Of Beast and Beauty

by Stacey Jay

  But he’ll be taken care of soon enough. I spoke with Father before Isra went into his meeting chamber to discuss her tour of the city. He agreed the Monstrous would have to be disposed of as soon as I am made king of Yuan. The safety he affords isn’t worth the risk he poses. The entire court has been on edge since the day Isra insisted on working with the creature. He hasn’t hurt her yet, but we’d be fools to think he isn’t planning to. We’ll kill him before he gets the chance and deal with the—

  “Yes, I agree.” Isra’s voice drifts from the shade of the arbor covering the front entrance to the court offices. In the spring, purple flowers will hang down far enough to tickle the top of her hair as she walks beneath. Bees will hum and the air will be warm and sweet and we will be married.

  And I will have the power to tell her to go to her tower and stay there if she refuses to listen to reason.

  The thought makes it easier to smile as she emerges into the watery afternoon light, followed closely by my father. He’s dressed in his faded amber advisor’s robe, the one with the slightly frayed sleeves worn by three generations of chief advisors to the royals of Yuan. The robe softens his rough edges, makes him seem more approachable than his soldier’s uniform.

  I’m sure the choice of clothing is no coincidence. He wanted Isra to feel comfortable with him today, to feel confident that he was listening to her concerns and opinions.

  “I’ll start organizing the documents at once,” Father says, stopping less than a foot away, but not cutting his eyes in my direction. He tilts his head back to look Isra full in the face, as if he has never found anyone more enrapturing. “I’ll send them to the tower for your review as soon as they’re finished.”

  “And when will that be?” Isra asks, fingers twirling absent-mindedly at her sides the way they have all day. I grit my teeth and force my eyes away from her fidgeting. It’s enough to drive me mad. If I’d fidgeted like that as a child, my father would have bound my hands in cotton. “I want to start the process as soon as possible. Things can’t continue as they have.”

  “Certainly not.” Father nods, but I see his eyebrows draw tightly together. “I’ll have the first drafts of the amendments to the code drawn by late tomorrow. The next day at the latest.”

  “That isn’t soon enough.” Isra’s fingers move even faster, tracing an elaborate, repeating pattern I can’t begin to sort out. “I need them sooner. At least the amendment related to the treatment of the Banished. I’d like to see a draft of that tonight.”

  “Tonight it is, then.” Father’s forehead smoothes, and the hint of a smile gentles his lips. He looks as pleasant as he ever does—even more so, actually—but I’m not fooled. “I’ll work through dinner and have the amendment delivered to you in the great hall as soon as I’m finished. The texts you requested on the covenant should already be waiting in your rooms. I ordered them sent before we sat down to chat.”

  “Thank you.” Isra’s breath rushes out, and her fingers finally still. “But have the amendment sent to my rooms as well, please. I won’t eat in the hall tonight. I need some time. Alone. It’s been quite a day.”

  “Indeed.” Father smiles. “I’ve never discussed this many amendments to our code of law in the course of a year, let alone one afternoon.”

  Isra bites her lip and shoots Father a wary look from beneath her long lashes. “I know this must seem strange, but I’m certain this is right, and the only way to move forward. I think Baba … what he did … giving me the herbs for all those years …”

  “Your baba loved you very much,” Father says, apparently not minding if Isra uses childish words. “Never doubt that.”

  “I know. I believe he did,” she whispers in a trembling voice, but when she lifts her chin, her expression is calm, strong. “I was shocked, at first, but I think the choice Father made was for the best. He gave me fresh eyes. He allowed me to see Yuan and our people in a way those who have lived in the midst of this … confusion no longer can. Being an outsider, and ignorant of many things, has allowed me to see where our city has gone astray.”

  Father inclines his head in a gesture so subservient, it makes my jaw drop. “An interesting and wise perspective.”

  Isra glances my way, and I hurry to return her hopeful smile. “Thank you,” she says, turning back to Father. “I’m glad we could come to an agreement, and I’m grateful for your support. I know the other advisors will find the changes easier if you’re there by my side when I announce them.”

  “Certainly,” Father says. “Change, even drastic change, can sometimes be the only way to move forward.”

  Isra’s smile is … dazzling, and for a moment I remember why I wanted to marry her. She’s lovely in her happiness. So lovely it makes me ill to know this moment isn’t what she thinks it is. I know my father hasn’t been won over so easily. I know, even before he puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “Bo, would you join me in my chamber? I have some business I’d like you to attend to while I draft the amendments Isra and I discussed.” He shifts his attention to Isra with another kindly smile. “If that’s acceptable, my lady? If you’d rather Bo escort you back to your rooms first, then—”

  “No, no, don’t worry about me,” Isra says, her smile still lighting her face. “I have my guards, and Needle is waiting for me.” She watches with a satisfied expression as Father and I bow. “Until later.”

  And then she turns and glides away, the confidence in her new walk making her seem like a different person from the girl who scurried across the field to her tower rooms a week ago. I watch her greet her guards, with a hint of guilt worming its way into my heart. I told myself I didn’t care about the queen anymore, but I can’t help but feel bad for her, to fear for her.

  She’s barely out of sight when my fears are confirmed.

  “We’ll have the wedding tomorrow,” Father whispers. “Prepare yourself. It might be an unpleasant ceremony.”

  “But her period of mourning isn’t over.” Mourning rituals are strictly observed in our city. It’s bad luck to go against them, such bad luck that the advisors decided it was better to leave Isra unmarried for several months rather than go against the grieving customs.

  “I know, and it may bring dark days to Yuan to have her married while still wearing green, but there’s no help for it. The girl is out of her mind.” Father waves a weary hand through the air. “The other advisors were listening in on my conversation with Isra. They sent this just before the conclusion of our meeting.” He hands me a note on parchment paper, written in the unmistakable cramped, slanted hand of Tai, the late king’s oldest advisor and the man second in power only to my father.

  The girl has fallen prey to her mother’s weakness. She is no longer fit to rule. Arrange for the marriage to your son to take place tomorrow morning. We’ll compel the union if we must. The law allows it in cases like these. We must secure the safety of our city first. Once a new king sits on the throne, we’ll decide how best to keep Isra safe from herself.

  “They think she’s mad?” I ask, shocked, though I shouldn’t be. I’ve had similar thoughts all day, but when the word “insane” flitted through my head, I didn’t mean it. Not really. Isra is odd and stubborn and strange, no doubt, but she’s not out of her mind. At least not in a dangerous way. “But, Father, I don’t—”

  “You should have heard her, Son,” Father says with a sigh, plucking the parchment from my fingers. “She wants to put an end to the Banished camp and bring those pitiful creatures into the city center to live with our people.”

  I lean in, certain I’ve heard him wrong. “But she saw them. They’re animals. They barely speak our language, they lack the sense to keep their waste in the assigned trench, and ran from us every—”

  “She thinks they’re afraid.” Father sighs again before shuffling over to the bench and easing himself down. He looks older than he ever has before, as if the meeting with Isra has aged him ten years. More. “She saw bruises on their bodies. She thinks the guards beat them, a
nd that’s why they run from whole citizens.”

  “They beat them because they attack each other,” I say, pacing in front of the bench. “They’d tear each other apart if the guards didn’t keep them in line.”

  Father lifts his hands in the air. “I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen to reason. She thinks the Banished could learn to speak our language and behave properly if they received different treatment.”

  “She’s stubborn.” I curse myself for not making the facts clearer to her. I’m willing to go against her wishes once we’re married, but I wanted our marriage to be her decision. I know Isra well enough now to realize that marriage to her won’t be pleasant if she’s forced into it. “Let me talk to her. Maybe I can convince her to change her mind.”

  “It isn’t only the Banished,” Father says. “She wants to improve conditions for the commoners in the city center as well. She wants to build more housing and provide nurses for those with the worst deformities and no family to care for them.”

  Now it’s my turn to sigh. “Where will we get the resources to build? We can’t cut down trees. We need them to refresh the air.”

  Father shakes his head. “She thinks we should tear down the king’s cottage and a number of the other noble cottages and use those materials.”

  “What?” I laugh. The idea is ridiculous. “And where would the nobles without homes live? In the barns with their horses?”

  “She thinks the noble families can learn to be comfortable sharing a home with another family.”

  “She what? She’s out—” I almost say “out of her mind,” but bite my tongue at the last moment. “She doesn’t understand. She’s been kept separate from our people. She doesn’t know how things work or that no one is bothered by it but her. At least give me one day to make her see reason.”

  Father’s head stays down when his eyes lift, emphasizing the brown shadows beneath his eyes. He’s exhausted, and I can’t help but feel responsible. If I hadn’t told Isra to stop drinking her tea, all of this could have been avoided. “She also wants to send food into the desert,” Father says. “To the Monstrous tribes.”

  It’s as if he’s struck me. “She … she doesn’t. She can’t.”

  “She says she’ll send the Monstrous boy with a wagon. She believes he’ll come back if he’s released.”

  Exhaustion settles in my bones, and I wish Father would ask me to sit beside him. There’s no hope, then. Isra might not be mad, but she’s wandered too far outside the realm of what even I will tolerate. The Monstrous deserve nothing from our city. Isra’s ideas are too radical, and she herself is too different to be good for Yuan.

  “I’m sorry,” Father says as he rises from the bench to stand beside me. “I know you had hopes for a different sort of marriage, but I was prepared for this from the beginning. Your mother and I will help you through the ceremony, and everything that comes after.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She can’t be allowed her freedom,” he says, regret clear in his eyes. “She’s a danger to herself and to the people. To the city itself. We’ll have to keep her contained in the tower.”

  I nod, but my stomach roils inside me. I threatened to lock her away myself, but I didn’t really mean it. I don’t want my wife to be a prisoner. If only Isra could see reason. If only she could be less … Isra.

  “It won’t be too terrible for her,” Father says, as if sensing how much I loathe the idea. “She’s spent most of her life there. She’ll have her entertainments and her maid as her companion, and you may visit her anytime you wish.”

  “She won’t want me to visit her. She’ll hate me.”

  “No, she’ll hate me.” Father grips my shoulder. “Let me bear this burden. I’ll make it clear this is my decision, not yours.”

  “No, it’s my fault. All of it. If I hadn’t told her—”

  “If you hadn’t given her sight, we would have had more time,” Father says. “But the end would have been the same. I knew that, Bo. I knew it the day she insisted on working side by side with a monster that could kill her in an instant. She’s put the entire city at risk. She’s selfish and childish, at best. At worst, she’s on the path to becoming as mad as her mother.” He sighs, and his arm drops to his side. “The king should never have married an outsider.”

  “Were all the people of New Persia mad?” I know the story—that King Yuejihua married a woman from across the planet who arrived in the last of her people’s flying carriages, fleeing a city on the verge of collapse in the wake of Monstrous attack—but I never thought to wonder anything more.

  “No, not that I know of. It was a small city, but they kept their technology functioning throughout the centuries,” he says, motioning to the servant waiting in the shadows beneath the arbor, indicating we’re in need of drink. “In the beginning, the king was more interested in the technology than the wife. He wanted to see what our ancestors had given up when they’d adopted our more primitive way of life. He agreed to marry the king of New Persia’s youngest daughter only if the flying machine used to deliver her was also his to keep.”

  “He kept the flying machine?” What would it be like to see something like that? Something from long ago, built on another world? “Where is it?”

  Father’s brows lift, clearly disapproving of my interest in the machines our ancestors chose for us to live without. They believed technology was evil and led to the destruction of our old planet.

  “It’s in pieces,” he says. “Its parts put to other uses. The New Persians failed to send fuel. Without it, the machine was useless. There was no way to lift it off the ground, or to send Queen Kanya back to where she’d come from.” He turns, fetching a goblet of peach juice from the tray the servant has brought. When the tray is shifted before me, I wave it away. I’m thirsty, but it seems wrong to sip something sweet at a time like this. “But by then the king didn’t want to send her away,” Father continues. “Kanya was a beautiful woman. Very tall, bold-featured. Nothing like our women, but beautiful. As Isra is beautiful. And she was kind and gentle, before the madness took her.”

  I think on that for a moment, of Isra’s mother, and madness, and beauty, and other things passed down from parents to their children. “There will be no children for Isra and me,” I say, unable to imagine Isra tolerating me in her bed.

  “It’s for the best,” Father says. “Better to wait and try to be a true husband with your second wife.”

  My second wife. I haven’t even taken my first. It’s … too much. I can’t think about it. Not now. I’ll think about it tomorrow night, when Isra and I are married and I am king. Surely all of this will seem more manageable then.

  “If you don’t need me, I’ll go back to the barracks,” I say, with a deep breath. “I could use some time to myself.”

  “Go. I’ll have dinner sent to your room.” He drains the last of the liquid. “After dinner, we’ll discuss how you’d like to take care of the other matter.”

  “The other matter?”

  “The Monstrous.” He holds out his goblet. The servant and tray magically appear to claim it and whisk it away. “You should kill it tonight. Now that Isra’s been deemed incompetent, there’s no reason to wait. The marriage will go forward with or without her consent.”

  I swallow. I didn’t think Father would expect me to kill the Monstrous myself, but I should have. “You’re right,” I say, refusing to show how unnerved I am by the prospect of slaughtering the beast, the night before my wedding no less. “I’ll choose my best men. We’ll go to the creature’s rooms tonight and … kill it in its sleep. If possible.”

  Father smiles, that same smile from last night, the one that assures me he’s proud of who I’m becoming. “A wise plan. And a merciful one.” His voice is as silky as it was when he praised Isra for her keen perception, and for a moment I wonder …

  I stop the thought before it can find its other half. I don’t wonder anything. I know what must be done and I will do it, and come to
morrow night, all the terrible things will be over.

  TWENTY-TWO

  GEM

  I wait for her all day and long into the night, staring out the window at the royal garden, watching for a shadow slipping from the orchard, but she doesn’t come.

  My prison gets smaller by the hour. The bars more hateful. I prowl the confined space a hundred times. I do every one of my exercises a thousand. By the time the three moons rise high in the sky, I should be too exhausted to stay awake, but I’m not.

  I can’t sleep. I can’t rest until I know what’s happened. If someone’s hurt her … If they’ve locked her away …

  I’ll break through these bars with my bare hands. I’ll kill every soldier who stands in my way. I’m not sure if this is love or madness, but it doesn’t matter. It’s real. True. And as inescapable as this wretched cage.

  I growl and slam my balled fists into the door of my cell. It rattles on its hinges, but doesn’t break or bend. Outside, there isn’t a sound. The guard from my early days is asleep in his own bed. The Smooth Skins are so sure of their doors and locks. But Isra found a way out of her prison. If she can do it, I can do it. I will do it.

  I spin and stalk back to the window, claws slicking out as I move. I haven’t tried my claws on their bars. I wasn’t ready to escape before, but I am now. I have to make sure she’s all right.

  She’s not all right. She’s marked for death, and refuses to fight for her life. If she had someone else read the covenant and it offered no hope …

  I clench my jaw, grinding the thought to dust between my teeth. It doesn’t matter. Isra would come if she could. Even if it was only to say good-bye.

  I won’t let her say good-bye.

  My claws strike the bars hard enough to send pain shooting up the backs of my hands into my forearms. I curse and shake my fingers at my side, moaning as my claws draw painfully back into their chambers. Every nerve in my arm is on fire, and the skin above my nail beds is ripped and bleeding, but the bars don’t have a nick on them.