Beauty Reborn by Elizabeth Lowham EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Author: Elizabeth Lowham
- Language: English
- Genre: Teen & Young Adult Sword & Sorcery Fantasy
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Perhaps I startled the beast, showing up at its gate alone and emptyhanded, looking not remotely like a rose thief. In the pre-dawn gloom,
the great golden gate loomed before me, covered in creeping yellow
vines of the finest craftsmanship, each tendril dotted with the roses this
creature apparently loved so much.
Beyond the gate was a path paved in gray stone, like a trail of fog leading
through lavish gardens of every flower imaginable to spring, in varieties I’d
never seen in the hothouses of the city. After the gardens came the whitestone castle, with red brick at its windows and on its turrets. Even under a
dim sky, it was grand. It was gorgeous.
To die here would not be so bad.
“Hullo, Beast,” I called, waving even though there was no beast to be
seen and not another living soul besides. “I am Robert Acton’s daughter,
Beauty. He plucked a rose from your many gardens, and I am here to pay
his debt.”
Any social tact I’d ever possessed, drilled into me by a high-society
mother and a fretting governess, I’d left behind in our city house, tucked
neatly on the empty shelves of its study. I’d always harbored a reckless
tongue, and on the verge of death, the careful bridle that had once harnessed
it was now removed. What would a beast care if its meal came with no
manners and a tendency to conversation even if no one marked her? Surely
it would care less than Astra did.
The golden gates shuddered at my voice, but if they felt horror at my
uninvited arrival or bold announcement, they swung open regardless, and I
walked the dew-covered path to the castle entrance. Its great double doors
swung open in the same way, without even a word to prompt them. I only
lifted my hand, and they shied away from my touch, repulsed by the very
idea. Perhaps they saw the dirt beneath my fingernails, or perhaps they saw
even deeper to the filth on my soul.
“I said I’m Robert Acton’s daughter,” I tried again, “come in his place.”
Father had been very specific that the beast had appeared from thin air.
But nothing appeared in the silent entryway. A coat stand shivered at my
words, as did the lit silver sconces.
I worked the thick gold ring from my finger, held it up to catch the light.
“I have this.”
But no one answered.
When Father had gone hunting, I’d offered to go instead or with him,
though the words had been embarrassing to speak, shamefully thin and
hollow with no hunting skill to give them worth. Not like Rob, who was
also denied. But when Father had stumbled home pale-faced and terrified,
when he’d spoken of a snarling beast and a debt to be paid, when he’d
pulled a rose from his pocket with not a petal crushed because the petals
were pure gold, I felt a great stone of certainty settle in my stomach.
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