by Stacey Jay
I see at once why women find him desirable. He is strong, healthy, and handsome. But he is not beautiful. Not to me. I will never anticipate his touch. I will never find him anything but repulsive.
And I will regret for the rest of my life that Gem has to witness what I’ll do next.
“You will say nothing to your father,” I say, pressing on before Bo can interrupt. “You will return to your rooms and pretend this night never happened. Then, come spring, when my mourning is over, you will propose and I will accept.”
Bo’s mouth closes, and his angry eyebrows float away from his eyes. “You will?”
“You have my word,” I say, fighting the urge to look at Gem, to see what he thinks about this. What he feels …
Bo’s gaze shifts from me to Gem and back again. “All right. But in exchange for my silence, you will stop this nonsense with the creature immediately. It isn’t a pet. It’s dangerous.”
“Gem isn’t dangerous,” I say, emphasizing his name, making it clear Gem isn’t an it in my mind.
“How can you say that? One of them killed your father, Isra.”
“Yes, one of them did,” I admit. “But it wasn’t Gem. Gem is my friend.”
“Your friend?”
“And he’s been a great help to me,” I say, ignoring Bo’s scandalized tone, and hoping I haven’t pushed this too far. “I can’t get the new garden ready without him.”
“Then you can give up the new garden.” Bo gives me a stern, almost fatherly look that I can tell I’m going to grow to hate over the course of our marriage, no matter how brief the union may be. “We don’t need another garden. Our people are well provided for with what we have already.”
“No, Bo. They aren’t.” I fight to keep my tone even. “Our city’s customs are unfair to many of our people. The new garden will grow plants that will provide healing and protection from mutation. I need this. We all need it. And Gem has agreed to help me.”
Bo puffs out his chest and tips his chin down, but unfortunately for him, it’s impossible to glare down at someone taller than yourself. “I won’t have my wife playing in the dirt with a monster. The nobles already think you’re strange. What if someone had seen you today? Alone with this thing? What if he’d hurt you? Killed you? Where would that have left the city?”
“Please.” Anger flares inside me, but I know I have no right to it, not when I’ve been as cruel to Gem as Bo is being now. In a kinder way, but still …
Let him go. You have to let him go.
As soon as the thought races through my mind, I know it’s right. I have to give Gem his freedom, no matter how my people will hate me, or how miserable it makes me to imagine my life without him. We’ll plant the garden, and I’ll send him on his way with a cart full of food and promises to leave more outside the gate whenever I can. It’s the very least I can do.
“As your future wife,” I say, “I beg you to trust my judgment. If Gem intended to hurt me, he would have done so already.”
“You can’t know that.” Bo scowls again. “You’re too trusting.”
“You’re right. I trusted you, and tomorrow I’ll have bruises in the shape of your fingers on my arm.” I watch him flinch in shame, and the wonder of sight hits me all over again. I can see. I can see, and my entire life is going to change, and I can’t bear to spend another minute of this amazing night with Bo. “But I can also see for the first time since I was a little girl. It is more than I ever could have hoped for, and I thank you for that. Truly.”
Bo bows his head, his expression softening in the face of my gratitude.
“But I will need to know how you learned about the poison,” I add. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. I want to know everything, especially who you suspect of drugging my tea.”
He pales, and his eyes widen before he looks away. I’m not sure what that look means, but my gut tells me it isn’t good. I expect I’m not going to like what Bo has to say. But then again, I expect I won’t like much of what Bo has to say from now on.
“Leave us,” I say, meaning to use my position to my advantage until the day Bo becomes my equal. “Forget about the healers. I’m feeling better.” I am. Now that I’m seeing clearly, the vertigo is gone. My eyes still ache, but it’s a wonderful ache, the pain of unused muscles doing miraculous things.
Bo nods stiffly and flicks two fingers in Gem’s direction. “Come, beast. I’ll return you to your cell.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” I say, earning another scowl from Bo. “As you said, it wouldn’t be wise for it to be widely known that Gem was out of his cell today. I’ll have Needle take him in an hour or two, after the city is quiet. Tell the guards at the base of the tower that they’re dismissed.”
“I can’t leave you unguarded with this—”
“You’ll do what I tell you to do until the day we are married. Or you and your father will both find yourselves expelled from the military force.”
Bo’s jaw drops. “You wouldn’t. The people would hate you.”
“Let them hate me. Any emotion would be preferable to their pity. I don’t intend to be worthy of anyone’s pity, not anymore,” I say, hoping Bo can sense the iron at the core of my words. “I decided that before I was able to see. Now that I can, I won’t let anyone keep me from ruling my city the way I see fit.”
Bo’s eyes tighten around the edges, and his soft mouth firms into a pucker that isn’t flattering. I sense he would like to tell me a thing or two, but he knows better. Until he’s my husband, he will have to bite his tongue.
Afterward …
I won’t think of afterward. If I think of my wedding night with Bo or all the days after, I will be sick all over again, despite the fact that I have nothing in my stomach.
“I’ll send for you tomorrow,” I say.
With one last glare at Gem, and an only slightly less fierce glance my way, Bo turns and strides through the door, across the music room, and down the hall. The door to the stairs slams a moment later.
I sag against Needle, too weak to hold myself up now that the immediate danger has passed.
“Let me help,” Gem says, his arm coming around my waist. I lean into him, looping my arm around his shoulders, but keeping my gaze on the stones at my feet. I’m not ready to look him in the eye, not yet.
Needle slides from under my other arm and steps back far enough for me to look upon her dear face. She’s similar to the picture my mind painted all the times I traced her features with my fingers—straight brown hair tucked under her cap, a face as round as a saucer, and enormous eyes. They’re beautiful, kind and intelligent and sad, but determined and just … everything I imagined Needle’s eyes would be.
I’m scarcely aware the tears are coming before they’re slipping down my cheeks.
“Thank you,” I say. “For everything.”
I know she understands that I mean more than everything she’s done the past few days. I mean every day she kept me from being so desperately alone. Every minute she spent teaching me to understand her special language. Every little-girl tantrum she tolerated when I was too young to understand what a blessing she was to my life, and she not nearly old enough to bear the burden of raising me.
I know she understands because she starts crying, too. Smiling and crying and touching my arm, my shoulder, my cheek—all the places she would touch to communicate her concern when I was blind.
By the ancestors, I’m not blind. I can see her. I can see.
I lean down to hug her with the arm not wrapped around Gem’s shoulders, and end up bumping my forehead into hers. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make us both laugh. Me, a soft giggle; her, a silent shake of her shoulders.
“Sorry. I’m not judging distance well,” I say, pushing my hair—which has already escaped from Needle’s quick braid—from my face, remembering how terrible I look. I glance down, shocked by just how rumpled and dirt-streaked my overalls are. Bo must be desperate to be king if he can still stomach the thought of marriage
after seeing me tonight. Even dressed up and freshly washed, I’m far from a Yuan beauty.
My heart lurches, and my knees go weak. Myself. I’ll be able to see myself. Finally, I’ll know what made every soul in Yuan gasp when I stepped out onto the dais after my coronation.
But not now. I’m not strong enough. I need food and water and …
I need … to sit down.
As if reading my mind, Needle motions Gem and me inside, shooing us over to the low couch where I sit to practice my harp, while she rushes into the other room. The couch is black and blue. Black silk, with midnight-blue flowers and black thread binding it to a frame so polished, I could see my reflection in it if I tried.
I don’t.
I look up at Gem, studying his profile as he settles me on the couch and sits awkwardly beside me. The seat is so low that his knees nearly touch his chest. He looks out of place, but no more out of place than I do. My filthy overalls and ratted halo of hair are from a different world than the silk we sit on.
I lift my hand and pull one of the less fuzzy tendrils in front of my eyes.
“Red,” I mutter, hand shaking as I pull the curl straight, before letting it pop back into a coil.
“Brown,” Gem says, his voice as careful as it always is under the dome. He sounds like a citizen of Yuan again. It makes me sad. I miss the way he rolled his words when we were out in the desert, letting them simmer at the back of his throat before spitting them out. “Your hair is brown.”
“But it has red in it,” I say, looking up at him. “I didn’t expect that.”
He doesn’t turn my way. He stares at the wall, at a portrait of a girl with light olive skin, dark hair piled on her head, green eyes, and a wide mouth that dominates her face. She’s mysterious-looking. There’s something sad but secretive and mischievous in her expression. I wonder if she’s one of the ancient goddesses from our old planet that my father told stories about, the ones who were always shifting into animals so they could fly down from the heavens to spy on humans. The girl’s throat is so long and elegant, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her turn into a swan.
“She’s beautiful,” I say, with a happy sigh. “Like one of the old goddesses.”
“Yes.” Gem doesn’t sound happy.
My smile thins. “Thank you … for coming to—”
“Someone’s been poisoning you?” Gem turns back to me with a guarded expression that tells me nothing about what he’s thinking. “Causing your blindness? Since you were four years old?”
My smile vanishes altogether. “Yes,” I say. “I … suppose.”
“So it wasn’t the blow to your head during the fire that caused it.”
“No, the fall definitely caused it,” I say. “I remember that clearly.”
“But you would have recovered your sight if someone hadn’t decided it was to their advantage to keep you blind. Maybe that’s what your ancestor was trying to tell you in your dream last night,” he says, his intelligent eyes catching the candlelight, revealing flecks of gold hidden in the dark brown.
They’re mesmerizing, not just a part of him, but a window into him, confirming all the things I’ve thought I’ve heard in his voice. He’s worried about me. He cares about me. It scares him that he cares, but he cares anyway, enough to climb a tower to make sure I’m okay.
I would climb a tower for him, too. I would. I start to tell him so, but before I can speak, he says—
“Maybe she’s trying to tell you who’s been poisoning you.”
“Would the dead know something like that?” I’m chilled by the thought. I’m not convinced my ancestors are capable of sending dreams from the other side, but I’m not unconvinced, either.
“I’m not sure. I’m not a spirit talker.” Gem shrugs, his wide shoulders straining the seams of his dust-covered, formerly white shirt. I can tell he still feels uncomfortable in Smooth Skin clothing. He’d probably be more at home with his chest bare.
My eyes roam from his shoulder to the opening of his shirt, where he’s unbuttoned the first three buttons, revealing the hollow of his throat and a triangle of bare skin. Bare scales. They flicker orange and gold in the candlelight, making it look like Gem’s flesh is made of smoldering coals. But I know his scales are cool and smooth to the touch. I ran my fingers over them last night, let my hand creep beneath his shirt and feel the strength of him.
I lift my eyes to find him watching me stare, and look quickly away, pretending to study the fireplace screen, where a dancing peacock spreads blue and green feathers.
“It could be anyone,” I say, clearing my throat. “The poison was coming in my morning tea. It’s brought on a tray from the royal kitchen. There are dozens of people working there, and anyone who wanted access would only have to walk in and walk out. There are no guards. The royal family has never had to worry about death by poisoning.”
“And why’s that?”
“Our kings and queens are too valuable to our city.”
He grunts his “Isra’s said something stupid” grunt. “So the kings and queens like to think.”
I turn back to him with a scowl. “You don’t know everything.”
“I know that whoever decided to poison you is someone who would benefit from a queen unable to perform her duties. And that that someone has been thinking very far ahead for a very long time.” He links his hands behind his head while his legs stretch forward, scooting the low table in front of the couch across the lush carpet. It’s a smug pose, but a sensual one, and I can’t stop appreciating the sensual long enough to be truly frustrated by the smug. “I would look to Junjie. Make sure his hands are clean before you bind yourself to his son.”
“Easier to get a blind girl to marry who you’d like her to marry,” I say, thinking aloud. “But why didn’t my father ever suspect poisoning? He was a smart man.”
“Did he love your mother?” Gem asks, surprising me with his question.
I stop to think a moment before saying, “He said he did. He never took another wife, so …”
“Maybe he was too miserable to wonder if there was another reason his daughter was blind,” Gem says, his voice heavier than before. “I would think there’s nothing worse than losing a woman you love.”
I stare at him and forget how to breathe. I want to ask him what that fiercely gentle look in his eyes means. I want to ask him if he’s ever been in love. I want to ask if he loved his baby’s mother. I want to ask if he thinks he could ever love … someone else.
I want to ask if he might … if last night was more than … I want to confess that it was for me, to tell him that I’ve never been in love, but I’m certain this is the closest I’ve ever been to it.
The closest you’ll ever be. You’ll be sealed in a loveless marriage before your eighteenth birthday.
I close my eyes and dig my fists into my stomach. “Yes, I imagine that would be … awful.” I’m beginning to feel squeezed in half. I can’t think about marriage or love or who’s been poisoning me since I was a girl. Not on an empty stomach.
Luckily, Needle reappears a moment later with a tray filled with tiny bowls of nuts; a plate of red cherries so stunning and lush I want to paint them; apples; water; and cold tea.
Talk of poisoning causes me to shy away from the tea—though Bo warned me only about my morning tea, not anything brewed in the tower—but I can’t get to the water fast enough. I misjudge the distance between my fingers and the glass and knock it over. Before I can try again, Needle has poured a glass and placed it in my hand.
“Thank you.” I take great gulps of the cool water with the lemon rinds floating at the top. Yellow seen through my own eyes is more glorious than I remember, bright and dense and cheery enough to make my teeth hurt.
Needle nods, and gestures out to the balcony before turning back to me with one eyebrow raised, communicating more with one look than in seven or eight of her hand gestures. I’m suddenly not surprised that my father seemed to understand Needle almost as well as I did, thoug
h we never told him of our secret language.
“Yes. Gem and I are fine,” I say, then remember what Needle will be cleaning, and wince. “I’m sorry. Leave it. I can clean it up later.”
Needle dismisses my protest with a wave of her hand and goes to fetch water and soap and towels from the washroom. I still feel terrible, but I suppose I shouldn’t. Queens don’t clean up their own messes. At least, they never have in the past.
I reach for the plate of cherries and one of the bowls of nuts and pull them into my lap, munching as I think. Now that I can see, I’ll be able to walk among my people and form my own opinions much more quickly. Maybe I can right the wrongs of the past and repair the wreck I’ve made of my first months as ruler of this city.
But first, I have to clean up a different mess.
I start to call for Needle but shut my mouth with a sharp clack of teeth as I realize I don’t have to. I can see. I can pick out my own clothes to put on after my bath.
I stand, suddenly eager to get on with it, to tidy myself and confront the demon of my reflection and move on to more important battles. “I’m going to wash up and change,” I tell Gem, setting my plate down on the tray. “I’ll be quick.”
“Do you want Needle to take me back to my cell?” he asks, his voice strangely guarded as he sets a now-empty dish back on the tray and reaches for an apple.
“No, I want you to stay,” I say, suddenly feeling shy. “I’d rather not be alone.”
“You won’t be alone. Needle is here.”
If I couldn’t see him, I’d think he wanted to go. He sounds cold, disinterested, but his knee jiggles up and down, his fingers twist the stalk on the apple until it snaps. His elbows are on his knees, his shoulders hunched as if protecting himself from an anticipated attack. His long, thick braid hangs down his back like a weary pet in need of a brushing.
I step closer, and touch the top of his head ever so softly. He glances up, surprised, unguarded. “Please stay,” I whisper. “I want you to be here.”