UNBREATHABLE

by Hafsah Laziaf

  “M-my blood?” I ask, my eyes wide. She nods. “But why?”

  “Just do it, there isn’t time for me to spell everything out for you.” I blink at her command and do as she says. I open the case. Five empty vials glint up at me, reflecting the light from above and my own pale face.

  “Hurry,” Dena calls. I take it to her and rest the case on her stomach, ignoring her glare.

  “Can you do it?” I ask.

  She rolls her eyes. “I’m strapped to a table, Lissa.”

  “Here,” I say. I screw the needle to the top of the first vial and slip it in her hand before crouching down beside her. She snorts when I guide the needle to the inside of my arm and carefully slip it into the vein.

  “You know I’m not doing anything but holding it, right?” She asks dryly.

  I don’t answer. I watch the needle closely. I can see the blood pulling against my skin, the vial slowly filling with dark, thick liquid. What a simple substance blood is.

  I fill the rest myself, watching as the blood sloshes against the glass and the needle pucker my skin. It’s almost mesmerizing.

  Dena laughs when I seal the case again. “I’m glad there aren’t anymore vials or you’ll sit here all day and drain your blood yourself.”

  I make a face. I’ve read that blood loss can bring fatigue and dizziness. But I feel nothing and it takes me a moment to remember Gage said my blood reproduces quickly. Chances are my body has already replaced the lost blood.

  “Hide it under that table,” Dena says. I go to another, matching table and slip the case beneath the three-inch gap between the table and the tile.

  “What will you do with it?” I ask. She shrugs. I raise my eyebrows.

  “Look, you’ve spent long enough in here. Go,” she says. She’s right. I turn quickly. “Oh, and come back tomorrow at midnight. Ilen says there’s a way out of here.”

  Ilen is on our side.

  “I will.” After the ceremony, I will.

  As I make my way to the unused, forgotten door, movement catches my eyes. A blue flame flickers inside a suspended tube, reaching higher with each of its gasps. Fire is dangerous. Risky. Like this game Dena suggests.

  Queen Rhea is as unpredictable as the flame. One wrong move and she’ll kill Dena without a thought—humans are abundant in her eyes.

  The flame flickers in answer to my thoughts. And I hear Gage's words from long ago.

  Never, ever, play with fire, Lissa.

  I sink into my bed and roll the ball of Earth between my palms. I don’t know what good Dena could do strapped to a table in a room full of combustibles and unknown things. But she said there is a catalyst. If she knows what it is, we could use it.

  A soft knock shatters my thoughts. I wouldn’t have heard it if I wasn’t waiting for it. I shove the replica beneath my pillow and drag myself off the bed, cracking the door open the slightest bit.

  “Can I come in?” Julian asks hesitantly. I let him in and close it with a glance at the empty hall.

  We’re both silent for what seems like an eternity. I can't bring myself to look at him after what Dena said, so I look at the floor. I look at everything but him.

  “Rowan,” he says finally. I meet his eyes. The collar of his shirt is open, his pale skin shadowed by his face.

  “What about him?” I ask.

  “Stay away from him. Far away.”

  I sputter a laugh. And the anger that rises suddenly surprises me. “Is that why you came here? To tell me what to do?”

  His eyes widen. “No! That isn't what I meant.” He sighs. “Just be careful. Rowan is treading dangerous land, and he'll pull you in too.”

  I want to ask him what he means. I want to ask him why the Queen was so desperate to know when I had met Rowan, why her demeanor changed when it almost never does. Julian knows something.

  I want to ask him about the words he shared with Rowan in the room behind the double doors. But something keeps me quiet.

  “Tomorrow night, after the ceremony, will you come with me?” He asks nervously. Is this what the Queen meant by his unusual request?

  “With you?” I ask.

  “Yes. There's,” he pauses, his neck flushes and his eyes brighten. I've never seen Julian so unsure of himself. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  “I would come with you anywhere,” I say softly.

  His lips twist into that smile I forever want to see and relief passes over his face.

  “I needed to know if you’d come. If all that trouble will be worth it.”

  Something crashes through my chest. I know that feeling. And when I speak again, I can only whisper.

  “It will be worth it.”

  The smile that spreads across his face is bright enough to outshine the moon. I laugh softly and shake my head.

  “You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you?” he says after a moment. “When you fainted earlier. You figured something out.”

  Part of me is awed that he noticed. But when it comes to me, he notices a lot of things.

  “I think… my blood goes both ways.” I struggle for words. I know what to say, but I'm afraid of his reaction. Afraid of what he will think.

  “You mean it'll allow humans to breathe the Jutaire air,” he says. He doesn't ask. He knows.

  Which reminds me: I need to tell him about Dena, stuck in the lab.

  “I think so,” I say. “I didn't know how to test it, but—”

  “Why do you think Dena’s here?” He asks, an edge to his voice. “They're one step ahead, Lissa.”

  He shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck.

  “You said my name,” I say. He stills and drops his hand by his side.

  “I-I apologize. I—”

  “No, no,” I say, realizing how awkward this is and I wonder why I even blurted that out in the first place. “I want you to call me Lissa. Just Lissa.”

  He swallows and runs his tongue over his lips. And grins. I've never seen him grin before, but it makes me want to melt.

  “I'll remember that.”

  I trail to the window, his footsteps shadowing mine. Outside, a blanket of blue spreads for as far as I can see.

  Far below, I can see Jute moving about. A large reservoir sits behind the palace, filled with what looks to be about fifteen feet deep of rainwater. The Jute are efficient.

  “They've already taken Dena,” I say, turning to him.

  Confusion flickers across his face. “Dena? But I-I saw her barely—”

  “They've tested my blood on her already. It works.”

  “Then we don't have much time,” he says, his eyes hardening.

  “Dena said there's a chance of her being able to do something inside the lab.”

  “I have to go,” he says suddenly, stepping toward the door.

  “Wait,” I call. He looks back at me, eyes questioning. I’m afraid to lose him. I’m selfish, I realize. “I’m sorry about Chancellor Kole.”

  “It’s not your fault,” he says.

  “What could happen? If we gave my blood to”—I stop before I can say our people. Because I can’t.

  I belong nowhere. I'm not human, I’m not Jute. I'm stuck in between. A half-breed like Julian. And at the same time, I’m not like him.

  I really am alone if I look at it that way. I shake away the thought. “The humans.”

  He smiles. “War.”

  When I think of war, I see blood. Pain and suffering. Nothing good comes from war.

  But there is good. There will be an outcome. One side will find peace, solace. While the other will suffer a bitter loss.

  There are two sides to the coin of war.

  I fall asleep with Slate’s voice in my head. I've been loving you for seventeen years as my dead child. Why stop when you're alive?

  And I hope he’s okay. That he isn’t wallowing in grief.

  There’s no way to tell, but I’m sure I’ve been asleep long enough for the night to have shifted into day. It’s odd, going a f
ull day without watching the stars twinkle and beam down at me. I even miss the redness of the ground beneath my feet and the dust that swirls in the distance.

  I slide out of bed as a soft knock sounds at the door. I bang my knee against the bed frame and yelp under my breath before limping to the door, expecting to see Julian.

  But it’s a girl about a year older than me, with fiery auburn hair and soft features. Her skin is the color of the rare fresh milk we used to get from the Jute.

  “Can I come in?” Her voice is airy. She looks at me with fierce green eyes and strolls in as if she owns the room. The room’s dark beauty seems to lighten in her wake. She pauses by the bed and turns back to me.

  “Are you going to stand there?” She asks bluntly. But the way she asks it comes off as innocent curiosity. I close the door.

  “I apologize,” she says with a bow. The ends of her long hair brush against the carpet. “I am Mia Leen, your maid. I am humbled, Princess, to have been granted the honor to attend to you.” I wonder if she was made to memorize her short speech and for a moment, all I can do is stare.

  “Lissa,” I finally say.

  “Pardon?” She leans closer.

  “Call me Lissa.”

  “As you wish, Princess—I mean, Lissa,” she says, bowing her head.

  “And please don’t bow,” I add.

  “We've never had a princess,” she says as if she didn’t hear me. I imagine the green of her eyes to be like the land of Earth—lush, magnificent, never-ending.

  “Well, I've never been a princess,” I say dryly.

  She laughs, the sound chiming in the air. She’s carefree, like Dena, but at the same time, completely different.

  “You're upset.” She tilts her head to the side and fixes me with a stare that reminds me of the little birds I’ve read about.

  I study her soft features. She’s a stranger, a sweet stranger, but a stranger still. “I'm nervous, is all.”

  She nods, and I wonder if she sees through me the way Julian does.

  “Are you Jute?” The moment the question escapes my lips, I regret it. It didn’t sound as rude in my head.

  But Mia is unfazed. She tilts her head again. “It is quite obvious. I don't wear a mask like humans do.”

  “Right. Sorry,” I say.

  “No need to be.” She smiles and I smile back.

  And after a moment: “You're not like her.”

  “Like who?” I ask, though I know full well. But I need to know what she thinks of my mother. I need to know if Mia is more human than Jute inside her heart.

  Which brings another thought: what difference is there, between humans and Jute?

  “Your mother, Her Majesty the Queen.”

  “How so?” I ask, playing with the edge of my dress sleeves.

  “In more ways than one.” She stares at me until I meet her eyes.

  It’s too early to call her an ally, but she isn’t a foe.

  “Now then,” she says, gliding to the bed. She drops a group of bags onto the sheets and exhales. I feel sheepish for not noticing her load.

  Her eyes brighten. “The ceremony is this evening! You must be excited, Lissa. You'll be the Princess!”

  Her enthusiasm stretches a smile across my face. But I don't say a word.

  How can I, when all I feel is dread spreading through me, threatening to paralyze my mind, numb my limbs, and tear a scream from my lungs?

  “You’re not excited,” Mia says. She turns to her bags, pulling out colorful ribbons and powders, pastes and liquids. Makeup. Yet another something I’ve only read about.

  It’s silly, really. Women, and sometimes men, dabbing artificialities on their faces, hiding away their true beauty. Sometimes flawlessness is defined from within. Not from the pallor of your skin.

  Certainly not when your skin isn't real.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” she asks, her clatter ceasing for a moment. “Like you're going for a funeral?”

  She tilts her head. Her own dress is a soft green. “Are you?”

  Funeral. She doesn’t know that until recently, I had no idea what happens to our dead once they hang. Only I had a funeral—and I was alive.

  “I felt daring.” I force a grin.

  She grins back. “Welcome to the life, Lissa.”

  Everything is a blur. More maids flutter in and out of the room. Some of them are broken, limping, their smiles toothy with gaping holes where pearly white teeth should be. None of them are as beautiful as Mia. All of them bow and smile and profess their love for me, their soon-to-be Princess. Clearly, my mother makes them happy, despite the impossibility of the idea.

  Mia sets five dresses across the bed, each a different color. I sit in a chair where a small girl weaves through my hair, pinning and twisting the strands with sure fingers almost as fast as my heartbeat. I lean forward to catch a glimpse of the dresses despite her sharp protests, though I’m certain I won’t have a say in which one I wear.

  The red one reminds me of Jutaire, a never-ending sea of blood. The blue one reminds me of Julian and hopeless despair. The green one reminds me of the land on Earth, lush and endless, something I fear I will never see. The white one reminds me of a world of light, beauty, and happiness, a world our one will never be.

  The cream one with a warm brown sash reminds me of myself, lost between the shades of life, just as the color is a mixture of so many, lost in the shades and hues of the spectrum. Belonging somewhere, but nowhere.

  I am lost in a world I have no place in. A world that has suddenly claimed me as heir, to a kingdom where I don’t belong.

  If I had a choice, that would be my dress.

  The girl's fingers fall from my hair. Her thin lips curve into a smile and she brushes dark strands from her dark forehead. “All done, Princess.”

  I murmur a thank you and stand, about to turn to the mirror.

  “No!” Mia shouts. I whirl around to face her, instinctively reaching for my nonexistent daggers. She laughs when she sees my expression and I can't stop the irritation from surging through my veins. “Not yet! Don't look in the glass ‘til we're done.”

  I raise an eyebrow and give her a look, for which she chuckles a laugh. I run my fingers over the dresses. “Which one will I wear?”

  “I don't know,” Mia breathes. “But they’re all gorgeous.”

  “Yes,” I say, tilting my head. “Do I get to choose?”

  In answer, the door opens. The maids freeze. Their friendly babbles cease. Queen Rhea steps into the room and the air instantly turns frigid.

  “Hello, daughter.”

  “Hello,” I say, realizing this is the first time I've actually greeted her. I wonder if I should bow, but I settle on dropping my eyes to the ground.

  I do this for Dena’s sake. For Julian's sake. And for my real father's sake. Because I have no respect for her, mother or not.

  “These are the dresses, girl?” She turns to Mia. Her milky skin pales under the Queen's stare.

  “Yes, your Majesty.”

  “They will do.” Her tone is condescending.

  “Which one do you like, darling?” She asks me.

  When she looks at me, I see Chancellor Kole, dead. Dena, dying. What is it like to know you won't see the sunrise tomorrow? What is it like to know you’ll die alone?

  One of the maids sniffles in the silence of the Queen’s words. I blink. Dena’s dark eyes fade into the Queen’s pale moonlight ones, waiting for my answer.

  “I like them all,” I say, flinching at the breathlessness in my voice. She won’t let me wear what I like. She will always defy me as I will always want to defy her. She gives me a tight smile and I wonder if her eyes will ever reflect her lips.

  “As do I, daughter, as do I.” She trails her fingers across the dresses. Left to right. Right to left. The walls around us pulse with my heartbeat. The silence is heavy, heavy, smothering.

  Her fingers touch the red one. “Bloody.”

  Her fingers tighten around the b
lue one. “Bright.”

  Her nails wrinkle the green one. “Lush.”

  Her eyes sweep past the white one. “Pure.”

  She stops at the cream one. “Perfect.”

  My breath swooshes out, confusing me. Why does it matter what dress I wear? But sweat trickles down my back and I realize it does matter. I am more vain than I thought.

  Mia runs for the dress and picks it up. “Yes, your Majesty.”

  Queen Rhea turns and leaves. She doesn’t even spare me a glance.

  Why should she? I’ll be dead in a few days.

  For a few moments, the silence is kept. Everyone stares everywhere. The younger maids wring their hands as if the Queen sentenced them all to death. I was wrong about my mother keeping them happy. They fear her. And it’s a wonder they don’t fear me the same.

  “All right, back to work,” Mia sighs and the world spins again. Their voices pick up as one and my ears sing with the cacophony of their cadences. I lock eyes with Mia and hope she sees the silent gratitude in my eyes.

  “You will look stunning, Lissa,” she says excitedly, leaning close and squeezing my hand. I allow myself to smile, to let in her enthusiasm. To indulge. Because at least once before my death I want that.

  And while the maids flutter around me in a flurry of color, my smile widens. And inside my heart, a weight softens.

  “Wear this,” Mia says when a maid sets a tray of jewelry on the bed between us.

  I sift through the shimmering jewels and shiny chains as she reaches into the pocket of her simple dress and pulls out a handful of gold. At the end of the linked gold chain hangs an emerald square, the edges lined in swirling gold. Emerald and gold from deep within Earth.

  “Where did you find that?” I ask, fingering the gem.

  Her smile is full of remorse. “It was my mother's. It was all she had left before she lost her life.”

  I look up. I know nothing of her or her mother. “She had you.”

  She shakes her head and the green of her eyes turns liquid. She bites her lip. It’s the first time I’ve seen her enthusiasm snuffed. “No. She lost me before the jewel.”

  “What happened, Mia?” I ask softly.