Of Beauty and Beast

“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.”