GEM
I eat everything left on the tray. I drink all the water and then the tea.
Tea in the desert is bitter and smoky, the way a drink intended to get you out of your hut on a winter morning should be. Smooth Skin tea tastes like crushed flowers, so sweet it made me gag the first time I put a cup of it to my lips. I detest Smooth Skin tea, but I drink the honeyed liquid anyway.
I’m on edge. Drinking gives me something to do with my hands.
I can’t hope. Not yet. It’s too dangerous.
I don’t know what will happen when she looks at herself, but I know there’s a good chance she’ll hate me. I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell the truth, either, and my halfhearted attempt last night was worse than no attempt at all. I don’t want her to hate me. I want her to keep looking at me with eyes that confess all her secrets.
I thought seeing me would remind her of our differences, but instead she looks at me like …
Like I look at her.
“Gem?” She’s suddenly standing in front of me, her freshly combed hair tumbling around her shoulders, her body encased in a black skirt and a long-sleeved green shirt with silky ruffles at the throat. I smile despite myself. It’s a playful shirt. It suits her better than her silkworm dresses.
Her fingers tangle nervously in the ruffles. “This was my mother’s,” she says. “It was one of the few things of hers to survive the fire. I’ve never tried it on, but I thought … It seemed right to wear it.”
“I like it.”
“I do, too.” She fidgets, frowns. “I can’t believe it fits.”
“Your mother must have been tall like you.”
Isra nods, but her brow remains wrinkled. “I suppose. I don’t remember her as … Father never said anything about my mother being tainted, but I suppose I—”
“Where is the mirror?” I rise. It’s time.
“Needle said she has one by her bed.” Isra takes a breath and tucks her hand into the crook of my arm, despite the fact that she no longer needs anyone to guide her.
She leads me down a narrow passage to a bedroom where a giant bed with a scarlet quilt the same color as the royal roses stands proudly in the center. The bed is too big for a girl alone. It’s a bed built for two, solid and sturdy and meant to withstand the use of generations of men and women.
Of Isra, and her soon-to-be husband.
“Wait.” I stop inside the door, unable to pull my eyes from the bed. I have to reach Isra before she decides I can’t be trusted. “You don’t have to keep your promise. Once I’m back in my cell, it will be your word against Bo’s. No one has to know you let me out. You don’t have to marry him if you don’t want to.”
“Do you think I want to?” she asks, voice shaking.
I look down at her, at her parted lips and her shining eyes, and immediately I hurt. Because she hurts.
I cradle her face in my hands. “Then don’t do it.”
“I don’t have a choice,” she whispers. “I have to be married by spring.”
“Why? You said seventeen was young to marry.”
“It is, but it doesn’t matter.” The tears sitting in her eyes roll down her cheeks. “I’m queen. I’ll be married as soon as my mourning is through.”
I catch a tear with my thumb and rub it gently into her skin. “Why?”
“There are reasons. I’d rather not explain them, but they’re real.
Inescapable.” She drops her gaze to my chest with a sigh. “There isn’t time to get out from beneath Junjie’s thumb. If I’m going to change anything for the better, I’ll need his support, and he won’t give it if I refuse to marry his son.”
“Find someone to take Junjie’s place.”
“There isn’t time,” she repeats, lifting troubled eyes to mine. “He was at my father’s side for twenty years. He makes the people feel safe. I’d never find someone fit to take his place in a few months.”
“Then put off the marriage,” I say, fingers tightening, pressing lightly into her jaw. “Have a … I don’t know what you would call it. In our tribe it’s a trial.”
“A trial?”
“Two people spend time together, sometimes even live together, but nothing is official until the woman claims the man in a ceremony before the tribe.”
“The woman does the claiming?” Her eyebrows lift. “Interesting.”
“The man has to agree, but the decision to end the trial is the woman’s.”
She hums beneath her breath. “If my father had lived, he would have chosen my husband. He might have even chosen Bo. Whoever he would have picked, I wouldn’t have had much say about it. That’s how it is for most noblewomen. We marry within the descendents of the founding families, being careful not to marry too closely. I’ve heard some of the common women marry for love, but …” Her eyes shift to the side, as if she’s suddenly become very interested in the door frame. “Did you ever …
“No,” I say. “Meer and I … it was never a trial. At first I thought we might, but … She chose someone else.”
“Oh.” She plucks at her shirt. “Women in Yuan aren’t supposed to … I mean, I know some do,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I’ve heard there are herbs they take to make it possible to”—she waves a hand nervously in the air—“without any babies. For Yuan women, a baby is only supposed to come after marriage. It’s scandalous otherwise.” She tilts her head back and blows air through her pursed lips. Even in the dim light of the lamp burning by her bedside, I can see how pink her cheeks have gotten.
“Different from our ways,” I say, trying not to smile.
It’s strange to me that she’s embarrassed by something my people consider natural. But then, for my people, there is no shame in it. No man or woman is forced to be with someone not of their choosing. No baby is left unloved because it came from one man and not another.
“Yes,” she says, casting another glance toward the corner of the room, where a narrow bed sits next to a chest of drawers with a blue and white washbasin on top. Above the basin, a mirror hangs on the wall. “We don’t have trials. A couple will be betrothed for a time before they’re married, but I can’t have a long betrothal. I must be married. It’s the rule.”
She turns back to me as I’m opening my mouth. “And don’t tell me to change the rule. This isn’t a rule I can change. It’s not a rule anyone can change. Some things just are the way they are.”
I grunt—because I was going to tell her to change the rule—and she smiles a sad smile.
“But thank you,” she says, with another peek at the corner. “It was good of you to try.”
I catch one of her curls and twine it around my finger. I know why she’s looking at the corner. She’s ready, but suddenly I’m not. “I’m a good prisoner, then?”
“You’ve become a good friend,” she says, lifting a hand to my face.
Her fingers are cool, but that’s not why I shiver. “And you won’t be my prisoner for a second longer than necessary. I’ll let you go, Gem. I promise I will. And I’ll send food with you, and put more outside the gate for as long as I live.”
“Isra …” This wasn’t what … I never thought she’d … “What about Junjie? And your people? You said they would never—”
“I’ll give Junjie what he wants. In return, he’ll give me some things that I want.” She steps closer, engulfing me in the smell of roses. Roses on her skin from her bath, roses on her breath, roses lingering in her hair. The perfume mingles with her Isra scent and becomes something darker, more dangerous than any flower.
I thought I couldn’t want her more than I did last night, but now, with that soft look in her eyes, and brave words on her lips, I want her so badly, it hurts. I more than want her, and that hurts even more.
“Junjie will free you,” she continues. “Or I will refuse to marry Bo.”
I wrap my arm around her waist. “I won’t let you pay for my freedom with yours.”
“I’m not free. I’ve never been free.”
“But you could be.” I move my hand to her back, skimming my fingers up the length of her spine. Her bones are like beads on a necklace, delicate but strong. “With the right clothing, the desert might hold no danger for
