He leads me into the night, he drives away the light

[prince_of_vere]

The only sounds in the forest were the sounds of the horse's hooves, soft against the snow, and Laurent's breath, quick and ragged. It was well past nightfall, and he was exhausted, but there was no choice but to keep going. If he delayed, his father's men would catch him.

He'd left before dawn, riding hard, and had stopped twice to exchange horses. No message could outpace him, so his story was not questioned, and both his face and his gold were accepted everywhere he went.

His father's story had been richly detailed, never thinking that Laurent would use those details as a map. He had the rose, and he had the words that the beast had given his father, the magic enchantment that would lead him to the castle and his fate.

There was a certain clearing, with an ancient, tumbled-down ring of stones. Laurent stood there to speak the words, and the clouds parted, spearing moonlight down upon a nearly invisible path. Laurent put heels to his horse and followed it.

The path was clear, swept bare of snow, though drifts rose high on either side. Once, Laurent looked back to see the path lost behind him, clogged by deep drifts as though it had never been.

He emerged into a soft, warm autumn night.

The clock might have been drawn back by some months, with summer and the harvest still rich on the breeze, along with the heady scent of late-summer flowers, and, twined throughout the rest of it--roses.

The forest parted into a vast meadow of soft grasses, broken here and there by copses of wood and rising stone bridges that crossed deep chasms, and led to a soaring, overgrown castle. It was everything his father had described and more, a place of wild beauty. The castle was large enough that it could house a city, though it showed no signs of life.

Heart pounding, Laurent urged his horse forward, though there was no hurry now. He was within the spell, and thus had fulfilled his duty. His father's men would not be able to follow him here, even with the secret words. Or, if they did, it would be too late.

It was a beautiful place to die.

Laurent rode boldly up to the front door of the castle, dismounting and tying his horse at the bottom of the steps. Hungry and exhausted, he climbed to the massive doors of the castle and they opened before him as if by magic.

Laurent's heart thundered in the silent hall, beautiful and crumbling, of a fantastical construction such as he had never before seen. "Hello?" he called to the echoing corridors, but there was no answer. "I am Laurent of Vere. My father took one of your roses. I have come to fulfill his debt."

Comments

[notmyarena]

The great hall simply echoed the prince's words back to him. There was nobody here, no beast as his father might have described, no sign of servants or occupants of the castle. There was only a small wind that brushed past him, swirling rose petals and dancing golden flickers in the air. A wildness hung in its perfumed breeze, something spicier and less safe than the sweetness of a rose. It whorled up the grand staircase overgrown with vines, curled a corner, and then seemed to...wait, expectantly, for Laurent.

It ushered him to a room that opened as if by invisible hands, down the open hall and in a separate little tower of the castle. The chamber looked like a rose-bower, sunlight streaming in from the many panes of cut-glass windows and the open balcony that spilled roses. Overhead, climbing vines wove so thick it was hard to see the ceiling. They seemed to be trying to overtake the bed, curling all around the canopy and hanging down over the plush mattress beneath.

A small pool glowed in the middle of the room, practically the only thing not overgrown with roses. Still, petals floated on the surface, and the scent of them was thick in the air. And from the other side of the mirrored glass, Damen watched his prisoner take in the verdant room, its strange air of magic, so overgrown as to seem abandoned perhaps, and yet there was a suit of white and gold in embroidered Veretian style laid out across the furs of the bed, with a card atop it simply saying, Dress and come down for dinner.