“Her choice will be the ruin of the city,” Junjie says, pain thickening his voice. “Yuan will fall, Son. Forever. There is no going back.”
“I know.” Bo’s whisper is so soft that I must lean in and press my ear to the door to catch the rest of his words. “But there’s nothing we can do, not if we choose to be the kind of men who deserve to be kings and leaders of kings. We can’t make the same mistake twice. Murder isn’t the way.”
“What does that mean?” My voice is loud enough to hurt my ears, so I know that it penetrates the wood, but there is no answer. Not from Bo, and not from his father, whom, until now, I’ve never known to be at a loss for words. “Who else did you murder?” I slam my hand into the door hard enough to make my palm sting. “Who?”
Bo told me Gem escaped the night Bo sent the soldiers after him, but what if he was lying? What if the soldiers killed Gem? What if that’s the reason he hasn’t come for me the way he promised?
“Tell me who you killed!” I shout, trying not to panic. “Tell—”
“You should go, Father. Take the soldiers with you for protection and head south with the others,” Bo says, ignoring me as he’s always done when what I have to say is inconvenient. “I’ll stay here with Isra.”
“No,” Junjie says. “That’s ridiculous. You’ll come with me.”
“I’m king. I will stay with the city through all trials. It’s what I swore to do when Isra and I were married.”
“No, Son, please.” Junjie’s words end in a barking sound and then another. It takes a moment for me to realize the sounds are sobs, that Junjie—the most intimidating, respected, terrifying man in Yuan—is crying.
“I never wanted this.”
“It’s all right,” Bo says, then whispers something too soft for me to hear, something that makes Junjie’s barking become a pitiful moan.
I would feel for him, but it’s impossible to feel for a man who lied to me, betrayed me, held me captive, and—if not for his son’s intervention—would have killed me without a second thought.
“I’ll tell the story to the people in Port South,” Junjie says, pulling himself together enough to speak. “They’ll know my son died a hero. A true king.”
“Tell Mother I love her,” Bo says, his voice muffled. I imagine him embracing his wretched father, and I have half a mind to throw open the door and stab them both.
But I don’t. I wait until Junjie’s footsteps fade away down the hall, before I say, “I want you to leave, too.”
“I can’t.” Bo sounds wearier, more fearful now that his father is gone.
“I made a promise.”
“You can keep your promise as well outside as you can here by my door,” I snap. “I don’t want to die this close to someone I despise.”
Bo sighs. “I could have loved you, Isra. If you’d let me.”
“Who did you kill?” I ask, refusing to confess that I appreciate his decency, or that—vow or no vow—I see no reason for him to die with me, until I know what he’s done.
“I didn’t kill anyone. It was … someone else.”
“Your father.”
“Yes.” Bo sighs again.
“Who did … Is it …” I bite my lip until my flesh feels bruised, but that isn’t the reason tears gather in my eyes. “Is Gem dead?”
“Gem?” After a moment of silence, Bo laughs. “Even now, your monster is all you can think about.”
My monster. I wish Gem were mine; I wish it with everything in me.
“Your monster might be dead, but my father didn’t kill him,” Bo says, sending a shiver of relief through my body. My breath rushes out and my forehead falls against the door with a thud. “He did something worse. At least I believe it’s worse. Who knows what you’ll think, since you obviously don’t care for your own people anymore, but I—”
“I care for them more than you ever will. I’ve told you the truth,” I snap, sick to death of this same argument. I told Bo about the queen’s diary. I even tore out a few pages for him to look at—those I knew wouldn’t give the secret of the covenant away—but he refuses to believe in the Dark Heart. “The power sustaining the domed cities is evil. The people are better off.”
“You’re mad. At least half our people will die of exposure or Monstrous attack before they reach Port South. You’ve sentenced hundreds of innocents to death.”
“Better death than life paid for by the suffering of others.”
“The suffering of the Monstrous, you mean,” he says, bitterness straining the words. “I almost hate to tell you what Father did. If you love them this much while you believe a monster killed the king, how much more will you love them when you know the truth?”
Despite the still, humid air in my walled-up room, I’m suddenly cold.
He can’t mean … He can’t …
“It was my father who killed yours,” Bo whispers. “He made it look like the Monstrous, but … it was him.”
No.
I reach out and twist the lock, fling open the door. He steps back quickly, shooting the dagger in my hand a wary glance, but when he lifts his eyes, there is more shame than surprise in his expression.
“It was the only way for me to be king.” Even Bo’s soft voice seems too loud with the door no longer between us. Or maybe it’s the terrible truth in his words that makes my ears ache. “Your father wanted you to be spared. He was planning to marry again, the same widow I was going to marry tomorrow morning. She already has children. The line of succession would have been insured for another generation. So my father decided to dispose of the king before he took another wife. If the Monstrous hadn’t invaded the city, he would have found another way. I didn’t know about any of it until afterward, but … it’s the truth.”
I shake my head. Father was going to remarry. He wanted me to be spared the burden of being queen of Yuan. He loved me after all.
And Junjie killed him. He killed his king, his friend, a man who trusted him with every secret in his heart, with his life. With
I suppose I should be shocked, and in a way, I am, but deep down inside …
Isn’t this what Yuan is about? Killing for what we want, what we’ve convinced ourselves we deserve? The nobles living in obscene luxury at the expense of the common people, the common people clinging to their small comforts at the expense of the Banished, and all of us stealing life away from the land and the people outside the dome so that we can have feast days and harvest festivals and surplus and more and more and more when even half of what we have would be more than enough?
Junjie was only doing what the people of Yuan have always done. He was paying for what he wanted with someone else’s blood.
But not anymore. Not ever again.
“Thank you,” I say, feeling closer to Bo than I ever have. “For keeping your promise to the city.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? My father—”
“I understand.” I glance down at the dagger in my hand, grateful I didn’t get the chance to use it. I don’t want to know what it feels like to pay a blood price. “It’s all the more reason for this to end with us. I know you don’t believe what I’ve told you, but—”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” Bo says. “It was so clear before, but now …” He braces his hands on either side of the door frame, his head sagging wearily between them.
I glance at his bowed head, at the pale hairs weaving their way in among the black. His short time as king has taken its toll. Bo’s not a boy anymore. He’s a man, maybe even man enough to be trusted with the truth.
