Of Beast and Beauty

by Stacey Jay

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ISRA

  I have to get out. I can’t let this be the end. I have to know if Gem was the one lighting the fires at the gathering stones. I have to know if he’s alive, and if he is, I have to tell him the way I feel. I refuse to die without at least trying to—

  “Father, please,” Bo says. “Let me talk to her alone.”

  “You’ve talked enough!” Junjie shouts. “The world will end, and you’ll still be talking! Open the door, Isra. Show that you are more than a blight on your family’s good name.”

  I laugh in response, a mad laugh that sends me dashing on tiptoe deeper into the room. I spin in a circle, looking for a way out, though I know there is none. The window is bricked closed, save for a sliver of an opening too small for me to fit more than my fingers through, and there is no other window, no door, no way out.

  But one. Maybe. One.

  “Isra? Please, listen,” Bo says. “The dome is falling. We’ll all die by tomorrow morning without your help.”

  You might die sooner than that.

  I press my fist to my mouth and hum a tune I don’t recognize as I throw open the trunk at the base of Needle’s bed and pull the knife with the jeweled scabbard from beneath a stack of lavender-scented sheets. I found the blade among my mother’s things when Needle and I were searching for places to hide the bricks. I don’t know why Mother had it or if she ever put it to use, but I swear I can feel her spirit within me as I take it in my hand.

  “Your father would be ashamed,” Junjie says. “He didn’t raise you to be a coward.”

  I’m not a coward. But can I really …

  I can’t even think the thought. I’ve never wanted to take a life. Never. Not even Junjie’s, and certainly not Bo’s. He’s wrong and more blind than I ever was, and jealous and trapped in the deep dark of his father’s shadow, but he’s not wicked. He doesn’t deserve to be murdered.

  Neither do you. They’ve given you no other choice.

  “Get the key from behind the stone. It opens every door in this tower,” Junjie orders beyond the door, before adding in a gentler voice, “This is your last chance, Isra. It’s not too late to die with honor.”

  My last chance. He’s right. This is my last, and only, chance.

  My fingers tighten around the knife. I ease the blade from its sheath, toss the heavy gold scabbard onto the bed, and walk on cat feet toward the door, my breath heavy in my lungs, my fist clenching the hilt of the knife until its jewels dig into my flesh.

  With an unexpectedly steady hand, I reach for the lock. I’ll wait until I hear Bo start down the stairs. Then I’ll throw open the door. Surprise will be my only ally. Junjie is shorter than I am, but stronger and trained to fight. I’ll have one chance, one moment to—

  “No,” Bo says. I pause, hand hovering over the lock. “I won’t.”

  “Then I’ll get the key myself,” Junjie says.

  “No, Father.” There are shuffling sounds outside, and then Bo continues in as strong a voice as I’ve ever heard from him. “She’s my wife, and I’ll decide what to do with her.”

  I’m about to tell him he has as much right to decide my fate as the ants I found in my fruit tray this morning, but Junjie beats me to it.

  “You have no rights. You lost the right to decide anything when you—”

  “I won’t see her murdered,” Bo says. “That’s not the way of our city. It never has been. The queens gave their blood as a gift to Yuan. Even Isra’s mother chose to jump from that balcony. I wish Isra would give us that gift, but that’s her choice.”

  My hand drops to my side; my fingers loosen on the hilt of the knife. Bo truly does have a heart. Not enough for me to love him, but enough for me to respect him more than I thought I could.

  “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.”

  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.”

  What? All the angry words ready at my lips fall away. What does he mean he’ll “stay 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 awa
y—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. No. I pull away from the door and step back, staring hard at the wood, half expecting it to catch fire and burn, showing me Bo’s face on the other side. I have to see his face. I have to know if he’s telling the truth.

  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 my life. Junjie would have taken them both if he’d had his way, all so that his family could have more power, more prestige.

  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.

  I’m parting my lips, debating whether or not to tell him the entire truth, when a great screech and a shattering fills the air, as if every plate in the royal kitchen were dropped at once. The tower walls vibrate, and Bo and I cover our ears with twin cries of pain. A moment later, a dull boom rocks the stones beneath our feet.

  The floor tilts, sending me staggering back into my bedroom. My dagger falls from my hand and scuttles across the stones, only coming to a stop when it hits the far wall with a clank. My arms wheel and my feet spread wide to steady me, even as my heart screams that it’s pointless to fight, useless to resist. The tower will fall and I will fall with it. This is the moment I thought I was ready for.

  But I’m not. I’m not! How could I be? How can anyone ever be ready?

  Mercifully, after several endless seconds, the floor steadies and the stomach-flipping tilting stops. My breath rushes out and my heart pounds fast enough to make me dizzy as I turn in a careful circle, taking in the crooked new world left behind in the wake of the quake. My bed curtains list to the left, and my dressing table has fallen on its face, while the pictures on the walls hang at disturbing odds with the room, now that gravity has taken the room one way and pulled the pictures the other.

  “Are you all right?” Bo asks, drowning out another faint but troubling sound.

  “Sh,” I hiss, ears straining. Outside, the air is still once more, but from somewhere deep within the tower comes a crumbling, crunching … loose sound. A faltering sound; a falling sound.

  “Go! Run!” I shout, dashing on bare feet to the door, where Bo stands braced against the frame, wide-eyed and as panicked-looking as I feel. I duck under his arm, snatching at his shirt as I dash for the stairs, dragging him after me, praying the way out is still passable.

  It’s one thing to say I’ll die with the city; it’s quite another to climb into bed and let the tower collapse beneath me. That’s too close to giving up, and giving up is too close to drawing a knife across my throat. I’ll fall with Yuan, but I won’t go down peacefully. I’ll go fighting for my life every second of the way. I am a warrior now. Gem made me this way, and I won’t betray him or myself by giving up without a struggle worthy of the last queen of Yuan.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  GEM

  THE city is a monster, screaming and frothing and losing teeth in its frenzy to feed one last time.

  The soldiers run like frightened children into the desert, dropping spears and dart blowers and swords in their haste to escape. The few still left inside shove each other as they fight to squeeze through the narrow opening that is all that is left of the King’s Gate now that the walls have all but collapsed. Even before I’m close enough to see the sweat and tears on the men’s faces, I can smell their terror, sour and filthy on the wind, tainting the fresh air crashing over the mountains like waves of redemption.

  The men are so afraid of their city that they don’t notice their old monster running toward them until I’m close enough to kill them with a sweep of my claws. Two short, soft boys scream and put on a burst of speed, darting closer to the wall to get away from me, before racing back toward the desert, while the man wedged half in and half out of the opening in the gate cries out and lifts his arms in a desperate—and useless—attempt to protect himself.

  If it’s necessary to kill him, he’ll be as dead with those arms up as down, but I’ll leave that decision to him.

  “Leave now and I won’t hurt you. Stay to fight me, and you die,” I growl as I pull him through the opening by his armpits and fling him onto the ground. I wait half a second—long enough to see that he has scrambled to his feet and followed his friends—before turning back to the opening and hauling at the rocks blocking my way.

  I’m bigger than the men of Yuan. I won’t be able to fit unless I make the opening larger. I dig my fingers into the stone, until they bruise. I wrench at the rocks until my muscles scream with effort. I curse myself for allowing my body to grow thinner and weaker in my weeks wandering the wild. I dig in and dig down and give everything I have and more, but the last colossal stone refuses to move. Not a centimeter, not a fraction of a centimeter.

  I grit my teeth and howl with effort, refusing to fail now. Above me,
the city howls more loudly, twisted metal and crumbling glass wailing a miserable, selfish cry for blood and suffering and death. But beneath it all is the rush of the clean wind and, finally, a wondrous smatter-patter, the sound of raindrops on desperately dry earth, the remarkable rhythm of rain falling harder and harder until the drumbeat of hope pounds all around me.

  The drops kiss my bare shoulders, soak into my skin, bringing me to life like a seed waiting for a miracle.

  The stone gives beneath my fingers, rolling away, falling to the ground with a thud. Heart racing, I shove my shoulders through the opening and tumble into Yuan. I roll back to my feet and run, around the granaries, through the barren fields, past fallen trees and massive shards of glass, cresting the final hill in time to see the tower fall.

  And fall … and fall, loose stones scattering like bones thrown from a medicine man’s cup, foretelling the death of anyone still left inside.

  ISRA

  BY the time we reach the base of the tower, my childhood home is crumbling all around me. With barely a moment to spare, I fling myself through the door to the outside world and out onto the path, with Bo close behind me. As I dash for the barren sunflower patch, my bare feet crunch through the clods of dirt that are all that remain of the cabbage field.

  My breath comes fast and my arms pump at my sides; my lungs are raw, but the salty taste in my throat only makes me feel more alive. I’m alive. Still alive!

  We’re going to make it out. We’re going to make it!

  It’s my last thought before a stone fist punches me between my shoulders, knocking me through the air. I fly—a bird with broken wings and a belly full of pain—only to fall to the earth with a pitiful moan. My breath rushes out, but I can wheeze only a little air back in. It hurts to breathe deeply. There are too many sharp things inside me, fighting for a place to exist in this soft, bleeding body. My vision swims with red, my fingers flinch at my sides, instinctively grasping for things I’ll never touch.