Chapter 28 Isabeau
twenty-eight
Isabeau
Three princes. Not one beast who changed with the hours of the day, but three separate beings who had each claimed me, loved me, protected me in their own ways. The truth exploded in my mind like glass shattering, each piece reflecting a different memory that suddenly made perfect sense.
The way his temperament shifted so completely between morning and night.
The subtle differences in his touches, his growls, his amber eyes that I’d attributed to the curse’s ebb and flow.
It hadn’t been the curse changing him. It had been three different princes taking turns at my side, and I’d been too blind to see it until now, when all three fought desperately against the darkness pulling them into hell.
My mind scrambled to reassemble everything I thought I knew.
Morning Beast, the one who brought me fresh kills and kept his distance until the primal need to mate overcame him—that was one prince.
The evening Beast who listened to my ramblings with his head tilted thoughtfully, who seemed to understand more but still kept himself slightly removed—another prince entirely.
And night Beast, the one who’d responded to his name, Laurent, who touched me with such tenderness that it made my heart ache—the third.
They hadn’t been phases of one curse. They’d been three brothers, taking turns, sharing me between them like a secret they couldn’t fully explain.
I couldn’t even process the implications before the air around me changed.
It grew heavy, thick with purpose, and then my feet left the ground.
I gasped as invisible hands lifted me from the floor, my body suddenly weightless.
I clawed desperately at the window frame, my nails breaking against stone as the force pulled me inexorably toward the open window.
“No!” I screamed, but my voice sounded thin and useless against the howling wind that had begun to circle the tower. “Laurent! Marcel! Bastien!”
Their names. Names I’d only just realized belonged to three separate beings, tore from my throat as my fingers lost their grip.
The magic yanked me through the window as if I weighed nothing, glass shards slicing my arms as I passed through the broken panes.
Pain blossomed along my skin, but it was nothing compared to the terror of suddenly finding myself suspended and rising in open air, three stories above the courtyard.
Below me, Gaspard’s face tilted upward, his smile spreading with a savagery that made my stomach clench.
He’d changed since I’d last seen him. Darkness clung to him like a second skin, writhing and pulsing with unnatural life.
But his eyes—they were unmistakably his, glittering with the same possessive hunger I’d seen when he’d locked me in his home.
“There she is,” he called up to me, voice carrying unnaturally clear through the howling wind. “My runaway bride, returning at last to her rightful place.”
The force controlling me lowered me slowly, as if savoring my descent into their midst. I couldn’t fight it, couldn’t even twist my body against its grip.
All I could do was watch as the three beasts, my beasts, continued their desperate struggle against the vortex that dragged them toward the flaming pit.
“Thou did this,” I hissed as I drew level with Gaspard’s face. “Thou sent that ghost to find me.”
His smile widened, showing too many teeth. “Clever girl. Did you enjoy her midnight visit? She’s quite useful for finding things that don’t wish to be found.”
“Why can’t thee just let me go?” The question burst from me, raw and desperate. “Why drag innocent beings into your obsession?”
“Innocent?” Gaspard spat the word like a curse.
“That beast defiled what’s mine. All three of them, apparently.
” His eyes raked over me, lingering on my shoulder where their claiming mark lay exposed from my dress’s open neckline.
“Did thou enjoy being rutted by monsters, Isabeau? Did their animal cocks satisfy what thou wouldn’t let me give thee? ”
His crudeness wasn’t meant to hurt me, but to degrade what I’d shared with the princes. To make it sound filthy when it had been anything but. I refused to let him see how deeply his words cut.
“They’re more man than thou’ll ever be,” I said, my voice steady despite the fear gripping my heart.
The darkness around Gaspard rippled with his anger, tendrils of it reaching toward me before being called back by some unseen restraint. Behind him, the witch’s chanting grew louder, the strange syllables scraping against my ears like knives.
And behind her stood the Dark Lord himself, his impossible beauty making my eyes water when I looked at him directly. He was watching me with flame-filled eyes that held neither malice nor mercy. Just endless, patient hunger.
The invisible force moved me again, this time positioning me directly above the center of the yawning pit. Heat rose from it in waves, carrying the stench of sulfur and something worse. The unmistakable smell of burning flesh. I looked down and immediately wished I hadn’t.
Souls. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, their translucent forms twisting in agony as black flames licked at what remained of their essence.
Some screamed, the sound rising to me like the cries of drowning men.
Others had been burning so long they’d forgotten how to scream, their mouths frozen in silent, eternal screams.
The first snowflakes of the season began to fall around us, small white flakes that hissed and evaporated before they could reach the pit’s edge. The contrast was obscene. Winter’s first gentle touch against hell’s eternal burning.
“Please,” I begged, no longer caring how pathetic I sounded. My eyes found the Dark Lord’s, searching for any hint of compassion in those burning depths. “Please don’t do this. Take me instead. Let them go, and I’ll give thee whatever thou wants.”
The Dark Lord’s laugh was the sound of glaciers cracking, deep and ancient and utterly without warmth. “Child, what makes thee think I need thou’s permission to take what I want?”
He moved closer, each step leaving blackened prints on the stone. When he stood directly beneath me, his height was such that his face was level with mine despite my being suspended in the air.
“I already have what I want,” he continued, voice like velvet dragged through gravel. “Three princes who defied me, trapped in forms I didn’t chose for them, about to spend eternity in my domain. And you, little goddess-child, the key to ensuring they never escape.”
I shook my head, not understanding. “What do you mean? What key?”
“Surely you’ve wondered by now,” he said, reaching up to brush a cold finger along my cheek.
His touch left numbness in its wake. “Why your blood heals rather than bleeds. Why your eyes match the creatures of old magic. Why the roses drink from you in haste but never drain you dry like your father.”
I had wondered. Of course I had. But hearing him speak of it made it suddenly, terribly real.
“The witch has the answer,” he said, gesturing to the black-haired woman whose chanting had never ceased. “Show her, Enid. Show her what power she carries.”
The witch—Enid—turned her clouded gaze toward me, and I felt something cold slide beneath my skin.
Not physical, but something deeper, something that reached into the core of my being and took hold.
It was the same power that had risen in me when I’d thrown Gaspard across the room, when I’d survived the drowning cage, and when the unicorn had touched me in the hidden grove.
Except now it wasn’t rising. It was being pulled from me, forcibly extracted by Enid’s magic. I tried to call on it, to use it against them as I had before, but it slipped away like water through cupped fingers. Pain lanced through me as my essence, my magic, was drawn out for the witch’s use.
“Yes,” the Dark Lord murmured, watching with satisfaction. “The last true daughter of the forest goddess, carrying power she doesn’t even know how to use. Perfect for our purposes.”
“What—” I gasped, each word a struggle as the witch continued to drain me. His revelation about being the goddess’s descendant didn’t compare to the gravity of his implications. “What purposes?”
“You, my dear, will be the anchor for their punishment.” His smile was beautiful and terrible.
“Their immortality requires fuel. A constant source of life and power that will ensure they never die, no matter what torments I devise for them. You’ll need neither food nor drink nor rest, for your body will exist in perfect suspension, feeding their eternal suffering with your endless life.
Though, thou will feel hunger and thirst and exhaustion. ”
Horror washed over me as I understood. I would remain here, conscious, aware, but unable to die. And my power would keep the princes—my beasts, my loves—alive in hell for the Dark Lord’s amusement.
“They’ll remain below, and thee above,” he continued, almost conversationally. “Never to see each other again. Never to touch. Just the knowledge that you exist, perpetuating each other’s torment for all eternity.”
“No,” I whispered, tears spilling down my cheeks. “No, please.”
“Wait,” Gaspard interrupted, stepping forward. The darkness around him had solidified, no longer writhing but settled into his skin like a permanent shadow. “That wasn’t our arrangement. Isabeau belongs to me. That was the whole point of this—to destroy the beasts and reclaim what’s mine.”
The Dark Lord turned to him, amusement dancing in his fiery eyes. “Ah, yes. Our arrangement. Let me remind you of its terms.”
His voice shifted, taking on the cadence of formal declaration. “Enid crafted your contract with exquisite care. I would help you destroy the beasts who took your bride, but the price would be your greatest treasure.”