Of Beauty and Beast

Bo didn’t mar that memory. He has been a better unwanted king than I could have imagined—he has never stolen so much as a kiss. He has refused to take what wasn’t freely offered.

Not a kiss, and certainly not my life.

I knew he’d been sent to kill me today. I knew it before he said a word, before he fell to his knees, begging me to save the city and spare at least one woman’s life. He warned me that his father would come tonight with his own knife. Bo can’t protect me any longer. This evening, Junjie will arrive at the tower to slit my throat, and Bo will marry another. The woman has already been chosen, a woman older than Bo with two children she’ll leave motherless, the oldest a five-year-old girl who will become next in line for sacrifice if Bo never marries again. The woman’s wedding dress is sewn and her mind made up. She will say her vows with a blade in her hand, and willingly give her blood to the roses as soon as she is made the queen.

Bo was so genuinely troubled by it all. It made me glad the covenant is hidden in my room and will remain there until the city falls.

When I first learned the truth, I wanted nothing more than to throw it in Bo’s face, to make it clear his blood would serve the roses as well as mine. But in the end, I had to keep the ancient king’s secret. If Bo knew he could feed the roses, he might pick up the knife and do so, and I can’t have that. I need the Dark Heart to starve. I need the city to fall. Soon. Tonight, if I’m lucky.

“You have to go.” I turn back to Needle, who has yet to budge. “You have to tell the people of Port South how to end the curse.”

Her bird hands flit from my shoulder to my cheeks, but her kindness offers no comfort.

There was a fire in the desert again last night, Needle mouths.

My stomach flutters. “It’s probably some of our people,” I say.

“Camping by the dome, waiting to see if the city will be restored.”

It could be him, she mouths. Let me go and see.

Him. Gem. Even thinking his name makes my heart do strange things in my chest.

“It’s too late,” I whisper. “If he loved me, he would have come sooner.”

Needle’s fingers move beneath my hand. Maybe he was prevented from returning.

“How?” I ask.

Maybe he was hurt or grew ill. Maybe his people did the same thing to him that yours have done to you.

“I don’t think the Monstrous have towers or walls made of stone.”

Needle scowls. Don’t make jokes. Junjie will kill you.

“Only if he can get through my walls before the city crumbles.”

Then the city will kill you.

“The city was always going to kill me,” I say. “At least this way I will take Yuan with me.”

But what if Gem—

“Leave,” I snap, unable to bear thinking of Gem right now. “I have to get started. Even the fast-setting mortar will need an hour to gain strength.

I must have the first wall built before sunset. You’re wasting my time.”

Needle’s lip trembles and her eyes shine with unshed tears, and I immediately feel terrible. Poor, tired Needle, my dear friend.

“Please, love,” I say, taking her sweet face in my hands. “You have been my mother and my sister and my slave and my keeper for too long.

Take your bag and go. Go to Port South and live. Find people you can trust and tell them the truth. There can still be a future for this planet. All hope is not lost.”

Except for me.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Gem who’s been lighting those fires by the stones these past two nights. It’s too late. Even if I let myself believe in Needle’s excuses for his long absence, there’s no way I can join him in the desert. If I set foot outside the tower, I’m a dead woman. The soldiers have been ordered to kill me on sight. Bo warned me of as much this afternoon.

Junjie is determined that I will die before sunset and has enlisted every remaining citizen of Yuan to his cause.

Save one.

“You’ve been so good to me,” I say. “I want you to live and be happy.”

I would rather stay, Needle signs, but I’ll do as you ask. She picks up the pack we’ve filled with food and clothes and all of my jewels. No need for them to be buried along with me, not when they could help Needle get settled in her new home. I’m not sure how the people of Port South treat their damaged people, but I know a rich mute woman has a better chance than a penniless one.

I will miss you, my friend, she mouths, refuting my claim that she’s been a slave or a keeper, with the same firm grace with which she’s always handled me.

What would I have done without her?

“Good-bye,” I whisper, eyes filling as I stand and hug her tightly. After a moment, she moves out of my arms and down the stairs without a pause in her step, without looking back.

I tell myself I’m glad. And then I cry the tears I’ve refused to cry all day, but only for a minute. There isn’t time to waste. When my brief cry is over, I wipe my nose on my less-than-fresh overalls and get to work. It doesn’t take long to lay the first row of stones. The quick-drying mortar is already mixed and ready. By the time my tears have dried on my cheeks, I have the beginnings of my wall.

Unfortunately, beginnings are not the same as endings.

I’m not even close to an ending when I hear footsteps on the stairs.

Heavy steps, two pairs of boots, two men’s voices arguing in harsh whispers as they circle around to the top of the tower. When they reach the last stair, Junjie pauses, clearly surprised to see me and my half wall.

“What is this, Isra?” Junjie’s eyes are sad, but not nearly as sad as his son’s.

“I tried to stop him,” Bo says from his place behind his father. “I wanted you to have a few more hours.”

A few more hours. Then he means to do it, to help his father kill me.

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. I can’t have failed, not when I’m so close.

“This doesn’t have to be painful,” Junjie says, holding out his hand.

“You can still change your mind and make your death a meaningful gift to your city.”

“It’s no gift. Not for you or Bo or anyone else.” I back away, my trowel falling to the floor with a dull thud, smattering mortar across my bare feet. “This city is built on evil. It has to end with me,” I say, voice rising until it rings with desperation.

“You will give your blood, or we will take it,” Junjie says, as stern as he’s been with me since I was a little girl. “This city will stand and prosper and flourish for another seven hundred years. You know this is the way things are done in Yuan.”

And the way they will always be done. Nothing I say now will change that. Nothing I do will accomplish anything but putting off the inevitable.

Escape is impossible, but still, I turn and run. I skid into my room and slam the door behind me, throwing the lock seconds before Junjie throws his weight against the door.

I back away from the trembling wood, hands shaking at my sides.

I won’t let him take my death. It’s the only thing I have left, the only thing that matters. My death will be mine. I will have my revenge against this city and the monster beneath the ground so eager for my blood, and I will finally, finally, finally be free of it all. Of life and fear and love and loss.

Free of my responsibilities. Free of my failures. Free of this love that’s been nothing but another curse, another stone around my neck pulling me to the depths of an ocean of pain so deep that I will never hit bottom.

I want to be free. Free.

“Isra! Open the door!” Junjie shouts.

“Free,” I say aloud.