A Tale of Beauty and Beast: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast (Beyond the Four Kingdoms Book 2) by Melanie Cellier

Author:Melanie Cellier [Cellier, Melanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Luminant Publications
Published: 2017-11-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

As I walked numbly back to my chamber, Gordon still chattering obliviously beside me, I fought to control my rebellious stomach. I could not accept the idea that I should have let the Beast die. No part of it felt right. Death was not the answer—surely the story of the Beast’s father demonstrated that.

As my mind continued to cartwheel furiously, further questions appeared. So much still hadn’t been explained. It seemed that King Nicolas’ monstrous acts had brought the godmothers back to Palinar earlier than they had returned to any of the other kingdoms. But they had come with wrath, not assistance.

And yet something had then changed. A godmother had helped Dominic. Another confirmation that my role here was not to bring about his death. But I had yet to hear even a hint of what had caused his beastly transformation. Or when. And the two stories were so hopelessly intermingled, that it was hard to make sense of one without the other. If the original curse had actually been to protect the people against their royals, then giving their prince fangs seemed rather counter-productive.

Or had the later godmother, the one who assisted him to see his people, also been the one to give him his own curse? Giving with one hand and taking away with the other.

I tried asking Gordon about the Beast’s transformation, but he had no idea. He forbade everyone from mentioning his family or from speaking of his curse.

“Then how have you overheard conversations about the king?”

Oh, that was before he returned. We had been cursed for two weeks before he appeared back at the castle.

“And you are not afraid to speak of it, then?”

It’s only the servants he forbade. You’re not a servant. My eyes widened at his strange logic, but I didn’t correct him. I had already benefited more than once from his strange misunderstanding.

Will you tell me about the wolves now? He sounded far too excited about my having been attacked by wild animals.

“Uhhh…” I tried to gather my thoughts together. “Well, I decided to go for a ride on my horse, and I ended up outside the castle grounds.” A less than complete version of events, but enough information for Gordon to possess.

As I told him the story, I lived it again, only this time I had a new perspective. I imagined the Beast not as the villain who had cursed his kingdom, but as a misguided boy, raised by an evil father, who had lost his entire family. Had King Nicolas also killed his own daughter? It was incomprehensible—but no more so than any of his other actions.

Could I wonder that a prince raised to power and privilege with only selfish ambition as his model had become arrogant and entitled? The real wonder was that any good instincts remained. I couldn’t imagine that King Nicolas had ever risked his own life to save another.

Some of the attitude of the servants made more sense now. Did they retain hope that their

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