Page 24 of Roses in Amber
Two days' worth of rain had stopped sometime while I slept, and though clouds had come to obscure Pearl's moon, here the night was bright. The forest had a malevolent, creeping sense to it beneath the blue night, though I doubted our grounds had diminished any.
Our.A moment's defense of the Beast to my father, and suddenly the palace wasours, nothis. But then, we were its only two denizens, and unless Pearl's magic worked some rare witchery indeed, I didn't expect to be going anywhere any time soon. So ours it would be, if only in my thoughts. I brushed water from a balcony seat and settled into it, drawing my feet up off the cold floor.
Pearl was not the person in my family I would have imagined as the savior of a captive in a castle. Jasper, of all of us, seemed most suited to the role: I could see him, even at seven years old, brandishing a blade and fighting his way through brambles to rescue a lost soul. But the lot had fallen to Pearl, whose arrogance was at least matched by her intelligence; if we had to depend on someone to rescue us, there were worse choices. Particularly since Pearl would take failure as a personal affront, and the last time she'd been thwarted, with Solindra Nare, it had wakened in her a witchery none of us had dreamed slumbered within. If she was stymied in her first attempt at freeing me, I half expected her to take on the guise of a faery queen, and wreak havoc on the forest and palace alike.
Comforted by the thought, I drifted, half asleep beneath the moon, until my legs relaxed enough that my feet fell down and hit the cold floor, and I yelped and ran for bed.
True sunrise wakened me a few hours later. I felt lighter than I had in weeks, buoyed by having spoken with Pearl and Father. I wasn't sure, if I reflected on it, that I believed rescue was at hand, though certainly Pearlwouldorchestrate it if she could. My exile simply seemed less onerous, with the prospect of talking to and even seeing my family every month. It wasn't the same as feeling their warm embraces, but neither was I so alone anymore.
Strangely enough, that fact made me feel more sociable, even if the only soul I had to socialize with was the Beast. I ate a breakfast of toast and jam, foregoing the bacon as an act of willpower that I immediately questioned. The servants appeared to question it as well, as a small plate of bacon waited for me on a windowsill outside my room when I left it. I said, "Well, if you insist," and took the plate with me as I went in search of the Beast.
He haunted none of the spots I might expect him to: the dining hall, its parlor, the library, even the garden, which still squelched with standing water and mud, were abandoned. I knew where his rooms were, but was reluctant to go to them, not because I thought I would be unwelcome. No, I was afraid if I went beyond the main hall, the palace would guide me away from my intended destination and pull me into one of its stories, and I was not quite prepared to face another intimate history lesson.
The Beast was Irindala's son, the prince of our realm. I knew hisname. I shied away from that knowledge, hardly even letting myself remember it. I'd asked him his name once, and he had acceptedBeastin its stead. It seemed a trespass to go beyond that, even if he had since confessed—in effect if not in actuality—to what his name was. To pull myself away from those thoughts, I let myself into the other round-faced hall, the ballroom whose basic form echoed the library's. I hardly expected to find the Beast there, but it was the only other place in the palace that I was willing to go that I hadn't yet looked in.
Sunlight poured in through the enormous windows and reflected off the golden parquet floors, brightening the room far more than the library with its carpets and shelves could ever manage. A crystal chandelier hung far above me, singing gently as the door's opening and closing pushed a faint breeze through the hall. I stood beneath it, smiling upward at the rainbows it cast, and tried to imagine this room full of music and flirtation and laughter.
I should not have: I knew it almost as soon as the fancy touched me. Memory snatched at me, memory that was not my own. The room filled with indistinct figures, beautifully dressed; music played as if from a distance, a ghostly remove that made its tune lighter and sweeter than any I'd ever heard. I was swept into the steps of a dance, moving with comfortable confidence as I smiled at my partners. I was hardly anyone, a courtier with a pretty dress and an excellent bosom, and no one could tell me any different. But I could charm, and I could flirt, and I wasn't surprised when, between dances, a slim and handsome young man crossed the floor toward me.
Other men might have to work their way through the crowd. For this youth, the crowd parted just a little, just enough, and did it without conscious effort or awareness: the prerogative of royalty. He stopped before me, offering a hand and unleashing a devastating smile that begot a breathless laugh from me as I took his hand. He drew me close, pulling me into the dance, and I could hardly do more than gaze up at him in half-stunned admiration. He favored his mother in beauty, though he had the broad nose I'd seen in paintings of the long-dead king, and he wore his tightly curling black hair cropped close to his scalp the way his father had. But he had Irindala's wide bright smile, played up against sepia skin darker than hers, and a jaw meant for sculpting. His hands were soft and, I saw, stained with ink: a scholar prince rather than a warrior. But then, he was young, and Irindala hadn't gone to war until she was in her twenties. He smiled again, and I smiled in return, lost in his dark eyes.
The music changed, gaining in tempo, until it became something I had never heard before. The prince's smile faded as his concentration increased: trying not to step on my skirt or my feet, trying not to crush me as he kept pace with the dance. Then even concentration faltered, becoming alarm, though it seemed only he shared that concern: my heart flew with excitement, my breath coming in laughs and joy filling me as we tangled more tightly together. He tried to break away and couldn't, though my grip hardly seemed strong enough to keep him. Faster and faster we whirled, until the part of me that didn't belong in that story spun loose andIbegan to fear, though the pretty girl I embodied still laughed and thrilled with delight. Nor couldIloosen my hold on the prince: we spun together, increasingly out of control, our breath burning in our bodies and sickness rising from the relentless twirling, the impossible pace. My feet began to hurt and tears started to leak from my eyes, but the woman who had started the dance loved every moment of it.
I came to a sudden, shocking stop, and the memory ripped away in a whirlwind of fear.
"Amber." The Beast was there, his massive paw at my waist, holding me. Catching me. Stopping me. My heart lurched in surprise and gratitude and something else that left my stomach hollow. I put my hand on his chest to steady myself and found, to my surprise, that I was trembling. I put my forehead against his chest—well, his ribs; he stood much too tall for me to reach his chest, really—and he sank to his haunches, lowering himself until he merely loomed over me, rather than towered. He put his other hand against my hair, the barest touch of reassurance. For all of his size, Ifeltreassured, not trapped, and stood there, drawing tremulous breaths and noticing his musky scent, until my shaking stopped.
"What was that," I finally whispered, and felt his massive head shake above mine.
"Dancing," he said. "Dancing is rarely safe in faery tales. Are you all right?"
"No." I shook my head, fingers coiled in the heavy mane that fell down his chest. "No. That was…was it trying to kill me, Beast?"
"To subsume you, I think. It's still searching for a place you can belong. But if I hadn't come…" He shook his head again. "You were careening around the room. There's not much in it to hurt yourself on, but in time you would have managed anyway."
I stepped back a little, looking up at him. Up: even settled on his haunches he was taller than I, if not by much. "How did you know to find me?"
He lifted my amber necklace off my breast with the tip of one careful claw. "I told you it has a protective charm. I felt it struggling to keep you safe, and came to help."
I closed my hand over the necklace, and over his fingers as well. "You felt it?"
"There's very little that goes on in this palace that I'm unaware of, and the necklace is part of the palace. It's all bound together, me and it."
"And me?"
The Beast shifted his big head, not quite a shake. "Not so tightly."
"And what about the things you sent to my family? Are they irrevocably bound up in this too?"
"Everything inside the forest's boundaries is, to one degree or another. The enchantment's influence lessens, the farther from the palace it goes. But you need not worry." What passed for his smile pulled at his mouth. "The coin is real enough, and won't turn to lead in the city. Nor will the books turn to dust, or the jewels to ordinary stones. Are you all right now?"
I took a shuddering breath and straightened my shoulders. "I think so."
He leaned forward, onto all fours. "I'll leave you, then."
"Don't!" I put a hand over my mouth as if I could block the blurted word too late, but said, "Don't," again, more quietly. "I'd rather not be alone. I don't…I don't trust the palace. I don't want to get caught in another story right now."
The Beast ducked his vast head, an invitation, and, emboldened, I curled my fingers into the thick fur along his spine, and walked from the ballroom with him.
