

“You cannot expect them not to be curious,” the professor pressed on. “You appeared to them suddenly at night, begging for sanctuary. They are well versed in scripture and they wonder what they house.”

“I owe no explanations to you.”

He bowed his head. “So be it. I did not wish to upset you, Asha, forgive me.”

“All right,” she said, and turned to go.

“But I take it that you know the perils of sorcery? You know what you are dealing with? The teacher told me that the scriptures warn—”

“You violate my honor!”

He bowed once more. “Forgive me.”

“Leave!”

He did so, glancing back at her dark figure just once. When he was gone, Asha sighed deeply and rubbed her throbbing head. She padded on through the temple once more, her chest heavy.

She reached the feet of the great golden statue of the goddess, and she knelt. From beneath her red gown, she took out an amulet and held it in her palm. Carefully, she pressed the amulet to her stomach as was the custom of the Pervoroccian Houses, even though she was far from her home country.

The baby inside her stirred.

“Great goddess, I pray for my child.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She was heartbroken and tired with the secrets that she must conceal. In a few days time she would have to leave the mountains; the teacher was getting too suspicious. She knew that she would have to get her child to her sister, Dane, somehow, for she had dreamt it. But she was weary.

“I pray for my love too. Bring him back to me. This child must have a family.”

But she knew that it could not be so; her sorcerer had told her as much before he abandoned her in this forsaken place, carrying his child.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
HREE

The Beast

I
ron gates clanged shut behind them of their own accord, and Beauty and Champ halted before a deep moat. On the opposite bank stood a castle made of coppery bricks and twisting turrets that disappeared into a shifting magenta sky. Champ twitched.

“Steady, boy,” Beauty said, but her voice wavered.

She thought that she had heard something. Something like a distant, rumbling roar of a terrifying creature, but she could not be sure. Now she heard nothing.

The castle was some distance away; the moat, meadows, water fountains, and walled gardens stood between them and the great building. The light here was dark and feathery, and it hung in a mist that swirled around the ground. Beauty glanced up at the crescent moon, wondering if it was the same that had watched over her in all her seasons.

For the last half hour, she and Champ had thundered past bracken and woven between trunks in the forest, instinct guiding them. She was no longer cold, though the snow continued to fall; it
settled strangely in this place. Icicles hung from tree branches, yet the grand, sculpted fountains spurted water with little trouble. The water droplets even looked as though they might be warm to the touch, and the snow did not cover everything; there were whole orchards and fields left bare.

An echoing clang sounded and a drawbridge lowered, sweeping across the wide, shadowed moat. It hit the ground before Champ’s hooves with a bump and Beauty fought to keep him under control.

“Easy, boy. Easy.”

She urged him on with her heels and they walked slowly over the drawbridge toward the castle entrance, past meadows of fresh grass, evergreen mazes, and up stone steps. It was silent; there were no rabbits rustling in the bushes or birds singing in the trees. The thought of Owaine kept Beauty moving forward. Without the image of his frail, dying face, she would surely have turned and ran.

As they approached the castle, Beauty saw thick vines covering its red-bricked walls and twisting about its latticed windows. They were studded with thorns, and fat flowers dripped from the vines in bunches. As she drew closer, Beauty realized that these were roses of every color: pink, yellow, orange, purple, blue, green, gold, and silver. They were every shape and hue imaginable and she gasped at the sight of them.

Champ stepped onto the graveled drive before the castle, the stones crunching beneath his hooves, and all of a sudden, every rose turned blood red. A dark shadow darted from a corner and the air was split with the horrendous roar of a beast.

Champ screeched, rearing onto his hind legs, and Beauty lost her seating, tumbling from his back. She smacked onto the hard ground, the wind knocked from her lungs.

“Who dares to pass here?”

The realm swam before her eyes and she wondered if this were a dream. Champ was still whinnying and rearing, his eyes rolling with
fear, and for a moment, Beauty thought that she had heard a creature speaking.

“You trespass on this enchanted land!”

She heard it again—a strange sound that was part snarl and part blackness.

Champ’s front legs slammed to the ground and the earth shook. It roused Beauty, and she stumbled to her feet as her horse reared onto his haunches once more.

She froze, catching sight of a great beast before her.

It had the body of a griffin bare of feathers, with wings coiled on its back and transparent, webbed skin on its legs. Fangs curved from its mouth and bones jutted from every angle, stretching the skin of its crouched form.

“What do you want here?” it roared.

Its face had something of a lion in it, with matted clumps of fur and a snubbed snout, but most terrible of all were its eyes—hazel and human.

“I . . .”

Beauty felt woozy and faint. Champ was still bucking and rearing beside her, his hooves faltering in the gravel, and he was in danger of toppling backwards.

The beast took a swooping step forward and the blood rushed to Beauty’s head.

“No!” she cried, holding out her hands. “Do not step closer!”

Her voice came out trembling and thin, but she was amazed that she could speak at all.

The beast gave a low, rumbling growl, but he moved back. She turned away from him and ran to Champ, dodging his thrashing hooves.

“Easy, boy, easy.”

He snorted and bucked, but she placed her hands on his face and he did not rear again. He shook with fear. She whispered and
hummed to him, but his eyes rolled and his flanks heaved and foamed with sweat. She remembered the state of Sable at Imwane, and then she thought of Owaine and her panic for his life brought her courage.

“I have come to speak with you,” she said, her voice echoing about the eerie grounds.

“How found you this place? How came you to know of me?”

“I am the daughter of a man you have cursed . . .” She stared at Champ’s brown muzzle as she spoke, unable to look at anything else. “ . . . and I have come to save his life.”

There was a crashing snarl that made Champ flinch from her hands and she squeezed her eyes shut, her head throbbing with the sound.

“That thief dies! He pays for the treasure that he stole! A life for a life.”

“But he—”

“We gave him food and shelter from the storm and he chooses to repay us with theft!”

Beauty pulled the red rose from where it had tangled in her hair. The thorn had caught her cheek and left a pale scratch, but not even a petal of the flower was dented.

“You mean this? I come to return it to you.”

From the corner of her eyes she saw that the shadow shifted.

“It is no use to us now.”

“But I have returned it, and you can raise the curse from my father.”