An Oath to Obey Read online

  An Oath to Obey

  A Tale of the Dark Forest

  Lucy Leven

  Contents

  A Moonlit Clearing

  Warmth and Light

  The Water’s Chill

  A Rose to Bloom

  The Smell of Fresh Bread

  Reflections

  A Dream Long Ago

  Magic at Work

  An Unexpected Visitor

  To Bathe

  A Sweet Press

  Delicate

  An Oath

  A True Reflection

  Tales of the Dark Forest

  About the Author

  A Moonlit Clearing

  The menfolk left her in the clearing. Tied her hands with rough twine. Bade her not to move. Not to run.

  And Claria did not move. She did not run. She did as she was bid.

  For Claria was always obedient, always dutiful. She had never misbehaved, not even as a lass.

  She had always been good.

  And now she was to be punished. Given to the Beast as sacrifice, as payment of the village’s age-old tithe.

  Abandoned by the only person she had ever held dear.

  Claria did not know that her face was wet with tears until the man reached out a gentle hand and thumbed those tears away.

  And Claria should have startled, for she had not heard his approach, but all she could do — all she could find within herself to do — was stare at him, where he crouched before her, quite bare. Stare unblinking. Uncomprehending.

  “Are not you scared, lass?” the man asked. He had dark eyes, nearer black than not, but the dying light of day gave them a golden cast. “Are you not afeared?”

  In truth, Claria was too numb to feel fear. It was as if her insides had been hollowed out like a trencher loaf, leaving her as nothing but a discarded crust.

  But if not fear, she could feel yet — for she could still feel the warmth of the bakery upon her skin, feel the flour caked still under her fingernails, smell the clinging scent of rosemary caught in her hair, hear the sweet tune of Armand’s soft humming as a fading echo in her ears.

  Armand…

  The tears fell harder.

  “Lass,” the man said, his rumble of a voice gone gentler still. He chased the fall of yet another tear and tipped up her face to his. His eyes were golden yet, and as Claria gazed into them, it came to her — that golden glow was no cast given by the light; instead, magic. Pure and golden. Alive within him, and him made of it.

  And that could mean only one thing.

  “You are the Beast.” Distantly, it came to Claria how odd her voice sounded. How empty. How hollow. “You are the Beast of the Dark Forest.”

  “I am,” the Beast said.

  “You do not look as a beast.”

  The Beast cocked his head, and his mouth quirked, a small, pleased line. In the growing dusk, the air around him shimmered like a haze of heat on the hottest of days, and for but a moment a golden hue replaced the failing light.

  Then the Beast was before her, and the Beast was monstrous — a beast in every sense.

  He seemed as muscle hewn of stone made flesh, so tall and broad and solid. Unmoving and undeniable in his strength. Undeniable like the ragged horned antlers that formed from shadow at the crown of his head. His eyes were molten gold now, the power in them pure and true. The hair upon his chest was as a sleek pelt, drawing the eye downward.

  And downwards still, until…

  No matter what the menfolk of the village thought, no matter what they said, snide and without care, Claria was not some cow-eyed innocent.

  She had seen men in their bareness before.

  More than once, on a morn, she had caught sight of Armand washing at the trough, when she had arrived to her chores a touch early. She had seen the menfolk down at the river at midsummer, and the passing soldiers — as fine out of their uniforms as they were in them — bathing where they could on their way to the battle lines in the south.

  She had seem all of those men in all of their bareness, but the sight of what hung between the Beast’s muscled thighs made Claria’s eyes go wide all the same, made her chest feel odd, made her breathing go queer and shallow.

  And it was that strange, overcoming sensation that broke through the fog upon her.

  She blinked, looked away, and felt the flare of magic in the air far more than she saw it.

  When she looked back, the Beast was as a man once more, one dressed warmly for the cool of the night. A man of eyes just as warm, and a man of dancing magic. But a man all the same.

  And it was the warmth in those golden eyes that spoke to her, sudden and clear, of how cold she felt. How weak. How terribly, awfully tired. She reached as if to push back the dark mop of her hair, as if to knuckle at her bleary eyes.

  But all she did in the end was hiss in pain, for her bonds still held her tight, and her wrists stung as the rough twine nipped at her skin.

  “Lass.”

  The Beast took her wrists in one broad, strong hand, and though the Beast was but a man again, from his finger sprang a claw sharper than any of Armand’s kitchen knives. To the twine went that claw, and the twine split apart, the coarse jute unfolding like a bloom blossoming to the sun.

  And so Claria was free. But free she did not feel, for with all the wherewithal she had left within her, she could only sit there, rubbing at her stinging wrists, blinking her suddenly stinging eyes.

  The Beast stood instead, towering high above her, his strength and stature undeniable — beguiling and fearsome in equal measure.

  But there was nothing fearsome in the way he offered his hand to her, polite, courtly, fit only for some lady born far higher than Claria.

  But Claria was too tired to set him right. So she let the Beast draw her to her feet instead, gently and with such care. Let him hold her hand yet. Let him bear the weight of her that she could not bear herself.

  “Come, lass,” the Beast said, his hand under her elbow, his voice a rumble that shivered through Claria’s very marrow. “Come,” he said. “It is time for you to leave this accursed place.”

  Warmth and Light

  The Beast’s castle was beautiful: a towering, soaring thing, gone silver in the moonlight.

  Claria watched as it rose before her, unveiling itself from a cloak of mercurial, roiling shadow, from a veil of such terribly powerful magic.

  The Beast led her through bountiful, expansive gardens to a great oak door. It stood ten times Claria’s height, riveted and barred fast with iron.

  But the door opened at their approach with not a creak nor a whine. Claria looked for servants as they passed through the entranceway and into the high hall beyond, but she could see nothing in the deep shadows.

  So instead, she held tight to the Beast’s hand and followed him up grand stairways and along low, stone-linteled passageways.

  At length they came to a small chamber, the ceiling low, the fire high, and most of that chamber was taken up by a grand bedstead strewn with silks and furs.

  Claria’s breath caught at the sight of it.

  Did the Beast mean to bed her? The tales the womenfolk told — the tales that came from the Capital and from the lands beyond the Windward Seas — they said he would not. Certainly not if she did not wish it. But those tales were only tales. Only whispers, perhaps not to be trusted…

  “Lass.”

  Claria took what the Beast held out to her. Realised only what it was when the fine fabric began to slip through her fingers: a clean shift to replace the one she wore, all torn and stained. This shift was of fresh, soft linen, so beautiful and white.

  The notion came upon her then, almost overwhelming in its power, of how much she should like to feel the shift against her skin, something clean and goo
d after a day and night of horrid grasping hands and baleful words, of sneers and slimy smirks.

  But to wear the beautiful shift, first she would have to undress.

  Claria shot the Beast a fleeting, panicked glance.

  The thought of being bare in front of a man such as he, so handsome and well-made, all hard muscle and sleek hair and smooth skin.

  And Claria — plump in all the places men cared not for, and lacking in all the places they did, her hands roughened from their work, her arms a spatter of oil burns, her skin pale and chapped from long days inside the bakery.

  A flash of shame shot through her tiredness, made her ache anew with worry and with fierce, hot embarrassment.

  “I do not— I cannot—” Claria began, but the Beast silenced her with a soft shake of his head.

  “No, lass,” he said, lifting his chin. “There.”

  Claria looked, and Claria saw: a latticed screen in the corner of the room, shielding that place from view. When she went there, behind the screen was a washstand and bowl, with fresh water for the washing, and cloths and soaps and perfumes waiting.

  She scrubbed herself clean, scrubbed herself until her skin was pinked and stinging, scrubbed until the touch of the menfolk was a memory only in her mind and not upon her body.

  Then she hurried into the new shift, crouched over a little, hiding herself from view, even though she knew the Beast waited still at the far end of the chamber.

  As she straightened, clothed once more, Claria’s gaze was drawn to the barred window high above, and she saw through it the silver moon shining down upon her, so familiar, so true. The sight of it quieted her fretting a touch, like a glimpse of a friend amid a noisy crowd.

  And so Claria folded her old shift and laid it down upon the washstand. She folded her washing cloth atop. And when she had nothing left to fold but her own hands, tangled with her nerves, back out into the chamber she went.

  “Let me see you, lass.”

  Claria froze where she stood, but the Beast only huffed a quiet laugh. He nodded to her hands, still tangled at her breast, and it came to Claria that he meant only her sore wrists. And so she went to him, and the Beast took her hands and drew her down to sit on the bed beside him.

  The soft furs brushed against her calves, and against the back of her knees where her shift had ridden up a little. It was a strange sensation, comforting and — and stirring, perhaps, in equal measure. Though just what sensation it stirred Claria could not yet put name to.

  The Beast took her hands into his lap and held them there so that he might inspect her wounds.

  And despite his kindness, in truth, Claria did not understand his concern. Her wrists were not badly torn, for she had not struggled against her bonds. But the Beast tended them all the same. Bathed them and salved them and bound them with clean cloth.

  Then he brought to the bed a serving platter that Claria did not see arrive. Upon it was a jug of cool, clear water, and a heel of bread spread thick with rich yellow butter.

  “Drink, lass,” he said, handing her a cup of cool water. “Clear your head of their evil.”

  Claria drank. She drank deeply. And when the Beast filled her cup anew, she drank again. For now that she had water to drink, her thirst was fierce.

  It had been so long since anything had passed her lips, least of all water. Such was the lot of a tithe, of course. The menfolk shackled the chosen in the village lock-up, and let them not eat nor drink. For the menfolk liked their tithes to be muddled and biddable, liked them confused and weak, liked a tithe who had no chance of getting free, nor any thought to.

  But it seemed that the Beast liked his women in none of those ways. Claria would always be biddable — for that was her nature — but it was the Beast’s doing that she felt confused no longer, nor muddled, nor weak.

  Instead, her head became clearer with every slowing sip of cool water. And quenching her thirst served only to remind her of her hunger. She reached for the bread — but habit overtook her.

  She held it up, inspecting the heel with a practiced eye, as though she had pulled it fresh from the oven herself. And what Claria saw puzzled her, for the bread was too perfect to be right, the rise perfectly even, the bake perfectly golden.

  The sight of it — the smell, the feel — it unsettled her a touch. For no baker, no matter how studied, could bake bread so fine. Not even Armand.

  Not unless, Claria supposed, that baker was magic itself.

  And she found that her gnawing stomach did not care how imperfectly perfect the bread. She ate it then, overcome by her hunger.

  When she was done, the butter made her fingers gleam. Surely it made her lips gleam too. She licked them clean, tasting salt.

  The Beast watched her all the while, and what he saw pleased him, if the small smile shaping his lips could tell her that much. And even when Claria had eaten her fill and the tray had been set aside, the Beast made no move to ravish her.

  He made no move even to touch her.

  “You are tired, lass,” he said, regarding her closely. “You must sleep.”

  He stood then, a great unfolding of power and strength, and Claria knew he meant to leave. Panic flared like a licking flame in her breast.

  She could not fathom it. The fire was high and the ceiling low. The door strong and the window barred. There was nothing in the chamber to fear — nothing, her good sense should tell her, save the Beast himself.

  But she reached out a grasping hand and caught his smallest finger all the same.

  “Please,” she said. “Please, Beast. Do not leave me. I do not wish to be alone.”

  So much truth in those words. More truth than her fragile heart could bear to admit.

  The Beast watched her in the dancing light, his eyes a golden mirror. “Then I will not leave you,” he said.

  He stepped away for but a moment to the tend the fire, though he only banked the flames but a little lower. And when he drew the curtains tight closed around the bed, the darkness of the night was total.

  Claria could hear the Beast now, but not see him. Hear the rustle of cloth and the slide of laces. Did he undress?

  If he was bare, she had no way to know.

  She burrowed deeper under the furs like a timid animal in its lair, the silks soft against her pillowed cheek.

  And there — a faint waft of cooler air as the Beast lifted the furs and slid in behind her, pulled her close, his front to her back, so that her whole being was bracketed by his warmth and his presence.

  Such warmth it was. For indeed, she thought — Claria wondered, was he bare? Was he? She thought that he was.

  For Claria felt, intimately, all the places in which their unclothed skin touched, felt it as a brand — hotter than the lazy fire in the hearth.

  And the heat of it made that strange, beguiling, shameful feeling begin to grow between her thighs. She clenched them tight, denying herself, which made the feeling better and worse just the same.

  She bit her lip, dismayed by her treacherous, blasphemous body. Dismayed by how it begged her to ruche up her new shift, to slip her hand down the paleness of her stomach and through her dark curls, and to touch herself there, in that soft and shadowed place.

  But she would not. Could not. For the friars said such a thing was wrong, that her most secret places and the pleasures they could bring were for her husband and her husband alone.

  But then…

  Claria had been taken by the Beast. She had given herself to him. She was a fallen woman now, never to be wed, nor bedded by any husband.

  If she were brave enough, she could do just as she wished…

  A fire behind and a fire in front. A fire within, so hot that she feared she might catch aflame and burn the whole castle to the ground.

  But so it was that the Beast’s castle survived the night, for her body was treacherous in more ways than one. Her tiredness overcame all else.

  She felt safe as she had not felt safe in so very long, and so Claria slept, deep a
nd well.

  The Water’s Chill

  Upon the next morn, when Claria awoke, the Beast was gone — but his lair was not empty. A watchful stillness regarded her from every shadow of the room, a stillness given life when it brushed a gentle touch across her cheek in greeting: it was the castle, Claria realised, alive with its magic.

  Those hidden hands fetched fresh water from empty air and helped Claria to wash, brisk in their attentions, though lingering a little, she imagined, across the small heft of her bottom and over the meagre curves of her breasts.

  Claria shivered under that clever touch, but she did not scold the castle’s hands for their little liberties. In good conscience she could not — for her shivers were not of revulsion. She was not quite sure what manner of emotion they took, but it was a shameful thing all the same, just as she was a shameful thing. Just as she was a sinful thing.

  That she knew.

  And so she shooed the castle’s hands away while she slid into her chemise and pulled the ribbons at her bust tight closed.

  When she stepped out from behind the dressing screen, Claria found that a gown was laid out for her on the newly made bed, and that gown was magnificence itself. Silk and velvet, pearls and gold. Too magnificent, indeed, for a baker’s lass, and far too magnificent for Claria besides.

  But how awfully impolite it would be to say so. How ungrateful of her — both for the Beast’s kindness and for the castle’s aid.

  So Claria held her silence and let the castle dress her. And though she was no dressmaker, even she could see that her gown was perfect. Utterly so. No slanted stitch, no missing bead — as perfect as the strange bread she had eaten the night before.

  Unsettlingly perfect…

  But to say so — the gods, to even think so — was the height of ungraciousness. It was to insult the Beast’s benevolence and his staggering generosity.