UNBREATHABLE

by Hafsah Laziaf

  The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up a quarter of the way, hands lazy in his pockets. I still feel the tickle of his hair on my face.

  “I was looking for you,” I say. My eyes stray to his lips. I still can't believe he nearly kissed me. That I nearly kissed him.

  “Were you?” Rowan asks, amused. He studies my new dress.

  “You said we were leaving.” I point out.

  “Ah, yes. I said that. We leave this way, not that.” He points in the opposite direction.

  “I don't live here,” I say, defending myself.

  He murmurs something to himself and leads me the other way. The hall ends in the map room with the fireplace. He tells me to wait and moves toward one of the three doors leading from here.

  I crane my neck when he opens the center door. It’s mostly dark inside. But I make out the large bed swathed in dark sheets and the shape of a desk on one end. My neck burns when I realize it’s Rowan's room.

  I turn to the table running along the wall. I squint. They’re not mere ornaments—they’re artifacts from Earth. I take a step toward them when the doorknob rattles.

  Rowan emerges, wearing a different shirt, this one sky blue. The pants are the same. I don’t know why I notice these things, but I do.

  “We can leave now,” he says, but he sees me by the table, he comes near. “Do you like them?”

  “What are they?” I ask. In the dark, I can't see anything but glinting metal.

  Light floods the room when he pulls a chain above my head.

  “It's my collection of knives,” he says and I shiver, remembering the dagger running through Chancellor Kole's heart. Every other feeling I had for him dissipates, replaced by blinding anger.

  “Knives used to kill,” I say, my voice is hushed with anger. I face him in time to see pain flicker across his eyes.

  “I don't kill,” he says softly. “I only follow orders.”

  His face is downcast, sad. And I don’t understand how he could switch to a completely different person in mere heartbeats.

  “You don’t have to follow orders,” I say quietly. “You don’t have to do what the Queen tells you to do. You’re not a tool.”

  Like I am.

  “You have no idea what I am,” he says quietly, his eyes flashing.

  I bark a laugh and step away from him. But I realize something. “We’re not much different. You can’t say I don’t understand.”

  He clenches his jaw in answer. Something passes over his face, something like hopelessness, before he crosses the room and opens the door on the left. I stare at his retreating figure and the slight droop in his shoulders.

  My words struck.

  I take a deep breath and follow him into the living room, where the door to the outside stands. It takes everything in me not to fling it open and burst into the freedom of the outdoors, however dry and bloody and barren it may be.

  Rowan takes one look at my face and a sliver of a smile flashes across his face. I ignore him.

  He may have me under lock and key. But my thoughts, every single one of them, are mine.

  Even if they are sometimes in his favor.

  Rowan is silent. He pushes his hands into his pockets and stares into the distance.

  From where I stand, I can see the white towers of the palace spiraling into the cloudless sky. The stars are few tonight, and I wonder if many of them are hiding in shame, saddened to see me with Rowan instead of his mirror.

  Or maybe they’re in mourning. Julian is imprisoned. Being tortured. And here I am, dressing in lavish gowns and following Rowan as if I am sick. Out of my mind.

  Maybe I am.

  “The palace isn't as pretty inside and you know it.”

  “It isn't,” I agree. “I was just waiting for you.”

  Those are my words, but with my tone, I tell him I wasn't waiting for him. I want him to know he will never have full control over me.

  He lips twist into a half-smile and he shrugs as if he knows something I do not. I pretend it doesn't faze me. But it does. And I want more than anything to know what lies in his mind.

  I need to know, if I am to save Julian.

  And there’s only one way to get it.

  Warnings blare in my mind as I think of this new possibility. I close off the reasoning voice begging me to end the absurdity before it begins.

  And make my decision on a whim.

  I reach up, entwining my arms around his slender neck, pulling him close. It’s an act. It means nothing. But my heart races, my insides tremble. My skin burns where it touches his.

  He’s rigid for a moment before he exhales, coming close until there’s barely an inch between us. He doesn't move any closer.

  He waits. This is the third time he’s waited for me to make the first move. For all his madness, Rowan is smart.

  I think of Julian, somewhere, out there. He was taken because of me. Rowan holds every answer I’ll need.

  I will get Rowan to trust me.

  I smile a sly, half smile.

  And touch my lips to his.

  For a moment, Rowan is deathly still. As if he can't understand what's happening.

  Neither can I.

  The still moment is over in a flash and Rowan’s lips move against mine. Trills of excitement rush through me, up and down my body in never-ending loops. All I feel is him. My body against his, his lips against mine. And I realize with panic, I want him.

  “I think, I think I love you,” I whisper, pulling away the slightest bit. It's a lie, I tell myself. I hate him.

  He exhales and I feel his lips curve against mine. “So you say.”

  “I wonder what Julian will say,” I muse.

  He kisses me harder. Harder. Unlike Julian at all. Rowan’s kisses are hungry, his fingers desperate. His need reverberates through his whole body.

  My lips part. His desperation becomes my own. I wrap my fingers in his hair and pull him closer, closer. I gasp.

  Julian is soft. But Rowan is dangerous. His hands run along my arms, pulling them away from his head and lowering them to his neck. I feel the heat of his neck beneath my fingertips.

  I don't want this. I don't want him. I want Julian.

  I deepen the kiss.

  “It doesn't matter,” he says, his voice low, hoarse. I shiver. “He won't live much longer.”

  “You'll kill your own brother?” I ask.

  Panic momentarily overtakes every other emotion crashing through me.

  “Never.” He pulls back and moves me toward the house. Presses me against the cool wall. He kisses my neck. I gasp. This is real. Too real.

  This wasn't what I planned.

  But you want this, my heart whispers. I tremble.

  He lowers his head slowly, strands of his hair feathering across my skin. His lips press down in the hollow of my neck. They brush against every inch of bare skin this ridiculously deep-necked dress reveals.

  Panic pulses through me. A part of me wants him to keep going. But there is no turning back if I do. With trembling fingers, I press my hands against the sides of his burning face and pull him up. The darkness makes me stronger.

  “Then?” I force the word from my lips. He studies me. His eyes are hungry, dark, feverous. But I can sense his hesitance. A part of him isn't drunk with me as I am wholly with him.

  I need to distract him. I reach for his shirt, my hands trembling as I undo a single button. I struggle on the next. He pushes my hands away, and in heartbeats, his shirt is on the ground. Moonlight glistens across his chest and shoulders. But he still hasn’t answered.

  My body aches. It shouldn't be this way. I shouldn't want him. I shouldn't relish his lips on mine. I shouldn't want to run my hands across his chest. I shouldn’t. This is an act. A way to get information.

  But it isn’t. Julian’s kiss was love, Rowan’s is lust.

  Yet I feel disgust. Guilt. Anger at myself.

  He kisses me again. And again. His kisses begin to trail down my neck again. His hands begin to
stray and I want this to stop.

  “He'll be in the palace when it catches on fire.”

  I freeze when his words strike. My body forgets to move.

  Rowan notices. His hands fall away from my dress. “Too soon?”

  I force air through my nose and catch his words. Seize the chance. I fasten the button that somehow came undone. When did it come undone? My breath shudders, my limbs shiver. “Yes.”

  “We have time,” he whispers with a grin. His face wavers between Julian and Rowan when I meet his dark eyes.

  “We do.” My voice is a tight whisper. My breathing is harsh.

  My lips curl in disgust.

  I press my hands against his chest and push him away.

  My body shudders with quiet sobs. There’s something wrong with me. I know Julian suffers. I know how much I want Julian. I know how cruel Rowan is—he murdered Chancellor Kole, hurt his own brother.

  But still. I wanted him.

  I smooth down my hair. Rowan watches me for one long moment. In the dark, I can't see where his eyes stray and linger. He reaches down and plucks his shirt off the ground, dusting it before throwing it back on. He walks and I follow. Away from his house, away from the palace as he slowly buttons his shirt again.

  “It’s kind of a long walk,” Rowan says, his voice is still hoarse. I touch a hand to my throbbing lips. “Julian told me how much you hate the mutants.”

  “Oh?” I ask, feigning interest. My mind is elsewhere. My mind keeps drifting to Rowan’s plans.

  “He's told me a lot about you.” He pauses. I don't think I've ever heard Rowan pause. “I've wanted you even before we… formally met.”

  I look at him. He's been watching me the entire time. Doubt flashes across his face and I feel sorry for him. And at the same time, anger.

  How can he suddenly seem so human? How, when he plans to burn down the palace, taking with it so many lives, can he sound so unsure of himself?

  I look away. When will Rowan light the palace on fire? The question bubbles to my lips and I swallow and push it down. If I ask, everything will be ruined. Rowan will suspect me. All this would have been for nothing. Rowan will know why I kissed him.

  But I don’t even know why I kissed him.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “To the ship,” he says distantly.

  I don't understand why he needs such power. Why he needs to kill the Queen when she has given him enough power to stand beside her.

  Or maybe the Queen knows. Gage always said to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Maybe that’s why my mother keeps Rowan close.

  “Is your mother alive?” I ask, glancing at him.

  He doesn't answer. It’s a simple question that warrants a simple answer. Yes. No. In the sudden silence, I hear his lips part. “The woman who gave birth to me is alive. But she was never my mother.”

  Silence falls again.

  “It was always Julian. He wasn’t even her son, but she loved him. A half-breed like him.”

  Sudden love for Julian wells in my heart. That’s the difference between him and Rowan. The difference between my want for Rowan and my need for Julian. The difference between my lust for Rowan and my love for Julian.

  “Everyone loved him. He was always the perfect one and I… hated it. Him.” Rowan trails off. I wonder if it’s the dark that makes him spill his past, or my presence.

  “But then, he never,” Rowan pauses, “he never hated me back. He looked up to me. I’m only a few months older, but he looked up to me like a king. I-I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You ended up in the palace,” I say, urging him on. I don’t know why I want to hear his story. Maybe I’ll find a way to justify his evil. Maybe I’ll find humanity in him.

  “As soon as I was old enough, I left. I met some soldiers, tried to draft with them. Days later I met the Queen. She, I don’t know, liked what she saw and took me into the palace. I’ve been there ever since.”

  He looks up from the ground and meets my eyes.

  “Story of my life.” He adds with a laugh. But it’s forced. “We’re nearly there.”

  “Did you know Julian’s mother?” I ask.

  He falters and quickly straightens. And when I think he’ll ignore me, he whispers. “Yes.”

  I have no response to his sudden plague of emotion.

  “She… was a mother to me,” he says finally. “She loved us both the same, equally. But she was human. She didn’t belong here, and I didn’t belong there.”

  “The Queen knew about her though, because she’s Chancellor Evan’s sister, and the only family he has left. And when he spared a few people from the gallows, she—” He cuts off, his voice choked. Julian said Rowan holds leverage over him. He never said this.

  I never thought Rowan could feel something other than pride.

  “Queen Rhea sent me to collect a body with another soldier. By the time I figured out what his task was, it was too late,” he whispers.

  “She was already dying.”

  I look out into the night, pain pinching my chest. There’s no sound other than our feet on the brittle ground.

  “I killed the soldier then and there,” Rowan says, a harshness in his voice that dies as soon as the words leave his lips. “But I couldn’t save her. I tried, but… I couldn’t.”

  “Does Julian know?” I ask softly.

  He shakes his head. “He thinks she died with a fever. I couldn’t take her body back—she needed peace. I couldn’t watch them convert her body into sick fuel, so we buried her.”

  He looks up, into the empty starless distance. I’m drowning in his tale and I have no idea where we’re going. “But Julian saw the soldier, and I knew that if he suspected what had happened, he would come looking for answers. The Queen wouldn’t even blink before ordering a half-breed like him killed. So I blackmailed him. I told him that I would tell the Queen we buried her instead of bringing her back, and that kept him away—he doesn’t care for himself as much he cares for every innocent being. And I told the Queen the soldier shot his mother before the poison could do its job, losing a body for fuel, so I killed him.”

  “And I’ve been waiting to avenge her ever since,” he finishes, looking at me.

  “And you’ll avenge her by ending the Queen’s reign?” I ask.

  “Yes.” He holds my gaze.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I say quietly. He turns to me, and I’m flooded with the sadness in his eyes. “You don’t have to avenge her. Not like this.”

  “I do,” he says. He takes a deep breath and turns away. “I’m sorry, Lissa.”

  The words shatter my heart. I want to wrap my arms around him and give him someone who cares, because I know he has no one. He has made everyone hate him, including his own brother. But like Rowan and Julian’s mother, we don’t belong together.

  “Stay here,” he says after a moment, and leaves me alone in the darkness. We’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing around for as far as the eye can see.

  Could it be a trap? Could his whole story be a lie? I can’t doubt everything. But madness knows no bounds.

  “Close your eyes,” Rowan says, jogging back. I stare at him until he tilts his head to the side. His voice softens. “You don't trust me?”

  I close my eyes. For Julian's sake. For the sake of the entire human race. Because if the ship really lies here, I need to know. Then I will plan.

  But I also close my eyes for Rowan, because if I can be a sliver of that person he needs, I will be.

  I jump when the beep of an alarm shatters the silence. As soon as it ends, another sound crashes through. The grating of gears, the sliding of doors. I want to open my eyes.

  “Open,” Rowan whispers, his breath soft in my ear.

  My eyes fly open. The night is suddenly day. No. The ground is opening. Parting. The sun shines from the depths of Jutaire. I rush toward it as the sounds cease. It’s no wonder we never saw the ship. Because now, beneath my feet, it stand
s in all its grandeur, larger than anything I could ever imagine.

  “Clever, don't you think?” Rowan asks.

  “Hiding it in plain sight? In a hole?” I ask, unable to take my eyes away.

  The hole goes as deep and as far as I can see. The ship itself is elliptical, like the blimps I've read about, and covered in metal, the white, ten-pointed star branded across it. Where did they find it all? Even from where I stand, I can tell the shell is thick—it has to withstand the forces of space after all.

  Space. The thought sends shivers through me. This ship will carry the entire Jute race to Earth, leaving us to wither away.

  “Magnificent is the word you’re looking for, isn’t it?” Rowan asks.

  “It is,” I say. I feel small compared to its massiveness. “Is it ready? I mean, where's the fuel and all?”

  I try not to think of what the fuel looks like.

  “It's ready to go. Fuel, food, provisions, everything. All Queen Rhea needed was your blood. And I think that will be ready soon.”

  “But,” I suggest, knowing there's more he wants to say. I can hear it in the hesitance in his voice.

  “But she won't be leaving Jutaire,” Rowan says simply. “I will. With you by my side. And everyone who chooses to side with me.”

  He reaches for my hand and smiles. His words ricochet in my mind. He will kill the Queen. And as much as I don’t care for my mother, I don’t want her dead.

  “But why? Why kill the Queen when she's given you enough power to stand beside her?” I ask. I only want to know.

  He tilts his head and studies me for a long moment. “There’s no power in killing. I kill whom she orders me to. I trusted her in the beginning, enough that she knows all about my father, about Julian. She knows how much they mean to me, how they’re my weaknesses. I’m done being a slave to her whims.”

  He’s as imprisoned as the rest of us. He gets the little things he wants, but never his own freedom. But if he cares so much for Julian, why would he let him die in the palace?

  “Earth will be a fresh start. And I want to start at the top. As king. And you, dear Lissa, will be my queen.”

  He says it as if his words are the most logical in all of Jutaire.