"Thank you," he said fervently. "Treat her as an honoured guest. Send word when she wakes."
He hurried back to his solar, where he was glad to find Rolf no longer waiting to discuss cellars, storehouses and other such mundane matters.
There was a woman in the house who occupied all of his thoughts. Pale features, dark hair, who rode into his rose garden astride a bolt of purple lightning. If his grandmother could see the girl in her chambers now, and the distraction she drove her grandson to, the old queen would call him a fool.
A fool who could think only about how the girl was being undressed in those chambers right now...
For the first time in his life, Vardan's fingers itched for the magic mirror that would allow him to see all that happened in the queen's bedchamber, but he resisted the urge. He would see plenty of the girl, for unless she could summon another bolt of lightning to ride away from the island, she would be trapped here for some time. Just like everyone else.
ELEVEN
Zuleika drifted in and out of consciousness, aware of women's voices rising and falling around her, but too drowsy to understand their words. She had a body, and a bed, or so it seemed, but her time in the ocean and in the snow afterwards had sapped so much of her strength that there was little else she could do aside from lie in bed and sleep.
Not since the night the king violated her had she felt so weak. No man had taken advantage of her this time, though, she was certain. Years ago, in a longhouse where victorious warriors believed they had the right to lie with any woman of their choosing on the night of a glorious victory, she had performed a tricky little spell on herself, intending it to be more of a precaution than necessary protection.
Instead, Zuleika had woken to find a man writhing in agony on the pallet beside her, while lightning coursed over her skin. No man had tried to touch her since, so she wasn't sure if the spell would be quite so strong a second time, but the lightning flared into life when anyone approached her with harmful intent, warning them away. She hadn't felt the tingle of her lightning shield here.
"She has such soft hands. Highborn, no doubt," one woman said.
"You should have seen the dress she arrived in. Silk, it was, I'm sure, though the water ruined it. Some princess, perhaps," a second female voice remarked.
"How'd she get here, then? Princess or no, she managed to make her way from the sea, through at least three locked gates, and into the master's rose garden. It must be magic, I tell you. Perhaps she is cursed, too."
"Well, aren't you a bushel of sunshine, then? Maybe destiny sent her here to break curses, but she won't do none of that if you scare her." A snort. "I ask you, does she look cursed to you? Not a mark on her, and I undressed her and put her to bed myself. Blessed, more like. Maybe she's exactly what the master needs."
The master could not have her, Zuleika thought, digging her teeth into her lip. A single drop of blood was all it took to recast that lightning spell. Her body might be weak, but the magic in her blood was as strong as ever.
"Aren't you taking her tray?" the second woman asked.
"No, I'll leave it a little longer. She might wake, and want a bite to eat. If I ever slept as long as she has, I'm sure I'd be famished."
"Has she said anything yet?"
"No, not a word. Not even in her sleep. She is a mysterious maiden, this one."
The voices faded as the women left, Zuleika presumed. Still, she waited until she could no longer hear them before she dared to open her eyes.
The room looked as richly decorated as any of the rooms at the palace, though the bed hangings and the tapestries had faded over time. Whoever lived here was not as rich as they once were, or perhaps they'd simply placed her in one of their less sumptuous guest apartments. The walls were not plain stone, but plastered, so she definitely knew she wasn't in the king's palace.
She sat up cautiously, relieved to find no light-headedness. She didn't have time to be ill; she needed to find her father's ships. But for that, she would need her strength.
Zuleika examined the tray on the table beside her bed. A small loaf of bread, some fish and a jug of what she discovered with a cautious sniff was wine, not ale. Either she had travelled further south than she'd realised, or she was a guest in a prosperous house indeed. So whose was it?
Adding it to the long list of questions already burning in her mind, Zuleika broke her fast. She drank sparingly of the wine, knowing she would need her wits about her in this strange house.
When she was sated, she ventured out of bed. Her first few steps were tentative, but when she realised that she had regained enough of her strength to walk, Zuleika's steps quickened as she explored her chamber. The fine shift she wore, while not hers, was serviceable enough to protect her modesty, but it was hardly appropriate to wear once she left the room.
A chest at the end of the bed held gowns, but when Zuleika lifted one up, she found they were made in a fashion she had never seen anyone wear before, except in some of the old books her mother had inherited from her mother. Old gowns, in a chamber with faded hangings. The former owner of both no longer lived, Zuleika surmised, so she would not object to her borrowing her clothes.
She dressed in the most practical gown she could find, one of dark green wool. When she tried to place the matching veil on her head, the weight alone made her head ache, so Zuleika resolved to go with her head uncovered. She combed and braided her hair, wishing she owned combs as fine as these, carved of some sort of shell that caught the light and warmed it with rainbows.
If she met the master of the house, she would ask him what they were made of and where they were from, so she could travel there and obtain her own, Zuleika promised herself. In the meantime, she intended to explore the house and find out a little more about how she'd come to end up here.
Her door opened smoothly. Evidently, she was a guest and not a prisoner. The corridor outside her room was open to the frosty air, so she was glad she'd chosen wool and not linen. Nevertheless, she returned to her room to pull a cloak out of the chest to wrap around herself against the cold. Properly attired, she ventured out once more.
She peered over the sill of the glassless window and found the view as cold as the air. A courtyard smothered in deep snow, walled in so she couldn't see anything but the sea of white. Perhaps they did intend to keep her prisoner, and they felt the walls would keep her in so that no locks were necessary. They were certainly high enough.
Zuleika strode briskly along the colonnade, headed for the shelter of a darkened corridor at the end that she hoped led deeper into the house. Torches burned in the wall sconces, leaving streaks of soot along the white-plastered walls.
She bit her lip, tasting blood once more, and whispered a seeking spell for her father's ship. The spell sparked and died. Her father's ship was too far away for her spell to reach it. Frustrated, Zuleika tried again, thinking of the silk her father had promised her when the ship came in. Silk she had no need for, but no matter.
The spell ignited in the air before her, weaving like a firefly as it led her deeper into the house. Zuleika stumbled after it, paying no heed to her surroundings as she followed the light to her destination – the cavernous cellars of the building. These were nothing like the cellars in her father's house, or the dungeon cells she'd seen in other places. These stretched beneath the building, the vaulted ceilings turning the warehouse into a veritable cathedral of commerce, for it was piled with goods of all kinds. Chests and barrels, stacks of timber, stone jars and bundles of cloth, statues and...she lost track of all the things she saw in the warehouse.
Her spell hovered over a particular chest, balanced precariously on top of two barrels. It was closed, but not latched shut, so she lifted the lid. Zuleika gasped at the sight of silk, exactly as her father had described it. This was her father's cargo...but where was his ship?
Her hand darted out, almost of its own accord, to stroke the fabric, as soft as she'd imagined. This silk had never touched the sea – salt would
have marred its sheen. The chest had been removed from the ship before it sank to the depths where she'd nearly drowned. How, then, had it arrived here?
One thing was certain: whoever owned this house had no right to the stolen goods in his cellar. His wealth was no more his than any of these things. The master they spoke of was a dastardly pirate, the scum of the earth and every merchant's enemy. Whatever curse lay on him, she was certain he deserved it, and more.
She found a pry bar and began to open the tuns stacked around the chest, all marked with her father's brand. They were filled with vair, the grey-blue squirrel pelts royal courts found so fashionable of late. Carefully tucked between the pelts of a particularly full tun was a small chest, the size of her mother's jewel casket. Zuleika opened it with shaking hands. The chest was full of amethysts, all the same shade of violet she had seen so many times in her reflection. Just as her father had described them.
Zuleika sank to the floor, overcome by a mix of fury and frustration. More than half the room contained her father's cargo. A fortune in imports, which he believed lost. If this remained here, he was ruined. But if she could return it to him, even without his ships, he could buy new ones. And where were the crews? Had they perished when pirates attacked, or had they been enslaved? She was no innocent, she'd seen slavery the world over. No man or woman was spared hard labour when taken prisoner in war. But a pirate who sold slaves? The master here was despicable indeed. Perhaps Zuleika would turn him into a form fitting his nature. A pig, perhaps. A bristled boar. Or a form that would teach him the error of his ways? Then she should transform him into a minnow, or a small crab. Or perhaps a squirrel, covered in grey and white vair.
That would be fitting.
Zuleika rose. She added a squirrel pelt to the jewel casket and closed the lid. She tucked the chest of amethysts under her arm, striding out of the room to find somewhere she could cast a portal home to her father. She would show him the casket as proof that she had found his missing cargo, before she returned to this house to seek vengeance on the worthless pirate who had stolen it.
She marched through the corridors, searching for a way out that she simply could not seem to find. The snowy courtyard taunted her, but she could not cast a portal there. Smaller spells could be cast in air alone, but something as substantial as a portal needed to be anchored in earth – soil or natural stone, not the flagstones beneath her feet. The snow in the courtyard was too deep for her to reach the earth. She needed to leave the house and venture outside.
She whispered a spell to guide her to a way out, and found herself in what must be the great hall of the house. This was grander than her father's, its white walls stretching up to an arched ceiling much like the cellar downstairs. She had never seen a building like it. She crossed the room and reached for the bar fastening the great doors.
"Stop, thief!" Someone seized her around the middle.
Another set of hands snatched the chest from her grip as she fought her captors – more than one, she decided, as someone tipped her hood over her face, blinding her. She struck out behind her, hoping to land a blow on her cowardly assailant, or one of them, at least, but instead she tripped over the hem of her cloak. Her head hit the door she'd failed to open, and the blow stole her senses. Darkness won once more.
TWELVE
"I thought I told you to inform me when she awoke," Vardan said, staring down at the girl. Now she lay on the stone floor instead of the snow, but her closed eyes and the swelling bruise beneath her hair taunted him for being a bad host who did not properly protect his guests.
Inga must have run from the other end of the house, for she was still breathing hard. "Nobody told me, master. This is the first I knew of it, and it looks like she's no longer awake, anyway."
This wasn't Inga's fault, Vardan told himself, but it was hard to contain his anger. The girl was hurt, for heaven's sake.
"Who did this?" Vardan demanded. "She's just a slip of a girl. No need to clout her over the head. Inga here could probably restrain her."
Rolf coughed out a laugh. "She's more than a mere girl. Threw me across the corridor, she did, before she tripped over her own cloak and hit her head. I'll wager this one's a witch. How else did she get here?"
Vardan wet his lips. "I don't know, but I mean to ask when she wakes. Again. What did you say to her to make her attack you, Rolf?"
"I called her a thief." Rolf twitched the corner of her cloak aside and revealed a small casket. "She was carrying this."
Vardan lifted up the box. "From the cargo of the Rosa," he noted, tracing the merchant's mark on the side. He lifted the lid. "She's quite a discerning thief, then. A fine squirrel pelt, and a veritable treasure trove of jewels. What are these purple stones called?"
"Amethysts, master," Inga said. "Just the right shade to match that fur, too. The girl has a fine eye for colour."
A magical thief with fine eyes, who could match Rolf in a fight. Against all his normal inclinations to imprison her for being a thief, instead he felt the unfamiliar desire to protect her.
Vardan badly needed to speak to this girl. She sounded like the most remarkable woman he'd ever met, and he didn't even know her name yet.
"I'll take her back to her room, and this time, I intend to be there when she wakes up," Vardan said, once more scooping the girl up in his arms. Ah, that felt better. She was much lighter than before, though more heavily dressed, so her clothes must have been soaked through when she arrived. How had she made it from the ocean to his rose garden?
He added that to the list of things he wanted to ask her. In the meantime, he carried the welcome weight in his arms to her bed. After all, it wasn't like she could leave the island. She was trapped there as much as he was, whether she slept in a dungeon or the queen's bedchamber.
He settled her in her bed and sat down to wait. Answers would come soon enough.
THIRTEEN
Some sound must have startled her into alertness, for Zuleika didn't wake willingly. Her head ached more than ever, but she strained to hear the noise again.
There it was – a breath, blown out forcefully as if in impatience.
Keeping her eyes closed, she cast her mind toward the heavy breather. A man, as she suspected. He radiated a strange combination of boredom and curiosity. Curiosity for the future, while he endured the tedium now. A guard, she guessed.
She opened her eyes slowly, expecting to see a dungeon, or at the very least, to find herself thrown outside into the snow. Instead, she saw she'd been placed in a bed. Possibly the very same bed she had recently vacated. She couldn't be certain, for in the dark room it was hard to discern whether there were hangings at all, let alone whether they were faded or not. What worried her most was that her lightning shield had not triggered when someone had attacked her. Either the spell was ineffective, which she doubted, or her assailant had not intended to harm her. Yet both explanations were impossible. Zuleika snorted. Enchantresses achieved the impossible on a daily basis.
"You may feign sleep for as long as you like, my lady, but you and I both know you are awake," a male voice said. It came from a shadow in the corner – a hulking shadow, but a man-sized one.
Years had passed, but Zuleika still heard that voice in her darkest dreams. He was no guard.
Try as she might, she would never forget King Thorn, and her very bones quaked in the terror invoked by hearing that voice. But she was not defenceless today. "Threaten me with whatever you wish. I will never remove the curse." She took a deep breath before continuing coldly, "It is no less than you deserve."
She prayed that he would not hear the frightened fluttering of her heart. Damn the king for what he had done, and for the memory possessing the power to scare her still. Zuleika vowed that she would leave this encounter the victor today. If he took so much as a step toward her, she would turn him into a toad. He deserved all that, and more.
As if he could read her thoughts, the man she thought was the king laughed. "You do not even know my name, let a
lone what a man like me deserves, though I daresay you are right. You must have been listening to servants' gossip, for only they believe that the curse can be removed. Who can blame them? They suffer, too, but they live in hope that the curse one day will be lifted. Why else would my storehouses be so full?"
Zuleika saw red. "Your storehouses are full of stolen goods which do not belong to you. The true owners slide into poverty, while you grow ever richer. That makes you a thief, sir, and a pirate. Synonymous with pond scum." She wished she had had the temerity to tell the king that when they first met. How dare a man who owned so much power already steal from upstanding merchants like her father? A toad was too good for him. A maggot might be more fitting.
Yet again, the man laughed. Zuleika began to wonder if she was in the presence of the king at all, or simply some madman who sounded like him. "You call me scum and sir in the same breath. As for my being a thief... That is what my servants say about you. They say you were caught carrying out a casket of jewels. What say you to that, Lady Thief?"
She bridled. "My father's ship was carrying those jewels home to me. I merely took what is mine. I am no thief."
"And neither am I, despite the contents of my storehouses. They, too, are the result of my curse, but if you have listened to the servants gossiping, then I am sure you know more than I do about our affliction. Tell me, lady: how would you break the curse?"
Dread settled in her stomach of a different sort. It dawned on her that this man wasn't the king, and she had no idea what he was cursed with. Even for an enchantress of her skill and power, tampering with an unknown spell was dangerous. And yet...breaking curses was what she was best at, though it wasn't as satisfying as animal transformations.
"I know nothing of your particular curse," she said cautiously, "but perhaps if I knew more, I might know someone who can help." Only a dark witch cursed those who did not deserve it. If he was cursed unjustly, she was honour-bound to help him. She drew herself up, trying to sound as authoritative as a queen, though she sat in her shift in the bed and not on a throne dressed in royal robes. "But only if you are not a pirate, and you swear that you intend to do no harm. Who are you, sir?"
Enchant: Beauty and the Beast Retold Page 3
