Page 77 of The Beauty and the Griffin

If Niel’s plan had worked back then, he would be with me now. Or maybe the spell did work all those years ago, but Win’s story was accurate when she claimed some magical beast had been sent to kill King Siegfried III.

Even while my heart ached, relief flowed through me. Which made no sense at all.

Back in my days as Princess Eddi’s companion I’d thought of myself as the wise sidekick character. Ha! What a joke. Most of the time I didn’t know my own mind. Or heart.

Ever since our meeting in the palace library, I’d fought off a haunting suspicion that even if Niel did manage to cheat time and meet me in his distant future, his main objective would have been to rule his country beyond his natural lifespan, not to marry me.

But tonight, in person, he’d seemed so passionately devoted to me that I’d desperately wanted him to be my hero.

Did he really love me, or was I nothing more than a convenient means to an end?

If dithering were a competitive sport, I’d have shelves full of trophies.

My one faint comfort in all this mess was that my Gamekeeper had certainly not killed Niel or the palace servants. The Gamekeeper was kind and trustworthy. His magic had protected and sustained Faraway Castle all my life, and everyone who worked for him knew that he was good. Even the thought of him soothed my aching heart.

At that moment, I knew that I loved the Gamekeeper, beast though he was.

Strangely enough, it was not just friendship love—I wasin lovewith him. I’d denied the truth—fought it tooth and nail for years. But the Gamekeeper was honorable, considerate, humble, and so many more virtues . . . He was the one person whose company I knew I could enjoy for the rest of my life. He would be a beloved friend rather than a husband in the usual sense, but I could live with that.

Niel had attracted me beyond anything I’d ever imagined, but he was the sort of man who must always have his way, win the prize. A potential tyrant.

Niel wanted me. I knew he’d become fond of me, but mostly I’d felt as if I were the prize he’d chosen to win or die trying. His love was possessive, demanding, and very flattering. But the Gamekeeper’s love was much deeper than passion.

“His love is everything I know love should be—kind, patient, selfless, forgiving, and so much more,” I whispered.

Chicky scrambled to her feet, wings thrashing, and huffed a quick breath. “Beeetrice love the Gamekeeper,” she stated.

I could only stare. “Have you been reading my mind?”

She shrugged her wings. “You allow me to read your thoughts, but you don’t want me to interfere. So, I don’t.”

“I . . . I couldn’t see the truth until just now.”

My griffin nodded wisely, the corners of her beak pulling up in a strange smile. “Beeetrice too full of fear to see anything real. You love the Gamekeeper. You should find him and tell him so before he dies.”

Arabella

I winced at Prince Briar’s question. “Yes, I suppose now is the right time to tell all. You must understand, I’ve repented and paid the price for my interference in world history for nearly a century now. All of us have.”

“We’re running out of time,” Rosa reminded me.

She was right. In the back of my mind, I sensed the renewed fury of the enemy’s attack. Even as we spoke, Faraway Castle’s borders were being pushed inward by a terrible magical assault as the Gamekeeper’s protections faded away. By the latest account, the enemy troops would soon reach the playing fields at the base of the castle’s magical gardens.

Every one of us was pouring magic into the defenses even as we talked and planned, and we all knew how outnumbered we were. Creatures from across the continent and beyond had come to take part in the destruction of the Trollkarl and the ascendancy of fay magic, with the bearer of the Mirror of Alviss ruling over all.

My mind knew that the crisis wasn’t entirely my fault, but my heart groaned over the extent of my responsibility. Memories of that fateful day still haunted my waking and sleeping hours.

“I had compiled the enchantments necessary to freeze the king’s aging process,” I began, my voice thin and cracking, “and Pukai was preparing spells to conceal our magic when Niel suddenly burst into our secret workshop beneath the mountains, exclaiming that this was the time, theonlytime it could be accomplished. To this day, I don’t know what upset him so much, but we went along with his pronouncement and prepared to cast our joint spell.”

I looked directly at each of my listeners in turn, then said, “Don’t ask.”

Every member of my small audience nodded in somber agreement before I continued. “I prepared and began the enchantment, with Pukai lending magic to anchor it. I had nearly completed applying the enchantment to Niel when he slipped something into it: an add-on that would allow him to keep ruling Adelboden while he waited for Beatrice to be born and grow up. If he’d asked us ahead of time to include it, we might not have quibbled—after all, merfolk royalty often rule for over a century. But his devious behavior startled and angered both of us, and we reacted simultaneously . . . not necessarily wisely.” To say the least.

“Which of you turned King Siegfried III into a Beast?” Rosa asked.

Omar and Ellie quietly gasped, but Briar added, “And which of you confined him here in the mountains?”

I swallowed hard, coughed, and blinked back tears for the first time in many decades. “I turned him into the Beast, using a curse not even his power could touch. Pukai confined him to these mountains. Faraway Castle and the Forbidden Lands were already Niel’s personal property, inherited from some branch of the family. It was Pukai’s idea to move the royal palace onto the Forbidden Lands, effectively ending the Kingdom of Adelboden. Several years later, when Niel chose to develop his family’s castle and its lands as a resort, Pukai placed Palau Kalah in Faraway Lake to remind him that she was always watching.”

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