Paper and Thorns

By Elijah David

What if Beauty cursed the Beast?

They were never supposed to meet, but from their first encounter backstage, Molly and the Beast found themselves drawn into each other's worlds. It looked like happily ever after, until Molly's Fae mother tracked them down. Now time is running out, and the only way for the Beast to save

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elijah Carnley
• Release date: Jul 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087871691

Elijah David

Elijah David works as a barista to pay for his book buying habit. An avid reader of fantasy, he writes contemporary fantasy with a kitchen sink mythology in the form of the Albion Quartet and the Princes Never Prosper series. When he isn't reading, writing, or fanning about fantastical stories, he spends time with his wife, son, and cat. As far as he knows, Elijah's only magical ability is putting pen to paper.

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Paper and Thorns

A Princes Never Prosper Tale

Elijah David

© 2020 by Elijah David

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Mirriam Neal.

Cover design by Elijah David.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

First edition, 2020.

ISBN 978-1-0878-7168-4

To Jeana, my Beauty

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to those who read earlier drafts of this book and helped smooth away the rough edges: Cassie, Heather, Mirriam, Wesley, Mom, and the members of the Chattanooga Writers Guild critique groups.

Special thanks to my editor, Arielle Bailey, for pushing the story to its finest form.

Even more special appreciation goes to my cover artist, Mirriam Neal, for capturing Molly and the Beast on the first try.

I

The Rose

In the shadows at the heart of the labyrinth, I crouch before three doors. One for each task that lies between me and the end of this curse.

I crouch out of necessity—forced to bend by my bestial shape, not a fear of being seen. Whatever else once shared the labyrinth with me, I have faced and beaten.

The wound in my side flares with a fresh jolt of pain. That last obstacle—only half-sensed in the dark of the labyrinth—nearly bested me.

I don’t know how long I’ve been in this maze. Long enough for the first scratches and gashes to heal, but not long

enough to starve. Long enough to nearly forget how to walk like a man.

Three tasks stand between me and freedom. Between me and Molly.

Molly.

It all goes back to her. Her and Di, I suppose. But that’s putting the rose before the thorn.

Not for the first time, I wonder if Di is lying to me, increasing my torture and her delight. When Molly cursed me, she designed the spell to be unbreakable.

But if anyone can find a gap in Molly’s spellwork, surely it’s her mother.

Three doors. Three tasks. The Rose. The Mask. The Name.

No use waiting for my exhaustion to catch up to me. I sidle to the first door on all fours, an awkward animalistic movement. A delicate silkscreen patterned in rose briars, incongruous with the surrounding maze of sewer-like tunnels, the door slides back silently beneath my touch.

Beyond the silkscreen lies a room blazing with candlelight.

In the heat and shadow of a thousand tiny flames, the petals of thrice as many paper roses curl and unfold as though reaching for a paper sun.

Di’s words echo in my mind.

Your first task is this: find the perfect rose.

Before Di dropped me in the labyrinth, I had expected a globe-trotting expedition to every rose hedge and botanical garden I could access. But this was some Indiana Jones level of fae crazy.

My twisted fingers, more like claws than human hands, itch to run inquiringly down the folds and creases of the roses. It will be a matter of minutes to discover the perfect one among them if I scratch that itch. But some instinct—the one I ignored so long ago when I first met Di and it told me to run—tells me the one I touch will be the one I choose. So I keep my hands beside me and hobble-step into the center of the room.

Whoever piled these roses here did so without mercy.

Some lying near the bottom are nearly pressed flat. All of them seem on the point of suffocation. I know they are not living roses, but someone took time and attention to create them. Memories of paper cuts from a thousand folded roses tickle my fingers painfully.

Who folded these?

One rose grabs my attention: a smudged gray one folded from newsprint—and badly at that. I lean closer to examine it, but find myself frozen, one claw extended toward the rose.

I recognize the smudge on the newsprint. My clumsy, inhuman fingers folded the rose on my first night in the labyrinth. I folded it out of habit, and perhaps a little out of memory or devotion. A reminder of how I had come here and what I meant to regain at the end.

The rose, like so many others after it, fell away in my haste to cross one or another of the passages here. It didn’t do to carry more than you needed in a place so far removed from civilization. I had all but forgotten this rose, but now my fingers remember every inept fold, every thin cut from the mishandled paper.

It is far from a perfect rose, but its presence here unsettles me. Did Di bring it here? Why would she?

I stand a little taller, a little straighter, surveying the room, the piles of folded roses. Are there others here that have known my touch before? There were so many roses in those months with Molly, and again in the nights after. I am not certain I can tell one from another. I remember the first roses I folded for her. The night we met.

◆

We weren’t supposed to meet. Her father never saw visitors after his performances, and neither did she. But by way of a substantial contribution to the theater’s summer program, I’d convinced the manager to