Was there anything I could say about Shao’s story?
My heart tore for him, for his years’ long pleas and tears, but swelled too in its fractured state at the realization that I, the worthless and shameful burden to the family, had brought this man some semblance of nostalgic hope.
“Since I was exiled as a child,” he continued, “I’ve fantasized about having someone defend me fervently rather than accepting my banishment, and the person varied a lot. My siblings, my parents, anyone… but they hadn’t, no matter how much I wished they had. At some point, the hero was replaced by you. The butt of nobles’ jokes. A faceless girl. Someone I never thought I’d meet.”
For a beat, I didn’t respond, unable to form proper words.
Me. Me.
A hero.
To the renowned beast. To this callous man. To the one noble who’d perhaps thought of me with respect rather than disgust and loathing.
Again, I… What could I have even said to something like that? Though he barely knew me, he was baring his secrets to me, and they involved… me. A glorified version of me, one he’d never have come up with had he ever met me.
An illusion only possible because he’d been sequestered here almost all his life.
It felt a bit invasive that a stranger thought of me so often, and yet I couldn’t blame him. Rather, I found myself… flattered. More than a little.
“I suppose you’re disappointed,” I joked. It wasn’t a joke.
“I am,” Shao said. Ouch. He exhaled. “I am, since I had no choice but to pedestalize you before I met you. Beatrice Heather was never a person, but rather an idea of one, and while I knew you’d have an unflattering personality, I airbrushed them away as I only could in dreams.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t even have it in me to defend myself anymore against his hopefully accidental jabs against my personality.
“I’m happy I got to meet you,” Shao said, and I wondered if this was the calm before the storm. He was buttering me up with compliments and kind words to prepare for sending me away, since I was nothing like his imagination.
I was useless.
Worse than useless, since I’d obliterated his fictional, ideal heroine by the simple act of appearing in his life.
“Will you please still stay with me for five years?” He asked instead, and my face twisted into a grimace. “I’ll give you the cure as soon as I can, of course.”
“Wh-what?” I stuttered. “I’m sorry, what?” Was I more surprised by the fact this man could be polite and talk all gentlemanly, or the fact that he’d just asked me to stay with such a pleading tone a day after yelling at me to leave? I had no idea. It didn’t matter either way.
Had he gone mad?
“Why are you so shocked? This was the agreement from the start.”
And I’d been stunned beyond words from the start, but our conversations had never been as arbitrary as they were now. I stared at him.
“Well, I’m sure you know my answer, but you can’t fault me for my confusion. You were so furious with me,” I said. I pointed at his chest. “You kicked me out.”
Or he’d been about to before I rushed out, which was basically the same thing.
“I know, and I’m sorry,” he replied. “But please, do not enter my room ever again. Next time, I really must send you home, and your father will not receive the cure.”
I arched my brows but said nothing, instead mulling over something he’d said earlier that I’d been too addle-brained to acknowledge. “You said what happened to you was a curse? You weren’t born with it, then?”
He cocked his head, then shook it. “I was three when a jealous witch cursed me. I don’t like talking about it; I’m sure you understand.” His fists clenched and blanched, and I nodded.
“It doesn’t, but I… If I’m going to be here for five years, I’d like to learn more about you.”
“I’d like to learn more about you,” he echoed. Words I never dreamed I’d hear him say, spoken in a voice so warm my heart almost melted. “Come on, now. Let me take you back home.”
Home.
It was so strange and jarring to see the word refer to a mansion I’d been so certain I’d never see again.
We were returning to the beast’s forlorn mansion—but the beast wasn’t beastly, and the mansion was still my home for the next five years.
Nodding, I followed him out of the clearing through the endless maze of trees.
I watched his taut back as he strutted through with confident strides, as if he’d ventured through these woods a million times, and I realized he probably had.
An eternity of isolation, with only the trees and flowers for company.
How quickly could that break a man?
If I’d been in his shoes, how quickly would that have broken me?
The thought filled me with a sudden burst of determination. Shao had revealed to me the giant, gaping shoes of a hero, expecting a dull acceptance and understanding—but I’d offer more than that.
I’d fill those stupid shoes, no matter what it took.
From what little I’d seen of him so far, Shao was antisocial and callous, but he had a kind, caring heart underneath. I wanted to see more of it than the few glimpses I’d been allowed.
He didn’t deserve to be cursed into eternal isolation.
Before my five years ended, I’d find a way to save him.
Chapter 9
“Eek!”
A book had thudded onto the crown of my head. I yelped again as it thudded to the ground, its spine bending back as it crash-landed onto the wooden floors.
Had I accidentally knocked a bookshelf in my helter-skelter search to find a treatment for Shao’s disfigurement?
Well, yeah, probably. I had a faint pain tingling from my elbows through my shoulders from bumping into every nook and cranny of this library over the last couple weeks since the incident with Shao.
But could wooden shelves supported by hundreds of obscenely large tomes be so fragile?
I glanced back to the domino-like rows of books precariously dangling on the top of every bookshelf, and I realized the miracle wasn’t that a book had fallen onto my head. No. I was fortunate and blessed that an entire row of books hadn’t spontaneously decided to murder me.
Mumbling to myself about how it must be a sign from the heavens, I bent down to pick up the stray book, hoping it would contain secrets about healing methods that I was in dire need of.
I cringed when I saw some of the papers, which had folded at haphazard places from the fall.
Books didn’t deserve to be disrespected like this. I considered muttering an apology, and only stopped myself because I had a strange feeling Shao would arrive just in time to hear me. I’d embarrassed myself enough in front of him.
Narrowing my gaze, I flipped through the book with one hand, occasionally stopping to unfold and straighten out the yellowing pages. I thumbed the thick and textured velvet spine as I glanced over the words and pictures—which there were quite a lot of.
The history of Perintas…
Magnolia Wars… Oh, this ought to be interesting, even if it had nothing to do with the topic at hand.
I’d studied the two wars thoroughly in school; it was the international war waged by the once-enslaved witches seeking freedom from us humans. Hundreds of years had passed since then, and now witches were some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world.
How the wars effected today’s farming climate… Really? Of all things relating to the war to write about, farming climates had caught the writer’s interest? This had to be a joke.
How Queen Mulan restored her power by controlling the farms…
I wasn’t sure what to make of this headline. In a weird way, I guess it… was plausible that she had? Food was important, and if she threatened to destroy the lands with her witch magic, her kingdom would have had no choice to comply with her every whims and orders.
I’m not sure what I expected from the passage that
followed, but it certainly wasn’t the long and unnecessarily drawn out essay that I got justifying Machiavellian tactics and preaching that the only valid way to rule was to know when to be cruel.
Honestly, I was impressed the author had somehow woven these annoying ramblings into a section about farms and something as intriguing and significant as the Magnolia Wars.
In between the self-absorbed ego trips by the author, there were glimpses of plausible albeit surprising and unexpected tactics… but I couldn’t bring myself to give one iota of a crap.
My eyes glazed over as I struggled to stifle a yawn.
Maybe the folded pages had been justified. As much as I adored reading and books, not all books were created equal.
I wasn’t one to advocate book burning, but this was one book that deserved to drown in the deepest of oceans just for how boring and rambling it was.
Lost in my irritation at the precious time I’d now wasted—the sooner I cured Shao and got in the good graces of his family, the sooner I could leave and save my own father—I didn’t notice a shadow slip behind me until it stole the book from my hands.
Suppressing a squeal, I turned around with my eyes as wide as an owl’s.
Shao stood before me, his brows arched and his lips twisted into a sardonic grin.
“Having fun?” He joked, his voice laced with gentle sarcasm, and I huffed.
“No, and you have horrible taste in books,” I said.
He shrugged. “I didn’t much like that book either, but it’s one of Father’s favorites. He practically worshiped it, saying it was crucial to his successes.”
“Is… that why you have it?” I asked, barely stopping myself from instead asking if that was why his father had given that to him.
Shao nodded and said, “Yeah. I hired someone to scribe all the pages by hand, since I think it’s long been out of print, and I couldn’t find any other copies than Father’s.”
Well, thank goodness I’d censored myself. I praised myself mentally for my rare moment of thought, then snorted.
“Not surprised,” I muttered. “I only read a couple pages, but the prose was dry and uninspiring, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the author’s the type of person who loved the sound of his own voice.”
Thumbing the spine of the book, Shao smiled softly—almost sadly?—as he fanned through the pages. “I don’t disagree, although I tried so hard to love it…” He shook his head, his blond curls framing the angles of his cheeks and jaw.
I licked my lips and swallowed, almost losing myself in the fleeting nostalgia in his eyes.
Finding my hand involuntarily reaching up to brush his hair from his eyes, I seized my wrist and chomped down on my tongue—hard, far harder than I intended—and jumped back, muttering made up profanities while shaking away half-formed tears.
Thus, I ruined whatever emerging moment between us.
Oops.
Shao pulled a face of both concern and confusion along with, dare I say it, judgment, before he erupted into a guffaw that bloomed heat in my cheeks.
He shrugged between his laughter, but the shrug was almost imperceptible because of how much his shoulders shook.
I wanted lightning to strike from the fluffy white cloud of the library chandelier’s pale, twinkling beads and strike me down so I didn’t have to suffer this moment.
Alas, the only source of magic within these walls was Shao’s talismans, and I had no idea where he even put them.
“Well, I guess every child wants to emulate their parent,” he said at last, then gestured to the distant desk I’d been working before I’d decided to seek more books for help. “Care to explain why there are a dozen bowls of disgusting pus all over my study desk and chairs?”
My eyes lit up with delight at the reminder of my few successes so far—or I hoped they were successes, anyway. They were mini successes, at least. Almost-successes. Whatever. I took pride in them.
“Oh, please, they’re not disgusting. They are beautiful, and they are your savior.”
Giggling deliriously, I snatched Shao’s hand without a second thought and pulled him to the desk. I heard a tiny puff of air from behind me, but Shao was quick to relent and follow me, to which, thank goodness because I probably couldn’t have dragged him anywhere without his cooperation.
“Care to explain what you mean by my savior?” He said, mirth in his voice although the effort with which he struggled to keep it level and serious was palpable.
“No, no, I won’t tell you,” I said. “Close your eyes. I’ll show you.” Hopefully.
“Show me… what?”
I dipped by hands in the closest tub of herbal mix, which looked suspiciously like a mixture of snot and vomit (but it smelled like cranberries, okay?), and snatched two large handfuls.
I gestured towards Shao with my chin. “C’mon, take that mask off. Let me rub some of this on you.”
Shao hid his flinch with another laugh. “You’re kidding.”
“No, no. Perfectly serious. This is going to cure you, you see? I used to study medicine. I swear this stuff won’t hurt you.”
Whatever he saw in my ideally-not-completely-rabid eyes scared the pants off him, since he took one shaky step back, then another, his shaking palms stretched in front of him in a plea for me to stop.
“I really don’t think you can treat my curse with that poison.”
Scoffing, I took a step closer to him, careful not to drop any of my super-secret but potent sauce (attempt number one) in the process. He took another step back.
“Well, we won’t know until we try, will we?” I asked. “You said I saved you, but that was a reach, since you saved yourself using your idea of me as a catalyst. If anything, you saved me from that strange man, and you’ve promised to save me again—to save my father. I might as well help you somehow.”
“I didn’t ask for this help,” he said through his teeth, his voice unsteady, his words slow as droplets of water falling from a barely tipped leaf.
“No, but if I were you, I’d seize any chance I had—no matter how small—to return home.” And I wasn’t lying. After all, hadn’t I done exactly that when I agreed to stay with Shao for five years in exchange for a cure?
“I’m not you,” he said.
“And you need my stellar positive influence,” I rebutted. “You were inspired by imaginary me. Why not real me?”
Choking on his own spit, his steps grew more rapid, and I sighed. This was never going to work, was it? It wasn’t like I could smear it all over his face, thanks to mis mask, without first spilling the goop all over the floor—which I’d have to clean after the fact.
Unless…
I twisted back and reached for the tub to empty my hands, then pat them for good measure, persevering to get all of it off my hands.
Fortunately, it more slimy than sticky… a description that made it sound a little more gross than it already sounded, looked, and smelled. But my hands soon looked clean enough, which was all that mattered.
When I looked back to Shao, he’d visibly relaxed, assuming I’d given up on my sudden shenanigans.
He was wrong. Very wrong.
I tiptoed up to him, racking my mind for ways to distract him. “Are you sure you don’t want to try it?”
“Positive,” he said, not caring to evade me now as I stepped closer to him.
“Don’t you see how many tubs there are? I worked my butt off trying out different blends of medicine.”
“The healers already tried most of the herbs and known ointments on my skin, and I doubt you’ve somehow found some rare, never-before-seen plant in this forest.”
“No, but maybe my combinations will somehow do the trick,” I said and sighed. “Come on, I know it’s deep and looks terrible, but in the end, you’re just scarred. Scars fade. Have you even looked at your face lately, or do you wear your mask to sleep and shower, so you never have to see it?”
Somehow, I had strong suspicions of the latter, considering he’d been fully
masked while securely in his room, handling the raven. Since when did ravens care about scars? For all I knew, ravens thought all humans looked the same, the way I thought all ravens were identical.
I couldn’t even tell apart ravens and crows, for goodness’ sake.
Shao gulped, and I was mesmerized by the rise and dip of his prominent Adam’s apple.
Shaking my head, I opened my mouth again to talk—then reached up to snatch off the beast’s mask.
Just as my fingertips grasped against the cool white material, Shao wheezed as he broke away, his palm slapping his mask deeper into his skin.
“I—”
“What are you doing?” He cried, and this time, I was the one who recoiled back.
“I just—”
“I told you not to!”
“I just wanted to help!” I cried, because really, I had.
It was true I barely knew the guy, but his rescue of me—his flurry of passion in trying to save me before I was devoured by wolves—his confession to why he’d kept me around—all of it had coalesced into an arrow of emotion launched straight into my heart, tearing down my walls.
I’d been acting like he was a friend, although I hardly knew him.
I’d been pompous and thoughtless, assuming I’d torn through his boundaries with a few simple smiles and acts as he had mine.
I’d been stupid. Incredibly, incorrigibly stupid.
The acid laced in his voice was a stark, bitter reminder that no matter what, he was still a stranger I didn’t know.
Swallowing down bile, I asked, “Do you think I’d leave you because of a simple scar?” My voice shook with hurt and shock. Feelings I was perhaps undeserving of. “Even if I wanted to—even if I was that type of person—I couldn’t. You promised me a cure. I intend to receive it.”
Shao shook his head, then straightened his back, but the anger and—hurt?—still remained in his eyes and the taut line between his lips.
“That’s not what I—” I heard the grind of his teeth rather than saw it, as my head was bowed down to the ground, my eyes gazing straight down at my toes.
“You know what?” I said, lifting my arms in defeat. “I’m sorry.” I was more bitter than sorry, although in the back of my mind, I knew I’d unthinkingly breached his boundaries left and right again, which… I had no one to blame for but myself.
A Kiss like Roses: Fairy Tale Synergy Book 1 Page 7
