Текст книги "Of Beast and Beauty "

Автор книги: Stacey Jay

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ears, and covers my sightless eyes. Before I consciously decide to go, I am

snapped away into something deeper than sleep, but I’m not afraid.

I’m not cold or lost or lonely anymore. I am not a princess or a queen

or a sacrifice or an abomination or a disappointment. I am nothing at all, a

cup swiftly emptying of all the Isra inside it, leaving nothing behind.

ELEVEN

GEM

I stand at the base of the mountain for a long, long moment, not sure

I’ll be able to climb back up again.

The place where the soldier’s spear pierced my thigh aches so badly,

it feels as though the bone there will split in half. A hollow in the ground

between two nearby Cross cacti looks more inviting than a Smooth Skin bed

of clouds. I think how good it would be to lie down there and stare up at

the million stars in the sky and be done with this day. But after a long drink

of cactus milk and a too-short rest, I start back up the trail.

As much as I’d like to leave the queen to her lies and trembling up on

the mountain, I promised to keep her safe.

Still, I don’t hurry. I can’t hurry with my leg throbbing like a second

angry heart, but I wouldn’t even if I could. The less time I spend with Isra

tonight, the better. I can’t remember being this angry since the day she

came to my cell and laughed at my starving people and cried her sticky

tears onto my chest. I would just as soon wrap my hand around her throat

and squeeze as sit by the fire with the queen of Yuan.

How dare she treat me like a comrade at shovel and hoe every day

we worked together, only to cower and quake the moment her guards are

gone? I’d believed the way she viewed my people had changed. I thought

she was different from the rest of the Smooth Skins. I thought she

considered me a … friend. I certainly worked hard enough to convince her I

was worth befriending. Even if every shared story and teasing word and

gentle bit of advice was deception on my part, she doesn’t know that. I’ve

given her no reason to change her good opinion of me.

If she ever had one.

She must have been lying, too. Lying with every lopsided smile and

flash of her clever eyes and softly whispered reassurance about my healing

legs. She was only pretending to trust me, to feel affection for the beast she

kept in chains. I should have known she was false. In her eyes, I’ll always be

a monster. I suspected as much from the beginning.

So why does the proof of what I’ve known all along feel like a

betrayal? Why does the sight of her shaking hands make me want to hurl

boulders down the mountain? Why do I hurt?

I feel as bruised as I did the day Meer told me she was choosing

another man as her mate. I should have been happy. I didn’t want to stay

with the tribe and watch the baby growing inside Meer be born into a life

of famine and pain. I was a warrior. I had a tunnel to finish digging, roses to

steal, Smooth Skin cities to worm my way inside.

But I wasn’t happy. There were days when watching Meer love

someone else more than she had ever loved me—seeing the casual

intimacies between her and Hant at the campfire, catching him with his

hand upon her swelling belly and a smile on his face—felt like dying. The

same way being captured by Smooth Skins felt like dying, and being

ordered about by my enemy felt like dying.

Isra has brought nothing but misery into my life, but when I arrive at

the remains of the campfire and see the flames out and Isra no longer

sitting where I left her, every hot angry thing inside me runs cold.

“Isra?” I circle the fire, panic sharpening my voice. “Isra!”

The air is too quiet. Even the wind has stopped moaning. It feels like

the night is holding its breath, waiting for me to discover the terrible fate

that has befallen the queen of Yuan. It has to be terrible. I left a blind girl

alone a dozen feet from the edge of a cliff. She could have gone to relieve

herself and fallen to her death. She could have decided to follow me and

taken a wrong turn on the path and wandered into a zion nest. She could

have been discovered by a hunting party and been taken prisoner.

I was certain there would be none of my tribe this close to Yuan, but

what of the other tribes? The Desert People from the north have been

venturing farther south since they burned the domed city of Vanguard two

years ago, only to find that its destruction did nothing to return life to their

own blighted territory.

Naira warned my father that if we failed to return with Yuan’s magic

roses, it might come to war between our tribes one day soon. We must

show the northerners that we have harnessed the Smooth Skin magic, and

share the power of the roses with them, before their chief convinces his

people that the only way to heal the land is to destroy every domed city

still standing. We cannot allow Yuan to fall, not until we have secured the

secret to their abundance.

Isra knows that secret. I should have been coaxing it from her, not

shouting and brooding like a child. I should have thought about my people

and my promises. I should have remembered how much Isra needs

protecting. The desert might be my home, but it isn’t hers. I was a fool to

forget that, even for a second.

I think of the first moment I saw her, with her head thrown back and

her arms open wide, laughing as she ran through the garden. I thought she

was crazy then, but what I wouldn’t give to hear her laugh like that right

now. I have to find her. I have to. She has to be alive. If she’s not …

“Isra!” I roar, my voice echoing off the rocks. I can’t think of her body

lying bent and broken halfway down the cliff. I won’t.

I search the dirt around the fire once, twice, and finally, on the third

careful circle, I find an uneven set of footprints. The moons haven’t risen

high enough to touch this side of the mountains, but the stars give enough

light for me to see the scuff marks leading up the trail. She was walking.

Not steadily, but alone. That’s something. Something.

I start up the mountain at a run, ignoring the agony in my leg every

time my left foot connects with the ground. I deserve this pain. I’ll gladly

take this pain and more if only—

There! An Isra-sized lump, curled on the ground by the side of the

trail.

“Isra!” I kneel beside her, expecting her to wake up and snap at me

for frightening her. Expecting her to stir in her sleep, or grumble beneath

her breath. But she doesn’t move, even when I push her hair from her face

and cup her cheek in my hand.

Instantly, I know something’s wrong. She’s so cold. Colder than

anything living.

All this time, I thought I was changing Isra’s mind, but she was the

one changing mine, so much so that I forgot that there are differences

between us. Serious differences. She has no scales or claws to protect her

from the hardships of the desert; she has a body that must be fed and

watered more often than mine; she is smaller and more delicate and clearly

isn’t able to tolerate variations in the temperature of her blood.

The Desert People grow cold during the winter, but there’s no danger

in it. We are more vital in summer, but we don’t lie down and die when the

winter nights take hold.

Die. She can’t.

“Isra. Is—” My voice breaks as I gather her into my lap. Her limbs are

limp and lifeless; her head rests heavily in my palm. “Isra?” I whisper,

throat so tight, I can’t speak any louder. “Can you hear me?”

She doesn’t move or speak, but when my gaze drops, I see it—the

flutter of a pulse at her throat, there, but fainter and slower than it should

be. She’s alive, but if I don’t find a way to warm her, she might not be for

long.

The thought has barely formed before I’m on my feet, running back

to the remains of the fire, with Isra in my arms. I no longer feel the pain in

my leg. Fear has banished the awareness of everything but Isra’s life, so

close to slipping through my fingers. By the time I fall to my knees by the

fire, I’m shaking. I have never trembled with fear, not even on the night we

swam up the river and crept into the dome.

I settle Isra across my lap, fold her head into my chest, and hold her

there with one hand as I rearrange the wood and tuck dried grass beneath

it with the other. I could move faster if I laid her down, but I’m afraid to risk

it. I’m not as warm as a fire, but I’m warmer than the night, and my blood is

certainly hotter than hers.

“Just a minute or two,” I whisper into the hair on top of her head,

some part of me certain she can’t die as long as I’m talking to her. “You’ll

be warm soon.”

I reach carefully around her limp body, and extend my claws, using

them to sharpen the end of one stick and notch a hole in another, before

reaching for the wood with my hands. I fit the pointed stick into the

notched one and spin it as fast as I can, shaking Isra from my chest in the

process and sending her tipping off my lap.

I take only a moment to pull her back to me and shift my position,

before starting to spin the wood again. I spin and spin, holding my breath

until I smell smoke, and then spinning even faster. My muscles burn and my

breath comes fast, but just when I think I can’t keep up the pace any longer,

sparks fly from the notch and the grass beneath the kindling catches. The

grass flames, high and fast, and the slender twigs at the bottom of the pile

flare to life. After I add more grass and coax the twigs with a stick, the

larger limbs begin to smolder and, finally, to burn.

I am famously quick with a fire, even among my people, who all have

a gift for flame, but I don’t know if I’ve been quick enough. I shift Isra, and

her head falls limply over my arm. Even in the warm light of the fire, her

face looks pale, her parted lips bloodless.

We’re sheltered from the worst of the wind by the rocks on either

side of our camp, and the fire warms up quickly, but even as her cheeks

regain their color, Isra remains terrifyingly still. I whisper her name what

feels like a hundred times. I smooth her hair from her forehead, pat her

cheeks a bit too hard, rock back and forth and back and forth in the hopes

of raising my own body temperature, growing more frantic with every

passing minute.

I’ve made a fire. I’m giving her the heat from my body. There’s

nothing left to do. I could wrap her in her shawl, but it’s no longer around

her shoulders. She must have lost it when she wandered up the trail.

“Why didn’t you feed the fire?” I whisper, lips moving against her

cool forehead. “Why?”

I’m suddenly angry, belly-burning angry, but not with Isra. With

myself. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have left her on the mountainside, even

for an hour. I shouldn’t have taken her from the city in the first place. I

should have insisted on going alone. That would have proven I was

trustworthy; this only proves I’m a fool. I had no idea she’d be so sensitive

to the winter chill, but ignorance is no excuse for what I’ve done. If Isra

dies, it will be for nothing, a senseless waste.

Yes, there are bulbs at the top of these mountains, and they’ll take

root in her garden and put out a pretty flower that sweetens cactus milk

into a treat that makes a man dizzy, but drinking it won’t give Isra what she

wants. This garden she’s desperate to plant will accomplish nothing. The

hope I’ve given her is a lie, like every other word out of my mouth since she

let me out of my cage, like every smile and laugh I’ve forced while we’ve

worked the ground together, like everything I’ve pretended to feel.

And everything I’ve pretended not to feel.

It took this—her nearly lost, and me wanting her back more than I’ve

wanted anything in so long—to make me understand.

If she weren’t lying so still, it would be laughable.

It’s pointless. Hopeless. Even if she weren’t afraid of me, at the core

we’ll always be enemies. She rules a wicked, selfish city, and my tribe

suffers for her people’s comfort. She’s a queen; I’m her prisoner. I resent

her and she fears me, and there are times when I fear her, too. I am her

monster, and she is mine. But right now none of it matters.

“Isra, please. Open your eyes,” I beg, but I don’t think she will. When

her lashes flutter, I’m so surprised that my elbow jerks beneath her head,

sending her chin jabbing into her chest. Her teeth knock together and she

moans, low and grumpy.

It is the most wonderful sound I’ve ever heard.

“Can you hear me?” I support the back of her head and smooth the

hair away from her face in time to see her eyes slit open.

“Gem?” Her voice is sleep-rough and cranky and even

better-sounding than her grumpy moan. “What are … Where …” She blinks,

and for a second it looks as if her eyes are trying to focus before they go

empty once more.

“Do your eyes hurt?” I ask, hoping her cold sleep hasn’t left lasting

damage.

“No, but my head does. A little.” She winces. “More than a little.” Her

lids droop, and for a second I worry she’s falling back asleep, but then she

asks, “What happened?”

“I was about to ask you.” She shifts in my lap, and I’m suddenly very

conscious of the places where we touch and everything I was thinking

before she opened her eyes. Everything I was feeling. When I speak again,

my voice is rougher than hers. “I found you on the trail. You were cold and I

couldn’t wake you. I brought you back here and rebuilt the fire, but for a

while I wasn’t sure … I thought …” My arms tighten around her, but Isra

doesn’t seem to mind.

She turns her head, resting her cheek on my chest with a sigh. “I’m

sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“I shouldn’t have let the fire go out,” she says. “But I couldn’t find the

wood and I got scared, and then I was so cold and confused and … I … I

started remembering things. About my mother … her buttons …” Her hand

drifts to her chest, but hesitates there only a moment before coming to rest

on mine.

“I never meant for this to happen,” I say. “I didn’t understand. I—I

never meant to cut you that first night; I had no idea how fragile your skin

was. And tonight, when I left—I thought—I didn’t know it was so dangerous

for you to get cold.”

“I didn’t, either,” she says. “It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right.”

“It is.” Her fingers slip between the buttons on my shirt, brushing

bare skin. It becomes even harder to breathe. “I forgive you. Can you

forgive me?”

I start to assure her there’s nothing to forgive, but I can’t tell any

more lies. “I don’t know.”

She bites her lip. “Is that why you sound angry?”

“I’m not angry. Not at you. I’m just …”

“Just what?”

“Happy that you’re alive.”

“Me too. And grateful. To you. I …” She swallows, and her next words

seem to come harder. “I meant what I said. I’m not afraid of you. I’m … I

know it’s crazy … but I …” She lets out a tired sigh, and when she speaks

again, her voice isn’t much more than a whisper. “I’d like to see your face

again. May I?”

At first I think she means see me the way she did the first night, in

the garden, but then she lifts a hand into the air and I understand. She

wants to touch me.

“Yes,” I say, doing my best not to shiver as her fingers feather around

my eyes and down my nose, before her thumb smoothes across my bottom

lip. “Thank you for asking,” I whisper, lips moving beneath her lingering

touch.

She sits up, bringing her face even with mine. Her mouth is close; her

breath warms my chin. For the first time, she doesn’t smell like roses. She

smells like cactus milk—clean and salty and of the desert, like my

people—and I suddenly wonder if she would taste like all the girls I’ve

kissed in my life. There were other girls before Meer. After she found Hant,

I always assumed there would be more, but I never thought …

Even a moment ago when I …

I didn’t think … imagine … that she might …

A part of me still refuses to believe it, but another part knows what a

girl wants when her fingers linger too long on a boy’s mouth, and it knows

better than to hesitate. So I don’t. I pull her hand away, and risk a kiss.

Our lips brush, soft on softer, timid and testing, the barest friction of

skin against skin, but that’s all it takes to know that it’s right. Isra sighs and

twines her arm around my neck. My blood rushes and my body comes alive

and everything in me lights up like a sunrise. Like a night sky spitting stars.

Like her eyes when she smiles.

She kisses me again. And then again, harder and longer, and I forget

every reason this shouldn’t happen. I pull her closer and warm her mouth

with mine, moaning when her tongue slips between my lips and I taste

cactus and salt, but also a hint of sweet and a dark, velvety spice that isn’t

Smooth Skin or Desert Woman, that is only Isra.

And for a moment she is my Isra, and nothing is impossible.

TWELVE

ISRA

THIS is a kiss. This. This, this, this …

His smoke and wood smell filling my head, his Gem taste bittersweet

and perfect on my tongue, his arms around me and my hands everywhere

I’ve been dying to touch, and the memory of the killing cold banished by

the way he makes me burn.

I don’t care what he is, who I am, what’s wrong or right. There is no

shame or fear, only the driving need to get closer, kiss deeper, consume

and be consumed, to lose myself so completely that I will never be found.

I want to stay this way forever, with his chest pressed tightly to mine,

and his lips moving at my throat. With my fingers in his soft hair, his breath

warm on my skin, his hand—so hot I can feel it through my clothes—sliding

between us, down my ribs, over my stomach, down until—

I gasp and my eyes fly open, and for a bare moment I think I see

something in the air above my head—a hint of color, a flicker of light,

something strange and unexpected that makes me hesitate to push Gem’s

hand away. By the time the flicker vanishes and the familiar darkness

settles in, I am still … hesitating …

Hesitating …

A quiet, shame-filled voice inside demands I put a stop to that.

Immediately. But oh, it feels so good. So unbelievably good. I had no idea

that the ache inside could tighten into such a fierce, sweet knot … or that

Gem would know exactly how to untangle it.

Untangle me.

“Isra,” he whispers, making me shiver. I never thought … I never

imagined that he would feel it, too, this pull, this longing to touch and be

touched and oh …

I draw his mouth back to mine and kiss him until my lips feel bruised

and my breath comes faster. Faster and faster, until my head spins and

something overwhelming and frightening and beautiful rises inside me. My

fingers dig into the back of Gem’s neck and my legs tremble and I shift in his

arms, bringing my hip into contact with something I hadn’t considered.

Something that—despite what the bawdy ballads claim—feels

nothing at all like a pelican beak.

I bleat like a sheep and roll off Gem’s lap so fast, I nearly tumble into

the fire. I try to stand, but my legs are trembling and my knees are liquid

and I end up flopping onto my bottom and kicking a foot into the flames,

and suddenly Gem is cursing his ancestors—or my ancestors, I can’t really

tell—and snatching my boot from the fire and slapping at it, and the acrid

smell of burned animal skin sours the air, and the warm, beautiful feeling

vanishes in a puff of smoke.

I suck in a deep breath, and for the first time since Gem pulled me

back from the cold, my head clears. This is not a dream or a delusion. This is

real.

I really kissed the Monstrous boy I’ve been holding prisoner. I really

drove my fingers through his hair and tasted his taste and let him touch me

for so long my cheeks heat just thinking about it. It’s madness, but in the

moment the madness made perfect sense. I had no idea it would be like

that. I never dreamed how quickly a kiss could get out of hand. It’s

terrifying. Dangerous. Who knows how far things would have gone if I

hadn’t accidentally bumped into a pelican beak and come to my senses?

My chest flutters, but thankfully my throat strangles my nervous

giggle before it can escape. Pelican beak. What a terrible piece of poetry.

That was nothing at all like a pelican beak, or anything like what I imagined

that would feel like, and … and …

I can’t think about it for another second or my cheeks are going to

catch fire.

“Are you all right?” Gem asks in a careful way that only makes me

more embarrassed.

“Fine.” I pull my knees to my chest and cover my face with my hands

and wish that Gem were the blind one. I would very much like for him not

to see me confused and vulnerable and lost in my own skin. I don’t know

this skin. It’s different from the one I’ve worn for seventeen years.

“Isra … I …” He clears his throat, and pauses for a moment so long

and awkward that I consider running off again simply to escape it. “I didn’t

know.”

Didn’t know? I curl my fingers beneath my chin. “What?”

“I didn’t know that you … that …” He sighs, but keeps going despite

his obvious discomfort. “In my tribe, by the time a girl is seventeen …”

I realize what he’s trying to say, and my face burns even hotter. Was

it that obvious? That everything between a man and a woman is new to

me?

No, Isra. I’m sure most girls bleat like sheep and set their boots on fire

when they first encounter a pelican beak.

My stomach drops. I want to bury my head in my lap and never tilt it

up again, but instead I force myself to lift my chin. “I’m not a girl. I am a

queen, and—”

“Yes, I remember. You don’t have to put your nose in the air.” He has

the nerve to chuckle afterward. I consider getting angry—mad seems like a

good alternative to mortified—but when he continues, his voice is kind,

sincere. “And you don’t have to be embarrassed. There’s nothing wrong

with being … new. I just … If I’d known … It can go more slowly. It can be

nice that way, too.” His fingers brush the back of my hand. His touch is

light, undemanding, obviously meant to be comforting, but I pull away all

the same.

I’m not ready to touch him again. Not now, maybe not ever.

By the moons, what was I thinking?

I fist my fingers in my hair and give my head a shake before digging

the heel of my palm into my forehead. No matter how good it felt to be

close to Gem, no matter how much I want to kiss him again. I can’t– We

can’t– This is—

“Impossible,” I mutter beneath my breath.

“Not impossible.” Gem scoots closer, until his hip touches mine.

“Yes,” I insist, but I don’t move away. “Impossible.”

“Maybe. But it felt right. You felt right,” he whispers, sending warmth

rushing in my chest and a hint of that tingling I felt in his arms zipping

through the rest of me. Even if every other being on the planet would think

we’re mad, it’s good to know that Gem felt it, too. That I wasn’t … that I am

not alone.

I sigh. “There are so many things I wish.” I lean into him, resting my

head on his shoulder, overwhelmed by everything I want to be different.

My life, my purpose, my death. But none of that will ever change, and what

we want is more impossible than Gem knows.

“I’m sorry,” I say, despair settling in my heart. “I would change the

world if I could.”

“Then change it,” he says, a hint of yesterday’s gruffness in his tone,

though the arm he puts around my shoulders is gentle. “You’re a queen.

You’re young and strong and clever. And kind, when you want to be. That

city is yours to command.”

I shake my head. “No, not yet. And even when—”

“Yes. Yet. You can change your world. You have that power.”

“You don’t understand,” I say. “Even if the garden—”

“Forget the garden. You don’t need the garden.” He turns me to him

before pushing my hair from my face with a tenderness that makes me

ache. “You can make the wrong things right without the garden. You can

give the outcasts a place in your city. You can send food to my people. You

don’t have to wait. Children are starving now. My … my child is starving.”

My lips part. I never even considered. He’s only nineteen.

“I don’t know his name. He didn’t … He wasn’t named before I left,”

Gem says, grief clear in his voice. “But I think of him every day. His mother

chose another mate, and I’ll never be a father to him in the way that man

will, but I want to know him. I want him to live to see the first anniversary

of his birth, but many don’t.”

“Please,” I beg, the thought of those hungry children, of Gem’s

hungry child, hitting me harder than it has before. He has a child, and I’m

still not much more than a child myself. I’m crazy to think we’ll ever

understand each other. “I’m sorry. I don’t want your people or your baby to

suffer, I truly don’t, but I … I don’t …” I try to drop my head to my chest, but

Gem catches my chin in his hand.

“Then don’t back down.” His finger traces slowly back and forth

across my cheek. “Help my people. Help yourself.”

“I can’t.”

“You can,” he whispers, leaning so close I can feel his breath on my

face. My lips tingle and my heart beats faster, and all I want to do is taste

him again—to lean in and lose myself in the dizzy rush of his mouth on

mine—but I can’t.

I push his hand away gently but firmly. “I can’t. The people wouldn’t

allow it. I’m tainted.”

He makes a disgusted sound, but I push on before he can make

another grand speech about what his chief would do in my place.

“I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but that matters to my

people,” I continue. “They are repulsed by Monstrous traits, and it isn’t just

the outer ugliness of the tainted that they despise. We’re raised to believe

the Monstrous are worse than animals, that they are savages who kill for

pleasure, and that their ugliness is a sign of the corruption of their souls.”

He sighs, his frustration clear in the sound. “But you know that isn’t

true.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything for sure,” I confess before I

think better of it, the pressure of his expectations making me anxious. As

soon as I realize how my words sounded, I hurry to explain. “I mean, I know

you aren’t anything like what I imagined a Monstrous would be like, but

one of your people slaughtered my father. And I—I’m not like the rest of

my people. It isn’t just my size or my rough skin or my wild hair. I’ve never

done as I was told. I lie and take chances I shouldn’t and think only of

myself and—”

“And you think …” His breath rushes out. “You think that means your

soul is corrupt?” he asks, disgust and shock warring in his tone. “Like

mine?”

I shake my head, sending my hair flying into my face. “No! No, of

course not. I don’t think your soul is corrupt. You’re not listening.”

“You’re not listening,” he snaps. “If you were, you’d hear how rattled

you sound.”

“I am not rattled. I’m trying to explain why I can’t rush in and change

the world. The world is complicated,” I say, feeling more confused with

every passing second. I’m not ready for this. I don’t know what to say. “I

just … I know some of what I’ve been taught is wrong, but you can’t deny

that we are different. You said so yourself.”

“Not as different as either side would like to think,” he says, before

adding in a harsh voice, “Women are women, I can promise you that much.

The same tricks work the same way. You even make the same sounds when

you—”

“Stop,” I choke out, struggling to swallow past the sick feeling rising

inside me. For the first time since we touched, I feel ashamed. How could

he? How could he be so understanding one minute and cheapen every

unguarded thing that happened between us the next? “You’re cruel,” I say,

hating the catch in my voice.

“What did you expect from a corrupt soul?”

“Fine,” I snap. “Never mind. I should never have—”

“What if you weren’t tainted, Isra?”

I blink, startled by the change of direction. “What?”

“What if you’re wrong? What if you’ve been wrong your entire life?”

he asks. “What if there’s nothing Monstrous about you?”

“I thought you hated that word,” I whisper.

“I hate a lot of things.”

“I know you think …” I pause, not wanting to inspire any further spite,

but feeling I owe him honesty in a way I didn’t before. Spiteful or not, he

saved my life. And kissed me and held me and admitted it felt right, and

that has changed things between us. I can’t pretend it hasn’t. “I know you

find your people beautiful,” I say, “and I envy you that, I really do. But my

people … they don’t see beauty in mutation. It scares them. They were

horrified when they saw me for the first time at my coronation.”

Gem snorts as if I’ve said the most ridiculous thing in the world, and

anger flares inside me again. He wasn’t there. I was, and I heard the people

pull in a collective breath; I felt their surprise when they looked upon their

tainted queen for the first time.

“Believe what you want,” I snap, “but I know—”

“You know nothing. You’re not tainted. You’re nothing like a

Monstrous girl. Any one of them could break you in half, and not one has

skin that peels everywhere but their face,” he says, making me wince and

my fingers curl self-consciously, drawing up inside the long sleeves of my

sweater. “Whatever’s wrong with you, it’s not caused by resembling my

people. As far as I’ve seen, you look almost exactly like the other

Smooth—”

“I do not look like them,” I snap. “And no matter what you think, I

know if I weren’t queen, my life would be very different than it is now. I

might not be tainted enough to be cast out, but I am, without a doubt, ugly

in a way that puts the state of my soul and mind in question. That’s why I

can’t start issuing bizarre orders. I have to win my people’s trust. I believe

the garden will—”

“Stop,” he says. “I can’t listen to it again. I can’t.”

“I won’t talk at all, then!” I turn back to the fire and lean away from

him, wishing with every bone in my body it were safe to go for a walk. The

last thing I want to do is stay within spitting distance of this stubborn,

infuriating creature.

“There’s one thing I want to know first.” The gravel crunches, and I

sense that Gem’s moving closer, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of

scooting away. “If I’m hideous, inside and out—”

“I never said—” His arms close around me, and my words end in a

sharp intake of breath as he hauls me onto his lap. “Put me down!” I push

at his chest, but he ignores me and pulls me close, whispering his next

words against my skin.

“If I’m so ugly in every way,” he continues, the feel of his mouth

moving against my cheek making my blood rush in spite of myself, “then