After a long while of climbing the steps to the tower, Isa wondered if her plan had been a good one. Even in the boots, her ankle was beginning to ache from all the stairs she’d taken, even before she was near the top.
By the time she had climbed the last step, Isa had concluded that the tower she climbed must be the one that made the Fortress visible for miles. In the sunlight, it was easy to see the reflection of the glass that encircled the entire chamber. As a child, this place had stirred her curiosity and imagination. What kind of room would have only windows for walls? And that curiosity was rekindled inside of her now. Remembering the prince’s warning about the Tower of Annals, however, Isa restrained herself from actually entering. Instead, she knelt at the keyhole, and what she saw took her breath away.
The circular tower room was larger than she had anticipated, but it was indeed encased by windows on every side. Shelves of books filled most of the space, with the exception of the center, where there was built a large stone fireplace. The fireplace was surrounded by various chairs, tables, sofas, and even an oddly placed wardrobe.
Instead of the empty room she had expected to see, however, Everard was sitting on a low sofa with his hands stretched out before him. Shadows gently removed the long gloves he always wore, revealing thin, gnarled fingers beneath. They were so knotted that even when he flexed them they stayed curled. Only a weak fire from a hearth and moonlight from the wall of windows lit the space, but the pain on the prince’s face was obvious, and she couldn’t help but pity him.
Her pity didn’t last long though. Isa’s gasp was nearly audible as a blue fire, much like that in his eyes, began to encircle his hands. It filled the room with a blue glow, and Prince Everard put his head back, grimacing even harder, a soft groan escaping him.
The scene lasted only a few seconds before the fire went out. When it was done, the prince’s fingers were just a bit straighter. After curling and flexing them a few times, he slowly stood and pulled a sword from his belt, one Isa hadn’t noticed beneath the cloak. Laying it down beside him, he faced the windows and slowly stretched out on a thin pallet that had been laid upon one of the low sofas. When she realized that he meant to sleep there, she turned and began her trek back down the stairs, not wanting to impose upon his privacy.
She struggled to sleep that night. As much as she hated to admit it, Isa couldn’t be as angry with the prince as she felt she deserved to be. He had seemed so proud when he had first greeted her, and the hate in his eyes had been real.
And yet, the pain in his face this night had been real, too. Isa knew that kind of pain, what it felt like to go to sleep in discomfort. In her family, however, she had never gone to bed without a cup of tea from her mother, something to ease the pain. And with the tea had always been a warm embrace and smile.
But Prince Everard was all alone in his pain without a human hand to bring him comfort. And from what little she had seen of the late King Rodrigue and Queen Monica, Isa doubted they had been the kind to spend time kissing away the hurt that his childhood exploits had brought him. Suddenly, it seemed to Isa, that for all his splendor and power, the prince was far more impoverished than she had ever suspected.
And then there was the soldier’s pallet. What kind of prince went to sleep with his sword, watching over his kingdom even though he could hardly walk?
Over and over again, Isa tried to answer the riddles the night had brought her, but the only answer that came was that perhaps, just perhaps, the prince wasn’t the man she had hated for so long.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Arrows that Burn
In the weeks that followed, Isa fell into a routine that wasn’t altogether unpleasant. No snow had fallen since the early autumn storm her father had gotten caught in, so Isa continued her trips to the rose garden daily. And although her ankle and wrist were broken beyond repair, as the town healer had told her when she was a child, Isa felt her body growing stronger. Each day, not only did she revel in the dance, but also in the new roses that were slowly beginning to find their way back into the garden, despite the growing cold.
Isa also found daily relief in being away from the town gossip and sympathetic looks. Here, she wasn’t the town cripple. She had a purpose, confusing as it may be. And though she missed her family dearly, Isa felt for the first time as though she might find a way to make them proud.
Her most earnest prayer of thanks, however, was for having escaped Raoul’s wedding. The nuptials would have been impossible to ignore, had Isa still lived in Soudain.
The marriage of the chancellor’s only son would be at its height by now, the talk of the city circling around little else. Her neighbors’ outrage at his betrayal of her hadn’t even lasted a week after he had broken it off with Isa. By the time the wedding arrived, she would have been completely forgotten, and everyone would be anxious to see the beautiful bride who had so quickly captured Raoul’s heart. The wedding would come and go, and Isa was immensely grateful not to even need an excuse for her absence.
If she was honest with herself, the nightly dances still bothered her. They were too close to the moments that had been her most cherished until recently. Raoul’s cruel words continued to mock her as well, when she let her guard slip. Nevertheless, her heartache wasn’t any worse at the Fortress than it had been at home. And at least here, she was free to remain alone for the majority of the time, without family and friends helping to “keep her busy,” as they put it. Well, the servants were always nearby, but at least they never nagged her about being social.
In order to escape the lonely thoughts of her once beloved, Isa buried herself in reading the books that the prince sent to her. They weren’t very interesting, mostly names of monarchs and dry lists of their accomplishments, but they were a distraction at least. And as Prince Everard promised, his servants never made a move for her boots again.
It wasn’t long before a sort of truce formed between them, the prince learning how better to curb his tongue, and Isa striving to keep her tone at least civil, and sometimes kind. He even surprised her one evening by sending over a salve with his servants when he noticed that her left wrist was sore at dinner.
The invisible, ever-near presence also continued to make Isa’s life at the Fortress more enjoyable. She found herself talking to it when she was lonely, telling it how much she missed her family, how the prince confused her, and on hard days, even about Raoul. And though she no longer feared mistrusted the prince to do something beastly during their suppers, Isa was still afraid to tell him about her invisible friend, fearing he might order it away. This made asking him questions about the strength, as he called it, even more difficult, for she knew there was some tie between the magic and her constant companion. But whenever she tried to ask, the right words simply wouldn’t come.
Isa could sense the prince was struggling daily, not only with the physical pain she’d witnessed in the tower, but with an even deeper despair. Not wanting to upset him, the only way she could think to phrase her questions was based on the dry stories of past kings and their feats that she read about every afternoon, but she never learned very much that way. He would answer her direct questions, but never supplied any more information than was absolutely necessary. And though she was actually enjoying parts of her new life, if she was honest with herself, Isa wondered how, if ever, she was to break the curse if she still had no idea as to what she was doing. It was a dark, chilly evening, a time of true winter, however, when things finally changed.
“Isabelle.” the prince leaned back from his supper and gave her a mischievous grin Isa had never seen before. “Yours is a long name, and not terribly easy to say. Where did you get it?”
He was being ridiculous, Isa knew. The prince had the most elegant, sophisticated speech Isa had ever heard. He was goading her. But this was a subject which Isa did not wish to touch.
“My mother named me after the Isabelle flower,” she replied somewhat stiffly. Although she had secretly never loved her full name either, spe
aking of her mother was still difficult.
“Isabelle flower? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“It’s a common miniature rose that grows in the shade,” Isa explained. “I’m sure it has an official name in your Tower of Annals somewhere, but in Soudain, it’s simply called the Isabelle.”
The prince smiled again with that boyish look and said, “I don’t think I will call you Isabelle anymore. It takes too long to say. I think I shall call you Belle instead.”
Isa’s face flushed a hot red. “I don’t–Please don’t call me that, Your Highness.”
“Why not?” There was no distance in his voice now as he leaned forward towards her, only genuine curiosity, which made it all the worse.
“I…” she stuttered, searching for words as panic rose in her chest. After all this time, she had thought she was stronger than this. “I beg your pardon, but I just don’t want it!”
Everard sat back again and scoffed. “I am not ordering you as the prince. I’m asking you as a fellow human who might enjoy some real conversation sometimes.” Isa didn’t answer, so he continued. “You’ve only been here for what, eight weeks? I have lived here for eight months on my own. I can sense that I am not your favorite person in the world, so believe me when I say you were never my first choice in companion either.”
For some reason, that stung more than Isa would have expected.
But the prince continued with his cruel tirade. “Still, I have tried to get to know you, to get you to open up just a little! But for some reason, you think you’re above common civilities–”
“Civilities?” Isa snapped, and for a moment, she didn’t care if she was speaking to the prince. He had crossed a line. “I didn’t think it was very civil when you forced me here against my will, or when you made me dance with you, or when you compelled me to accept a task I still do not understand! What civility was there when you ended my childhood before I was ten? And even less civil was your warrant for my death last spring! You were the reason I was abandoned on my wedding day! You took everything from me! And yet, after all that civility, you have the audacity to sit here and demand to know why I hate that name!”
The prince sat in his chair looking astonished, but Isa didn’t wait for him to recover. Grabbing her mother’s cloak from her chair, she threw it around her shoulders as she stomped down the steps to the nearest ground level door. She heard him yelling for her as she moved, but he wasn’t fast enough to catch her.
Throwing open the door, she ran out onto the back lawn. Gusts of snowflakes were just beginning to whip furiously in the air around her, but Isa didn’t care. Tears streamed down her face as she plunged headfirst towards the statues. Only after a few minutes of trudging through the accumulating snow with the frigid air penetrating her clothing though, did she begin to wonder where she was going. All she had wanted to do was get away from the prince. But the snow was falling thickly, and she could not walk far in snow, even with her boots.
It didn’t take her long to reach the statues, where she hoped to find some shelter from the wind before getting completely turned around. She started to breathe a sigh of relief when she reached the tall stone figures, but before she could rest, an arrow of flame fell from the sky, narrowly missing her.
With a shriek, Isa turned back towards the Fortress, but the rising snow and the stiffness of her ankle made her progress slow. More arrows followed, one of them finally catching her skirts on fire and singeing her leg. It knocked her over, the snow extinguishing the flames, but before she could even attempt to rise, a monstrous creature appeared in the sky.
It was so large, Isa could see the rings of fire in its eyes, but the fire wasn’t blue like Everard’s. It was gold, and it flamed brighter and brighter as the bird dove straight at her. Isa cried out as it struck her calf with its large beak, just above the place the arrow had scorched. Pain shot up to her thigh, and with it, the awful realization that like the creatures of the Fortress, this bird was no typical bird of prey. The hawk made a large arc over her in the sky, and had turned to dive at her again when a sword was suddenly thrust between the fowl and its prey.
Isa turned to see Prince Everard’s hunched form standing above her. He shook with the effort to keep the sword raised so high, but the hawk stopped before it could finish its plunge.
“Go!” he ordered.
Isa scrambled to stand, crying out at the burning in her leg, and together, they headed back towards the castle. They moved sluggishly, however, and though the prince kept his sword raised, the bird regained its confidence and began to strike at them once more. Over and over it struck, but it didn’t touch her again.
By the time they made it back, Isa was more exhausted and frightened than she’d ever been in her life. The pain in her leg was agonizing. But her alarm grew even greater when she turned to look at the prince.
His neck, arms, and face were covered in gashes. He dropped his sword to the floor when the servants slammed the door shut behind them, but instead of collapsing, he gripped her arm and dragged her to the nearest chair. Wordlessly, Isa let him. Shadows rushed around to feed the nearest fireplace as he fairly tossed her into the seat.
“Pull up your dress,” he barked.
Shocked, Isa stared at him.
“If I don’t tend to your leg, you will lose it! Would you like that?” he growled at her.
Still unable to speak, Isa shook her head and slowly lifted her gown up to her knee. The flesh on her shin was shiny and dark red, and as soon as she saw it, the pain was nearly unbearable. Above the burn was a large gash from which blood was dripping down. The sight made her suddenly very dizzy, and it took all of her strength not to faint.
To distract herself, she tried to focus on Prince Everard’s eyes. He had stiffly dropped to his knees, and was yelling out orders to the servants, calling for herbs and bandages. It was only then that she recalled his warning from her first evening there, telling her never to leave the Fortress at night. Guilt settled over her as she continued to stare into her prince’s eyes.
His face was still simultaneously pale and flushed. Beads of sweat ran down his temples, making lines in the dirt and soot that covered his face. The blue fire in his eyes was blazing more brightly than she had ever seen it, and with a start, she realized the presence that had followed her around for the past weeks was in him as well. She suddenly understood that it was the presence itself from which his strength was derived. So the presence wasn’t a stranger to him either.
Seeing him there, covered in blood and soot, looking nearly weak enough to pass out himself, and yet tending to her wound, Isa’s stomach did a strange flop. By that time, the servants had surrounded them with all sorts of herbs, salves, water, and bandages. His claw-like hands shook as he removed his gloves, but he still somehow moved more quickly than she had seen him do since arriving at the Fortress. Expertly, he mixed the herbs with his fingers and rubbed them on her wound.
“What were you thinking?” His voice was low and dangerous.
“I…I’m sorry,” Isa whispered.
“Do you not remember me specifically telling you to stay inside at night?” he exploded.
Isa could only stare at him with sorrowful eyes.
“You were nearly killed out there! You do not seem to understand what your life is no longer your own! You’re still under the delusion that what you do only affects you! Let me put this simply. If you die, I do not stand a chance at restoring the Fortress or the kingdom! Think about that next time you’re of the mind to do something foolish!”
“I’m sorry,” Isa whispered again. And she was. If it hadn’t been for her infernal temper, neither of them would be bleeding right now. He might have been cruel, but it was she who had lost self-control and foolishly run out into the storm. She should have been stronger than that.
The prince took a deep breath and stopped working. “I’m sorry, Isabelle. My words aren’t meant to hurt you. I am frustrated because I should have been better able to protect yo
u.”
In that moment, Isa saw a flash of the warrior he had once been, and it was obvious that his current weakness shamed him greatly.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be a soldier, to stand guard at the gates of evil, to know without a doubt that you can overcome it. And then to have it all stripped away as your kingdom slowly burns to the ground.”
An awkward quiet settled over them for what felt like an eternity. The prince continued to treat her wound, and Isa watched, trying to digest all that he had said. No matter how much she wished to deny it, what he had said made more sense of his many strange moods. She felt as though she were gaining a peek into the prince’s calloused soul, and any doubt that the prince had a heart of flesh buried somewhere within him, fled her like a thief in the night. Finally, Isa could stand the silence no more.
“You are quite skilled with wounds.”
The prince didn’t look up as he carefully wrapped her leg in a long, white cloth. “Rarely in battle is there a healer to be found when he is needed. All of my men are required to learn the basic healing skills. If they do not, many soldiers die.”
“Who were they, the people that attacked us?” Isa tried to quiet her hammering heart, but fear still consumed her.
He didn’t answer until he had finished wrapping her leg and his gloves were back on. Finally, he looked her in the eyes. There was no playfulness there this time, no spite, nothing but an earnest frustration. He measured her for a long moment before saying, “Come with me. There is something you need to see.”
Isa wasn’t sure she would be able to walk, but as soon as she stood up, she could feel the expertise of the prince’s work. There was hardly any pain aside from the usual ache of her ankle as she followed him to the stairs she had snuck up once before.
Before Beauty Page 11
