braid hangs down his back like a weary pet in need of a brushing.
I step closer, and touch the top of his head ever so softly. He glances
up, surprised, unguarded. “Please stay,” I whisper. “I want
to my lips. I detest Smooth Skin tea, but I drink the honeyed liquid anyway.
I’m on edge. Drinking gives me something to do with my hands.
return to my seat on the tiny couch.
I can’t hope. Not yet. It’s too dangerous.
I don’t know what will happen when she looks at herself, but I know
there’s a good chance she’ll hate me. I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell the truth,
either, and my halfhearted attempt last night was worse than no attempt at
all. I don’t want her to hate me. I want her to keep looking at me with eyes
that confess all her secrets.
I thought seeing me would remind her of our differences, but instead
she looks at me like …
Like I look at her.
“Gem?” She’s suddenly standing in front of me, her freshly combed
hair tumbling around her shoulders, her body encased in a black skirt and a
long-sleeved green shirt with silky ruffles at the throat. I smile despite
myself. It’s a playful shirt. It suits her better than her silkworm dresses.
Her fingers tangle nervously in the ruffles. “This was my mother’s,”
she says. “It was one of the few things of hers to survive the fire. I’ve never
tried it on, but I thought … It seemed right to wear it.”
“I like it.”
“I do, too.” She fidgets, frowns. “I can’t believe it fits.”
“Your mother must have been tall like you.”
Isra nods, but her brow remains wrinkled. “I suppose. I don’t
remember her as … Father never said anything about my mother being
tainted, but I suppose I—”
“Where is the mirror?” I rise. It’s time.
“Needle said she has one by her bed.” Isra takes a breath and tucks
her hand into the crook of my arm, despite the fact that she no longer
needs anyone to guide her.
She leads me down a narrow passage to a bedroom where a giant
bed with a scarlet quilt the same color as the royal roses stands proudly in
the center. The bed is too big for a girl alone. It’s a bed built for two, solid
and sturdy and meant to withstand the use of generations of men and
women.
Of Isra, and her soon-to-be husband.
“Wait.” I stop inside the door, unable to pull my eyes from the bed. I
have to reach Isra before she decides I can’t be trusted. “You don’t have to
keep your promise. Once I’m back in my cell, it will be your word against
Bo’s. No one has to know you let me out. You don’t have to marry him if
you don’t want to.”
“Do you think I want to?” she asks, voice shaking.
I look down at her, at her parted lips and her shining eyes, and
immediately I hurt. Because she hurts.
I cradle her face in my hands. “Then don’t do it.”
“I don’t have a choice,” she whispers. “I have to be married by
spring.”
“Why? You said seventeen was young to marry.”
“It is, but it doesn’t matter.” The tears sitting in her eyes roll down
her cheeks. “I’m queen. I’ll be married as soon as my mourning is through.”
I catch a tear with my thumb and rub it gently into her skin. “Why?”
“There are reasons. I’d rather not explain them, but they’re real.
Inescapable.” She drops her gaze to my chest with a sigh. “There isn’t time
to get out from beneath Junjie’s thumb. If I’m going to change anything for
the better, I’ll need his support, and he won’t give it if I refuse to marry his
son.”
“Find someone to take Junjie’s place.”
“There isn’t time,” she repeats, lifting troubled eyes to mine. “He was
at my father’s side for twenty years. He makes the people feel safe. I’d
never find someone fit to take his place in a few months.”
“Then put off the marriage,” I say, fingers tightening, pressing lightly
into her jaw. “Have a … I don’t know what you would call it. In our tribe it’s
a trial.”
“A trial?”
“Two people spend time together, sometimes even live together, but
nothing is official until the woman claims the man in a ceremony before the
tribe.”
“The woman does the claiming?” Her eyebrows lift. “Interesting.”
“The man has to agree, but the decision to end the trial is the
woman’s.”
She hums beneath her breath. “If my father had lived, he would have
chosen my husband. He might have even chosen Bo. Whoever he would
have picked, I wouldn’t have had much say about it. That’s how it is for
most noblewomen. We marry within the descendents of the founding
families, being careful not to marry too closely. I’ve heard some of the
common women marry for love, but …” Her eyes shift to the side, as if she’s
suddenly become very interested in the door frame. “Did you ever …
mean, I know some do,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I’ve
heard there are herbs they take to make it possible to”—she waves a hand
nervously in the air—“without any babies. For Yuan women, a baby is only
supposed to come after marriage. It’s scandalous otherwise.” She tilts her
head back and blows air through her pursed lips. Even in the dim light of
the lamp burning by her bedside, I can see how pink her cheeks have
gotten.
“Different from our ways,” I say, trying not to smile.
It’s strange to me that she’s embarrassed by something my people
consider natural. But then, for my people, there is no shame in it. No man
or woman is forced to be with someone not of their choosing. No baby is
left unloved because it came from one man and not another.
“Yes,” she says, casting another glance toward the corner of the
room, where a narrow bed sits next to a chest of drawers with a blue and
white washbasin on top. Above the basin, a mirror hangs on the wall. “We
don’t have trials. A couple will be betrothed for a time before they’re
married, but I can’t have a long betrothal. I must be married. It’s the rule.”
She turns back to me as I’m opening my mouth. “And don’t tell me to
change the rule. This isn’t a rule I can change. It’s not a rule anyone can
change. Some things just are the way they are.”
I grunt—because I was going to tell her to change the rule—and she
smiles a sad smile.
“But thank you,” she says, with another peek at the corner. “It was
good of you to try.”
I catch one of her curls and twine it around my finger. I know why
she’s looking at the corner. She’s ready, but suddenly I’m not. “I’m a good
prisoner, then?”
“You’ve become a good friend,” she says, lifting a hand to my face.
Her fingers are cool, but that’s not why I shiver. “And you won’t be my
prisoner for a second longer than necessary. I’ll let you go, Gem. I promise I
will. And I’ll send food with you, and put more outside the gate for as long
as I live.”
“Isra …” This wasn’t what … I never thought she’d … “What about
Junjie? And your people? You said they would never—”
“I’ll give Junjie what he wants. In return, he’ll give me some things
that I want.” She steps closer, engulfing me in the smell of roses. Roses on
her skin from her bath, roses on her breath, roses lingering in her hair. The
perfume mingles with her Isra scent and becomes something darker, more
dangerous than any flower.
I thought I couldn’t want her more than I did last night, but now, with
that soft look in her eyes, and brave words on her lips, I want her so badly,
it hurts. I more than want her, and that hurts even more.
“Junjie will free you,” she continues. “Or I will refuse to marry Bo.”
I wrap my arm around her waist. “I won’t let you pay for my freedom
with yours.”
“I’m not free. I’ve never been free.”
“But you could be.” I move my hand to her back, skimming my
fingers up the length of her spine. Her bones are like beads on a necklace,
delicate but strong. “With the right clothing, the desert might hold no
danger for Smooth Skins. You could come home with me. At least for the
rest of the winter.”
“And then who would send food to your people?”
My eyes squeeze closed as I drop my forehead to hers. She’s right. If
she came with me, she would starve right along with the rest of my tribe.
Maybe before winter is through. She’s already thin.
“My fate was decided a long time ago,” she whispers, fingertips
tracing a path up my chest. “But you can still have a future. With your
people. I want that for you. When I’m married, I want to imagine you
happy. I
When she wraps her arms around my neck, a wretched heat fills my
head, pushing behind my nose and eyes, as if my soul is trying to find a way
out of my body.
“I hated you,” I say, voice breaking. “Until a few days ago, I hated
you. At least, I thought I did.”
“I know.” She
fingers through her hair.
“You can’t.” The salty, hopeless smell of her tears fills my head,
making the pressure behind my eyes even worse. “I can’t know that you’re
here … when I … I don’t want to be with him,” she says, words coming
faster as her tears fall harder. “I don’t want anyone but you.”
My head feels as if it will collapse from the heaviness building inside
it. I can’t talk anymore. I can’t listen. I can’t imagine Isra with that soldier. I
taste honey and roses and Isra. All the dark and light of her, all the fear and
selflessness, all the innocence and daring of a girl so determined not to be
caged that she leapt from a balcony to find her freedom.
But now she’ll be worse than caged. Her love for her people—and
whatever it is she feels for me—will steal the last of her freedom away. Bo
and his father will get what they want, and Isra will lose control of the city
before she has a chance to rule. If she does this, she’ll destroy not only
herself but any chance for change—for my people or hers.
I pull away, breath coming fast enough to stir the hairs falling into
her face. “I lied to you,” I say, cupping her cheeks, forcing her to look at me
and see what I really am. “The garden is a lie. It was always a lie. There are
no plants or herbs that will stop mutation, and even if there were, I
wouldn’t know a thing about them.”
“Wh-what?” Isra’s lips part, but she doesn’t pull away.
“I’m a warrior,” I say, determined to make her hate me. “I was raised
as a warrior from the time I was ten years old. I was raised to hate you. I
stood outside your dome when I was fourteen and swore I’d tear the city
down with my bare hands if that’s what it took to save my tribe.”
She pushes my hands away and takes a step back. But only a step. It’s
not far enough.
“Those bulbs we brought back won’t do anything to help your
people. Every day we spent digging in the dirt, preparing the field, was a
waste. You gave Junjie control of your people in exchange for nothing. You
almost died last night for
sounds calmer than she has since we entered the room. “You lied to get out
of your cell.”
“I lied to get out of my cell and kept lying every day we worked
together,” I say, as cruelly as I can with the taste of her still sweet in my
mouth. “I pretended to be your friend while I dreamed of opening your
throat.”
She doesn’t flinch. She just … stares at me, gaze flicking from my eyes
to my mouth, down to the fists balled at my sides, and back again. “You
wanted to win my trust so it would be easier to escape.” She nods slowly.
“So … why didn’t you escape while we were in the desert? I can tell your
legs are stronger than you led me to believe.”
My mouth opens, and the truth gets dangerously close to coming
out. If I tell her about the roses, that I’ve been planning to steal them all
along, she will hate me for certain. She’ll give up the idea of sacrificing
herself for me, and turn her attention to work that will truly help her city.
But she’ll also make sure I never get my hands on what my people
desperately need. I can’t risk that, not even for her. I can’t.
sounding as desperate and angry as I feel. “You can’t. It will kill you.”
“I’ll be dead sooner than later, anyway,” she says with a strange
smile. “I’ve lied to you, too.”
“What?” My eyes wander down her long, lean body, the one that
seemed strong until last night in the desert. “Are you sick? Is there—”
“My family are the keepers of the covenant that protects the city. We
sustain the roses. We make an offering of ourselves for the good of our
people. The … queens make an offering. Only the queens.”
The larger offering. Only the queens.
She wasn’t lying when she said none of her people have died to feed