Of Beast and Beauty

by Stacey Jay

  I blink, pulling the world into focus, to see Bo standing a few feet away, staring back at me, hunks of rocks falling to the ground all around him. I try to tell him to run, but I can’t speak. Even if I could have made words, it would have been too late.

  It’s a stone no bigger than a child’s ball that hits him, but it makes contact in the worst of places, colliding with his skull, shattering him in the blink of an eye. I see more red, and then Bo is facedown on the earth. Not moving. Not breathing.

  My chest burns, and I know I would cry for him if my body weren’t full of knives made of broken bones. He’s gone. As gone as I will be soon.

  Soon I will not be Isra anymore.

  I could find peace with it, I think, some kind of peace, enough to close my eyes and move away from the pain, at least, but a moment after the last stone hits the ground, he’s there. He comes running through the wreckage, his expression as fearful and hopeful as I imagine mine was a few minutes ago.

  Gem. Gem. Every part of my being screams his name.

  I know it’s him and not some vision created by my dying mind. He’s the same as he always was, but also very different. Altered from the boy I knew. He’s leaner, with sharper cheekbones and shadows smudging the skin beneath his eyes. Eyes that are hollow and haunted, but charged with energy that reaches through the air between us, electrifying my body the second his gaze meets mine. He loves me. I see it. I know it the way I know the darkness from the light.

  My heart pumps desperately against my broken ribs, heedless of the pain it causes as it celebrates seeing our beloved, too innocent to understand how terrible this meeting is. But I understand. I’m dying. And all Gem can do is watch.

  Gem’s gaze travels down my body and back up again, and his steps falter. His lips part, and the hope drains from his face, replaced by understanding and agony and regret so sharp that I see it twist inside him, making his desert-tanned skin pale beneath his scales. He’s staggering by the time he falls to his knees beside me.

  “Not again,” he says, his voice the rawest thing I’ve ever heard. “I can’t lose you. Please, Isra. Please. Stay with me.”

  I suck in a breath, but all that comes out is a whimper too soft and pitiful to be called a sound at all. I can’t speak. I can’t even tell him I love him.

  “Isra?” Gem brushes my hair from my face. “Can you hear me?”

  I blink and blink again, before slowly, deliberately lifting my eyes to his and forcing my mouth to curve at the edges, hoping he can see that his being here makes everything hurt a little less.

  Gem presses his lips together, but doesn’t speak. Or move. Or seem to notice when a piece of the dome plummets from the sky, crashing into what’s left of the tower. I twitch my fingers, trying to point away from me, to let him know he has to leave me and get out, but he isn’t looking at my hands. He’s watching my face with eyes that shimmer in the murky gray light.

  “You can’t die,” he says, the shimmer becoming a shine. “You have to see it. Needle is waiting for you. The desert is alive. Grass is growing; the trees are budding. It’s raining. There … there’s so much. You have to see it with me.”

  I smile so big, it hurts, but I don’t try to stop it from taking me over. Then we did it. Gem and I. We loved enough. The planet will be made whole. There will be no more domed cities, and our people will have a second chance. I hope they will choose peace, forgiveness.

  “Needle can speak. She’s the one who told me to come find you,” Gem says, breaking through the fog settling over my mind. “When she stepped into the desert, she was made whole.”

  As soon as the words leave his lips, I see the dream form behind his eyes. A part of me wants to dream with him, but I know better. I won’t live to see the desert again. I know it even before he scoops me into his arms and one of the sharps inside me shifts and lifts and punctures, and suddenly I can’t breathe at all. Not a whisper, not a sip.

  The pressure builds in my chest, and my eyes slide closed, but for a few moments I can still feel my body bouncing in Gem’s arms as he races for the gate, hear him begging me to stay, telling me it’s not too late.

  And then there is nothing but the slowing of my heart and the quiet in my head and blessed numbness and separateness and softness, pierced only by one regret. I wish I could know that Gem is safe before I go. I wish I could tell him to lay my body down and go and be a champion for the world the way he was a champion for me. I wish …

  I wish …

  I …

  stop …

  wishing.

  TWENTY-NINE

  GEM

  HER body goes limp, but I don’t stop. I run for the gate while the city does its best to kill me before I can escape. Chunks of glass as big as houses ram into the dirt, sending soil exploding into the air and raining down on my shoulders. I clutch Isra closer and run with her head held to my chest, hoping to protect her from the worst of the debris.

  Trees uproot in my path, reaching gnarled roots out to catch at my legs, but I leap over them. I’m starting to believe we’ll make it to the desert, but when I reach the King’s Gate, the hole I crawled through isn’t there. There’s nothing but rubble and an impenetrable shield of broken glass blocking the way.

  With a curse and a prayer to the ancestors, I turn and race back toward the Hill Gate. It was larger to begin with. There has to be some of it left, some way out.

  I run through fields planted with glass and twisted metal, through trees ripped from their orchards and left to shrivel in the rain now falling through the holes in the dome. I run past the rose garden, where the flowers screech and writhe in their bed, tossing their great heads back and forth, reaching with vines like clawed tentacles to try to snatch Isra from me as we pass.

  But I’m too far away and they are too late. This city will never rise again. The world outside is reclaiming its power. It will be healed. It will heal Isra. It will. It will.

  I run on—lungs burning, legs aching, but I force myself to move faster. There’s no time. Isra is moving further away with every moment. I can sense her soul separating from her body, considering flight the way I did that night in the dungeon.

  “Stay, Isra,” I pant. “Stay with me.”

  By the time I reach the Hill Gate and squeeze through the last space big enough for a man carrying another person, she’s more than limp. She’s as still as the stones on the ground.

  I want to stop right away and lay her down, let the rain kiss her face and bring her back to me, but we’re too close to the city. Most of the wreckage is falling inside the walls, but there is still danger near the gate. I have to keep going.

  I run until we are at a safe distance, and then a little safer still, and then farther than we really need to be, and still I don’t put her down. I don’t want to put her down. Somewhere deep inside I know. I know like I knew Herem was dead before he rolled from Meer’s arms, like I knew Meer was gone before she touched the ground.

  Isra’s gone. Too far gone for even magic to bring her back.

  “No, please,” I beg as I finally fall to my knees and settle Isra on a patch of newly grown grass. “Please, please, please.”

  I brush the wild curls from her face, smooth a bit of dirt from her cheek. I let my hand linger at her waist, hoping and praying to feel her body stir as she draws breath, but there is no breath. There is nothing, even when I cup her face in my hands and press the softest kiss to her lips, even when I tell her I need her, even when I beg and beg the Desert Mother to bring her back to me. Even when I throw back my head and howl up into the pounding rain, there is nothing. Isra only lies there, until her lips pale and her cold skin is dotted with raindrops.

  I sit on the ground beside her, holding her hand as the last of the storm clouds roll away and the setting sun makes one last glorious crimson appearance, casting the newborn desert in rose and gold, making our world look like paradise.

  Inside me there is nothing but misery so fierce it burns. Burns my heart, my throat, my eyes
.…

  My eyes. Something hot and wet and impossible pushes at my eyes, through my eyes, to burn two desperate paths down my cheeks. Tears. From the eyes of a Desert Man. It’s impossible. Never in the world, never in my life …

  But here they are, as wet and salty as Smooth Skin tears, pouring from my eyes as I grieve her. I feel them drip from my chin, watch them land on Isra’s pale hand, still cradled in my lap, and I understand. This is what the desert gave me. It gave Needle a voice. It gave me tears, a place for all the pain to go, a way for it to leave my body and be swept away, but it will take forever. Years of weeping, rivers of tears. I can’t imagine ever standing up again. I can’t tolerate the thought of building a pyre and placing Isra on top and setting it aflame.

  I can’t. I won’t. I will sit here and cry for her until my body runs dry and I turn to dust. I will cry, and each tear will be another miracle she didn’t live to see.

  “Isra, please,” I whisper. “Don’t leave me here alone. I love you.”

  It’s only when the words are out that I realize I never told her. I felt the words, but I never said them aloud. There was never the right time or place, and now there never will be. Never. Isra is gone, and she never knew. Not for sure.

  I cry harder. And harder, until my vision swims and I can barely see.

  But I can feel. I can feel the ground shake as the last of Yuan crumbles to the ground behind me. I can feel my soul thrashing inside my body, beating at the walls of my flesh with tight fists, determined to escape the torture of living through losing her. I can feel my teeth grind together as my jaw clenches, trying and failing to hold back the moaning-keening-growling-suffering sounds vibrating in my throat. I feel it when more tears fall onto my hands, sliding onto her hand, sealing us together.

  I feel it when her skin warms and her fingers brush—ever so slightly—against mine.

  I suck in a breath, and look down to find her … glowing. Not some trick of the setting sun reflecting off her skin, but light beaming from within her, painting her bare arms a soft orange, lighting the hollows of her eyes, illuminating her lips until they are redder than the roses dying in the city behind us.

  “Isra?” I whisper, with equal parts fear and hope. “Isra?”

  With a soft moan, her chest lifts, her throat lengthens, and the fingers still twined through mine squeeze tightly. I clutch her hand with both of mine, wishing so hard that I’m afraid to breathe as her head tilts back and her lips part. She sighs, and gold and orange sparks fly from her mouth.

  Instinct tells me to move back, but I stay, refusing to be frightened away as more and more sparks fly with each breath until Isra is breathing fire, but showing no signs of burning. Instead of feeding on her flesh, the fire is nourishing her, transforming her.

  Ribbons of flame whip out to tease at her chest, her arms, all the way down to her knees and bare toes. Her legs grow longer, her hips and shoulders wider. The bones of the hand still clutched in mine shift and reshape, while above her eyebrows and down her cheeks orange and gold scales unfold like cloth laid across her skin.

  The light shining from within her glows brighter, the flames between her lips rise higher, and higher, until I can’t resist the urge to reach out and touch them. I brace myself for pain, but my hand passes into the center of the fire without a single burn. The flames are hot, but they don’t hurt. They … heal.

  Warmth and sweetness stitch up things inside me, soothing and reassuring, kneading and molding, taking and giving. My teeth grow smaller and slicker against my tongue, my tongue creeps farther back into my throat, and, for a moment, it feels as if my jaw will melt off my face before it firms up again in a different, more delicate shape than it had before. My shoulders and arms grow looser and lighter. My fingers splay wide, the muscles of my hands rippling uncomfortably before relaxing into their new shape, a rounder shape, without any dangers hidden beneath the skin.

  I stare at my new hands, surprised, but not missing my claws. They are a part of the past. This is the future. My future. Isra’s future.

  She’s going to live. I know it even before the fire fades away, leaving us alone in the cool, bluing light of early evening. Even before Isra opens her eyes and looks up at me and smiles a smile more beautiful than the one she had before. She’s even more breathtaking now. Not Smooth Skin, not Monstrous, but something in between, a strong, stunning, living, breathing beauty with scales all the colors of fire, and eyes as green as they ever were.

  “I love you,” I say, needing it to be the first thing she hears.

  “I love you, too.” Her smile grows impossibly wider as she reaches for me.

  “I don’t know what I would have done without you.” Tears rise in my eyes again as I pull her into my arms and hold her tightly. But they’re different tears. Grateful tears I don’t try to hide as I hug her even closer, burying my face in the soft curve of her neck, smelling her Isra smell, reveling in the way her wild hair tickles my cheek.

  “Are you …” She pulls away, her new hands cupping my face. Their shape is different, but the way her touch makes me feel is exactly the same—alive and hopeful and happier than I could ever be without her.

  “You’re … different. And tears …” Her lips part as she brushes a tear from my cheek with her thumb. “How?”

  “The magic of the planet. The desert is alive again, and I’ve changed. We’ve changed,” I add in a careful voice, uncertain how Isra will take her transformation.

  She only recently became accustomed to seeing her old self. How will she adjust to this body? Will she be able to see the beauty that I see? Or will she be troubled by her scales and new size and feet no longer white and thin but wide and light brown with orange and yellow scales freckling their tops?

  “I can feel it.” Isra lifts a hand to her face. Her fingers feather over her forehead and down her cheeks to her throat, farther down, past the strap of her overalls to feel her bare shoulder, gingerly exploring the scales that will shield her skin from the harsh light of the sun, hold in heat during the cold nights, and protect her from other natural dangers of this world. “I’m like you.”

  “No. You’re like you, with a little of me.” I watch her discover her new legs and feet, grateful she doesn’t seem disturbed by what she sees. “And I’m me, with a little of you,” I say, holding out my hand, letting her see that the chambers that once sheathed my claws have vanished. “We’re something … new.”

  She points her feet and flexes them, giving her toes an experimental wiggle. “My shoes would never fit now.”

  “You hate shoes anyway,” I say, heart breaking when she looks up at me and laughs her throaty laugh. It’s terrifying to think how close I was to living without that laugh, that smile, all of my sweet, brave, maddening, perfect Isra. I swallow, fighting another wave of emotion as she wraps her arms around my neck.

  “I do hate shoes,” she whispers, leaning into me until her forehead touches mine and her heat warms my lips. “Why are you so sad, love?”

  “You almost died,” I say, voice breaking. “Maybe you did die. I don’t know. I was so scared. I was …”

  “It’s okay.” She presses soft kisses to my cheekbones, the tip of my nose, the skin between my eyes. “That’s part of what makes it real.”

  “Makes what real?” I ask, breath coming faster as she kisses the corner of my mouth, making it twitch.

  “Love, of course. You’re not stupid, Gem. Don’t pretend to be,” she says, mimicking her queen voice from our time working in the garden so perfectly that I can’t help but smile.

  “Yes, I am stupid,” I say, holding her more tightly. “I should have come sooner.”

  “You came when you could, and everything is as it should be. The planet is whole again.” She moves closer, angling her head to fit her lips to mine. “That’s all that matters.”

  “No, it’s not.” My hands mold to her ribs, holding her away from me. I need to tell her the truth. I need her to know everything before I can be sure the wors
t is behind us. “I could have come months ago, but I … Terrible things happened, and …” I moisten my dry lips, and force myself to speak the miserable truth. “My son is dead. And my father. And many of my people. I was too late. At first I hated myself for it, then I hated you, and then I hated the planet and the ancestors and … everything and everyone.

  “I started walking into the desert,” I continue, getting the words out as quickly as I can. “I walked until I stopped feeling anything, and then finally … something. I still loved you. Love was there, hidden beneath the suffering. I started back to Yuan, and finally started to hope again, because I was doing what I should have done before. I was coming back to you.”

  She smiles a smaller, sadder smile that fades quickly. “I’m sorry about your family,” she says, eyes shining. “So sorry. You were right to hate me.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Yes, you were,” she says, bowing her head. “I could have done so many things differently, better. And if I had, maybe—”

  “So could I. So could most of the people on this planet and all of our ancestors. You did the best you could.”

  “Isn’t that what I just said to you?” She lifts her chin, sticking her nose into the air in that way that drives me mad and makes me love her even more because it is so her. So Isra. “You should listen to yourself, if you won’t listen to me.”

  “I will listen. I will always listen.”

  “Me too.” Her forehead wrinkles. “I have so many things to tell you, things I should have told you the night you left, and things that have happened since then that—”

  “Do I need to know those things right now?”

  She arches a brow as my hands travel up her back, pulling her chest tight to mine. “No.… They can wait,” she says, relaxing into me, fingers teasing at my braid as she looks up. “Assuming you’re going to kiss me.”

  “I’m going to kiss you,” I whisper, and then I do. I kiss her and taste a world where miracles can and do happen. I kiss her, and for a moment there is only Isra, my Isra, and she is the loveliest person in the world, no matter what skin she wears.