Beauty Read Online Free PDF Page B

out. They were light and warm in his hands. Diamonds, he thought. They were made of diamonds, not glass at all. Why would someone have been trying to burn them? Was this the work of whoever had killed her? Were the two deeds linked in the strange history of this kingdom? He stared at them for several seconds until he heard Petra and the prince calling for him. The woman upstairs was long gone. She would not miss them, and he and his companions might need something to barter with at some point. He slipped the shoes into his bag and got to his feet. If the city were to somehow wake and the shoes were declared missing he would return them. For now, he’d consider them his fee for this babysitting task the king had set him.
    ‘ W hat do you think they are?’ the prince asked, as he and Petra climbed the stone steps and examined the lines on the base of the statue more closely. ‘These can’t be old, can they?’
    ‘No.’ The huntsman frowned. Even though it was clear that the whole city was in some kind of a cursed deep sleep, now they were closer to the castle he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. It was an instinct he was trained not to ignore. ‘Look at those ones round the other side. That chalk is fresh.’ The lines grew more ragged, but they were definitely some form of counting. Were they charting days? Or months? It was hard to tell. There were a lot of them, whichever it was.
    ‘You mean someone’s still awake?’ Petra asked.
    ‘That can’t be right,’ the prince said. ‘Even if they hadn’t fallen asleep, they’d surely be dead by now.’
    ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Petra said cheerily. ‘None of this is normal, after all. And I used to hear howling sometimes. Through the wall. Something’s alive in here.’
    The huntsman wasn’t listening to her. A noise, faint and far to his left had caught his attention. Someone was following them. He was sure of it.
    ‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Anyone there?’ There was no answer but a return to silence. ‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s get to the castle. If there are any answers, we’ll find them there.’ The prince nodded, not picking up on the huntsman’s point. Trouble, when it came to ordinary people, was normally delivered to them by royalty. Whatever had made this city silent, it had started in the castle.
    P etra had never seen anything like it. Even as they’d walked through the city she’d felt slightly overwhelmed by the looming building that rose so high above the ordinary houses she wondered if in the right light it would engulf them all with its shadow, but as they walked through the open gates, carefully stepping over the crumpled heap of soldiers, for the first time in her life she felt small and insignificant. The village, the forest and her grandmother’s cottage had been her world, and all the time this whole city had been sleeping so close by. How much more was there that she would never see, even if she spent a lifetime exploring?
    ‘Heavily guarded,’ the huntsman said.
    Petra glanced at him. His dark eyes scanned the heavily armed men at their feet and she could see the sight bothered him.
    ‘Perhaps they had more to worry about than my father does,’ the prince said. ‘Who knows what lies on the other side of this kingdom?’
    The huntsman nodded but said nothing more. They were a strange pair, this prince and his companion. One so full of charm and courtly grace, the other quiet and hardy. Petra liked them both, but she knew which one she trusted the most. A man of the forest would always win her vote if it came to her own survival. The prince might be good with a sword but she imagined that he’d learned to duel with rules. Killing something living was very different to courtly sword play – the prince had discovered as much in Granny’s kitchen when faced by the winter wolf. There were no rules when it came to fighting for your very existence. They were both handsome, though, she’d give them