Of Beast and Beauty

by Stacey Jay

  “No.”

  “Please. Show them to me,” I say. “I want to see what gave me the scar on my shoulder.”

  Gem fists his hand before pulling it from my grasp. “I wish I’d never touched you,” he says, dropping his eyes to the floor. “I wish I’d never come here.”

  “I’m glad you came, and I’m glad you touched me. I wish you would …” My words trail off. I’m still too shy to state it plainly, but surely … I reach out, my hand trembling only slightly as I slip my fingers into his open shirt, resting them over his heart. “Can’t we stop talking?”

  Gem’s eyes flick to mine. There’s no doubt he understands my meaning—it’s clear in the way his lips part, in the way he braces his hands on either side of my hips, fingers digging into the rose upholstery—but instead of kissing me, he says, “There has to be another way.”

  “There is no other way.” My lips prickle with disappointment as I withdraw my hand from his warmth. “The covenant is a binding contract, signed in blood by the founding families of Yuan. Its terms are nonnegotiable.”

  “It’s the covenant that’s the source of the magic, not the roses?”

  I nod. “The roses grew after the first sacrifice. They’re a symbol. Part of the magic, but not the source of it.”

  “A symbol of what?” Gem’s expression is so intense, it makes my head start to hurt again just looking at him. “From what?”

  I close my eyes, and rub the space above them with my knuckles. “What do you mean?”

  “What has entered into this contract with your people?” Gem asks. “The magic of the planet has been quiet for hundreds of years. So, what magic is this?”

  “I don’t know.” I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly colder. And tired. “It’s just … magic.”

  “But whose magic?” he asks. “Who or what accepts the offering of a queen’s blood and grants Yuan vitality in return?”

  I start to argue, but the words I need won’t come. What he’s saying makes sense. Magic has to come from someone. Or something. I know the roses grew after the first sacrifice—it’s the most written about and sung about event in our city’s history—but as far as who or what made them grow … what inspires the flowers’ hunger for blood …

  “I don’t know,” I say in a small voice.

  “You don’t know,” he repeats, as if I’ve confessed that I don’t know how to feed myself or put on my own shoes.

  “No, I don’t know,” I say, defensive and anxious at the same time. “I know the legend, but I— The stories say the noble families arrived in one of the fifteen great ships. They were in charge of supervising the building of Yuan, making sure the dome would protect the colonists until they knew if it was safe for humans to live outside. Everything went well until the eleventh year of building. That’s when the workers constructing the dome—the ones who spent the most time outside the ship—began to change.”

  “To mutate,” Gem says, as if he’s heard the story before, making me wonder how much history we share.

  “Yes.” I worry my earlobe between two fingers. “But they mutated more quickly than people ever had on our home planet. Massive changes within a month or two, instead of gradually over thousands and thousands of years. Even the scientists had no explanation for it except magic.”

  For the first time, it strikes me how strange that must have been for my ancestors, for people from a planet with no magic to suddenly be trapped on a world ruled by it.

  “The mutated people turned violent,” I say, keeping my eyes on Gem’s chest. “They attacked the ship where the colonists had been living, and tore it apart, killing the people who hadn’t been transformed, destroying all the books and the machines that stored the ancient knowledge, and scattering them across the desert.”

  I glance at Gem’s eyes. His expression is neutral, patient, waiting for the rest. “The noble families escaped with a few dozen others whose mutations were still minor,” I continue. “Together, they ran into the city, and locked the gates behind them. They were safe inside—the dome was finished and the central buildings constructed—but the city wasn’t ready to support life. The animals they’d brought from their home planet were still very young, the seeds hadn’t sprouted, and most of their medicines and supplies had been left aboard the ship. They had water, but not much food, and they were too terrified to venture outside the walls. The people were starving to death when, one night, the woman who would become our first queen had a vision.”

  “A vision of what?” Gem asks, the intensity returning to his voice.

  “I don’t know.” I lift my shoulders and let them fall, before tucking my feet beneath my skirt. “Just … a vision. Of how to save her people. Of the covenant,” I say, ignoring the prickle at the back of my neck I’ve always associated with telling a lie. I’m not lying—not as far as I know, anyway.

  So why does it feel like I’m telling Gem a fairy tale?

  “All right,” he says, clearly unsatisfied. “What happened after the vision?”

  “The queen woke her husband and representatives from the other noble families. They walked to the center of the city, where the king transcribed the sacred words of the covenant from the queen’s dream onto parchment. They all signed the covenant in blood and spoke the words aloud. Then, as the sun rose beyond the dome, the queen …

  “As soon as her blood hit the soil, the first bed of roses sprang up from the ground. By the end of the day, crops that should have taken months to grow were ready to be harvested. Yuan was saved,” I say, though with less enthusiasm than my father used when telling this story. “The king remarried that evening, and since then the city has never been without a queen, or a daughter in line to be queen, for more than a single night. There are similar stories about the other domed cities. Each one felt the call and formed covenants of their own.”

  Gem grunts his dubious grunt.

  “That’s the story as I know it.” I turn my palms over to stare at the lines creasing the skin, embarrassed without really knowing why. “The covenant came to the queen in a vision, and the king wrote it down. No mention of who or what made the roses grow. I suppose I’ve always thought …”

  “Thought what?”

  “I don’t know. It seemed to me …” I peek at him through my lashes. “Maybe it was the power of her sacrifice that created the magic.”

  “I’ve seen sacrifice,” Gem says. “I’ve seen old men wander into the desert to die to give their hut one less mouth to feed. I’ve seen mothers choose between two babies when there isn’t enough milk for them both. No magic roses sprang up when their blood was shed. There’s something darker here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He studies me a moment before saying, “My people have legends, too.”

  “I know that,” I say with a tired smile.

  “I don’t mean legends like the girl who loved the star. I mean history. Stories from when our tribe was young and some still remembered—”

  A knock at the door makes us both turn our heads. Needle stands in the doorway with the rope she took to Gem the night we left for the desert, and an expression that clearly communicates she thinks it’s time for him to go.

  “Just a few more minutes,” I say, profoundly relieved Gem preferred to talk instead of kiss. I can’t believe I didn’t think about the open door. If Needle had come to fetch Gem and had found us kissing, or worse, she would have been scandalized. She would be scandalized if it were any boy, but a Monstrous boy …

  I pause, studying Needle as she studies Gem. What does she think of him? She set him free, and sent me out into the desert with him. She must trust him, or at least trust me enough to have faith in my judgment. And she didn’t seem afraid when he crawled onto the balcony. She seemed more afraid of Bo, so … maybe …

  “We’ll join you in the music room when he’s ready,” I say. The hope that I might be able to talk to Needle about the way I feel about Gem lifts my spirits. At least a little.

  Needle mo
ves a hand to her lips and then rubs the same hand in a circle on her stomach, but I shake my head. “No, we don’t need anything else to eat or drink,” I say. “Thank you.”

  She takes a step back into the hall, but I can tell she’s reluctant to go. Every minute Gem’s here is another minute we could be discovered. Bo could be fetching his father and a team of guards right now. I don’t think he would risk his future—he wants to be king and understands how stubborn I can be if I don’t get my way—but Needle’s right. We won’t be safe until Gem’s back in his cell.

  “Don’t worry,” I assure her. “We’ll be quick. I promise.”

  Needle smiles—a grin that transforms her simple face into something truly beautiful—and nods before disappearing down the hall toward the music room.

  “She’s happy you can see her,” Gem says.

  “I’m happy I can see her, too.” I turn back to him. “I never understood how much I was missing. We have our own language, but she says a hundred things at once with her face.”

  “She does. And she’s right. I should go. We can—”

  “Not yet,” I beg, wishing he never had to go. “Tell me your people’s version of the story. It won’t take long, will it?”

  Gem’s forehead wrinkles, the scales there crinkling like tissue paper. “Not too long …” He takes a breath, and his forehead smoothes. “The legends of my people say the old ships brought too many colonists. They expected many of the settlers to die in the first years here, falling prey to predators or disease. But this world was good to them. Their numbers grew, and by the time the domes were complete, there wasn’t enough room inside for everyone. The people who organized the expeditions, those in power, the people you call the nobles, saw what was coming and took steps to protect themselves. They crept into the domes in the night and locked the other colonists out.”

  “Because they had mutated?”

  “A little, but back then my people still looked more like the Smooth Skins,” he says, taking my hand in his and turning it over, running his finger over the flaky skin where my claws would be if I had them. “They didn’t fully mutate until months later.… The summer heat was brutal that year, and brought new predators from the mountains. My people were dying of sunstroke and animal attacks. They left their settlement and returned to New Hope to—”

  “One of the first cities,” I say, pleased I paid attention to my history lessons. “But that’s hundreds of miles south, past Port South even.”

  “My people were originally part of the New Hope settlement,” he says. “So they returned there, begging to be allowed in until the heat passed, but the people inside refused to open the gates. That’s when my ancestors started north. They hoped the summer would be easier here, but it wasn’t. They made it as far as Yuan before being taken in by another group of outsiders. They had built shelters with the remains of their ship and were weathering the heat a little better.”

  He crosses his arms, emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders. It was hard for me to imagine him being descended from the same people as the small, narrow men of this city. Learning that half of his people came from somewhere else makes sense.

  “The real changes started not long after,” he continues. “But my ancestors were grateful. They considered the mutations a blessing. Mutation allowed them to survive the heat, and fight off predators. In those days, there were still giant horned cats hunting the lands here.”

  I blink. “Horned cats?”

  He nods. “At first, the creatures left us alone, but when the land outside the domes began to die, their usual prey died along with it and they began hunting people.”

  “It’s strange to think of the world being so … different.”

  “But it was different,” he says with a passion that assures me this isn’t just a story for him. This is his history, the legacy of his people. “There were forests and grasslands and fruit and game. In the early days, there was no reason for my people to envy the people in the domed cities. We had everything we needed. Even when the forests died and the grassland turned to desert, we survived. After the mutations, our children were all born larger and stronger than Smooth Skins, with scales and claws and other adaptations that allowed us to survive.”

  “Then why …” I hesitate, knowing I’ll have to phrase my question carefully. “Why did your people and the others outside the domes attack the cities? I understand you need food now,” I hurry to add, “and it’s a matter of survival, but the first of the domes fell four hundred years ago.”

  “That’s when the tribes began to realize the truth,” he says. “That while our land was dying, the land beneath the domes grew more and more fruitful. Our elders said it was bad magic, and some of the more violent tribes decided it was time for the cities to be destroyed.”

  “But if that’s true,” I say, finally understanding all his talk of Yuan robbing the land beyond our walls, “then why hasn’t the desert come back to life? Almost all of the domed cities have fallen. There are only three left. Shouldn’t the world beyond the domes have recovered with fewer cities … draining the lands outside?”

  Gem looks away, watching the lamp on my bedside table burn, uncertainty clear in his eyes. “Some of the tribes to the north think all of the cities must fall before the planet will begin to heal.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe they’re right. My chief thought …”

  “She thought what?”

  “She thought …” When his gaze returns to me, his eyes are so full of pain, it summons a sound from my throat.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, coming to my knees on the floor in front of him.

  He shakes his head. “I can’t …”

  “Tell me.” I run my fingers down his cheeks, over the whiskers on his chin. They’re black, even blacker than his hair, and sharp enough to tickle the skin around my mouth when we kiss.

  A kiss. It seems the thing to do. I lean in, pressing my lips to his forehead the way he pressed his to mine, offering comfort, but after only a moment he takes me by the shoulders and sets me gently away.

  “I should go.” He rises from the floor in one effortless movement and starts toward the door.

  “All right,” I say, trying not to be hurt by his eagerness to leave. He’s right. We’ve already been longer than the “moment” I promised Needle.

  “I’ll send the guards at the usual time tomorrow.” I come to my feet much less gracefully, struggling with my skirts, and follow him down the hall to the music room. “We can talk more while we work in the garden.”

  He casts a narrow look over his shoulder.

  “I know what you said about the bulbs, but it will give us an excuse to meet.” I clear my throat, pushing down the sadness rising inside me as Needle hands Gem the rope and gathers her sweater.

  It doesn’t matter that the garden is a lie. I’m not tainted, and Gem isn’t a monster. There might be no need for herbs to impede mutation. If the people in the Banished camp have scales or claws or other mutant characteristics, there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong is the way the rest of the city treats them. I’ll find a way to convince the whole citizens that they have nothing to fear from those who look different.

  “Tomorrow, then?” I ask, voice rising sharply as Needle hurries past me to the tower stair and Gem follows without saying a word.

  What have I done? Why does he suddenly seem so cold?

  “Gem?” My voice breaks in the middle of his name, betraying how much it hurts for him to leave this way.

  He stops, his entire back rigid, before he turns and walks back down the hall toward me. He looks angry, furious, and for a moment I’m afraid of what he’ll say, but he doesn’t say a word. He pulls me into his arms, lifting me off my feet, silencing my breath of surprise with a kiss.

  Kiss. The word is inadequate for urgent hands and bruised lips and his taste filling my mouth and his breath in my lungs and need strong enough to rattle my bones, sh
ake me to the core until all I can do is dig my fingers into his shoulders and hope to survive being so close. It’s wonderful and awful and all I ever want. Forever. I don’t want it to stop. I never want him to leave.

  He has to leave. I know that, but knowing doesn’t keep my chest from aching like it will split in two when Gem sets me back on my feet.

  “Don’t go,” I whisper, my arms still tangled around his neck.

  “Find the covenant,” he says. “If it’s written, you should be able to read it for yourself. There has to be some way.”

  Some way to save me without destroying my city. Some way to spare his people without sacrificing the safety of mine.

  “I’ll ask Junjie to bring it to me tomorrow,” I promise. “We can read it together.”

  He smoothes my hair from my face. “But I’m still learning. I—”

  “That’s all right. Needle can read. She can—”

  Needle. Oh, no. Oh. No …

  The blood drains from my face as I peek around Gem’s wide body to find Needle standing at the door to the stairs, her eyes fixed on the carpet and the ghost of a smile on her lips. There’s no chance she missed that kiss, and still, she’s smiling.

  I didn’t think it was possible to love her more, but I do. Instantly.

  “Bring it to me, then,” Gem says, backing away. “If there are words I don’t know, Needle can help.”

  I nod and warn them to be careful as they start down the stairs. As soon as they’re out of sight, I hurry to the balcony to search the moonlit world far below for soldiers, but there are none in sight. Not on the path that runs by the tower, not in the cabbage fields, not in the browning stalks that are all that’s left of the autumn sunflowers.

  When the two shadows—one slight and swift, one tall and broad but no less swift—emerge from the tower, they cross the road unobserved. Well, almost unobserved.

  I observe them. I watch them with the miracle of my new eyes until they disappear into the field of dead flowers, bound for the orchard beyond and the royal garden beyond that, where the roses will see them race by, hurrying to get Gem back into his cell before he’s discovered.