And as she read the sections, Corinna swore the images of the beast and the woman shifted like shadows. Indeed, the woman did look to be closer than before, and the beast was howling with his arms spread wide. Corinna distanced herself from the book but kept reading, looking for a way to break it.
With each creature spell created, one beautiful rose tree shall grow in semblance. May its branches always be fruitful with tempting buds to lure possible solutions to the one cursed. The spell is a lifetime enchantment with only one true way of breaking. Each beast must change their ways, see themselves for the aggressively unattractive beings they are and strive to become more beautiful as a result. When a beast finds it within themself to let another into their heart, to trust their heart to the care of another, and have that person’s heart in return the spell will be broken. In keeping with the power of the true religion, only selfless love can break such a powerful curse.
The rose tree of a beast shall wither over time, taking on the appearance of the beast’s despair and weakened heart. Should a love not be found before the roses fade forever, the beast will give up that which it treasures most – most commonly its own life. A truly terrible fate for any living thing, this wretched curse should be reserved for only the most despicable of men or those who can find it within themselves to change.
A warning to all you who dare to cast it, should you become their solution you sacrifice your own skills and eternal beauty in exchange. Tread carefully.
Corinna frowned. Alexander needed to trust his heart to someone and get that person’s heart in return… Alexander had to fall in love? Corinna couldn’t help the little chuckle that came from her.
“Good luck,” she scoffed quietly and turned the page of the book. The next page was all about a spell to call on the powers of water. Corinna turned back to the creature spell and read it over again. The rose tree was connected to Alexander’s curse. When it withered, Alexander would most likely die. Well, the flowers looked alright to Corinna this morning. Maybe they had more time to break this curse than Niviene thought.
Oh! That had to be what she meant! Alexander needed to be made presentable for love, made to be someone that some poor girl would actually fall in love with. That was certainly true. As he was, Alexander wasn’t fit to love a dog much less a woman.
Corinna snapped the book shut when she started to hear a piano playing. Without thinking twice about it, she leapt to her feet and half tripped down the stairs in her haste. She held the large tome tightly under her arm as she slid and fell on the polished ground floor. The piano was playing in the ballroom again. As she scrambled to her feet and made it to the door, it grew louder and more complex.
It was beautiful, but it was still locked away behind this silly door. Corinna tugged on the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. The room was sealed tight, but whatever for? What sat behind it and gave off such attractive sounds? Since she couldn’t go in, Corinna contented herself to sit with her back against the wall beside it. She listened to the swells and falls of the tune she didn’t recognize. She envied and admired whoever had such talent with the keys.
And then several sour notes screeched through the door instead of the expected crescendo.
“Damn it all!” Alexander’s coarse voice cried out through the wood. Corinna panicked and jumped to her feet, prepared to run if the prince decided to leave the ballroom. “It’s hopeless!”
“Please calm down, my lord. Just concentrate on how well you were playing,” Belle’s voice drifted out as well. She was in there with Alexander? Alexander had been the one playing? With those huge bear paws? Now Corinna felt ashamed of herself. She had normal human hands and she couldn’t play half as well as Alexander hand.
“You mean when I had human fingers. Don’t you understand? It all means nothing when these beast claws come back. I don’t even know why I put myself through this every night! Five minutes of myself, of talent and hope, and then I’m returned to this gruesome form. What is the point of learning to play instruments if I will never have the chance to show anyone?!”
There was a crash and something glass shattered. Alexander’s growling was louder than a crack of thunder. Corinna held her breath to stop her shivering and calm her heart. She was in no danger. She had to remind herself that. If she could keep quiet then Alexander wouldn’t even know she was there.
“But Alexander, you have to keep up hope,” Belle urged. “Remember what Morgana said on the first day – the roses reflect your hope. If you stop believing, it’s all over.”
“But it is all over,” Alexander grunted. “No one can break my curse. No one even knows how.”
“I don’t care,” Belle said, firm and strong. “I won’t let you give up.”
Corinna let out her held breath and felt her chest swell. Someone could break this curse. Someone did know how. She could do it. She could set them all free. Corinna was going to force Alexander to become someone loveable even if the prince died in the process…. Now she just had to get over the idea that she would actually have to spend time with Alexander to do it.
Chapter 11 – The Prince Represented
In the tales they taught in the schoolhouse, brave knights battled evil men and fearsome creatures to protect the land, the ladies, and the love of all mankind. They stood for honor, courage, strength, moral correctness, and valor. Those men, those knights stood for everything a good and proper man should strive to become one day in his life. Learn the value of a hard day’s work, train for death and hope for life, practice your prayers to the one God and stand your ground for the ones you love.
Corinna lowered her face into a rose and took such a deep breath of it. Unlike the first day, she did not get dizzy and infatuated with it. She enjoyed the scent, the scent of any proper grown rose, and then released it to rest back with its brothers and sisters. Corinna smiled sadly. She was not one of those knightly men. She wasn’t even a courtly woman. A hard day’s work was great, she knew the value of that, but was it required that the work had to involve heavy labor and plowing tools? Corinna could tend a field as well as any farmer, but there was so much skill and devotion put in to growing a proper garden.
Train for death and hope for life. Corinna was never one for violence. She could handle a hoe and a rake. She could at least block with a sword, but she never dreamed of attacking another man or woman. How anyone could imagine killing another baffled her. No, she wouldn’t train for battles that wouldn’t need to be fought. Stand your ground for the ones you love. That was simple. Corinna could follow that one through and through. She would protect her family, her friend, for as long as she could. Right now, that meant staying away from them. Right now, that meant helping a beastly prince break his well-deserved curse. Corinna would always be there to protect her family.
Corinna clipped some stray leaves and some extra thorns. She pulled out the only weed she’d discovered in the entire garden in the whole week she’d been cleaning, by one of the bushes she had replanted herself. She smiled.
“There. All better,” she said. “You’re all looking prettier every time I see you. What kind of magic gives you all such a glow…. The magic flowing through the water?”
Corinna glanced over at the fountain, its beauty expressed brilliantly in the light of day just as well and even more so than at night. The water trickled and drained itself away through its interesting troughs. Perhaps magic even made the water run. Would all of this end once Corinna figured out how to get Alexander to fall in love?
“So the soil is just normal, average dirt?” Corinna asked the air, turning back to the bushes. Wind made the leaves shiver, almost like a response, and Corinna laughed. “Good. I suppose not everything can be magical. As the teacher always said – too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.”
Corinna was not one of the knightly men or courtly women. She would rather spend all day with a good book, tending to a garden, or caring for her horse. She liked flowers, giving them to others to wear and as decoration, and all abo
ut their growth process. She loved to read, but more about manners and love than of history and the courts. She would rather work the land than work a sword, and she loved clear and open lands… not big cities or closed off manors. Her mother had once described her as boyish for her love of the outdoors. Alastar had called her boyish for her clothing and hair. Alexander had called her a boy because he could.
“You’re all so lucky,” Corinna told the roses. “All you need to be happy is some fine soil, a bit of water, and access to the sun’s rays. By human standards, that means all you need is food. If I could be so happy just by eating, I would follow Belle around all day.”
Corinna drifted her hand over the bush before her, fingers never touching the flowers but sometimes glancing off a leaf or two. She felt a giddy feeling deep within her gut, like someone was tickling her, and she smiled in response to it.
“You like that, huh?” she asked and dragged her fingertips down a line of leaves. She felt stupid and silly, but it also made her feel free. The roses were friends who would never judge her for being like this. As she’d said, all they needed to be happy and accepting was food.
“Are you talking to the flowers, Corinna?” After a week of never hearing her speak, Morgana’s voice startled Corinna like a deer grazed by a hunter’s arrow. She jumped to her feet and spun to look at her new company, her tiny gardening shovel held up like a defense.
“Maybe,” she said, relaxing and trying to appear as though Morgana hadn’t just caught her being an idiot. “Is that wrong? I mean, you’re the one who told me they were lonely.”
“True,” Morgana said, regarding her curiously. She took in Corinna’s slightly dirt covered appearance and smiled. “You truly love the garden, don’t you? I saw you trying to beat the front yard into submission this morning too. What is it about plants that makes you so passionate about them?”
Corinna shifted from foot to foot. She felt like she was about to enter into an interrogation that would make her feel even more awkward about her interests. She turned away from Morgana and walked to a new bush. She knelt by it and started trimming it to make it more beautiful than it already was.
“Plants don’t judge,” Corinna said finally. “You can be whatever you want to be and they’ll love you so long as you remember to water them. Besides that, I can make them beautiful. Do you know how it feels to grow something and do it so well that people from the palace will come to catch a glimpse of it? Do you know what it’s like to know this beautiful creation of the world is alive because of you?” She looked up from the flowers to look at Morgana. “And I mean without the use of magic.”
Corinna looked right up into Morgana’s electric cat eyes and ignored the tingle it brought on. The sound of water ran on in the background during the silence that neither of them pervaded. Then Morgana brought her hands together and looked away. She rubbed her palms together as though they were cold and looked around at everything other than Corinna. Her eyes settled on the ground, on the decorative stones that outlined the flowerbeds and kept them separate from the pathway – unless of course a tantrum throwing beast came through. If Corinna didn’t know any better, she might believe Morgana was embarrassed, perhaps even ashamed, of herself in response to Corinna’s passion.
Then again, who was to say she knew better at all. Perhaps Morgana truly was feeling that way. Corinna looked at the way Morgana’s hand covered half of her face when she turned away and at her long and delicate fingers – no experience in hard work for this garden. She frowned a bit.
“Morgana,” she began, drawing the witch’s attention back. “Have you gotten yourself a new cloak?”
The enchantress looked down at herself for a moment and then a bright, genuine smile graced her features. She nodded and ran her hands down the new fabric.
“Yes,” she said. By her tone, it must have been a gift from someone special. She seemed to glow with happiness at the thought of it. “Yes, a friend gave it to me yesterday. Thank you for noticing. Do you like it?” And she turned slowly to show it off.
In Corinna’s opinion, the cloak itself was nothing special. It was a worn blue color, rimmed in thin yellow waves. In a way, it reminded Corinna of the ocean – the way the story tellers described it and the way the books had it drawn. She wondered if the ocean truly was cast on the edges in mermaid’s gold or if it was perhaps just the water catching the sunlight.
“Yes. Blue suits you,” she finally said. Morgana seemed pleased at this answer, and sort of twirled to show it off. Corinna smiled and looked back at the flowers.
Morgana was a powerful sorceress, but underneath it all she was just like any other young woman. A compliment from a friend pleased her. A new cloak from a dear friend brought her joy. Her smiles were beautiful and infectious to the point that Corinna couldn’t look at her. She was having a personal moment of happiness.
Wait. On second thought, perhaps Corinna should look at her. She was off-guard.
“Morgana,” she began, and Morgana gave her full, blissful attention to her. “Last night I heard Alexander playing the piano. Is he not always stuck in his beastly form?”
“Oh no,” Morgana said, turning and tapping a flower with the tip of her finger. It seemed to bloom brighter at the touch. “Alexander is granted a moment of reprieve from his curse every night at midnight. For the five minutes after the clock strikes twelve, he is returned to his handsome human self.”
“And he chooses to play the piano during this time?” Corinna asked, turning her body to look at Morgana but staying crouched down by her newly planted flowers.
“Well,” Morgana laughed. “He used to spend it glued to a mirror. But the sight of himself transforming back into a beast never sat well with him and he ordered all the mirrors removed from the house. Any remembrance of his good looks has been put away so he can’t see it.”
“Good looks?” Corinna asked. “I’m sorry. I’m sure he’s attractive, but it’s hard to imagine that when all you see is the hair and the claws and the… fangs.”
Morgana seemed to smirk. “Yes. I can see where you’re coming from. Still, Alexander used to be considered the most handsome young man in all of Paesaggia. Girls were dying to spend time with him, to find themselves in his good graces. He had a very charmed life – as do all who are blessed with looks in life.”
“Yes and then his charms brought him to curses.” Corinna pet the stem of one bright flower and then moved on to a whole new bush.
“No. In fact, it was his curse which brought him curses,” Morgana corrected. Suddenly, she did not seem happy. Her voice was stony and cold. “Alexander was under the unfortunate curse of a boorish father. The man knows nothing but fear and hatred and suspects all around him of treason and heresy. He bred this into his son, poisoning a perfectly good boy and growing him into an ignoramus. Alexander almost made it out of this curse of his, but his father insured his fate.”
“What do you mean?” Corinna asked. She tried not to show too much interest. Morgana was still talking as though off-guard, and Corinna feared being too pushy would rip her back to her senses. She would stop revealing so much and more than likely return to her silent observations of Corinna.
“When the witch, Morgause, entered Alexander’s house, she asked Alexander for help to see his father. She said she was under the terrible rule of a king, a king that wanted to kill her but she had done nothing wrong. She was seeking help from Alexander’s father, some type of reprieve or protection. Alexander showed her great sympathy and arranged a meeting with his father, but when Morgause revealed herself to be a sorcerer, Alexander and his father both accused her of lies and treachery.”
Morgana turned and faced the fountain and its special tree. “But Morgause had not lied. She was under the terrible reign of King Cassius of Paesaggia, who was out to kill her and all of her kind… including me. Alexander’s father ordered his men to capture Morgause and kill her, but they were no match for her. She looked to Alexander for his support. He had shown her great e
motion and clemency for speaking against a king when she was still thought to be a normal peasant. Alexander’s father forbade Alexander from helping Morgause, and Alexander took it to heart. He told Morgause there was no helping a lying, deceitful, despicable sorcerer.”
“Wow. Sounds like him alright,” Corinna grumbled, but Morgana caught it and glared at her.
“Alexander was the victim of his own father’s odium and yet you cast him into the fire of your own without a moment’s thought,” she scolded. “I thought you were a kinder person than that.”
“So if you knew how to do it, you would save Alexander from his curse?” Corinna asked, standing from the roses and dropping the shovel in the dirt.
She was taller than Morgana when she stood at full height, and Morgana seemed to take in that fact when Corinna asked her question. Morgana took a step back from her and lost her glare. Instead, she looked slightly stunned, like a cat who had just heard a loud bang.
“What?” she asked. “Of- Of course I would. Alexander deserves the chance to right his father’s wrongs.”
“You’re a powerful sorceress. Tell me, is it true that if Alexander fell in love it could break his curse?” Corinna asked, calmly and empathetically. Was it true that the cure could be so simple? Maybe Morgana could help him. Alexander trusted her more. She may be able to convince Alexander to change his ways easier than Corinna.
The Rose Chateau Page 12
