Текст книги "Of Beast and Beauty "

Автор книги: Stacey Jay

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TWO

GEM

THERE’S a woman in the garden.

No, a girl. Tall but young. She runs like a child. Big, loping steps with

her arms held out and her head bobbing like one of the giant flowers.

I’ve never seen so many flowers. Flowers, plants, fruit, green things

bursting out all over. When we first crawled from the caverns, I stumbled in

the face of it. I fell, and my hands felt alien against the soft, wet grass. The

smells devastate me. I don’t have Desert People or Smooth Skin names for

them, can’t tell where one smell ends and another begins. The land under

the glass dome overwhelms with its life.

Fierce, vicious life. Stolen life. Paid for with the deaths of my people.

We’re starving. The children first. Their skin cracks and bleeds. They

cry until they have no strength left, and their silence is worse than their

moans. The tribal medicine men have become death dealers. Better to eat

poison root and have the pain over in an instant than to die slowly.

The autumn harvest of cactus fruit has bought the Desert People

time, but only a little. We must have the roses. According to our chief’s

visions, they are the key to the magic that keeps the land under the domes

flourishing and abundant.

“Take them at any cost,” Naira said when we left our camp a month

ago. “Die for them. Kill for them if there is no other way.” Our chief is a

peaceful woman. But these are not times for peace.

Or mercy. If the girl sees me, she’ll scream. The guards will come.

They’re everywhere. They were here a few minutes ago. I hid in the

orchard, but they’ll come again, and I might not be so lucky next time. The

moons are so bright, it’s practically daylight under the dome. I have to act.

If Gare were here instead of on the other side of the city, he would have

already slit the girl’s throat and wrested a plant from the soil, and would be

halfway back to the caverns.

It took generations of digging to build the tunnel down to the

underground river. It will take generations more to find another way in if

we fail, generations we may not live to birth. This path will serve us only

once. When the Smooth Skins realize what we’ve done, they’ll shore up

their underground defenses, build another impenetrable wall. They already

suspect an attack will come. Their guards shot arrows at our scouts as they

circled the city. This is our only chance.

Kill her. I hear my brother’s voice in my head. One death is nothing, a

drop of water in a sea of the Desert People’s blood.

I flex my hands. My claws grow loose inside the grooves above my

nail beds. There’s no choice. There’s no time.

I step from behind the thick tree, out of the shadows, into her line of

sight. I bend my knees and bare my teeth. My claws slick from their hiding

places as I ready myself for the rush. Her eyes fall on me, huge round eyes

in a face so different from my people’s, but somehow still so … familiar.

I hesitate. I shiver.

I didn’t expect the Smooth Skins to look like this. I expected softness

like uncooked dough, empty eyes sunk in privilege-rotted flesh. I didn’t

expect whisper-thin skin peeling like old tree bark, skin so pale I can see the

blue blood flowing beneath. I didn’t expect a sharp chin or a sharper nose

or eyes that seem to see everything.

Except me.

She doesn’t see me. She doesn’t startle. She doesn’t scream. Her

gaze doesn’t waver. She looks past me, into the orchard. I turn, but there’s

no one there. I turn back to find her still motionless, her hand in the

flowers, her eyes focused on some faraway nothing. The truth hits, and my

claws slide back into their chambers with a shup so hard, it hurts.

She’s blind. I was about to kill a blind girl. Maybe even a simple blind

girl. Now that I’ve seen her face, there’s no doubt she’s nearly a woman,

but she skips and plays in the flowers like a child. No near adult of the

Desert People would behave that way unless they were rattled in the brain.

A strange heat creeps up my neck, making my face burn. Shame.

That’s what this is. Not something I’ve had reason to feel more than once

or twice, but now it curdles inside me.

This isn’t the way. No women or children. We’re not like the Smooth

Skins. They are as soulless as a sandstorm. We are better. We know the

power of transformation. This planet has changed us, but its magic is good

magic. It would be enough to sustain us all if the Smooth Skins hadn’t

twisted it to serve their unnatural purposes.

They are the murderers. Their domed cities rob the surrounding

lands of vitality. Their prosperity is paid for by the slow death of the desert,

and if something doesn’t change, it will lead to the extinction of my people.

This raid isn’t about killing Smooth Skins; it’s about keeping them from

killing any more of us.

I back into the shadows under the orchard trees. I’ll wait. The girl will

leave eventually, and then I’ll—

“Please,” she says.

I freeze, skin crawling, claws slicking out again. Was I wrong? Has

she—

“Show me this garden,” she begs. “Show me myself. Just once.”

She isn’t talking to me. There must be someone else. But where? The

flower bed looks dense, the thorns dangerous. I ease closer, circling around

her on quiet feet, braced for attack. But there is nothing in the shadows

beneath the roses. Only her hand, with a thorn buried deep in one finger

and her blood dripping slowly to the earth below.

“You’ve shown me the nobles’ cottages and the soldiers on the walls

and the desert outside and the monsters who live there,” she says, spitting

each word. “But you refuse to show me what’s right here. Right now. All I

want to see is my face! You promised me. You promised!”

The girl is rattled. No question.

“I hate you,” she whispers, sightless eyes narrowing. “I’ll set fire to

the entire lot of you.” She laughs, a cruel laugh, not childlike at all. “I’ll do it.

I swear I will if—”

She breaks off with a cry as the flowers begin to move. Squirm. Coil

like snakes preparing to strike. The giant blossoms roll on their stems,

turning to fix me with their alien eyes.

Naira’s visions are sound. The roses do have magic, greater than the

planet magic that touched our people in the early years, granting us size

and strength and protection from the sun and our new predators; greater

than the blessings our dead bestow as their final flames burn. And the girl

knows the magic. She speaks to the flowers.

A plan takes shape quickly. I’ll trap the girl, creep up behind her, and

hold my claws to her throat. I’ll make her dig up one of the bushes and

whisper the roses’ secrets while she does it. If she’s helpful and quiet, I’ll let

her go. If not, I’ll—

“No,” she gasps. Her eyes go wide. Her thin chest heaves as her

breath grows faster. If I didn’t know she was blind, I’d think—

“No!” she says, louder this time. “Help me!”

I lunge for her, but she darts away, leaping off the edge of the flower

bed, leaving a smattering of blood behind. “The Monstrous are in the city!”

She runs, as fast as the desert wind, around the flower bed and down a

stone path lined with more flowers. “Monstrous! In the royal garden! Help

me! Help!”

I race after her. I have no choice. I need her silence before it’s too

late, before—

More Smooth Skins appear at the end of the path, spears raised. I

know the moment they see me. I see their silhouettes ripple in the yellow

moonlight. I smell their fear. I lift my clawed hands and roar—a warning to

my people. Wherever their search has taken them, my father and brother

and the others in our raid party will hear me and know I’ve been

discovered. They’ll make it to the caverns and into the river before they’re

caught, but they’ll do it without the roses we came for. We’ve failed. I’ve

failed. I let this girl doom my tribe. I should have killed her. I should have

slit her throat and lapped the blood from my claws. Now everyone I love

will die—my father, my brother, my friends. My son.

He’s only six weeks old. He’ll be the first on the pyre.

I roar again, a sound so terrible the girl screams and stumbles, falling

to the ground. I leap and land on top of her before the guards can throw

their spears. They’ll kill me sooner or later, but I’ll kill this girl first. I’ll take

her life as payment for the destruction of my people.

I grab her shoulder and flip her onto her back, the better to get at her

throat. Her skin gives like water beneath my claws. Her blood is the exact

color of the roses, red that swallowed brown and black and holds them

prisoner in its belly.

I stare at it. It’s beautiful. Terrifying.

I’ve never killed something so large before. So large or so delicate. I

didn’t even mean to cut her. I didn’t—

“Do it,” she whispers, her voice fearful, but angry, too. She trembles

beneath me, her long body quaking, her eyes once again without focus. “Do

it! Kill me!”

Her words make my blood burn. “You’re so ready to die?” I demand

in her language. “My people would do anything to live. Anything.”

Her eyes bulge in her narrow face. “You—you—s-speak. How—”

A spear falls next to my arm, and another glances off my bare

shoulder, but my skin isn’t like theirs, so thin that it’s practically pointless to

have skin at all. My hide is thick, scaled across my chest, over my neck and

shoulders, and down my back. If they want to kill me, they’ll have to hit my

belly. I lift my head, roaring at the two guards who’ve dared come close

enough to hurl their weapons.

“Wait!” the girl screams. “Take it alive! Don’t kill it!”

It.

I snarl into her face. She screams, and her eyes squeeze shut. Her

hands cover her mouth, muffling her sobs. Another spear flies. And

another, but I knock them away, rage making my warrior’s reflexes even

swifter.

I am not an it. I am a Desert Man. I have nineteen years. I have a son.

I might have had a mate if there were no Yuan, no tunnel to dig, no

scouting missions to take me away from my tribe over and over again. But

Meer chose a different mate, and my son sleeps in another family’s hut.

Now my son will die and be burned without ever knowing my face. Because

of them!

I roar again and hope it rattles the loose pieces of her brain. Stupid

girl. Stupid Smooth Skin. Stupid—

“Stop!” she shouts, hands lashing out. Her tiny fists hit my mouth,

bruising my lip as they bounce off my teeth. Before I can react, her fingers

return to my face, gentle this time, curious. I freeze, too shocked to pull

away.

“Hold your weapons,” she orders the soldiers. Boots shuffle forward,

but she shouts, “I am Isra Yuejihua. My word is the word! Hold!”

Yuejihua. The name of the ruling family. It can’t … Not this girl. This

strange one.

The guard closest breathes deeply; another gasps like a woman. A

third says, “My lady—”

“My word is the word and will one day be law. Hold your weapons.”

Silence falls. In it, her fingers trace the outline of my lips, discover my nose,

smooth around my eyes. When she reaches the scaled patches above my

brows, she hesitates, but eventually moves on. She finds the place where

my braid begins and smoothes a shaking hand down the ridge to the end

falling over my shoulder. “It’s soft,” she whispers. “What color is it?”

“You saw.”

“I’m blind.” Her lids flutter. Her eyes are not brown or black like

every other pair of eyes I’ve ever seen. They’re dark green, and as strange

as the flowers in her garden. They are sightless now, but I would have

sworn she saw me before. How else could she have known to run?

“Black,” I snap, keeping one eye on the soldiers.

“Like my people.” Her breath shudders out. “But you have very large

teeth, I think.”

“You think?”

“I haven’t felt many teeth.” Her fingers come to her shoulder,

covering the place where my claws pierced her skin. “Will the poison take

effect soon?” she asks in a small voice.

“Poison?”

“In your claws.”

The guards inch slowly closer, torn between obeying their princess

and saving her life. I smile at them, baring my undoubtedly large,

bone-white teeth. Now that I know how valuable this girl is, I have hope.

Not much, but enough to make my voice smooth when I say, “Take me to

the underground river and set me free. Before I go, I will tell you how to rid

yourself of the poison.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You die.”

“Maybe I’m already dead,” she whispers, her words as haunted as

her eyes. “The roses are hungry. I felt it tonight.”

She’s out of her mind. She makes me … afraid. That’s what I feel

when I look into her vacant eyes. Fear, as foreign as shame. Why I should

fear a girl I have pinned to the ground, I don’t know. She’s helpless, fragile. I

should be afraid of her guards, and their weapons.

The thought has barely formed when I feel it, the sharp jab of metal

deep in the back of my thigh where there are no scales to protect me. I cry

out and swipe at the guard with my claws. I graze his leg and reach for the

spear, but the guards in front don’t give me time. One snatches the girl

from beneath me and drags her across the stones while the second—a man

with a knife longer than my claws—lunges for my throat.

I knock him away with a growl that transforms to a howl of pain as

the man behind wrenches his spear free of my leg. Blood rushes from the

wound, and I scream.

“No!” the girl cries. “Don’t kill him!”

The guard drives his weapon into my other leg, just above the knee,

hobbling me. I wail like the grieving at the funeral fires. It’s over. Even if I

fight off the guards and get to my feet, I’ll never be able to run.

“No! No!” The princess is suddenly by my side, tripping over my arm

and falling to the ground beside me. “Take him alive!” she pants, turning to

address the air around her, blind eyes wide. “Take him alive. We need him

to tell us how to remove the poison. If not, I will die.”

My claws dig into the stone so hard, my knuckles ache. There is no

poison—these Smooth Skins believe such strange things about my

people—but I can arrange for her to die. She’s close. I could slit her throat

before her guards could make a move to protect her.

My pulse beats faster. The agony in my legs fades to a high-pitched

hum of pain that urges me to act. To kill. This is my last chance to take

vengeance. This is their princess, the woman who will be queen and

continue the devastation of the land until not a single living creature

remains outside the domed cities.

I should do it. I will do it.

My heart races. Faster, faster, until I hear it rushing in my ears.

Faster, until sweat beads on my lip and my scales move farther apart to

accommodate the heat building inside me. Faster, until my teeth ache and

my brain pulses and colors swim through the night air.

Red for the blood that’s been spilled.

Blue for the sky I’ll never see again.

Green for her eyes.

Her eyes …

They are the last thing I see before black sweeps in, stealing all the

colors, all my hope, away.

THREE

ISRA

THERE’S a muffled kapluph, and the Monstrous man’s arm goes limp.

It lolls against my leg, heavy and so hot that it burns through my overalls.

He’s as hot as fire, as hot as I’ve imagined the desert sand would be against

bare feet.

No human could live through such heat. Not for long. I don’t know

about a Monstrous, but he certainly wasn’t this warm before.

“Take him to the cells,” I say, my breath coming fast. “Bring the

healers to see him. Find the king and tell him I’ll meet him there.”

Baba. By the moons, he’ll be terrified. And livid. He’s already locked

me away. What will he do now? When he learns I’ve been out of the tower

and met such trouble? Put bars on the windows? Brick up the stairs? The

thought of being any more trapped than I am is almost enough to make me

hope the poison in my blood kills me.

I shiver. I asked the Monstrous to kill me. Why? What was I thinking?

I don’t want to die. I want to live, I want—

“But, Princess—”

“Do as she says,” comes a worried voice from my left. “We need the

monster awake. He might be the only one who knows the cure. I’ll escort

Princess Isra. Hurry!” The air fills with the scuff, scuff of soldiers’ boots,

then grunts and groans as the heavy Monstrous is hauled from the ground

and with more scuff, scuffs is carried away.

“Let me help you, Princess,” the remaining soldier says. His voice is

familiar, though I don’t know why. I’ve never spoken to a soldier. I’ve never

spoken to any men at all except for my father, Junjie, and now the

Monstrous.

The Monstrous was definitely a man, a man the size of a small

mountain, the only being I’ve ever seen longer than I am. My people are

almost invariably small of stature and petite of bone, with nut-brown skin

and straight black hair. The Monstrous had similar hair, but he stood a head

taller than me, with shoulders the size of boulders, covered in orange and

golden scales, like a fish, but dry and smooth.

No, not like a fish, like … a snake.

The thought makes me shudder as I take the soldier’s hand and let

him help me to my feet.

“Are you able to walk, my lady?” His voice pricks at me like one of

the needles in my maid’s apron pocket.

It’s how Needle got her name. The day she came to give me a bath, I

had just turned five and was still feral with grief. She started unbuttoning

my dress, and I shoved her away, pricking my fingers on the sharps in her

apron in the process.

Strangely, the pain calmed me. Needle’s gentle touch, her hands like

birds alighting on my head, my shoulder, my cheek, communicating

concern with every cool brush across my skin, calmed me more. She was

only fifteen, but her touch reminded me of my mama’s. I let her stay, when

I’d sent every other companion away.

I’m surprised to find I want her now. I would very much like to have

Needle’s slim fingers under mine, making the signs for “Calm down” and

“We’ll sort this out.” I didn’t think I was afraid of anything, but now I am.

I’m afraid.

My fingers tremble as I touch the torn flesh at my shoulder. I don’t

feel the poison yet, but I could. At any moment. I try to swallow, but my

throat is too tight. I don’t want to die. Not like this. It’s not fair! I’ve lived

with Death hovering on my shoulder my entire life, but I never—

“Should I carry you, Princess?” The soldier’s hand warms the small of

my back. My spine ripples as I twist away. His touch is foreign, unexpected,

too strange after the night I’ve had.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t …” The soldier clears his throat. “I was

wounded as well.”

“You were?”

“The Monstrous tore the skin at my leg.” He sounds younger than he

did before. Scared.

I reach out, brushing his shoulder with my hand, surprised to find

that my arm is parallel to the ground. The soldier is nearly my size, shorter

only by a bit. “Thank you. For helping me.”

“Please, don’t thank me.” His hand finds the small of my back again,

settling over the knobby bones of my spine. The warmth of him—cooler

than the Monstrous but warmer than me, in my sweat-damp

clothes—heats my hips. My stomach. My chest. “It was a privilege to

defend the life of our queen.”

“I’m not—” Before I realize what’s happening, soft, hot skin presses

against my half-open mouth. I flinch, but the soldier’s hand at my back

holds me still as his lips move against mine, as his tongue flicks out, bidding

a cautious hello.

A kiss. This is a kiss. It is … slipperier than I’d imagined. His tongue

is …

A tongue? Who would have thought?

A part of me wants to laugh at this soldier and the jabs of the slick

muscle invading my mouth, but another part of me is … fluttering.

Something stirs inside me. Something urges me to tilt my head and move

my lips, to dart my own tongue out—quick as a wink—for a taste.

Salty. Sweet. Hint of cabbage. Something familiar in the midst of all

the unfamiliar feelings that are making my skin warm and my insides as hot

as the Monstrous man’s flesh.

I pull back, heart beating too fast. “We should go to the cells. The

monster might have revealed the cure.”

“We should, but if we die tonight, I—”

“No one’s going to die,” I say with more confidence than I feel.

“Come with me.” I start down the path, but stop after only a few steps. I’ve

never been to the cells. I’ve never dared go that deep into the city proper.

I hold out a hand. “Guide me. Hurry.”

“Yes, my lady.” A second later, his arm is under mine. It’s strong and

densely muscled, but the bare skin at his wrist is as soft as all the skin I’ve

felt in my life. Much, much softer than mine. This soldier is a whole citizen

of Yuan.

So why did he kiss me? A tainted girl, too tall and too wide, with skin

peeling from the chest down in a frustrated attempt to reveal the scales

that lurk beneath the surface? I’m obviously not sufficiently tainted to be

sent to the Banished camp, but even the slightest sign of mutation is

reviled. From what I’ve overheard, a whole citizen would rather die than

marry someone with Monstrous features, no matter how mildly they might

manifest.

He’s hardly thinking marriage. He’s thinking he’s going to die and

yours might be the final lips he encounters.

The thought banishes the last of the tingling sensation from my body,

expelling it like a fish bone. I lift my chin, holding my head high as we move

swiftly toward the city proper. I do my best not to think about dying with

the taste of this stranger on my lips.

Dying. If I’m dying, I’ll never get the chance to tell my father that I

have dreams that live outside the tower, to confess how much I need

something … more. Tears fill my eyes, but I don’t cry. I sip in a breath and

hold the air in my lungs.

The soldier pats my rough hand with his softer one. “My name is Bo.

I’ll stay with you until the healers come. My father would want that.”

“Your father?”

“Junjie,” he says, his voice dipping and sliding on the last part. That’s

why he sounds familiar. Junjie’s son. “My father’s spoken of me?”

“No. I didn’t know he had a son.”

“Oh.” The word is a stone plunking sadly into the water.

“But he doesn’t speak to me often,” I say, feeling a little sorry,

despite my fear and the shame still lingering on my lips. “Most of the time

he’s only at the tower to steal my father away on business.”

“Yes. The king … I …” He sighs, a pained sound that sets fretful things

stirring in my stomach.

“What about the king?”

“Nothing.” He walks faster. “Your wounds need treatment.”

“No. Tell me. What were you going to say?”

“I can’t,” he whispers. “Your health is the most important thing.”

“I feel fine.” I do. The scratches still sting, but the feverish sensation

is gone. I’m no healer, but it doesn’t feel as if there’s poison in my blood. It

makes me wonder …

Has my slight mutation made me immune to the creature’s venom,

or … could the texts about the poison in Monstrous claws be wrong? Was

the Monstrous lying when he said I’d die without his help, saying whatever

he had to say in order to escape to the river?

“The river.” My hand tightens on Bo’s arm. “The Monstrous wanted

me to take him to the caverns where the underground river flows. That

must be how they—”

“We know,” he interrupts, making me sputter. I can’t remember the

last time I was interrupted. Have I ever been interrupted? “There were

three other creatures. Their hair was damp when we captured them. My

father guessed where they’d come from. There are guards in place now. No

more Monstrous will get into the city tonight.”

“Did you kill the others?” I ask, afraid to hear the answer. The

Monstrous are terrifying, but they also have language and pain. They aren’t

the complete savages Baba and Junjie have made them out to be. There’s a

chance we might be able to make peace with them.

“Not yet.” Even in those two small words, his bloodlust is clear.

“They speak our language,” I say gently. “They might not be as

savage as we’ve thought.”

Bo’s muscles flex beneath my hand. “They’re worse. They’re devils.”

“Devils or not, it doesn’t make sense to kill them if we don’t have to.

It will only make things worse for the city.” I think of the Monstrous man,

how he endured my fingers roaming his face. He could have killed me, but

he didn’t. He showed mercy. How can we do anything but offer the same?

“It will be up to you to decide, of course.” Bo’s voice is stiff. “My

queen.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snap, wishing I didn’t need his arm to guide

me. I’d prefer not to be touching this soldier anymore. “I’m not queen yet.”

“Yes, my lady,” he whispers. “You are.”

I am?

I … am.

The ground turns against me, and I trip over the raised edge of a

paving stone. Bo catches me and holds me up by the elbow. His hand is

larger than I thought. It circles my bone, making me feel like a child, but I’m

not a child.

I am queen. I …

That means …

“Baba …” There isn’t enough breath in me to finish the question.

This can’t be true. Baba was with me this morning. We had breakfast

together, sat on the balcony and talked about the harvest festival and made

plans for our private celebration after his duties in the city center were

finished. He agreed to allow Needle to make him a hat for the party. He

laughed one of his rare, light laughs and asked me to play him a song on the

harp. He was so alive.

He has to be alive.

“It was the Monstrous,” Bo says. “The king was walking the path

around the lake. One of the creatures surprised him and his guards. All five

of his men were killed, and your father …”

“The Monstrous …” My mouth is too dry. My lips have gone numb.

“We captured the thing not far from the court cottages. There was

blood on its hands. It laughed when it learned some of it was the king’s.”

Blood. Baba’s blood. My baba.

My baba is dead. The monsters have killed him. Now I am alone. And

I am queen. Queen so much sooner than I ever thought I would be queen,

and there is nothing left for me but pain.

“We’ll kill them.” I dig my fingers into Bo’s arm. “All of them. I’ll do it

myself.”