Remnant of the Beast Read online

  REMNANT

  OF THE

  BEAST

  By Stephen Reid Andrews

  Copyright © 2013

  All rights reserved,

  including the right of reproduction

  in whole or in part in any form.

  This is a work of fiction. References to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any similarity to actual events, persons (living or dead), or places is coincidental.

  First Edition

  Created/Printed in the United States of America

  St. George, Utah

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright on all of the work in this book is held by the author.

  Cover Illustration shirt design with raging bear vector: Vectorstock_867190 (commercial license purchased and held by the author) and Depositphotos_13895684_originalauthorfairytaledesign (rights purchased by author)

  http://stephenreidandrews.blogspot.com

  __________________________________________________

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for Print Edition

  Andrews, Stephen Reid

  Remnant of the Beast / Stephen Reid Andrews

  Summary: Forty years after Belle and sixty years after the curse, the return of the Beast means more than finding beauty and love among ugliness and hate. The Beast has real-life consequences that result in misery, confusion, and suffering, but for Elise, the return of the Beast means she must choose who and what she cares about most and must discover whether, like her predecessors, she can tame the Beast

  ISBN-13: 978-1483986760 (CreateSpace-Assigned)

  ISBN-10: 1483986764

  LCCN: 2013908650

  BISAC: Fiction / Fairy tales, Folklore & Mythology

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Nearly blinded by the dark night, Karlotta desperately ran through the thick wood as if she was being pursued by the devil. The horror from which she ran was the worst she had ever witnessed. The stain of blood on her clothes that originated from the wounds stretching across her face, down her chest, and into her gut foretold that no matter how fast she ran and no matter how exhaustive her efforts, she was consigned to imminent death. Getting weaker with each struggling step, she doubted whether she could make it much farther and whether she had the strength, both physically and mentally, to fulfill the assignment she had been given.

  She had wanted to stay behind to help her mistress, Queen Annallee, but as the queen lay on the floor of her chambers unable to walk from her own injuries, Karlotta had been ordered to take the infant and destroy him.

  The orders had come from her king’s seneschal, Lord Bastian Laurent. “You must take this baby to the edge of the black forest and kill him,” Lord Bastian had barked that order as he grasped his stomach in agonizing pain. Lord Bastian had also received a severe but non-fatal wound across the entire width of his abdomen.

  Looking down, Karlotta had restrained the urge to vomit as Bastian, his hands covered in his own blood and the blood of the king, put the infant in her arms. She could not disobey Lord Bastian. Receiving orders from him was like receiving orders from the king himself, and, as a result of the circumstances, her king would never utter another order.

  Hesitantly, Karlotta had looked to the area in the royal chambers where the king had lain motionless. She had not seen him move from his prostrate position since she entered the room. He was sporadically covered in tattered clothing that had been ripped into rags, and blood gathered in a pool beneath him as a result of the deep wound in his chest and the piercing of his heart.

  The king’s captain and Lord Bastian’s brother, Monte Laurent, had also been present in the chambers. His arm was severed just below the elbow, and he sat in shock with a cloth tightly wrapped around his upper arm in a make-shift tourniquet. His initial shock had come from his injury, but the shock that followed – the uncontrollable shock that begged to overwhelm him – came from what had happened. The king had fallen by Monte’s sword, but more importantly, his wife, Adelia, had fallen from the king’s uncontrollable emotion.

  Monte’s intent had originally only been to confront the king, but the accusation Monte had alleged had enraged the king, and, regardless of his intentions, it was Monte who had taken life from the king and who had caused the ensuing chaos. Adelia had lain only feet from the king as an unintended casualty of the fight.

  Hesitantly but obediently, Karlotta gingerly had taken the baby as her mistress screamed from only feet away.

  “No! Please…don’t kill….him!” the queen pled between gasps of air and excruciating pain. Lying on the ground, the queen used all of her remaining energy to reach towards the baby. “Killing…him…will do nothing!” she groaned as her head fell and her outstretched arm slumped to the ground. The queen had fainted with weakness.

  In response to the queen’s plea, Karlotta looked through the cut across her own face – a wound she had received while coming to the queen’s aid – stealing a final glance at the queen. The state of the queen caused her the slightest doubt in the orders she had been given. But Karlotta had seen with her own eyes the evil that had been in the room and knew how all the stories ended.

  Karlotta looked down at the queen, believing that the queen would also not survive the night. If this were so, Karlotta must be trusted to do what the queen might be more willing to do herself if the queen had the chance at a later time.

  Looking down at the queen, Karlotta whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  Lord Bastian sensed Karlotta’s reservation. Grabbing her shoulders as confidently as possible, he bored into Karlotta with his dark eyes. The task was crucial.

  “You must go, now! Destroy the baby! That is an order!” screamed Lord Bastian like he was engulfed in terror. “Our lives depend on it! The queen’s life depends on it!” Despite his injury, Lord Bastian found the energy to step in front of Karlotta so she could no longer see the suffering queen. “If the queen were herself, she would order you to do the same. She understands that the kingdom must come first.”

  Karlotta knew Lord Bastian was right. The only chance the kingdom had to avoid more bloodshed was for her to destroy the baby. She only could wish this task had not been placed upon her. But Bastian knew some medicine, and she knew none. Bastian had to stay behind to do what he could for their mistress – if anything could be done.

  Finding the will to overcome her doubt, Karlotta rose to her feet and stumbled towards the door, turning her back on the queen and the destruction in the room.

  Lord Bastian had given her those vital orders nearly a half of an hour ago, and Karlotta had created enough of a distance between her and the castle that she could now dispose of the baby. She had to act quickly because she was becoming faint and knew that she would not live much longer.

  As Karlotta fumbled to a stop, the baby began to cry – a terrible, piercing, and beautiful cry that broke the calm darkness of the night. Trying her best to ignore the crying child, Karlotta separated the baby from her torso, an
d laying the babe on the ground in front of her, she took a small knife from a sheath underneath her robe.

  This is for us all, she thought, trying to convince herself as she raised the knife high above her head.

  But before she could thrust the knife downward, Karlotta made a mistake that she believed might cost the kingdom dearly. Karlotta looked into the innocent eyes of the three-month-old child. With the child’s soft expression, Karlotta’s collapsing heart was penetrated, and her will failed her. She could not kill the innocent child for what others thought he might become. This child should be given the opportunity to choose what he would become for himself.

  Only a few breaths away from leaving mortality, Karlotta looked into the distance, her eyes darting around the dark forest in panic. If she left the baby here, the baby would die from neglect or would be eaten by a wild animal. And if she tried to take the babe to a neighboring kingdom, she could not complete the journey – she and the infant would surely die on the way. There was seemingly no way for Karlotta to change the fate of the infant. Karlotta cursed herself for being too weak to disobey Lord Bastian when he had given the order to kill the baby – before she had stumbled this far into the forest.

  Picking up the baby, Karlotta struggled farther through the forest. Not long into her trudging, pain seared through the wound across her chest, and she collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. There was no hope for her, and there was no hope for the baby – she would die and so would the child.

  Before she closed her eyes to death, hope returned as a flicker of light became visible in the distance. Could this be the miracle she was silently praying for? She did not have the time to find out if it was so and would have to blindly believe that it was.

  Leaving the baby in an open clearing, its cry audibly resonating through the canopy of trees, Karlotta exerted her last efforts to crawl as far as she could from the infant. Fifty meters away, she crawled behind a bush and took her last breath.

  Chapter 1

  “Quiet.” Marshall grumbled through the corner of his mouth, irritated that Elise was attempting to distract him. Marshall’s dark brown, almost black, hair covered his head like a mop but parted above his eyes so he could see.

  Elise moved her soft dry lips only inches away from Marshall’s ear. “You will never hit anything with that thing,” she whispered in her loudest possible whisper.

  The words had their desired effect, throwing Marshall further from concentration. With his left eye closed tightly, he looked down the barrel of his muzzle-loading rifle to aim while attempting to regain his composure. The rifle was one of the newest pieces of weaponry to come through his father’s shop.

  Marshall’s broad shoulders were hunched over the rifle, and he was crouched directly in front of Elise who casually stood behind him. Following Marshall’s line of vision directly one hundred and fifty feet ahead was a grazing doe – not the biggest doe he’d ever seen, but big enough to warrant the hunt.

  Shutting Elise’s voice from his mind, he gently began to pull the trigger.

  “You know,” interjected Elise in a loud voice just before Marshall could bring the trigger towards him.

  The doe darted, and the sound of the rifle cracked through the forest, echoing off the nearest hill and reverberating in both of their ears. Both of them cringed with the sound.

  As Elise had planned, the doe took flight without injury, and the ball from the musket pinged harmlessly off a tree well above and well beyond where the doe had been eating. The shot had no chance to hit its target, even without Elise’s distraction. Muskets or rifles were new to the kingdom, and if not for his father’s occupation as weaponsmith, Marshall would not be privileged to use such a weapon.

  Elise continued conversing as if Marshall had not fired the shot at all. “You know, it doesn’t take courage or skill to slaughter an eating doe.”

  Marshall was frustrated. “Look what you’ve done.” Bringing himself to his feet, Marshall towered over Elise by at least six inches. With his dark brown eyes, he looked down at Elise, attempting to appear irritated by crinkling his brow and turning his lips down in a frown. No matter how hard he seemed to try, he couldn’t remain upset with Elise for her playful antics.

  Elise stared at Marshall with her perfectly hazel eyes, biting her lip in a half-smirk. For a long time now, she had been aware of the seductive influence she had over him.

  Marshall brushed his hand through his hair, annoyed that he was powerless against her charm. “Why did you do that?” Rolling his eyes and slouching his shoulders, he pointed in the direction of his disappeared target.

  “You saw the shot from that – thing.” Elise gestured towards the rifle. “Your shot never had a chance, and besides, I was simply making sure you didn’t do something stupid.” Elise tucked her long sandy-blond hair behind her shoulder.

  Marshall crinkled his brow again – this time with confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “She was pregnant you fool. And, not only is it bad luck to shoot a pregnant doe, it’s also not proper. If you ask me, it’s not proper to shoot a doe, even if she isn’t pregnant.”

  Marshall was immediately embarrassed. “How did you know she was pregnant?”

  “I’m a lady. I know,” she pronounced conclusively.

  Elise had given herself the title of lady. Barely seventeen, she had almost a year until others would consider her a bona fide lady.

  For Marshall, Elise was more than a lady. She was his friend, confidant, and as soon as he could find a way to support a family, his fiancé – of course, she didn’t know about the marriage and family he planned yet. In fact, they hadn’t even kissed or formally courted, unless Marshall could consider a hunting excursion, a hike through the wood, or cave exploring a formal courting. But, even with their informality, Marshall could not picture his future with anyone but Elise.

  “Lady or not, that was my dinner,” said Marshall in friendly annoyance.

  The day would come when Elise would need to think seriously about finding a husband, but Elise was presently more concerned about spending time with her friends (which did include Marshall) and finding adventurous things to do each afternoon.

  Despite her lack of desire to be the center of attention, Elise promised to develop into beauty itself. She already radiated that beauty through her long hair with braided locks which usually draped across her shoulders and down her front. With her pale skin, mature physic, and slender figure, she was already the attention of most of the young men in town and was the envious conversation of the ladies and girls. Even Elise’s older sister, Rachelle, who was attractive in her own right, had moments when she openly begrudged Elise’s beauty.

  Soon enough, Elise would finish her transformation into a lady, and she had no doubt that Marshall would be there when she was ready. Marshall’s infatuation with her was frequently and obviously displayed. Although she was developing feelings for him as well and although those feelings surfaced in occasional flirtatious expressions and a sporadic longing for his company, Elise wasn’t prepared to discuss their future yet.

  Marshall took a final look out into the wooded area he had been stalking for the last hour, and, determining that nothing worth hunting would be coming through this spot again today, he cast a concluding glance at Elise.

  “Come on, it’s getting late,” he said, sharing a warm smile with her.

  Elise couldn’t help but think how attractive he looked with his hunting gear strapped over his shoulder.

  Colmar, the kingdom in which Elise and Marshall lived, was only a few miles from the black forest, and the wood which Elise and Marshall frequented was an exquisite residue of that forest. The thick green trees shaded the picturesque landscaping of rock and shrubbery.

  As Elise and Marshall walked over the thin carpet of fallen leaves towards their homes, they conversed like they had hundreds of times before on such outings. They spoke of her father’s inventions, the new weaponry his father was selling, the jealous antics of Eli
se’s sister, his disappointment with being unable to please his father, the kingdom, the village, and all the other topics that normally passed between them. Time passed rapidly as they spoke.

  Before they parted, almost as an afterthought, Marshall turned back to Elise. “Elise,” he called inquisitively. “Will you be coming to my celebration tomorrow?” His tone was hopeful.

  Marshall’s eighteenth birthday was tomorrow, and along with his father making him an official partner in the family armourer and weaponry business, his father had planned a modest birthday celebration. A few of his father’s business associates would be in attendance, and for this reason, Marshall wanted Elise to be present to relieve him of some of the night’s expected dullness.

  Even if his father could plan a party that was respectably entertaining, Marshall had the unfortunate problem of sharing a birthday with the one individual whose celebration would overshadow any other: Prince Aldrick – Colmar’s king to be who would also turn eighteen.

  Elise gazed at Marshall with sympathetic disappointment, her dark eyelashes fluttering in preparation for her response. “I’m sure it will be wonderful Marshall,” she said hesitantly. “But I can’t.”

  Marshall’s countenance fell. “You can’t, or you won’t,” Marshall said, nearly pouting like a child.

  Moving back towards him, Elise grabbed Marshall’s arm in a comforting gesture. “You know that there is no place I would rather be than at your celebration – but it’s my father. The royal court has finally taken an interest in some of his work and has asked that he make a presentation at the prince’s birthday celebration.”

  “So?” Marshall questioned as if what she had just told him was of no consequence.

  “So…,” Elise mimicked, clasping Marshall’s hand using both her hands. “This is my father’s big chance for recognition, and I promised him I would be there for support.”