Of Beauty and Beast

I should do it. I will do it.

My heart races. Faster, faster, until I hear it rushing in my ears.

Faster, until sweat beads on my lip and my scales move farther apart to accommodate the heat building inside me. Faster, until my teeth ache and my brain pulses and colors swim through the night air.

Red for the blood that’s been spilled.

Blue for the sky I’ll never see again.

Green for her eyes.

Her eyes …

They are the last thing I see before black sweeps in, stealing all the colors, all my hope, away.

3 ISRA

THERE’S a muffled kapluph, and the Monstrous man’s arm goes limp.

It lolls against my leg, heavy and so hot that it burns through my overalls.

He’s as hot as fire, as hot as I’ve imagined the desert sand would be against bare feet.

No human could live through such heat. Not for long. I don’t know about a Monstrous, but he certainly wasn’t this warm before.

“Take him to the cells,” I say, my breath coming fast. “Bring the healers to see him. Find the king and tell him I’ll meet him there.”

Baba. By the moons, he’ll be terrified. And livid. He’s already locked me away. What will he do now? When he learns I’ve been out of the tower and met such trouble? Put bars on the windows? Brick up the stairs? The thought of being any more trapped than I am is almost enough to make me hope the poison in my blood kills me.

I shiver. I asked the Monstrous to kill me. Why? What was I thinking?

I don’t want to die. I want to live, I want—

“But, Princess—”

“Do as she says,” comes a worried voice from my left. “We need the monster awake. He might be the only one who knows the cure. I’ll escort Princess Isra. Hurry!” The air fills with the scuff, scuff of soldiers’ boots, then grunts and groans as the heavy Monstrous is hauled from the ground and with more scuff, scuffs is carried away.

“Let me help you, Princess,” the remaining soldier says. His voice is familiar, though I don’t know why. I’ve never spoken to a soldier. I’ve never spoken to any men at all except for my father, Junjie, and now the Monstrous.

The Monstrous was definitely a man, a man the size of a small mountain, the only being I’ve ever seen longer than I am. My people are almost invariably small of stature and petite of bone, with nut-brown skin and straight black hair. The Monstrous had similar hair, but he stood a head taller than me, with shoulders the size of boulders, covered in orange and golden scales, like a fish, but dry and smooth.

No, not like a fish, like … a snake.

The thought makes me shudder as I take the soldier’s hand and let him help me to my feet.

“Are you able to walk, my lady?” His voice pricks at me like one of the needles in my maid’s apron pocket.

It’s how Needle got her name. The day she came to give me a bath, I had just turned five and was still feral with grief. She started unbuttoning my dress, and I shoved her away, pricking my fingers on the sharps in her apron in the process.

Strangely, the pain calmed me. Needle’s gentle touch, her hands like birds alighting on my head, my shoulder, my cheek, communicating concern with every cool brush across my skin, calmed me more. She was only fifteen, but her touch reminded me of my mama’s. I let her stay, when I’d sent every other companion away.

I’m surprised to find I want her now. I would very much like to have Needle’s slim fingers under mine, making the signs for “Calm down” and

“We’ll sort this out.” I didn’t think I was afraid of anything, but now I am.

I’m afraid.

My fingers tremble as I touch the torn flesh at my shoulder. I don’t feel the poison yet, but I could. At any moment. I try to swallow, but my throat is too tight. I don’t want to die. Not like this. It’s not fair! I’ve lived with Death hovering on my shoulder my entire life, but I never—

“Should I carry you, Princess?” The soldier’s hand warms the small of my back. My spine ripples as I twist away. His touch is foreign, unexpected, too strange after the night I’ve had.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t …” The soldier clears his throat. “I was wounded as well.”

“You were?”

“The Monstrous tore the skin at my leg.” He sounds younger than he did before. Scared.

I reach out, brushing his shoulder with my hand, surprised to find that my arm is parallel to the ground. The soldier is nearly my size, shorter only by a bit. “Thank you. For helping me.”

“Please, don’t thank me.” His hand finds the small of my back again, settling over the knobby bones of my spine. The warmth of him—cooler than the Monstrous but warmer than me, in my sweat-damp clothes—heats my hips. My stomach. My chest. “It was a privilege to defend the life of our queen.”

“I’m not—” Before I realize what’s happening, soft, hot skin presses against my half-open mouth. I flinch, but the soldier’s hand at my back holds me still as his lips move against mine, as his tongue flicks out, bidding a cautious hello.

A kiss. This is a kiss. It is … slipperier than I’d imagined. His tongue is …

A tongue? Who would have thought?

A part of me wants to laugh at this soldier and the jabs of the slick muscle invading my mouth, but another part of me is … fluttering.

Something stirs inside me. Something urges me to tilt my head and move my lips, to dart my own tongue out—quick as a wink—for a taste.

Salty. Sweet. Hint of cabbage. Something familiar in the midst of all the unfamiliar feelings that are making my skin warm and my insides as hot as the Monstrous man’s flesh.

I pull back, heart beating too fast. “We should go to the cells. The monster might have revealed the cure.”

“We should, but if we die tonight, I—”

“No one’s going to die,” I say with more confidence than I feel.

“Come with me.” I start down the path, but stop after only a few steps. I’ve never been to the cells. I’ve never dared go that deep into the city proper.

I hold out a hand. “Guide me. Hurry.”

“Yes, my lady.” A second later, his arm is under mine. It’s strong and densely muscled, but the bare skin at his wrist is as soft as all the skin I’ve felt in my life. Much, much softer than mine. This soldier is a whole citizen of Yuan.

So why did he kiss me? A tainted girl, too tall and too wide, with skin peeling from the chest down in a frustrated attempt to reveal the scales that lurk beneath the surface? I’m obviously not sufficiently tainted to be sent to the Banished camp, but even the slightest sign of mutation is reviled. From what I’ve overheard, a whole citizen would rather die than marry someone with Monstrous features, no matter how mildly they might manifest.

He’s hardly thinking marriage. He’s thinking he’s going to die and yours might be the final lips he encounters.

The thought banishes the last of the tingling sensation from my body, expelling it like a fish bone. I lift my