“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’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 tomorrow night, all the terrible things will be over.
22
GEM
I wait for her all day and long into the night, staring out the window at the royal garden, watching for a
