Before Beauty (17 page)

“
This ambition has long made them
unpopular with the other kingdoms, and while the Tumenian king has
since claimed to have given up his dark powers in order to seek
peace, Nevina never had any such intentions. But just when she was
at the cusp of taking the sovereignty she’d been promised since
birth, needing only a husband to seal the throne for herself, the
birth of her younger brother took the kingdom by surprise, and
Nevina lost her claim to the throne.”

“
So the princess is allowed to run
about doing whatever she wishes now? Despite her father’s claims at
peace?”

“
Her people have always loved her,
and Nevina is clever. She is using their affection to garner
support, and has continued to grow her numbers with her promises of
the richness and bounty of our land. And for all his claims of
peace, her father has done nothing to stop her.” Everard shook his
head, his next words taking Isa by surprise.

“
I fear, however, that her greed
is not the power that has threatened this kingdom most in these
last generations. She is merely taken advantage of what my fathers
and I been giving her.”

Isa waited for him to go on, but
he didn’t, suddenly lost in his own revelations. It was a moment
before he spoke again.

“
We’ve been able to hold Tumen off
for centuries. With each generation, however, they have grown
stronger. My father, his father, and even his father did everything
they could to ensure our allies’ loyalties and to minimize Destin’s
weaknesses. But the more we’ve strived, the harder it has become to
contain them. And now they wait.”

As she pondered his words and
watched his eyes, Isa had a sudden flash of insight. “The curse
didn’t just affect your body. You are losing your power, too,
aren’t you?”

His eyes once again flaming a
duller fire, Everard smiled wryly. “The strength that has flowed
through the blood of my ancestors has been diminishing for
generations.” He swallowed loudly. “It seems my line is no longer
fit to bear the burden of power any longer. At least, not until
this curse is broken.”

Understanding shook her to the
core. Isa finally understood his desperation to break the curse.
The prince, like her, hungered to fulfill his purpose. Everyone
knew King Rodrigue had raised his son to be a warrior prince to
protect Destin. And yet, after all he’d done, everything he had
tried to do, it still wasn’t enough. He was losing everything that
he had ever held dear. And as much as she wanted to blame him, Isa
was slowly having to admit that perhaps a stronger force was at
work in their lives, one that not even the great prince had control
over.

And it was breaking him, as it had
broken her. Isa fought the sudden desire to reach out and touch
him, to embrace him and tell him everything would be alright.
Instead, she kept her hands firmly in her lap and decided to answer
his question from earlier that evening.

“
It’s not your fault that I hate
the name Belle,” she said softly.

Everard turned from staring at the
fires again to look at her, his open expression suddenly making him
look very young. Isa tried not to get trapped in his
gaze.

“
I was engaged,” her voice
quivered, the pain resurfacing as she spoke. “His name is Raoul. He
was always there for me, since childhood. After the injury, I was
very alone. The other children didn’t want to wait for the crippled
girl to constantly catch up, and he was the only one who still saw
me for me. He would come over and play with me when I was healing
and couldn’t leave the house, and he would bring me things that
made me smile, like flowers from a field, or apples from an orchard
we used to explore.

“
As we got older,” Isa smiled at
the memory in spite of herself, “he was the only one who ever asked
me to dance. He called me Belle because,” Isa’s voice caught, and
she had to whisper so she wouldn’t cry. “He said I was the hidden
flower, the one that was too beautiful for other people to see.”
Despite her resolve, warm tears coursed silently down her cheeks as
she spoke.

“
What happened?”

When Isa looked up at him, the
prince’s face was full of what looked like sincere concern. Isa’s
hand went to her crooked wrist without thinking. “He proposed to me
just after the Fortress went dark, then left immediately with his
father on a long journey. His father is the city chancellor, and
has been preparing his son for the position since he was born.
Apparently, he wanted Raoul to see what a true leader’s wife should
look like.”

Isa’s voice hitched again, and
instead of stopping, her tears fell harder. The shame of the memory
made Isa’s face hot. “He returned on our wedding day. He told me…
He made it very clear that I was unfit to be the wife of a
chancellor, that my weaknesses made me unable to fulfill the role
that being his wife would require. I wasn’t enough.”

Unable to hold in the sobs, Isa
put her head in her hands and wept. The pain of being broken was
much fresher than she thought it would be by now. Raoul had broken
her again just when she had thought she was about to be healed. It
felt as if she would never be whole again. This shame and sorrow of
not being enough would follow her forever.

It was a few moments before she
was calm enough to look into the eyes of her prince, and suddenly,
she felt humiliated. What foolishness had possessed her to think he
cared or wanted to know her pathetic love story? He had greater
concerns on his mind.

When she was finally brave enough
to steal a glance at him, however, Prince Everard’s face looked
like one of the stone statues that stood outside. His jaw was set
tightly, and the blue in his eyes blazed brightly once more. She
was a bit frightened at first, until she realized he didn’t seem
angry with her. He said nothing as he walked over to the window
again and stared down at the enemy below.

“
My family calls me Isa,” she
finally volunteered.

“
And my friends call me Ever,” he
answered solemnly.

Isa couldn’t help but wonder if
she was supposed to call him this, too. Was she now considered a
friend? As she puzzled over this, he quietly added,

“
For what it’s worth, I still
think Belle fits you better.”

In a daze, Isa simply gazed up at
him. Silence settled over them again, the fire’s crackling making
the only sounds as the evening drew late.

“
You should go to bed soon,” he
finally said in a rough voice.

Isa knew he was right, but her
eyes wandered back to the campfires below. Fear rushed through her
every time she looked at them.

“
You don’t have to be afraid.” The
prince was now looking at her with a gentleness she’d never seen
before on his face. “They’ve been here for months. They won’t
attack again tonight.”

Isa nodded, but her eyes once
again locked upon the fires below, her leg beginning to throb where
the bird had slashed it.

Without warning, Everard began to
sing. Isa knew none of the words. They seemed as ancient as the
Fortress which surrounded her, but the incredibly rich tones of the
prince’s voice conveyed the meaning just as easily as if she’d
spoken the language.

Gentle one who shivers with
fear

Tremble no more in your
fright.

One who is stronger watches over
you

No harm shall meet thee
tonight.

As if under a spell, Isa found
herself dozing off against the arm of the chair she sat in. She was
vaguely aware of airy hands lifting her, floating her to her
chambers on a breeze.

She didn’t dream of Raoul that
night, or even the flaming arrows. Instead, Ever’s rich voice
serenaded her to a place of peace and rest, and it was with a smile
on her face that Isa fell asleep.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

What She Thinks

“
Garin,” Ever crumpled into a chair near the
fire, his shadow servants scrambling to tend to his spent and
bloody body, “I need something to drink, something that will clear
my head.”

A few moments later, a shadow
figure handed him a goblet filled with a putrid brown liquid. Ever
normally would have studied it suspiciously before peppering Grain
with a dozen questions as to what it was. But tonight he was too
shaken to do anything but gulp it down.

He hadn’t meant to tell her so
much. He hadn’t meant for any of it to happen. The jesting about
her name had simply been a foolish attempt at lightening the mood,
an attempt to reach past the walls she had built around herself.
He’d had no idea his words would affect her the way they
had.

Shame and fury sped his pulse
again as he recalled the frustration of trying to race after her,
to protect her. As she’d run into the darkness, his instincts had
kicked in, but his body had not been able to keep up. It was as if
someone was holding him back, as though chains had been tied to his
legs as he tried desperately to reach the one person who might be
able to unlock the Fortress’s secrets for him.

He knew deep down, however, that
there was something else that had drawn him after her so quickly.
And it hadn’t been the curse.

Isabelle…Isa fascinated him. She
wasn’t like any other woman he had ever met. The court girls who
had thrown themselves after him were generally silly, witless
creatures with the depth of a puddle. And though he suspected there
were wiser women in the court, they had tended to avoid
him.

His hands still shook as he
finished off the last drops of Garin’s awful drink. His head was
clearing, but that was ultimately making him feel even more
dreadful. The more he thought about Isa’s story, the angrier he
became with the weak coward who had broken her heart. The thought
of the young woman in a white gown, smiling radiantly at a
scoundrel intent on breaking her heart galled him. She had never
smiled at him like she must have beamed at him.

Still worse, however, was knowing
that his treatment of her was no better. The weasel who had dared
to break off their engagement on the night of their wedding had
traded the young woman for power. Ever knew what he was doing was
truly no better, trying to gain her affections to reach the same
end-power. And no matter how many times he tried to justify her
sacrifice with the needs of the kingdom, it all came down to one
thing. He was undeniably using her.

And it didn’t help matters now
that his heart was inexplicably tangled up in the matter as
well.

At first, the chivalry had been
purely an act. He’d gritted his teeth every time he had offered his
arm to the woman with the dark blue eyes that had haunted his
dreams for so long. The guilt of what he’d done to her had fueled
his rage at first, and it had taken all of his acting skills, those
he’d practiced for dealing with untrustworthy diplomats and
dignitaries, to keep the sneer from his face.

But, he had quickly discovered,
there was something disarming about the girl. From her willingness
to sacrifice herself for her family, to her determination to dance,
he’d soon found himself more perplexed with her than anything else.
How he wanted to draw the secrets from those eyes. He hadn’t dared
to admit his obsession even to himself, however, until he had seen
her on the ground, bleeding into the snow.

Something had changed as he had
tried to charge towards her. If he had inhabited his old body, she
would never have even seen the arrow, for he would have had her
back inside the Fortress before she’d reached the
statues.

A type of alien anxiety had filled
him as he ran, watching her cry out into the night, the pain and
fear all over her face. The same helplessness had filled him later
when she had broken down, recalling the way her fiancé had
abandoned her.

Ever didn’t sleep that night.
Instead, he stared down at the campfires below until the break of
dawn.

***

Isa didn’t dance the next day. Ever made sure of
that. He ordered his servants to keep her in bed and tend to her
leg, no matter what kind of fight she put up.

“
You could heal her, Sire,” Garin
suggested gently.

But Ever shook his head. “I can’t
spend any strength that is not absolutely necessary. With the
proper care, she will soon heal on her own.” Deep down, however,
guilt ate at him, as he knew he was being selfish. Not only was he
hoarding the strength he had only recently spent so easily on
himself, but he was also planning on using her required bed rest as
an excuse to visit her in a setting where she couldn’t escape his
attention.

“
Garin, I would like for you to
come with me this morning, to learn what she thinks of me,” Ever
announced as his servants helped him to dress. Garin gave a polite
snort.

“
Your Highness, I can tell you
that now. She has absolutely no idea what she thinks about you. But
you know I will be there with you, as I always am.”

The visit was somewhat awkward.
Ever thought about bringing flowers, but as the only live ones on
the Fortress grounds were in Isa’s beloved rose garden, he decided
against it. Instead, he brought more books.