Текст книги "Of Beast and Beauty "

Автор книги: Stacey Jay

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NINETEEN

ISRA

“SHE …” Gem shakes his head, and keeps shaking it, as if doing so will

cause what I’ve said to make sense sooner or later.

“She set the fire.” I lift my hand to my throat and feel it ripple as I

swallow, finding myself comforted by the rush of my blood beneath my

skin. “One night, when Father was reading to me before bed, Mother came

in to light the little lamp I liked to leave burning while I slept.

“Baba had mentioned something about a strange smell in my

bedroom earlier, but neither of us knew what it was until my mother threw

the lamp at the curtains. Apparently she’d soaked them with oil earlier in

the day. They went up with a rush that sucked all the air from the room. I

can’t remember what my mother looked like, but I remember seeing her

silhouetted against the flames, how white her nightgown looked next to all

that red and orange.”

“Why?” Gem asks, his voice breaking.

“She had decided the royal family had to die. Together,” I say, piecing

together what little I remember with what Baba told me of that night. “As

soon as she lit the curtains, she ran from the bedroom. She locked me and

Father inside, and went to set another fire in the sitting room. Father

slammed his fists against the door and begged her to let us out, but she

wouldn’t. She … She said she loved us, but that fire was the only way.”

My brow wrinkles as the unfamiliar piece of the puzzle fits into place.

I don’t know if it’s seeing my bedroom that’s helping my memory, or the

fact that I’m telling the story aloud for the first time, but I can suddenly

hear my mother speak, as plainly as if she were in the room right now. I can

hear the tears in her voice, the genuine grief over what she felt, for some

mad reason, she had to do.

“I didn’t remember that last part before,” I continue, “but I’m sure I

heard her. It was right before my nightgown caught fire.”

I press my fingers to my lips, concentrating until I swear I catch a

whiff of smoke. “I screamed for Baba, and he ran back to the bed and threw

me to the ground before the fire could touch my skin.” I point to the spot

on the floor, only a few feet from where I now sit.

“My head hit the stones beneath the carpet and … everything went

blurry. I don’t remember much after that, but I know soldiers arrived and

broke down the bedroom door. Father gave me to one of them and went to

find my mother. She was in the music room, but she ran out onto the

balcony when she saw Father and the guards. Baba said she refused to

come back inside. When she realized her plan had failed, she leapt over the

parapet, down onto the top of the first roof, and threw herself from the

edge. I heard her scream as she fell.

“My father and Junjie took her body to the rose garden the next

morning.” I glance at Gem, who stands frozen on the other side of the

room, as horrified by the story as the people were in the days after my

mother’s suicide. Suicide was always expected of her, but not like that, not

anywhere but in the garden.

“They slit her throat and spilled her blood on the soil.” I drop my

hand to my lap. “According to the terms of the covenant, the queen should

do that herself—make the first, fatal cut before the royal executioner

finishes the job—so it wasn’t the way things were traditionally done, but it

was a suicide, and the covenant was satisfied. The city had been running

low on water for months, but that very day, the water came surging back

into the underground river at full force. For the next three years, the

harvests were so abundant, Father had to have additional granaries built to

contain the bounty. He named one of them after my mother. Not the

greatest honor for a queen, but it was all he felt proper for a woman who’d

tried to burn her family alive.”

Gem curses. It’s a Desert People word, but there’s no doubt that it’s

a curse.

“She was mad,” I say, defending Mama out of habit. “My father and

mother were married for almost twenty years before she became pregnant.

I was a complete surprise. Mama was forty years old when I was born.

Needle tells me the gossips say she was strange before my birth, but

afterward …”

I sigh. “She started to talk about leaving the city. She even took me

outside the gates once when I was four. It’s one of my earliest memories.

We were spotted by the guards and brought back inside almost

immediately, but … My father couldn’t trust her after that. He moved us

both to the tower. Father said Mother didn’t mind. Court life had always

been a misery for her, and going out into the city center gave her fits. She’d

get so upset, she’d forget to breathe, and faint dead away on the street.”

“Was she sick?” Gem asks.

“Not in body,” I say. “Father said the illness was in her mind but that

she seemed happy in the tower. He never thought she’d … do what she did.

I didn’t, either.” I lean back, resting against the mattress. “I don’t

remember much about her, almost nothing, really, but I remember feeling

loved. I’m sure, in some part of her mind, she did what she did out of love.”

Gem crosses the room, his steps soundless on the thick carpet. He’s

learned to be as silent in his boots as he is in bare feet. He has adapted well

to my world. If only I could have the chance to see if I would adapt as well

to his. I already miss the desert, the wind, the moaning of the dead trees.

I’d never be alone in my sorrow out there. There would always be the wind

to commiserate with.

“I’m sure she did,” he says as he stops in front of me. “It’s not hard to

believe.”

I look up, up, up at him in surprise. “It’s hard for most people. It was

hard for me when I was little.”

“She was trying to spare you a life spent preparing to die.”

“We’re all preparing to die.”

“Not like this.” He squats down, resting his hands on my knees. “You

know it’s not the same.”

“I know,” I whisper, running my fingers over the ridges on the backs

of his hands, down the top of each finger, tracing the places where his

claws go to hide. They’re solid, sturdy chambers, like a second set of bones

on top of the first, barely contained by his thick skin. I’ve felt them before,

but I never expected them to look like this, so … natural. Not scary at all,

really.

I lift his hand, studying the tiny puckers above his fingernails that

must open in order to let his claws out. “I would like to see your claws.”

“No.”

“Please. Show them to me,” I say. “I want to see what gave me the

scar on my shoulder.”

Gem fists his hand before pulling it from my grasp. “I wish I’d never

touched you,” he says, dropping his eyes to the floor. “I wish I’d never

come here.”

“I’m glad you came, and I’m glad you touched me. I wish you

would …” My words trail off. I’m still too shy to state it plainly, but

surely … I reach out, my hand trembling only slightly as I slip my fingers into

his open shirt, resting them over his heart. “Can’t we stop talking?”

Gem’s eyes flick to mine. There’s no doubt he understands my

meaning—it’s clear in the way his lips part, in the way he braces his hands

on either side of my hips, fingers digging into the rose upholstery—but

instead of kissing me, he says, “There has to be another way.”

“There is no other way.” My lips prickle with disappointment as I

withdraw my hand from his warmth. “The covenant is a binding contract,

signed in blood by the founding families of Yuan. Its terms are

nonnegotiable.”

“It’s the covenant that’s the source of the magic, not the roses?”

I nod. “The roses grew after the first sacrifice. They’re a symbol. Part

of the magic, but not the source of it.”

“A symbol of what?” Gem’s expression is so intense, it makes my

head start to hurt again just looking at him. “From what?”

I close my eyes, and rub the space above them with my knuckles.

“What do you mean?”

“What has entered into this contract with your people?” Gem asks.

“The magic of the planet has been quiet for hundreds of years. So, what

magic is this?”

“I don’t know.” I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly colder. And

tired. “It’s just … magic.”

“But whose magic?” he asks. “Who or what accepts the offering of a

queen’s blood and grants Yuan vitality in return?”

I start to argue, but the words I need won’t come. What he’s saying

makes sense. Magic has to come from someone. Or something. I know the

roses grew after the first sacrifice—it’s the most written about and sung

about event in our city’s history—but as far as who or what made them

grow … what inspires the flowers’ hunger for blood …

“I don’t know,” I say in a small voice.

“You don’t know,” he repeats, as if I’ve confessed that I don’t know

how to feed myself or put on my own shoes.

“No, I don’t know,” I say, defensive and anxious at the same time. “I

know the legend, but I– The stories say the noble families arrived in one of

the fifteen great ships. They were in charge of supervising the building of

Yuan, making sure the dome would protect the colonists until they knew if

it was safe for humans to live outside. Everything went well until the

eleventh year of building. That’s when the workers constructing the

dome—the ones who spent the most time outside the ship—began to

change.”

“To mutate,” Gem says, as if he’s heard the story before, making me

wonder how much history we share.

“Yes.” I worry my earlobe between two fingers. “But they mutated

more quickly than people ever had on our home planet. Massive changes

within a month or two, instead of gradually over thousands and thousands

of years. Even the scientists had no explanation for it except magic.”

For the first time, it strikes me how strange that must have been for

my ancestors, for people from a planet with no magic to suddenly be

trapped on a world ruled by it.

“The mutated people turned violent,” I say, keeping my eyes on

Gem’s chest. “They attacked the ship where the colonists had been living,

and tore it apart, killing the people who hadn’t been transformed,

destroying all the books and the machines that stored the ancient

knowledge, and scattering them across the desert.”

I glance at Gem’s eyes. His expression is neutral, patient, waiting for

the rest. “The noble families escaped with a few dozen others whose

mutations were still minor,” I continue. “Together, they ran into the city,

and locked the gates behind them. They were safe inside—the dome was

finished and the central buildings constructed—but the city wasn’t ready to

support life. The animals they’d brought from their home planet were still

very young, the seeds hadn’t sprouted, and most of their medicines and

supplies had been left aboard the ship. They had water, but not much food,

and they were too terrified to venture outside the walls. The people were

starving to death when, one night, the woman who would become our first

queen had a vision.”

“A vision of what?” Gem asks, the intensity returning to his voice.

“I don’t know.” I lift my shoulders and let them fall, before tucking

my feet beneath my skirt. “Just … a vision. Of how to save her people. Of

the covenant,” I say, ignoring the prickle at the back of my neck I’ve always

associated with telling a lie. I’m not lying—not as far as I know, anyway.

So why does it feel like I’m telling Gem a fairy tale?

“All right,” he says, clearly unsatisfied. “What happened after the

vision?”

“The queen woke her husband and representatives from the other

noble families. They walked to the center of the city, where the king

transcribed the sacred words of the covenant from the queen’s dream onto

parchment. They all signed the covenant in blood and spoke the words

aloud. Then, as the sun rose beyond the dome, the queen …

“As soon as her blood hit the soil, the first bed of roses sprang up

from the ground. By the end of the day, crops that should have taken

months to grow were ready to be harvested. Yuan was saved,” I say,

though with less enthusiasm than my father used when telling this story.

“The king remarried that evening, and since then the city has never been

without a queen, or a daughter in line to be queen, for more than a single

night. There are similar stories about the other domed cities. Each one felt

the call and formed covenants of their own.”

Gem grunts his dubious grunt.

“That’s the story as I know it.” I turn my palms over to stare at the

lines creasing the skin, embarrassed without really knowing why. “The

covenant came to the queen in a vision, and the king wrote it down. No

mention of who or what made the roses grow. I suppose I’ve always

thought …”

“Thought what?”

“I don’t know. It seemed to me …” I peek at him through my lashes.

“Maybe it was the power of her sacrifice that created the magic.”

“I’ve seen sacrifice,” Gem says. “I’ve seen old men wander into the

desert to die to give their hut one less mouth to feed. I’ve seen mothers

choose between two babies when there isn’t enough milk for them both.

No magic roses sprang up when their blood was shed. There’s something

darker here.”

“What do you mean?”

He studies me a moment before saying, “My people have legends,

too.”

“I know that,” I say with a tired smile.

“I don’t mean legends like the girl who loved the star. I mean history.

Stories from when our tribe was young and some still remembered—”

A knock at the door makes us both turn our heads. Needle stands in

the doorway with the rope she took to Gem the night we left for the desert,

and an expression that clearly communicates she thinks it’s time for him to

go.

“Just a few more minutes,” I say, profoundly relieved Gem preferred

to talk instead of kiss. I can’t believe I didn’t think about the open door. If

Needle had come to fetch Gem and had found us kissing, or worse, she

would have been scandalized. She would be scandalized if it were any boy,

but a Monstrous boy …

I pause, studying Needle as she studies Gem. What does she think of

him? She set him free, and sent me out into the desert with him. She must

trust him, or at least trust me enough to have faith in my judgment. And

she didn’t seem afraid when he crawled onto the balcony. She seemed

more afraid of Bo, so … maybe …

“We’ll join you in the music room when he’s ready,” I say. The hope

that I might be able to talk to Needle about the way I feel about Gem lifts

my spirits. At least a little.

Needle moves a hand to her lips and then rubs the same hand in a

circle on her stomach, but I shake my head. “No, we don’t need anything

else to eat or drink,” I say. “Thank you.”

She takes a step back into the hall, but I can tell she’s reluctant to go.

Every minute Gem’s here is another minute we could be discovered. Bo

could be fetching his father and a team of guards right now. I don’t think he

would risk his future—he wants to be king and understands how stubborn I

can be if I don’t get my way—but Needle’s right. We won’t be safe until

Gem’s back in his cell.

“Don’t worry,” I assure her. “We’ll be quick. I promise.”

Needle smiles—a grin that transforms her simple face into something

truly beautiful—and nods before disappearing down the hall toward the

music room.

“She’s happy you can see her,” Gem says.

“I’m happy I can see her, too.” I turn back to him. “I never

understood how much I was missing. We have our own language, but she

says a hundred things at once with her face.”

“She does. And she’s right. I should go. We can—”

“Not yet,” I beg, wishing he never had to go. “Tell me your people’s

version of the story. It won’t take long, will it?”

Gem’s forehead wrinkles, the scales there crinkling like tissue paper.

“Not too long …” He takes a breath, and his forehead smoothes. “The

legends of my people say the old ships brought too many colonists. They

expected many of the settlers to die in the first years here, falling prey to

predators or disease. But this world was good to them. Their numbers

grew, and by the time the domes were complete, there wasn’t enough

room inside for everyone. The people who organized the expeditions, those

in power, the people you call the nobles, saw what was coming and took

steps to protect themselves. They crept into the domes in the night and

locked the other colonists out.”

“Because they had mutated?”

“A little, but back then my people still looked more like the Smooth

Skins,” he says, taking my hand in his and turning it over, running his finger

over the flaky skin where my claws would be if I had them. “They didn’t

fully mutate until months later.… The summer heat was brutal that year,

and brought new predators from the mountains. My people were dying of

sunstroke and animal attacks. They left their settlement and returned to

New Hope to—”

“One of the first cities,” I say, pleased I paid attention to my history

lessons. “But that’s hundreds of miles south, past Port South even.”

“My people were originally part of the New Hope settlement,” he

says. “So they returned there, begging to be allowed in until the heat

passed, but the people inside refused to open the gates. That’s when my

ancestors started north. They hoped the summer would be easier here, but

it wasn’t. They made it as far as Yuan before being taken in by another

group of outsiders. They had built shelters with the remains of their ship

and were weathering the heat a little better.”

He crosses his arms, emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders. It was

hard for me to imagine him being descended from the same people as the

small, narrow men of this city. Learning that half of his people came from

somewhere else makes sense.

“The real changes started not long after,” he continues. “But my

ancestors were grateful. They considered the mutations a blessing.

Mutation allowed them to survive the heat, and fight off predators. In

those days, there were still giant horned cats hunting the lands here.”

I blink. “Horned cats?”

He nods. “At first, the creatures left us alone, but when the land

outside the domes began to die, their usual prey died along with it and they

began hunting people.”

“It’s strange to think of the world being so … different.”

“But it was different,” he says with a passion that assures me this

isn’t just a story for him. This is his history, the legacy of his people. “There

were forests and grasslands and fruit and game. In the early days, there

was no reason for my people to envy the people in the domed cities. We

had everything we needed. Even when the forests died and the grassland

turned to desert, we survived. After the mutations, our children were all

born larger and stronger than Smooth Skins, with scales and claws and

other adaptations that allowed us to survive.”

“Then why …” I hesitate, knowing I’ll have to phrase my question

carefully. “Why did your people and the others outside the domes attack

the cities? I understand you need food now,” I hurry to add, “and it’s a

matter of survival, but the first of the domes fell four hundred years ago.”

“That’s when the tribes began to realize the truth,” he says. “That

while our land was dying, the land beneath the domes grew more and more

fruitful. Our elders said it was bad magic, and some of the more violent

tribes decided it was time for the cities to be destroyed.”

“But if that’s true,” I say, finally understanding all his talk of Yuan

robbing the land beyond our walls, “then why hasn’t the desert come back

to life? Almost all of the domed cities have fallen. There are only three left.

Shouldn’t the world beyond the domes have recovered with fewer

cities … draining the lands outside?”

Gem looks away, watching the lamp on my bedside table burn,

uncertainty clear in his eyes. “Some of the tribes to the north think all of

the cities must fall before the planet will begin to heal.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe they’re right. My chief thought …”

“She thought what?”

“She thought …” When his gaze returns to me, his eyes are so full of

pain, it summons a sound from my throat.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, coming to my knees on the floor in front of

him.

He shakes his head. “I can’t …”

“Tell me.” I run my fingers down his cheeks, over the whiskers on his

chin. They’re black, even blacker than his hair, and sharp enough to tickle

the skin around my mouth when we kiss.

A kiss. It seems the thing to do. I lean in, pressing my lips to his

forehead the way he pressed his to mine, offering comfort, but after only a

moment he takes me by the shoulders and sets me gently away.

“I should go.” He rises from the floor in one effortless movement and

starts toward the door.

“All right,” I say, trying not to be hurt by his eagerness to leave. He’s

right. We’ve already been longer than the “moment” I promised Needle.

“I’ll send the guards at the usual time tomorrow.” I come to my feet

much less gracefully, struggling with my skirts, and follow him down the

hall to the music room. “We can talk more while we work in the garden.”

He casts a narrow look over his shoulder.

“I know what you said about the bulbs, but it will give us an excuse to

meet.” I clear my throat, pushing down the sadness rising inside me as

Needle hands Gem the rope and gathers her sweater.

It doesn’t matter that the garden is a lie. I’m not tainted, and Gem

isn’t a monster. There might be no need for herbs to impede mutation. If

the people in the Banished camp have scales or claws or other mutant

characteristics, there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong is the way

the rest of the city treats them. I’ll find a way to convince the whole citizens

that they have nothing to fear from those who look different.

“Tomorrow, then?” I ask, voice rising sharply as Needle hurries past

me to the tower stair and Gem follows without saying a word.

What have I done? Why does he suddenly seem so cold?

“Gem?” My voice breaks in the middle of his name, betraying how

much it hurts for him to leave this way.

He stops, his entire back rigid, before he turns and walks back down

the hall toward me. He looks angry, furious, and for a moment I’m afraid of

what he’ll say, but he doesn’t say a word. He pulls me into his arms, lifting

me off my feet, silencing my breath of surprise with a kiss.

Kiss. The word is inadequate for urgent hands and bruised lips and

his taste filling my mouth and his breath in my lungs and need strong

enough to rattle my bones, shake me to the core until all I can do is dig my

fingers into his shoulders and hope to survive being so close. It’s wonderful

and awful and all I ever want. Forever. I don’t want it to stop. I never want

him to leave.

He has to leave. I know that, but knowing doesn’t keep my chest

from aching like it will split in two when Gem sets me back on my feet.

“Don’t go,” I whisper, my arms still tangled around his neck.

“Find the covenant,” he says. “If it’s written, you should be able to

read it for yourself. There has to be some way.”

Some way to save me without destroying my city. Some way to spare

his people without sacrificing the safety of mine.

“I’ll ask Junjie to bring it to me tomorrow,” I promise. “We can read it

together.”

He smoothes my hair from my face. “But I’m still learning. I—”

“That’s all right. Needle can read. She can—”

Needle. Oh, no. Oh. No …

The blood drains from my face as I peek around Gem’s wide body to

find Needle standing at the door to the stairs, her eyes fixed on the carpet

and the ghost of a smile on her lips. There’s no chance she missed that kiss,

and still, she’s smiling.

I didn’t think it was possible to love her more, but I do. Instantly.

“Bring it to me, then,” Gem says, backing away. “If there are words I

don’t know, Needle can help.”

I nod and warn them to be careful as they start down the stairs. As

soon as they’re out of sight, I hurry to the balcony to search the moonlit

world far below for soldiers, but there are none in sight. Not on the path

that runs by the tower, not in the cabbage fields, not in the browning stalks

that are all that’s left of the autumn sunflowers.

When the two shadows—one slight and swift, one tall and broad but

no less swift—emerge from the tower, they cross the road unobserved.

Well, almost unobserved.

I observe them. I watch them with the miracle of my new eyes until

they disappear into the field of dead flowers, bound for the orchard beyond

and the royal garden beyond that, where the roses will see them race by,

hurrying to get Gem back into his cell before he’s discovered.

I imagine the way the blooms will twist subtly on their thick stems,

turning their unblinking eyes on my friend and the mutant who kissed me,

and I shiver. What was it Gem said? Something darker … Something darker

was at work.

It isn’t hard to imagine something darker at work in the earth

beneath the roses, something greedy and so desperate for blood that it

refuses to sustain life without taking life in return. Perhaps the covenant

will shed some light on that dark thing’s identity. I will ask Junjie to bring

me the document first thing, before the sun has a chance to rise or his son

has a chance to come knocking at his door telling tales.

And then I will ask for a tour of my city and watch his face very

carefully as he realizes the queen is no longer blind.