Free Before Beauty by Brittany Fichter Page A

will frighten
her.”
    At this, they all stopped what
they were doing and stared. Isa felt a chill touch her heart. For
though he spoke to them all, it was her he was looking
at.
    “ We must pack what little we can
with great haste. Take only what you need. I will send a message to
Marko. We are leaving tonight after the sun sets.”
    Dumbfounded, Isa looked at her
mother and brother, but they seemed to be as much at a loss as she
was.
    “ We’re doing what?” Launce was the
first one to find his voice.
    “ We’re leaving with the Caregivers
tonight. All of us.”
    “ But…why?” Deline
frowned.
    “ Father,” Isa put her hands on her
father’s arm and knelt close to him, “what happened?” Her touch
seemed to calm him some, but when his eyes met hers, they were wild
with worry.
    “ Isa,” his voice was hollow and
old, “it is all my fault. I have done something terrible, and I
cannot undo it. This is the only way I know how to save you. I…I
was caught out on the mountain when the storm hit. I was afraid I
would freeze, so I took the only familiar path I could find.” Ansel
swallowed loudly before looking beseechingly at the rest of his
family. “I sought the shelter of the Fortress.”
    The silence was deafening as a
familiar feeling stirred in Isa’s heart. She suddenly knew what
kind of turn her father’s journey had taken.
    “ The place is surely cursed,”
Ansel spoke again, shaking his head at his tea. “I used to laugh at
such superstitions, but there was hardly a light in the entire
stronghold.”
    “ The servants?” Deline placed her
hand over her heart.
    “ Shadows….phantoms. I do not know.
There are no bodies to serve the prince, but the spirits are
certainly not lacking. And they do his bidding as well as any
staff.” He shivered. “And then there was the prince. I don’t know
how, but he somehow escaped the enchantment. At least, he still has
a body I mean. I couldn’t see much for the darkness. He saw me,
however, and he demanded to know about my family.”
    A sob suddenly wrenched itself
from Ansel’s body. “He said he would send a plague upon you all
with his power if I did not obey! Isa, forgive me!” Her father
dropped his tea cup on the floor and clutched at her hands
desperately, his brown eyes desperately searching hers. “I tried so
hard to shield you. I told him only of your strengths, and as
little as I could. And yet, he has demanded that you come to the
Fortress to stay with him.”
    Horror gripped Isa. Even under a
curse, would he never stop? Why couldn’t he simply let her be? As
the fear moved through her, however, it was quickly replaced with
an even stronger emotion. How dare he? How dare this man threaten
her family, using them as leverage to wage this strange war upon
her?
    “ We can make him leave his hiding
hole to come here and face us like a man! We could gather a
militia!” Launce was fuming when Isa realized they were still
talking.
    “ No, we do not know the true
strength of his power,” Ansel replied. “It would be best if we
simply went with the Caregivers. They are our fastest way of
escape. I don’t think he’ll be able to reach us on the third day if
we leave tonight. We’ll be nearly out of the kingdom by
then.”
    Isa quietly stood and slipped back
up to her attic. Her family meant well, but their attempts would be
fruitless. They didn’t know the true power the prince wielded. She
did.
    The accident had taken place
fourteen years before, when she was only nine, but the day was
etched into her memory like writing on a tombstone. Lean and
nimble, she’d weaved her way through the crowd to the street to see
the handsome young prince as he rode by. She’d seen him from a
distance a number of times when visiting the Fortress with her
father, but this was the closest she had ever been to him. Someone
had bumped her from behind, however, and it had sent her sprawling
right into his horse’s path.
    How noble he had looked when he
had