Before Beauty Read online

  Before Beauty

  The Becoming Beauty Trilogy

  Book One

  *

  The Classical Kingdoms

  Collection

  Book #1

  Brittany Fichter

  Skye Scribbles Press

  Before Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast

  Copyright © 2015 by Brittany Fichter at Smashwords

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Brittany Fichter / Skye Scribbles Press

  BrittanyFichterFiction.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Before Beauty/ Brittany Fichter. -- 2nd ed.

  Cover Art by Armin Numanovic

  ISBN: 9781311943002

  To my husband, Stephen. You’ll always be my knight in shining armor, my Prince Charming, and my best friend. Thank you for always believing in me and supporting my dreams, even when it means the laundry doesn’t get done.

  ***

  Chapter One - My Prince

  Chapter Two - Eyes of the Girl

  Chapter Three - Stronger than Wine

  Chapter Four - Belle

  Chapter Five - Asylum

  Chapter Six - Something Terrible

  Chapter Seven - Riddles

  Chapter Eight - Lonely Dancer

  Chapter Nine - Something that Can

  Chapter Ten - Never Again

  Chapter Eleven - Arrows that Burn

  Chapter Twelve - What She Thinks

  Chapter Thirteen - Close

  Chapter Fourteen - Ironclad Dreams

  Chapter Fifteen - Make It Right

  Chapter Sixteen - The Best Laid Plans

  Chapter Seventeen - Revelations

  Chapter Eighteen - Willing

  Chapter Nineteen - Queen Alone

  Chapter Twenty - You

  Chapter Twenty-One - Blinding Beauty - Chapter One

  Chapter Twenty-Two - About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  My Prince

  My prince.”A young man knelt at the entrance of Ever’s tent. Ever gave him a quick glance and a nod before returning to the map that was spread out before him and his favorite general.

  “Acelet, I understand what you’re saying, but the plan won’t work if we move out a moment before dawn. I won’t give them the upper hand of the night. The whole reason we planned this for the morning was so they wouldn’t be able to use the hawks. We will have more than enough time to send scouts ahead and split our men here.”

  General Acelet’s sharp eyes followed every move Ever’s hands made on the map. Impatience was in the general’s face when he finally jerked his chin at the disheveled figure still waiting in the corner of the tent.

  “You’re one of the king’s men, aren’t you? What are you doing here?”

  “Prince Everard, your father bade me to deliver this!”

  For the first time, Ever looked directly at the young man, who thrust a sealed, water stained parchment at him. His voice shook and his clothes were tattered. Something must have gone very wrong. His father had been adamant that their regiments not communicate between campaigns.

  “Where is Corbin? Why did the king send you instead?”

  The young man could have been no older than seventeen. His thin shoulders shook as he spoke, though whether from fear or being soaked by his rainy trek, Ever couldn’t tell.

  “Corbin is dead, Sire. I barely made it out before they took the camp completely.”

  “Dead?” General Acelet stared at him in disbelief. “That man has been the king’s favorite messenger for twenty years.” He frowned at the skinny boy. “I find it hard to believe that the enemy could get close enough to kill one of the king’s favorites.”

  The young man paled and glanced at Ever. Seeing that he was expected to speak, he went on, his voice still trembling. “The king’s campaign was unsuccessful. We took too long to reach the valley, and it was nightfall by the time we arrived. Princess Nevina was upon us before we could set up the defenses. Her men burned our supply wagons on the first night, and the hawks and her guards have kept us trapped in our own tents ever since. Not that they needed the monsters.” His eyes clouded. “The darkness the princess sends over us is...too much.” He finally looked straight at Ever. “Your father says he cannot master it.”

  Fury rippled through the prince. All thoughts of the map aside, he strode over to the trembling young man and grabbed him by the shirt. “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing,” he snarled, “but no matter who has bought your allegiance, you will regret blaspheming my father’s name with such insults of weakness.”

  “Sire!” The young man desperately pointed to the letter still in the prince’s other hand. “I beg you, read the letter! I cannot read, but the king spoke the words aloud as he wrote them. I heard as I waited in his tent!”

  Ever glared at him for a moment longer before dropping him at Acelet’s feet. When he finally held the wax seal up to the light, he could see that the seal was still unbroken, so the young man could not possibly have read it. A wolf with jewel shaped eyes stood over the corpse of a serpent, baring its teeth and crouching for another pounce. An uncomfortable voice in his head wondered if the messenger might be telling the truth, but he dismissed the thought before it was complete. Breaking the seal, he read what his father had hastily written.

  Everard,

  Our campaign has failed. Nevina’s hawks have multiplied greatly since our last encounter. Whether through informant or traitor, they knew the location of our first encampment, and were upon us before the first night had passed. We lost many men to the hawks and even more to the arrows they rained upon us in the dark. The siege would have been manageable, if their arrows had not burned our supplies, also.

  Her worst weapon, however, has been the dreams. More men have gone mad with each passing night from the visions of confusion and blackness that the abominable princess sends. And those who avoid sleep grow lose their minds to exhaustion. I am finding my own thoughts difficult to follow as I fight the darkness. It is with shame that I admit I cannot match her power. We cannot wait until tomorrow. You must come now.

  Your Father

  For the first time since he had become a man, Ever felt a cold shiver run down his back, despite the misty heat of the spring rain. His father had never been as powerful as Ever was, but he’d never been rendered helpless in battle. Was he completely unable to protect anyone but himself? Numbly, the prince read the letter again. He could feel Acelet’s eyes on his face, keenly measuring his reaction.

  “What does the king say, Your Grace?”

  Ever straightened his shoulders and cleared his face of all emotion. “Nevina has apparently gathered numbers greater than we had anticipated,” he answered carefully.

  “Will we be moving out earlier then?”

  Ever took a deep breath before shaking his head. “No. I will not give her the advantage of the night the way my father did. I can protect us here, but not in the mountain passes. We will move in the morning as we planned.”

  Acelet bowed his head in
acknowledgment and excused himself to finish making arrangements, taking the unfortunate messenger with him. Ever returned to the bench and looked at the map again. As he traced the paths his men would take the next morning, his mind drifted back to the days of planning he’d spent with his father. He couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. They had been so careful.

  “I don’t want Nevina close to the Fortress. She knows too much,” King Rodrigue had stated before they’d even discussed any strategies. “I want to cut her off in the desert valley just north of the border. If my men and I wait in the valley before she arrives, you can bring your men through the mountains to close in on her from the east side.”

  “How do we know when she plans to attack?” Ever had wondered.

  “Acelet has sent spies, but he believes it will be within two weeks. If we leave soon, we should be prepared to strike by the time she reaches the valley. Even if she guesses that we’ll cut her off, she will expect to see our forces coming from the south, directly from the Fortress.

  “You will wait here,” his father had pointed to a crevice on the backside of the mountain. “Instead of coming from the south, you’ll be poised to pour down from the east.”

  Ever had nodded. He knew the place well. There were large caves there that would shield the men from view, should Nevina send her hawks in for a closer look. The large caverns would allow him not only to hide two hundred men from Nevina’s spying eyes, but they were close enough together for him to shield his men’s minds from her visions as well.

  “I’ll send a runner to the valley to let you know when we’ve arrived,” Ever had begun, but his father was already shaking his head.

  “No messengers. No communications of any sort. You may be able to shield your men in the caves, but you cannot be expected to do it for travelers as well. I will be too busy to look for messengers. Without our protection, the runner could easily be discovered. Nevina would have the information out of him in minutes.”

  His father had been so confident in their plans. And he’d had every reason to be. King Rodrigue had never lost a battle. Small skirmishes happened often with some of the border lords, but few kings were foolhardy enough to challenge Rodrigue directly. With the strength of the Fortress and the harsh determination of its monarchs, Destin’s borders had not been breached in over two hundred years. Most of the king’s great battles had been fought coming to the aid of their allies in neighboring lands.

  Ever’s father had followed in the footsteps of his fathers, and it had served him well. King Rodrigue had known nothing but the study of warfare since boyhood under the watchful eye of his own father. When Ever and his father had drawn up plans against Nevina, there had been no bravado in the king’s schemes, nor had there been a false confidence. The preparation had been as straightforward and focused as his plans always were.

  And yet, as they’d strategized in the king’s study, Ever hadn’t been able to ignore the waning light in his father’s eyes. The glowing rings of blue fire had been growing dimmer for years, but Ever had lacked both the courage and the heart to bring it to his father’s attention. It would have drawn both shame and outrage to question the Fortress’s power that resided within him. Besides, the Fortress wouldn’t allow his father to falter in the midst of his greatest battle. Ever had been sure of it.

  But now, here on the mountain as that battle raged, Ever felt the fear stir within him as he reread the lines his father had written. The Fortress had indeed allowed his father’s power to weaken, enough for him to call for help in a way he never had before, enough for his men to die horrible deaths of fear and fire as the king cowered in his bed, hoping his son would save him. Every weakness Rodrigue had ever despised, he had assumed in sending that letter.

  In his weakness, Ever decided, his father must have succumbed to the shadowy deceptions of his enemy. Those suggestions of hopelessness and confusion must have galled him into sending the messenger. And Ever knew that when his father was once again in his right mind, he would look back on Ever’s decisions now and judge them as harshly as he ever had. Ever had been right in telling Acelet to stick to the plan. Besides, it didn’t matter if the situation was as dire as his father had described. His men would not survive the night outside the caves. They would have to wait until dawn.

  The next morning, everything went as planned. The sun rose bright and hot, and as soon as its rays touched the mountain paths, Ever’s men fanned out. They crouched along the rocky paths, awaiting Ever’s signal to move. Ever lay down on a ledge that jutted out over the valley, and he crawled towards its edge to get a better view.

  It seemed the situation had gone from bad to worse since the messenger had been sent. Throughout his father’s camp, Tumen’s yellow banner fluttered brazenly over the tents. Those of his father’s men that he could see were sitting cross-legged on the ground, chained to one another and watched by large guards. Not only had Nevina attacked his father, but she had beaten him soundly. It was alarming how quickly her strange band of ragtag vagabonds had grown into an army of hundreds.

  Still, from the arrangement of her regiments, it was clear that Nevina expected him to come from the south. Ever breathed a sigh of relief as he realized he still had the upper hand. The dark princess might have many men, but her powers were limited. As terrifying as they were, most of Nevina’s monstrous hawks could not stand to fly by day, and her men’s arrows did not shoot as straight without the dark of night to guide them. Without the winged scouts to circle the skies, the enemy wouldn’t see Ever’s men until it was too late. Satisfied, Ever gave Acelet the nod. The general, in turn, motioned to his archers to begin the assault.

  Their arrows filled the morning sky, sending the enemy scrambling as Ever’s footmen began to descend upon the camp. The prince poured his strength into his men as they moved. He could feel Nevina attempting to fill their minds with visions, but she could not penetrate the shield he had created around them. Her rogue forces were caught off guard as Ever’s men surrounded them. In just minutes, his father’s men were freed, and the valley once again belonged to Destin.

  Most of the enemy had fled in fear by the time Ever followed his men down into the valley. He surveyed the carnage and was somewhat surprised at how little blood had been shed. None of his own men had been lost, although he had no idea what kind of damage had been inflicted upon his father’s men before he’d arrived.

  The same couldn’t be said for Nevina. Although it seemed that the princess had escaped unscathed, her numbers were devastated. Acelet had the captives that remained rounded up and executed on the spot.

  And yet, in spite of the enormous victory, Ever’s stomach churned as he entered the king’s tent. King Rodrigue tossed and turned in his makeshift bed, moaning. Beads of sweat ran down his white temples. His appearance was so shockingly altered that even the healer hesitated before walking to his side. The arms that had been hard as rock when the king had left the Fortress were now thin and shaking. The king’s face was haggard, and his features emaciated. When he turned to look into Ever’s eyes, he didn’t look like the most feared king in the region, but a frightened old man.

  Ever immediately ordered everyone out. The healer grumbled, but Ever still sent him away. How had the his father had lost all of his strength to Nevina’s power so quickly? But as he moved in closer, Ever could see that the blue fire in his father’s eyes was nearly extinguished. This was something only the power of the Fortress could heal, and the only two persons with that strength were staring at one another from across the room.

  Ever needed to work fast. Pulling his gloves off, he knelt by his father’s side. He took his father’s hand and clutched it tightly in both of his. Closing his eyes, he focused on the dim light his father was still clinging to.

  The enemy’s power bit back at him with a surprising force, nearly knocking him over. Ever gasped and dug in harder. He hadn’t known his father could suffer the power of evil like this. The princess’s darkness had indeed grown. The desire to tr
emble filled him greatly, but he could not give in. He tried with all his might to reignite the fire in his father’s eyes, but every time he pushed, it flickered dangerously.

  “Son,” Rodrigue rasped.

  Ever opened his eyes to see his father staring at the wineskin of water on his small bedside table.

  “Father, I need to draw her power out. I need you to help me.” Ever felt as though he were talking to a child. His father shook his head, however, looking again at the water. Frowning, Ever let go of his hand and gave him the water instead. After the king drank, he whispered, “Why didn’t you come?”

  The look that passed through Rodrigue’s eyes pierced Ever to the heart. Was his father actually blaming him?

  “You know I couldn’t have protected my men in the pass at night. If we had tried, my men would have been in the same position as yours.”

  His words were as close to a rebuke as he had ever dared to give his father, but the frustration that welled up within him was nearly more than Ever could bear.

  After thinking for a moment, the king nodded heavily and laid his head back down. Ever picked up his hand again, but the king withdrew it.

  “Everard, my mistake was not arriving too late, as you might think. My mistakes have been years in the making. My eyes are dimming. I know you’ve noticed. I’ve left my people unprotected. I could see it in the Chiens’ eyes when Nevina took the camp.” He grabbed Ever’s shirt and pulled himself up, suddenly glaring at his son through leaden eyes.

  “The Fortress has chosen a new king, one that will be a better king than I. But it will reject you, too, if you ignore the cry of our people. You must protect them!”

  Exhausted, Rodrigue fell back into the bed. Ever tried once again to take his hand, but the king whispered, “Just let me go, Son. The spirit of the Fortress will carry me to my fathers, and I will rest with them. It’s your turn now.”