Of Beauty and Beast

My chest feels like it’s caving in, my throat threatens to collapse, and the only thing keeping the heat behind my eyes from spilling over is knowing how little I deserve to cry.

If my father could see me now, he would be sickened to the depths of his being. I am even more wrong than I suspected. Wrong.

The most accomplished lover in Yuan kissed me, long and deep, and continues to do his best to seduce me, and I feel nothing but vague curiosity and more pronounced anxiety. Now a beast from the desert stands too close, and I am dizzy with wanting him. I crave his calloused hands on me. I want to be pinned beneath him the way I was that first night. But this time he wouldn’t be angry, and I wouldn’t be scared. I would be eager. Because I am twisted. Tainted. Wrong.

My stomach rebels. I taste stomach juices and the beet soup I forced down my throat at dinner, and barely swallow it down.

I twist free of Gem’s arms, and stumble to the edge of the green before stopping to bury my face in my hands. I concentrate on the smell of the jasmine perfume at my wrists, the contrast of my breath warming my nose, and my cold fingers pressed against my forehead, struggling to pull myself together.

“Isra?”

When Gem’s hand finds my elbow, I pull away. “I’m fine.” I cross my arms and hug tightly, holding the miserable scraps of myself together. I can’t fall apart. Not now. “I don’t need help. I can count my steps to the fields.”

Hopefully, by the time we reach the end of them, I will have gained control of my stomach. As for the rest of me …

If that other hunger returns, I’ll think of Baba and how ashamed he would be. I’ll think of my people and the way their lips would curl if they knew the depraved nature of their queen. I’ll think of Gem.

He would be as sickened as my people. He loathes Smooth Skins. He would never think of a Smooth Skin woman in that way. He put his arms around me because it was practical. That’s the end of it. If he knew the unnatural acts that danced through my mind a moment ago, he would abandon me on the spot, though I need his help more than ever.

By the time we find the King’s Gate, hidden behind the ivy-covered wall behind the granaries, I’m no longer afraid of going into the desert. I stand calmly by as Gem moves the wooden plank barring the door, my pulse steady. There’s nothing out there as scary as the shifting world inside me. I will be safe from Monstrous attack with one of their own by my side, and three days isn’t enough to damage my skin.

Not that it would matter. Your skin isn’t much to look at anyway. For you, this is no great risk. But for Yuan …

I pause with my hand on the ancient wooden handle.

“Hurry,” Gem urges in a tight whisper. “There are two soldiers on the wall walk. They’ll be over our heads soon.”

“I leave my people without a king or a queen,” I whisper, a lump rising in my throat. What if the roses were right? What if I’m better off returning to the tower? “If something happens to me …”

“Nothing will happen.” Gem’s heat warms my back as he moves closer. “The desert is a mother to me. I’ll keep you safe and bring you home. I give my word.”

“Your word.”

“Yes,” he says, his hand closing over mine. “Mine. And I will not break it. You can trust me, Isra.”

It’s me I don’t trust, I think, but there’s no time for consideration. I pull my shawl over my head and turn the handle, and Gem and I slip through the heavy door and ease it closed behind us.

And then I am outside the dome. Outside.

For a moment I can’t move. I’m stunned by the strange, dusty, empty smell of the desert, by the cold so much colder than anything else I’ve felt before, by the howling in the distance. It’s not animal, not human, not even Monstrous. This howl is otherworldly, a relentless keening more chilling than the cold.

I take a step closer to Gem in spite of myself. “What is that?” My voice sounds smaller out here in the great wide world.

“What is …”

“The sound. The … moaning.”

“Oh,” he says, a hint of laughter in the word. “The wind through the dead trees at the base of the first hill. Nothing to be afraid of.”

The wind. The wind has a voice.

I shove my shawl off my head, and a wind not of my own making lifts my hair from my shoulders, sending it whipping around my face. Strands catch on the chapped place on my lip and lash into my eyes, but I feel no pain. My lungs ache and my throat burns and my eyes sting until I can’t stop tears from coming, but I’m not sad.

“You’re crying,” Gem says in that vaguely horrified voice of his.

It makes me laugh and then cry even harder. My shoulders shake until my shawl falls off. My nose runs, but I don’t wipe it. I don’t care about my leaky nose or leaky eyes. I don’t care about my ugliness or wrongness or the dark fate awaiting me under the dome.

I am not under the dome. For the first time ever, I am free.

10 GEM

BY the time the sun winks its flaming eye and disappears behind the blue hills, I could have killed her ten different ways.

Claws to her throat and her body left outside the dome for the Smooth Skins to collect if they dared open their gate. A shove into a zion nest, where venomous insect stings would stop her heart. A handful of poison milk from the wrong breed of cactus; a step too close to the cliff’s edge as we reach the foothills and begin to climb. The moments present themselves, and her death plays out again and again in my mind.

She is at my mercy now. All it would take is a broken promise.

I could kill her and put an end to the Yuejihua family’s rule. If I were stronger, I could bring her to my chief and hold Isra until her people agreed to give us food and roses and anything else the Desert People desire. I could arrange for Isra to have her turn as captive, let her learn what it’s like to be caged, let her tongue grow bitter with shame as she flatters those who hold the key to her chains.

I like the thought of Isra at my mercy—head bowed, no longer giving orders and taking my obedience for granted. I like it very much.

She didn’t take you for granted last night. She made a deal. You gave your word.

A twinge near my heart reminds me the organ is still too soft. When I rejoin my tribe, I’ll cut my warrior’s braid and give it to my father to burn. I don’t deserve to stand beside Gare and the rest of the men. I am weak.

Kind, when I should be cruel. Gentle, when I should crush my enemy to dust.

“Gem? Can we stop?” Isra pants, tugging at my sleeve. “Just for a moment?”

I turn to see her hunched over, fist pressed to her side, face pinched, and my heart twinges a second time. I’ve done it again—forgotten that her legs are shorter and that a lifetime of privilege hasn’t prepared her for a night and day of hiking in ill-fitting boots across hard ground with only cactus milk to drink and a handful of dried meat to eat.

She brought enough meat in her pockets for one meal, not three days in the desert.

I’m not surprised. She has no concept of what it means to be hungry.

But after this journey, she will. She’ll survive—we’re rationing the meat, and cactus milk has strengthening properties—but she won’t enjoy it.

Maybe that small suffering will be enough to convince her to honor her part of our bargain.