Page 22 of Roses in Amber
"You succeeded admirably, in the end. Loudly. Viciously. Frighteningly. But admirably."
He gave me a look that really did remind me wonderfully of Pearl. "Must you?"
"I'm beginning to think I must. How did you end up a Beast?"
"Ah," he said, softly. "That I can't tell you."
"You don't know?"
"I can't tell you. Like the picking of a rose, like the—" He stopped himself suddenly, then began again. "There are things that must and must not be done, here. Telling the entirety of my story is one of them."
"But why?"
"Amber. I am a Beast in an enchanted castle in a forest. What other answer do you expect?"
"Well, there must be some way to tell me."
He sighed. "The enchantment will tell you, if you wander the deeper parts of the palace unguarded. The main hall, the dining room and kitchen, our bedrooms, they're safe enough, but beyond them…" His tremendous shoulders rolled in a shrug. "You should know, though, Amber…the magic will want to make you a part of its story. To make you fit into the roles it already knows. And it will try to kill you, if it fails."
"Stars of earth and fire," I said as mildly as I could. "Has that happened often?"
The Beast rose, a dark and dangerous shadow against the starlight. "More than once."
He paced toward the stairs, clearly intending to leave me alone with the weight of that information. I waited until distance had nearly taken him, then said, "Beast. We missed dinner together, so you had better ask me now. Because you have to, don't you? It's one of thosemusts."
He turned his head back, though we could never make eye contact in the darkness. "Amber, will you sleep with me?"
"What would happen if I said yes?"
"I don't exactly know."
"So no one ever has."
His low laugh rolled across the room toward me. "No. No one ever has. The last person I was obliged to ask was perhaps the most beautiful person I have ever laid eyes upon. Perfect, a pure paragon. He…did not take the request well."
I murmured, "Oh dear," and then more clearly, but measuredly, wondering what the cost of either answer would be, said, "No, Beast, I won't sleep with you."
He bowed his head. "I thought not. Good night, Amber."
I said, "Good night, Beast," and he left me alone in the dark.
I stayed in my room most of the next day, working on perfumes and—I knew this perfectly well—avoiding any possibility of the enchantment drawing me down a hallway and trying to fit me into a predestined place. I emerged for dinner, which the Beast, very cautiously, took with me. I accused him of having been practicing eating like a civilized person, and he allowed that he may have been, and the evening passed in a strangely pleasant manner, even up unto the asking and answering of the ritual question. I didn't press him for any further details about the castle, the enchantment, or the paragon who had not cared to be propositioned by a Beast, and retired to bed early.
Dawn seemed to come even earlier, tenacious golden glow prying through my eyelids. I pulled a pillow over my head, determined to sleep a little longer, but heard someone repeating my name with increasing urgency. It wasn't the Beast, so I thought I had to be dreaming, as the servants had no audible voices and there was no one else to talk to. Finally, though, my oldest sister's voice sharpened unmistakably, and I bolted out of bed to her snapped, "Amber!"
Sunrise was coming from my vanity. Not reflected in it, but coming from it: the room's increasing brilliance shone from mirror's amber casing, and the mirror itself had taken on a silvery light of its own. I lurched to it, hardly awake enough to focus. My own tangle-haired reflection was barely visible in it, but Pearl, with her white hair cut short again so it was a cap of flyaway curls, looked out at me as though she sat five steps away, not across half an enchanted forest. "Oh, stars of heaven and earth, there you are. I've been hissing at you for half an hour."
"Pearl?" I sat heavily on my vanity stool, too thick-headed to comprehend what I saw. "Pearl, is that really you?"
"Of course it is. Keep your voice down. The family are all sleeping."
"What are you…how are you…?"
"I'm a witch, and I'm fine, thank you." Her familiar pedantry made me laugh, but I put my head down on the vanity table suddenly, overwhelmed with seeing her and not wanting to shed tears. Her voice softened unexpectedly. "We're all right, Amber. Areyou?" I lifted a hand, trying to indicate a yes, and she went on, still more gently than I expected from my austere older sister. "That Beast paid well for you. The pearl he sent is a focus. I knew it had power the moment I touched it, but it's taken me this long to understand it well enough to contact you. I couldn't do it without the full moon. The ocean bends to the moon's pull, and the pearl is a prize of the sea. Its power waxes and wanes, but even in the dark of the moon it's a focus like nothing I've ever imagined."
By then I'd recovered myself enough to raise my head again, and even to smile at Pearl's enthusiasm. "Witchery suits you."
A pale gleam came into her eyes. "With a little more time, I think I can cast an enchantment to free you, Amber. Can you hold on there a little while longer?"
