Текст книги "Of Beast and Beauty "

Автор книги: Stacey Jay

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

GEM

THE city is a monster, screaming and frothing and losing teeth in its

frenzy to feed one last time.

The soldiers run like frightened children into the desert, dropping

spears and dart blowers and swords in their haste to escape. The few still

left inside shove each other as they fight to squeeze through the narrow

opening that is all that is left of the King’s Gate now that the walls have all

but collapsed. Even before I’m close enough to see the sweat and tears on

the men’s faces, I can smell their terror, sour and filthy on the wind,

tainting the fresh air crashing over the mountains like waves of redemption.

The men are so afraid of their city that they don’t notice their old

monster running toward them until I’m close enough to kill them with a

sweep of my claws. Two short, soft boys scream and put on a burst of

speed, darting closer to the wall to get away from me, before racing back

toward the desert, while the man wedged half in and half out of the

opening in the gate cries out and lifts his arms in a desperate—and

useless—attempt to protect himself.

If it’s necessary to kill him, he’ll be as dead with those arms up as

down, but I’ll leave that decision to him.

“Leave now and I won’t hurt you. Stay to fight me, and you die,” I

growl as I pull him through the opening by his armpits and fling him onto

the ground. I wait half a second—long enough to see that he has scrambled

to his feet and followed his friends—before turning back to the opening

and hauling at the rocks blocking my way.

I’m bigger than the men of Yuan. I won’t be able to fit unless I make

the opening larger. I dig my fingers into the stone, until they bruise. I

wrench at the rocks until my muscles scream with effort. I curse myself for

allowing my body to grow thinner and weaker in my weeks wandering the

wild. I dig in and dig down and give everything I have and more, but the last

colossal stone refuses to move. Not a centimeter, not a fraction of a

centimeter.

I grit my teeth and howl with effort, refusing to fail now. Above me,

the city howls more loudly, twisted metal and crumbling glass wailing a

miserable, selfish cry for blood and suffering and death. But beneath it all is

the rush of the clean wind and, finally, a wondrous smatter-patter, the

sound of raindrops on desperately dry earth, the remarkable rhythm of rain

falling harder and harder until the drumbeat of hope pounds all around me.

The drops kiss my bare shoulders, soak into my skin, bringing me to

life like a seed waiting for a miracle.

The stone gives beneath my fingers, rolling away, falling to the

ground with a thud. Heart racing, I shove my shoulders through the

opening and tumble into Yuan. I roll back to my feet and run, around the

granaries, through the barren fields, past fallen trees and massive shards of

glass, cresting the final hill in time to see the tower fall.

And fall … and fall, loose stones scattering like bones thrown from a

medicine man’s cup, foretelling the death of anyone still left inside.

ISRA

BY the time we reach the base of the tower, my childhood home is

crumbling all around me. With barely a moment to spare, I fling myself

through the door to the outside world and out onto the path, with Bo close

behind me. As I dash for the barren sunflower patch, my bare feet crunch

through the clods of dirt that are all that remain of the cabbage field.

My breath comes fast and my arms pump at my sides; my lungs are

raw, but the salty taste in my throat only makes me feel more alive. I’m

alive. Still alive!

We’re going to make it out. We’re going to make it!

It’s my last thought before a stone fist punches me between my

shoulders, knocking me through the air. I fly—a bird with broken wings and

a belly full of pain—only to fall to the earth with a pitiful moan. My breath

rushes out, but I can wheeze only a little air back in. It hurts to breathe

deeply. There are too many sharp things inside me, fighting for a place to

exist in this soft, bleeding body. My vision swims with red, my fingers flinch

at my sides, instinctively grasping for things I’ll never touch.

I blink, pulling the world into focus, to see Bo standing a few feet

away, staring back at me, hunks of rocks falling to the ground all around

him. I try to tell him to run, but I can’t speak. Even if I could have made

words, it would have been too late.

It’s a stone no bigger than a child’s ball that hits him, but it makes

contact in the worst of places, colliding with his skull, shattering him in the

blink of an eye. I see more red, and then Bo is facedown on the earth. Not

moving. Not breathing.

My chest burns, and I know I would cry for him if my body weren’t

full of knives made of broken bones. He’s gone. As gone as I will be soon.

Soon I will not be Isra anymore.

I could find peace with it, I think, some kind of peace, enough to

close my eyes and move away from the pain, at least, but a moment after

the last stone hits the ground, he’s there. He comes running through the

wreckage, his expression as fearful and hopeful as I imagine mine was a few

minutes ago.

Gem. Gem. Every part of my being screams his name.

I know it’s him and not some vision created by my dying mind. He’s

the same as he always was, but also very different. Altered from the boy I

knew. He’s leaner, with sharper cheekbones and shadows smudging the

skin beneath his eyes. Eyes that are hollow and haunted, but charged with

energy that reaches through the air between us, electrifying my body the

second his gaze meets mine. He loves me. I see it. I know it the way I know

the darkness from the light.

My heart pumps desperately against my broken ribs, heedless of the

pain it causes as it celebrates seeing our beloved, too innocent to

understand how terrible this meeting is. But I understand. I’m dying. And all

Gem can do is watch.

Gem’s gaze travels down my body and back up again, and his steps

falter. His lips part, and the hope drains from his face, replaced by

understanding and agony and regret so sharp that I see it twist inside him,

making his desert-tanned skin pale beneath his scales. He’s staggering by

the time he falls to his knees beside me.

“Not again,” he says, his voice the rawest thing I’ve ever heard. “I

can’t lose you. Please, Isra. Please. Stay with me.”

I suck in a breath, but all that comes out is a whimper too soft and

pitiful to be called a sound at all. I can’t speak. I can’t even tell him I love

him.

“Isra?” Gem brushes my hair from my face. “Can you hear me?”

I blink and blink again, before slowly, deliberately lifting my eyes to

his and forcing my mouth to curve at the edges, hoping he can see that his

being here makes everything hurt a little less.

Gem presses his lips together, but doesn’t speak. Or move. Or seem

to notice when a piece of the dome plummets from the sky, crashing into

what’s left of the tower. I twitch my fingers, trying to point away from me,

to let him know he has to leave me and get out, but he isn’t looking at my

hands. He’s watching my face with eyes that shimmer in the murky gray

light.

“You can’t die,” he says, the shimmer becoming a shine. “You have to

see it. Needle is waiting for you. The desert is alive. Grass is growing; the

trees are budding. It’s raining. There … there’s so much. You have to see it

with me.”

I smile so big, it hurts, but I don’t try to stop it from taking me over.

Then we did it. Gem and I. We loved enough. The planet will be made

whole. There will be no more domed cities, and our people will have a

second chance. I hope they will choose peace, forgiveness.

“Needle can speak. She’s the one who told me to come find you,”

Gem says, breaking through the fog settling over my mind. “When she

stepped into the desert, she was made whole.”

As soon as the words leave his lips, I see the dream form behind his

eyes. A part of me wants to dream with him, but I know better. I won’t live

to see the desert again. I know it even before he scoops me into his arms

and one of the sharps inside me shifts and lifts and punctures, and suddenly

I can’t breathe at all. Not a whisper, not a sip.

The pressure builds in my chest, and my eyes slide closed, but for a

few moments I can still feel my body bouncing in Gem’s arms as he races

for the gate, hear him begging me to stay, telling me it’s not too late.

And then there is nothing but the slowing of my heart and the quiet

in my head and blessed numbness and separateness and softness, pierced

only by one regret. I wish I could know that Gem is safe before I go. I wish I

could tell him to lay my body down and go and be a champion for the world

the way he was a champion for me. I wish …

I wish …

I …

stop …

wishing.

TWENTY-NINE

GEM

HER body goes limp, but I don’t stop. I run for the gate while the city

does its best to kill me before I can escape. Chunks of glass as big as houses

ram into the dirt, sending soil exploding into the air and raining down on

my shoulders. I clutch Isra closer and run with her head held to my chest,

hoping to protect her from the worst of the debris.

Trees uproot in my path, reaching gnarled roots out to catch at my

legs, but I leap over them. I’m starting to believe we’ll make it to the desert,

but when I reach the King’s Gate, the hole I crawled through isn’t there.

There’s nothing but rubble and an impenetrable shield of broken glass

blocking the way.

With a curse and a prayer to the ancestors, I turn and race back

toward the Hill Gate. It was larger to begin with. There has to be some of it

left, some way out.

I run through fields planted with glass and twisted metal, through

trees ripped from their orchards and left to shrivel in the rain now falling

through the holes in the dome. I run past the rose garden, where the

flowers screech and writhe in their bed, tossing their great heads back and

forth, reaching with vines like clawed tentacles to try to snatch Isra from

me as we pass.

But I’m too far away and they are too late. This city will never rise

again. The world outside is reclaiming its power. It will be healed. It will

heal Isra. It will. It will.

I run on—lungs burning, legs aching, but I force myself to move

faster. There’s no time. Isra is moving further away with every moment. I

can sense her soul separating from her body, considering flight the way I

did that night in the dungeon.

“Stay, Isra,” I pant. “Stay with me.”

By the time I reach the Hill Gate and squeeze through the last space

big enough for a man carrying another person, she’s more than limp. She’s

as still as the stones on the ground.

I want to stop right away and lay her down, let the rain kiss her face

and bring her back to me, but we’re too close to the city. Most of the

wreckage is falling inside the walls, but there is still danger near the gate. I

have to keep going.

I run until we are at a safe distance, and then a little safer still, and

then farther than we really need to be, and still I don’t put her down. I

don’t want to put her down. Somewhere deep inside I know. I know like I

knew Herem was dead before he rolled from Meer’s arms, like I knew Meer

was gone before she touched the ground.

Isra’s gone. Too far gone for even magic to bring her back.

“No, please,” I beg as I finally fall to my knees and settle Isra on a

patch of newly grown grass. “Please, please, please.”

I brush the wild curls from her face, smooth a bit of dirt from her

cheek. I let my hand linger at her waist, hoping and praying to feel her body

stir as she draws breath, but there is no breath. There is nothing, even

when I cup her face in my hands and press the softest kiss to her lips, even

when I tell her I need her, even when I beg and beg the Desert Mother to

bring her back to me. Even when I throw back my head and howl up into

the pounding rain, there is nothing. Isra only lies there, until her lips pale

and her cold skin is dotted with raindrops.

I sit on the ground beside her, holding her hand as the last of the

storm clouds roll away and the setting sun makes one last glorious crimson

appearance, casting the newborn desert in rose and gold, making our world

look like paradise.

Inside me there is nothing but misery so fierce it burns. Burns my

heart, my throat, my eyes.…

My eyes. Something hot and wet and impossible pushes at my eyes,

through my eyes, to burn two desperate paths down my cheeks. Tears.

From the eyes of a Desert Man. It’s impossible. Never in the world, never in

my life …

But here they are, as wet and salty as Smooth Skin tears, pouring

from my eyes as I grieve her. I feel them drip from my chin, watch them

land on Isra’s pale hand, still cradled in my lap, and I understand. This is

what the desert gave me. It gave Needle a voice. It gave me tears, a place

for all the pain to go, a way for it to leave my body and be swept away, but

it will take forever. Years of weeping, rivers of tears. I can’t imagine ever

standing up again. I can’t tolerate the thought of building a pyre and placing

Isra on top and setting it aflame.

I can’t. I won’t. I will sit here and cry for her until my body runs dry

and I turn to dust. I will cry, and each tear will be another miracle she didn’t

live to see.

“Isra, please,” I whisper. “Don’t leave me here alone. I love you.”

It’s only when the words are out that I realize I never told her. I felt

the words, but I never said them aloud. There was never the right time or

place, and now there never will be. Never. Isra is gone, and she never knew.

Not for sure.

I cry harder. And harder, until my vision swims and I can barely see.

But I can feel. I can feel the ground shake as the last of Yuan

crumbles to the ground behind me. I can feel my soul thrashing inside my

body, beating at the walls of my flesh with tight fists, determined to escape

the torture of living through losing her. I can feel my teeth grind together as

my

jaw

clenches,

trying

and

failing

to

hold

back

the

moaning-keening-growling-suffering sounds vibrating in my throat. I feel it

when more tears fall onto my hands, sliding onto her hand, sealing us

together.

I feel it when her skin warms and her fingers brush—ever so

slightly—against mine.

I suck in a breath, and look down to find her … glowing. Not some

trick of the setting sun reflecting off her skin, but light beaming from within

her, painting her bare arms a soft orange, lighting the hollows of her eyes,

illuminating her lips until they are redder than the roses dying in the city

behind us.

“Isra?” I whisper, with equal parts fear and hope. “Isra?”

With a soft moan, her chest lifts, her throat lengthens, and the

fingers still twined through mine squeeze tightly. I clutch her hand with

both of mine, wishing so hard that I’m afraid to breathe as her head tilts

back and her lips part. She sighs, and gold and orange sparks fly from her

mouth.

Instinct tells me to move back, but I stay, refusing to be frightened

away as more and more sparks fly with each breath until Isra is breathing

fire, but showing no signs of burning. Instead of feeding on her flesh, the

fire is nourishing her, transforming her.

Ribbons of flame whip out to tease at her chest, her arms, all the way

down to her knees and bare toes. Her legs grow longer, her hips and

shoulders wider. The bones of the hand still clutched in mine shift and

reshape, while above her eyebrows and down her cheeks orange and gold

scales unfold like cloth laid across her skin.

The light shining from within her glows brighter, the flames between

her lips rise higher, and higher, until I can’t resist the urge to reach out and

touch them. I brace myself for pain, but my hand passes into the center of

the fire without a single burn. The flames are hot, but they don’t hurt.

They … heal.

Warmth and sweetness stitch up things inside me, soothing and

reassuring, kneading and molding, taking and giving. My teeth grow smaller

and slicker against my tongue, my tongue creeps farther back into my

throat, and, for a moment, it feels as if my jaw will melt off my face before

it firms up again in a different, more delicate shape than it had before. My

shoulders and arms grow looser and lighter. My fingers splay wide, the

muscles of my hands rippling uncomfortably before relaxing into their new

shape, a rounder shape, without any dangers hidden beneath the skin.

I stare at my new hands, surprised, but not missing my claws. They

are a part of the past. This is the future. My future. Isra’s future.

She’s going to live. I know it even before the fire fades away, leaving

us alone in the cool, bluing light of early evening. Even before Isra opens

her eyes and looks up at me and smiles a smile more beautiful than the one

she had before. She’s even more breathtaking now. Not Smooth Skin, not

Monstrous, but something in between, a strong, stunning, living, breathing

beauty with scales all the colors of fire, and eyes as green as they ever

were.

“I love you,” I say, needing it to be the first thing she hears.

“I love you, too.” Her smile grows impossibly wider as she reaches for

me.

“I don’t know what I would have done without you.” Tears rise in my

eyes again as I pull her into my arms and hold her tightly. But they’re

different tears. Grateful tears I don’t try to hide as I hug her even closer,

burying my face in the soft curve of her neck, smelling her Isra smell,

reveling in the way her wild hair tickles my cheek.

“Are you …” She pulls away, her new hands cupping my face. Their

shape is different, but the way her touch makes me feel is exactly the

same—alive and hopeful and happier than I could ever be without her.

“You’re … different. And tears …” Her lips part as she brushes a tear

from my cheek with her thumb. “How?”

“The magic of the planet. The desert is alive again, and I’ve changed.

We’ve changed,” I add in a careful voice, uncertain how Isra will take her

transformation.

She only recently became accustomed to seeing her old self. How will

she adjust to this body? Will she be able to see the beauty that I see? Or

will she be troubled by her scales and new size and feet no longer white

and thin but wide and light brown with orange and yellow scales freckling

their tops?

“I can feel it.” Isra lifts a hand to her face. Her fingers feather over

her forehead and down her cheeks to her throat, farther down, past the

strap of her overalls to feel her bare shoulder, gingerly exploring the scales

that will shield her skin from the harsh light of the sun, hold in heat during

the cold nights, and protect her from other natural dangers of this world.

“I’m like you.”

“No. You’re like you, with a little of me.” I watch her discover her

new legs and feet, grateful she doesn’t seem disturbed by what she sees.

“And I’m me, with a little of you,” I say, holding out my hand, letting her see

that the chambers that once sheathed my claws have vanished. “We’re

something … new.”

She points her feet and flexes them, giving her toes an experimental

wiggle. “My shoes would never fit now.”

“You hate shoes anyway,” I say, heart breaking when she looks up at

me and laughs her throaty laugh. It’s terrifying to think how close I was to

living without that laugh, that smile, all of my sweet, brave, maddening,

perfect Isra. I swallow, fighting another wave of emotion as she wraps her

arms around my neck.

“I do hate shoes,” she whispers, leaning into me until her forehead

touches mine and her heat warms my lips. “Why are you so sad, love?”

“You almost died,” I say, voice breaking. “Maybe you did die. I don’t

know. I was so scared. I was …”

“It’s okay.” She presses soft kisses to my cheekbones, the tip of my

nose, the skin between my eyes. “That’s part of what makes it real.”

“Makes what real?” I ask, breath coming faster as she kisses the

corner of my mouth, making it twitch.

“Love, of course. You’re not stupid, Gem. Don’t pretend to be,” she

says, mimicking her queen voice from our time working in the garden so

perfectly that I can’t help but smile.

“Yes, I am stupid,” I say, holding her more tightly. “I should have

come sooner.”

“You came when you could, and everything is as it should be. The

planet is whole again.” She moves closer, angling her head to fit her lips to

mine. “That’s all that matters.”

“No, it’s not.” My hands mold to her ribs, holding her away from me.

I need to tell her the truth. I need her to know everything before I can be

sure the worst is behind us. “I could have come months ago, but

I … Terrible things happened, and …” I moisten my dry lips, and force myself

to speak the miserable truth. “My son is dead. And my father. And many of

my people. I was too late. At first I hated myself for it, then I hated you, and

then I hated the planet and the ancestors and … everything and everyone.

“I started walking into the desert,” I continue, getting the words out

as quickly as I can. “I walked until I stopped feeling anything, and then

finally … something. I still loved you. Love was there, hidden beneath the

suffering. I started back to Yuan, and finally started to hope again, because I

was doing what I should have done before. I was coming back to you.”

She smiles a smaller, sadder smile that fades quickly. “I’m sorry about

your family,” she says, eyes shining. “So sorry. You were right to hate me.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were,” she says, bowing her head. “I could have done so

many things differently, better. And if I had, maybe—”

“So could I. So could most of the people on this planet and all of our

ancestors. You did the best you could.”

“Isn’t that what I just said to you?” She lifts her chin, sticking her

nose into the air in that way that drives me mad and makes me love her

even more because it is so her. So Isra. “You should listen to yourself, if you

won’t listen to me.”

“I will listen. I will always listen.”

“Me too.” Her forehead wrinkles. “I have so many things to tell you,

things I should have told you the night you left, and things that have

happened since then that—”

“Do I need to know those things right now?”

She arches a brow as my hands travel up her back, pulling her chest

tight to mine. “No.… They can wait,” she says, relaxing into me, fingers

teasing at my braid as she looks up. “Assuming you’re going to kiss me.”

“I’m going to kiss you,” I whisper, and then I do. I kiss her and taste a

world where miracles can and do happen. I kiss her, and for a moment

there is only Isra, my Isra, and she is the loveliest person in the world, no

matter what skin she wears.

“We should find Needle.” She pulls away, her breath rushing hot

against my lips. “She’ll be scared to death until she knows that we’re all

right.”

“That you’re all right.”

“We’re all right,” Isra corrects. “She likes you. Maybe more than she

likes me. She’s been frustrated with me lately.”

“You’re a very frustrating person.”

“You’re one to talk.” She smiles and kisses me on the cheek before

jumping to her feet and reaching a hand down to me. I take it and hold

tightly as I lead the way back to the gathering stones.

To our right, an imposing mound of rubble and a cloud of lingering

dust is all that remains of the city of Yuan. I wonder, for a moment, if the

sight makes Isra sad, but when I glance at her, she’s staring out at the newly

living desert, a peaceful look on her face. Where the land was once cracked

and barren, grass waves in a light breeze, birds sing in trees lush with

rain-damp leaves, and night flowers lift pale faces to the darkening sky.

Soon, the stars will come out and Isra and I will sleep beneath them,

our first night together in the new world. I will hold her tightly and tell her I

love her, last thing before she closes her eyes, and first thing when she

wakes in the morning. I will tell her every day for the rest of our lives, and

more important, I will show her.

I will show her that loving her is my greatest truth, and the most

beautiful thing I have ever known.