Beast within the Beauty || A Beauty and the Beast Retelling

Chapter Fourteen || To Taunt a Beast

THIS WAS SUCH a terrible, terrible idea.

I kept glancing at my knives, grasping them as if they would vanish at any moment. For the sake of a slick escape, I left the doors open a crack before turning to walk down the hall. The sudden silence had irked, it was as if my ears had gone deaf.

I looked over my shoulder and squinted into the shadows, worried that one of those wolf-beasts would creep up on me. My fingers clenched around one of the knives at my hip. When I raised my eyes, I found the crumbling hole in the brick wall. Light and frost poured in from the gaped opening, dead roses squeezing through the entrance.

Those roses shifted with each sway of the cold wind, making me flinch. I clenched my knives, anticipating the roses to squirm to life as they had the last time I had entered here. But no matter how long I waited, they acted as they appeared; dead and lifeless. The rose petals were withered and ashen, no longer the shade of scarlet I recalled them to be. It was as if someone wrung out the blood they had been soaked. Could their loss of color be due to his lordship's absence?

My steps were soft, leaving tracks in the dust. I could see my footprints from the last time I had been here, a thin layer of dust and frost beginning to sheathe the darkened spots. Only the tracks of my last adventure were visible, none of those from the wolf-beasts. Or my husband.

My brows drew together in confusion but before I could ponder it any longer, I had arrived at the empty frame of elm wood, just barely hanging on the wall. The canvas was left in wreathed ribbons on the floor, strips I had not had the chance to examine the last time I crept in here. Curiously, I picked a curled shred. With slow and calculated caution, I unfurled the stiff scrap as far as I dared.

It took me a while to realize the small bit of canvas I held was composed of a painted chin and jaw and lower lip. Initially, I had assumed it to be a portrait of my husband or a previous lord of the castle but as I examined the other scraps, I realized it was not so.

The man in the painting was clad in armor riddled with dents and slashes. Judging from the amount of the blemishes, I doubted the man in the painting was noble. If he was, he would have ordered for a newly shined and unused panoply. I went on and uncurled a scrap that portrayed angry blue eyes and narrowed brows filled with a murderous intent. My breath hung in a cloud, fingers shaking with the cold.

I found a bit that showcased the man's temple and jaw. A scar had been painted there, thick smears of paint and harsh textures daubed over the mar.

This was a painting of Yoann.

Indeed, the eyes had matched to an extent. So did the thickness and darkness of the brows. However, his right brow was not scared, leading me to think that this painting had been created before that injury. I scrambled to search the other shreds that I had discarded, wanting to confirm if it was in fact him.

Yes...yes, it had to be. The kempt black hair, the high cheekbones, the sharp lines of his nose, the curve of his mouth...all of it matched.

It was his expression that I did not recognize. A look of bloodthirst and rage. It was an expression unlike any he had worn before. There was no humor or friendliness in that face. His glare was filled with menace and promises of death. A knight, I decided. Or a commanding official.

Before I could ponder it any longer, I noticed the warm glow emerging from the hall on my left. I peered in the direction--stairs descended from where the light emanated. Slowly, I stood to my feet and crept towards the steps.

Stones lined the floors and walls, jagged and crumbled edges threatening to trip me. The stairway spiraled downwards, likely leading to a torch-lit room. The grime of the steps grated against my toes with each step I took.