Of Beast and Beauty

by Stacey Jay

  “Whose face?”

  “I don’t know. A woman. I don’t think I’ve met her, but her face was made out of flames, so … hard to tell.” She lifts her hand, tracing an image in the empty air in front of her again and again. Her fingers are graceful, and I suddenly wish I could see her dance the way my women dance around the fire on the night of the full moons.

  “Did the woman say anything to you?” I push images of Isra—dressed in the clothes of my people, her long legs free to kick and leap—from my mind.

  “She opened and closed her mouth, like she was trying to speak,” Isra says. “But I couldn’t hear her over the fire.”

  I make a considering sound. “That could have been an ancestor dream.”

  She turns back to me, abandoning her air drawing. “You think the woman was one of my ancestors?”

  “She could be.” I shrug. “Maybe a grandmother. Or great-grandmother, since you don’t recognize her face.”

  “I never met my grandmother, either,” Isra says. “She died before I was born.”

  “Maybe your grandmother, then. She could be trying to tell you something.”

  “Telling me not to play with fire,” she says, with a ragged laugh.

  “Do you have a habit of playing with fire?”

  Her lips lift on one side. “I suppose,” she says, voice husky. “In a manner of speaking.”

  A memory from last night—Isra’s bare throat golden in the firelight, my mouth on her skin, feeling her pulse race beneath my lips—flickers through my mind, making it hard to swallow.

  “Maybe that’s it,” I say. “You should listen closer if you dream that dream again.”

  “I will,” she says. “Thank you.”

  I grunt. I did nothing worth thanking me for, and I resent her casual gratitude. If she’s really thankful, then she should send food to my people the instant we return to the city. She should set me free and tell her advisor and her people to eat their protests. Set me free and … come with me. Let me show her that my people aren’t animals, let my people see that the queen of Yuan has a heart and a soul and a wish to make things better.

  And then we can make love in my hut and fly into the sky to slay the Summer Star together on the back of a golden dragon.

  I grunt again. Fantasy creatures will fly through the air before the peace I’m imagining comes to pass.

  “What does that one mean?” she asks, tapping my chest with one long finger. “I haven’t placed that grunt. It’s not the disgusted-with-me grunt, or the preparing-to-say-something-mean grunt, or the trying-not-to-smile grunt.”

  A smile splits my face before I can stop it. I grunt, and she laughs a laugh like stones skittering down a mountainside, wild and reckless.

  “That’s the one,” she says, still laughing. “I like that one. It’s my favorite.”

  “I like your laugh. You don’t laugh in there.”

  “You’ll miss the laugh, but not the touching?” Her smile fades. “That’s what we were talking about. I remember, you know. I never forget.” Her lips part, begging for a kiss for the tenth or hundredth or thousandth time today.

  By the ancestors, I should just give up fighting myself and kiss her. I want to kiss her. I’m dying to kiss her. A part of me even says that my promise to my people compels me to kiss her.

  Assuming she keeps her promise to send food, playing at being Isra’s friend has gotten me closer to helping my people than I could have imagined possible. Who knows what I could accomplish as her lover? If I keep her happy, she might even give me the roses of her own free will. Seduction wouldn’t be difficult. Despite the voices in her head that assure her I’m a monster, and assure her that she is something worse for wanting my hands on her, I know Isra wants me. I should manipulate her desire, and forget about the rest. Who cares what she thinks or feels beyond the lust that makes her press her body close to mine? Who cares what I feel beyond the satisfaction of serving my people and the pleasure of being with a woman for the first time in too many months?

  But the thought of that kind of deception turns my stomach. I won’t use or be used in that way, not unless I have no other choice.

  “Forget I said anything,” Isra says. A nervous shake of her head sends her hair tumbling over her shoulders. She tips her chin down, casting her face in shadow. “You’re right.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Exactly,” she says in a pained whisper, and her pain pains me, too. More evidence of my weakness.

  “The sun is down.” I take her hand and tuck it efficiently into the crook of my arm, hoping to spare us both any more of this … whatever it is. “We should go.”

  “Wait.” She stops, holding tightly to my arm. “I have to—I want to tell you I’m sorry for what I said last night. I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I … I wasn’t ready for questions about what I thought. Or felt. I know it’s best for both of us if we—”

  “We should go.”

  She sighs. “You’ve made me think. When we get back to the city, I’m going to be different.”

  I grunt, but this time she doesn’t find it funny. Neither do I. “So you said,” I say, unable to hide my doubt. I tug my arm, gently pulling her forward.

  “So I say,” she insists. “I know what I’ve been taught. Now I want to know the truth. I realized years ago the two aren’t always the same, but I’ve never had the courage to say a word to anyone else. But I won’t remain silent anymore. I’m going to ask questions. I’m going to pay attention. I’m not going to take for granted that Junjie’s opinions or anyone else’s opinions are fact until I find proof for myself. I don’t care if there is … They can’t …” She takes a shaky breath, and her fingers tighten around my arm. “They can’t force me to make decisions before I’m ready. I’ll find a way to convince them that I’m good for the city, and that the changes I want to make are in the best interests of all our people.”

  “All right.” I fight the urge to reach out to her again, to try to make her understand the truth about Yuan and the desperate situation of my people. But I can’t. I don’t trust her. Not yet. But maybe … if she means what she says … “I’m interested to see this new Isra.”

  She smiles. “Me too. And I …” Her smile grows bigger as she turns to me. “Would you come to the rose garden? With me? Tonight?”

  “Tonight?” I ask as I move around the stones.

  “Yes.” She nods and falls into step beside me. “I don’t want to wait. Will you?”

  Yes! I want to shout, Yes!—finally, a chance to learn more about the magic that will save my people—but instead I force myself to wait several long moments before offering a careful, “Why do you want to go there?”

  I can’t let Isra know how interested I am in her magic roses. There are already guards stomping through the gardens all hours of the day and night. If she adds additional patrols, my odds of escaping with a plant will go from not likely to impossible.

  “I want to see you again,” she says shyly. “If … that’s all right.”

  I ignore the way my chest tightens. “Will there be time?” I ask, not certain how long the magic takes. “The guards come through the royal garden every ten to fifteen minutes.”

  She hums beneath her breath. “That could be enough time. Or not. It depends on whether or not they’re being cooperative.”

  “The roses?”

  “Sometimes they show what I ask to see,” she explains. “Sometimes they show me something else. The night we left, I saw Bo knocking at the tower door.” Her fingers tap a nervous rhythm on my arm. “Hopefully my absence wasn’t discovered. I doubt it was. I think the roses were just trying to scare me into staying in Yuan. They’ve been … different lately. I don’t like being alone with them anymore.”

  I walk a little more slowly. The way she talks about the flowers, it sounds like the roses are alive. Aggressively alive. It makes me remember her words that first night, about their hunger.

  “What are the roses hungry
for?” I ask.

  “What?” She stumbles, but I hold her up, carrying her until she regains her feet.

  “That first night, you said they were hungry.” I watch her face, barely able to see her features in the increasing darkness. The first moon won’t rise for another hour or more. Soon, we’ll both be walking in the dark. “You said the roses were hungry.”

  She licks her lips. “How far are we from the dome? The smell is strong now.”

  “Is it blood?”

  She turns sharply in my direction. “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t. It was a guess. I saw the thorn under your fingernail,” I say, more disturbed by the confirmation of my suspicion than I thought I would be. Magic fed by blood is dark magic. My people have never practiced dark magic.

  Your people have also starved, while the Smooth Skins grew fat in their enchanted cities.

  “How often do you feed them?” This might be my only chance to learn how to care for the plant I plan to steal. Dark magic or not, most of my people won’t care, as long as it puts food in their babies’ bellies.

  “I don’t feed them,” she says. “I mean, I do, but that’s not what … They require a … larger offering. Every thirty years. Sometimes twenty. It depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  She sighs. “Oh, I don’t know. Lots of things. If the dome is damaged by a storm and the roses have to repair it, that takes a lot of strength. If blight touches the harvest, or children are born sick, or … any number of things.” She shrugs and lifts a hand in the air. “Any weakness in our city or our people. Correcting those things can make the roses grow hungry again faster.”

  “But the roses’ magic doesn’t stop some children from being born tainted.” I hate the word, but it’s what she understands.

  She shakes her head. “No, it doesn’t. Which is as good an argument as any that the tainted people aren’t a threat,” she says, surprising me. “Our covenant has remained strong for almost eight hundred years. The roses take care of us. Surely, if the tainted were something to be afraid of, the roses would use magic to correct their mutation.”

  “Makes sense,” I say, strangely proud of her. And hopeful in a way I haven’t been before. Maybe something is changing inside Isra.

  “I agree,” she says. I can just make out her smile in the near dark. “I’ll have to remember that when I talk to Junjie about doing away with the Banished camp.”

  I slow again. “You’re going to do it?”

  “I am. As soon as I can. After we plant the bulbs tomorrow, I’ll go straight to his chambers,” she says, squeezing my arm. “But tonight I want to see you.”

  “All right.” I smile down at her, my empty stomach clenching, more nervous than I thought I would be at the thought. I wonder what she’ll see when she looks at me tonight? A smile or bared teeth? A man or a monster? “But I want to give the plants my blood. You’re already weak.”

  “No, you can’t,” she says, sounding faintly horrified by the thought. “It has to be … The roses feed only on …”

  “On what?”

  “On women,” she says, but there’s something crooked in her voice, a sharp edge that jabs at the hope inside me. “It’s all right. A little blood won’t do me any harm.”

  “What about a lot of blood?” I ask, putting my finger on what’s bothering me most about the roses. “You said the roses needed a larger offering every thirty years. How large?”

  She falters again. This time, I don’t pull her along. I stop, and turn to her, making sure she’s steady on her feet before capturing her face in my hands. I don’t want her to hide. I need the truth, and there’s just enough light left for me to see her eyes. She can never lie with her eyes. They will answer my question, even if her lips will not.

  “How large, Isra?” I whisper. “Do you mean … a death?”

  Her lips part, and a tiny choking sound escapes her throat. Her eyes tighten and begin to shimmer the way they do before the Smooth Skin tears come. “No, not a death,” she lies.

  “You swear it?”

  “I swear, not one of my people has ever died to feed the roses.” This time, her eyes tell me she’s speaking the truth. Either she’s getting better at lying or there’s something that I don’t understand.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” I mumble beneath my breath.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Your ways are strange to me.” I sigh, feeling every mile we’ve walked in the past two days. “Some stranger than others.”

  “They’re strange to me, too.” She leans her cheek into my hand, and for a moment she looks so young, so lost.

  “It’s all right.” I wrap my arms around her and pull her close, dropping my lips to the top of her head, kissing her wild hair.

  “Is it terrible that I don’t want to go back?” she asks.

  “No,” I say, wishing she’d look up.

  “Yes, it is. If you knew …”

  “If I knew what?”

  She shakes her head and pulls away, until only her fingers touch my arm. “Nothing. Let’s go. At least there’s food there. I’m starving. I’m sure you’re hungry, too. We can put off the roses until another night if you’d like. Needle set you free once. I’m sure she could manage it again.”

  “We could eat first and then go,” I say, more curious about the roses than ever before. “Could your maid—”

  “She could,” Isra says. “Or I could crawl up and get us something from the tower. We keep apples and nuts and other things in the pantry in the sitting room for something light between meals. It wouldn’t take long for me to fetch some, especially if you tell me when it’s safe to climb. I usually have to listen for the guard, but—”

  “Why can’t you go in the door?”

  “I’m sure Bo has put guards outside,” she says, her tone souring. “He promised he’d assure my privacy, but I know the way he and his father work. They watch me. They’ll want to know if I leave my rooms. That’s why I didn’t take the door on the way out.”

  “Then how did you—”

  “I jumped,” she says. “From the balcony.”

  “Jumped?” The thought makes my stomach flip. I’m a warrior. I’m not afraid of much. But I’ve seen the height of that tower. “All the way from the top?”

  “Tiered roofs are good for more than decoration. It’s only a ten-foot drop each time.” She shrugs, but I can hear the pride in her voice. “I’ve been getting out that way since I was eleven. Getting up takes longer, but there are lots of stones sticking out from the outer wall. It’s easy to climb in bare feet.”

  “You climb the outside of the tower?”

  She nods.

  “That’s …” Mad. Outrageous. Courageous. “Impressive,” I finally say.

  “Thank you,” Isra says, grinning.

  “Crazy. But impressive.” She giggles, and I smile in spite of myself. “You really do play with fire.”

  “I do.” She clears her throat, and her fingers pluck nervously at my shirt. “So … food and then roses?”

  “Yes. I’d like for you to see me. Give you something to dream about tonight.”

  I meant it to be a joke, but there’s nothing funny about the way she says, “Oh, I’ve already dreamed about you. This morning, in fact.”

  My mouth goes dry. “Really?”

  “Yes. It was a nice dream,” she says. “A very nice dream.”

  “Isra …,” I warn, not sure which one of us I’m warning, or what will happen if the warning is ignored.

  “Gem …” She mimics my tone so perfectly, I can’t help but smile. And grunt.

  She laughs as she steps closer, wrapping her arm around my waist. After the slightest hesitation, I put my arm around her shoulders and we walk—hips bumping, her cheek pressed to my chest—and for now we are just a boy and a girl, walking the desert under a sky full of stars.

  FIFTEEN

  ISRA

  CLIMBING is harder than it’s ever been before.

>   My arms tremble and my fingers cramp. My breath comes fast and my toes slip more times than I’d like—especially knowing Gem’s watching from below, close to where we’ve hidden the bulbs beneath a shallow layer of dirt in the fallow cabbage field.

  I wanted to impress him, but by the time I pull myself up and over the edge of the third roof, I’m wishing I’d found some way to distract the guards and gone through the wretched door.

  I’m starving and exhausted, and not certain I’m going to make it to the top. It makes me think about my mother, about what it must have been like to jump from the balcony and keep falling and falling. It would be just my luck to tumble off the tower and break my neck right when I feel ready to take on the world.

  My world, anyway. Yuan seems smaller after my days in the desert. More manageable, somehow. Even thoughts of the power struggles and hard talks and difficult decisions in my future don’t daunt me. I feel strong. In mind. In spirit.

  The flesh, however …

  By the time I drag myself over the balcony ledge, I’m covered in a cold sweat and shaking from head to toe. I collapse on the stone floor in a grateful heap, breathing hard, my heart beating in my stomach, my head throbbing so fiercely, colors bloom in my darkness. My bones vibrate like bells after they’re rung too hard, but I’m alive. I made it.

  “Thank the ancestors,” I sigh, then giggle softly to myself.

  I don’t know why I find it funny to say things Gem says, but I do. I love the way he talks, his myriad grunts, the rumble in his chest when he laughs. I even love the way he gets grumpy with me and isn’t afraid to show it.

  But most of all, I love the way he touches me, the way I touch him.

  I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I just don’t see how something that feels so right can be wrong.

  “It does feel right,” I whisper, rolling onto my back, breath finally coming easier. “It feels … wonderful.” I smile despite the pain still pulsing behind my eyelids. Not even this nasty headache can dampen my spirits.