nothing more than a stern look, but he doesn’t stop with a look when it
comes to his son.
He hasn’t struck me in years—not since I joined the military force
when I was sixteen—but I can tell he wants to now. My jaw clenches; my
teeth ache. Beads of sweat form on my upper lip, but I’m too afraid to wipe
them away. It’s best not to move when Father gets this way.
“You didn’t stop to think that she’d want an explanation?” he asks,
his voice terribly gentle, like the slaughterer’s hand when he takes a sheep
tenderly by the scruff of its neck.
“I thought …” I swallow. “I plan to tell her I heard a rumor.”
“She’ll want to know where you heard it.”
“I’ll tell her I don’t know,” I say, “that I heard two people talking, but
it was dark and—”
“You’re a poor liar,” he says, watching me like I’m an insect found
swimming in his bed pot. “The girl isn’t a complete fool. She’ll know you’re
deceiving her. She’ll decide you’re not trustworthy, and what girl wants as a
husband a man she can’t trust?”
I’m tempted to tell him Isra has already promised to marry me, as
long as I keep quiet about her activities with the Monstrous, but I bite the
inside of my lip. If Father finds out I disobeyed him a second time by
speaking about the marriage when he expressly forbade it, and then left
Isra alone with a monster …
I shudder to think how he’d look at me after that. I don’t want to
remember what it feels like to cower at his feet.
“You’ve made this far more complicated than it needed to be,” he
continues, eyes so cold it makes me shiver despite the blazing fire at my
back.
“I’m sorry.” I drop my gaze, staring at the lines on either side of his
mouth, just visible beneath his mustache. In the firelight, his wrinkles are
more defined. He’s an old man. He can’t live forever, and when he is gone, I
will truly be king. I’ll make the decisions for this city, and they will be good
ones. I’m not impulsive. It was affection that made me foolish, but I won’t
make the mistake of caring for my queen again. Isra isn’t worth the trouble.
I’ll hold my tongue until the day we’re married, and then I’ll show her
how a true ruler gives orders.
“Yes, well … I suppose we’ll have to tell her the truth,” Father says, a
hint of hard humor in his tone. “I’ll tell her I placed the herbs in her tea
every morning,” he says, bending to toss another dung patty onto the fire,
though the room is already stifling. “But only because her father begged me
to continue doing so once he was no longer able to administer them
himself.”
I hesitate, but can’t keep from saying, “She won’t believe you.”
Father grunts as he returns to his chair. “I’ll show her the official
order, signed in her father’s hand.” He sits down with a soft groan.
I imagine the pain Isra will feel when she realizes it was her own
father who sentenced her to darkness, and some weak part of me wants to
feel sorry for her, but I clench my jaw against it. Pity is what got me into
trouble in the first place. I can’t afford pity. A king must be made of sterner
stuff.
“And then I’ll tell her the story of her poor mother,” Father
continues, “and I’ll reveal to her all the terrible sights that her father
wanted to protect her from.”
My lips part. He wouldn’t. “But, Father …”
“But what?” He snaps, setting my nerves on edge all over again.
“I’m not sure how she’ll take it,” I say, careful to sound suitably
submissive, though I’m horrified by what he plans to do. I don’t care for Isra
the way I did, but this isn’t right. She’s been living in a dream world. If that
dream is ripped away, who knows what will happen? She might go as mad
as her mother. She might be the next queen to hurl herself from her
balcony. If she takes her own life before we’re married, she will bring about
the fall of Yuan. Isra isn’t completely rational as it is. It’s dangerous to test
her sanity this way. “She truly has no idea, and I—”
“She will have a very good idea by the time tomorrow is through.”
“But I—”
“You what?” he asks, standing so abruptly it startles me into a step
backward. “You thought you’d give her eyes and not have her see?”
“Please,” I say, holding up my palms in an instinctive plea for
understanding. “I have a plan. We’ll keep her in the nobles’ village. There’s
no reason the queen should go into the city center or the Banished camp.
She’s already been presented to the people. After we’re married, I can
handle all interactions with the common people and—”
“You can’t keep your piss in the pot,” he spits. “All you had to do was
keep your mouth shut and wait for the kingship to be delivered into your
hands, but you ruined it. You destroyed what I’ve sacrificed so much to
ensure.”
“What have you sacrificed?” I ask, suddenly angry. “You won’t have
to marry a woman marked for death. You won’t have to watch her die. You
won’t have to know your children will meet the same fate if they’re born
female.”
I pull in a breath, fighting to regain control. I’ve never spoken like this
to Father, but I’ve never been on the verge of sentencing my entire family
to death, either. I don’t love Isra, but I don’t hate her. I don’t want her to
die. I don’t want my next wife or my daughters to die. The sacrifice of the
queen seemed like a sad but noble act growing up, but now it is a black,
twisted thing squirming its way into my life, poisoning every thought and
feeling.
I brace myself, expecting Father to strike me, to shout at the very
least, but instead he sits back down in his chair. He sighs, and the rigid lines
of his shoulders relax as he bows his head over folded hands.
“I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful,” I whisper, not sure what to
make of his response. “I want to be king. I just never expected it to be
so … difficult.”
“Maybe I’ve …” Father runs his hands over his head, pushing springy
gray hairs back into the smooth black of his braid. “Maybe I’ve made a
mistake.”
“No, Father,” I say, panicking at the thought of having my new
torment taken away. I don’t want to be king, but I can’t stand the thought
of
“What?” I ask, genuinely surprised. “But it’s been thirteen years since
Isra’s mother died.”
“Yes, and as time passed, the king grew increasingly certain that he
couldn’t bear for his only daughter to meet the same fate as her mother.
He planned to wed Suyin, Rune Lee’s widow. She’s only twenty-seven, and
has already borne two healthy children. A new heir was assured.” He sighs.
“No official paperwork was signed, but I discussed the match with Suyin on
the king’s orders. She was agreeable. Her husband left the family with
nothing. They’ve been living with his sister for two years, but it’s obvious
there’s no love lost between Suyin and her sister-in-law. Suyin was willing
to lay down her life in exchange for a way out of her sister-in-law’s home
and a richer future for her existing children. It was only a matter of time.”
Father leans back, folding his hands in his lap once more. “As I said,
she already has children. The line of succession would have been ensured
for another generation. Her eldest is a daughter, but the girl is only five
years old. She wouldn’t have been old enough to marry until you were
nearly thirty, Bo, and who knows how the political climate would have
changed by then? The only way I could ensure your place on the throne was
for the king to die before he could marry again, while I still had the power
to convince the other advisors my son should be the one to marry the
queen.”
A sour taste fills my mouth, and the floor beneath my feet goes as
soft as sand, leaving me nothing firm to stand on. My legs tremble and my
heart beats faster, but for a long moment I can’t understand why I’m
frightened. Even when my brain sorts out the meaning hidden in Father’s
words, I can’t believe it. Surely I’m missing something. Surely …
“The king was killed by the Monstrous,” I say, my voice as weak as
my knees.
“It appeared that way.” He stares me straight in the eye, not flinching
when he adds, “But only because I made it so.”
I reach out to brace myself on the mantel above the fire. “I don’t
believe you.”
Father ignores me and continues, “The Monstrous was on the path
by the lake, near the garden where the flowers for the court tables are
grown. I had planned to poison the king, but as soon as I saw the creature, I
knew my moment had come. I killed the guards first, to make certain there
were no witnesses. Then I killed the king, cutting him open to make it look
as if the Monstrous had done it.”
“No,” I say, sounding more like a child than ever. Tears burn the
backs of my eyes, and sickness rises in my throat. If I hadn’t skipped dinner,
I know I’d be ill all over Father’s finely carved fireplace.
“Thankfully, it was one of the creatures without our language, who
couldn’t reveal what I’d done.” He rises slowly from his chair, looking older,
wearier, than I’ve ever seen him, and comes to stand beside me, gazing into
the fire. “If it had been the other one …” He shrugs and slips his hands into
the pockets of his pants. “Not many would have listened to the ravings of a
monster, but there are always those who pause to consider the absurd. If
they’d paused long enough, they might have found reason to believe it.”
Isra might have paused. Isra might have listened to the monster.
Tonight she called it her “friend.” If she ever learns the truth …
“She’ll have you killed,” I whisper. “She’s not as fragile as you believe.
If she finds out, she’ll—”
“She’ll never find out,” Father says, his strong hand coming to rest on
my shoulder. “Not unless you tell her.”
I turn to him so quickly I lose my footing and knock my shin on the
marble step of the fireplace. “I would never.
to stay calm, to retain control, counting until numbers lose their meaning
and my mind is a jumble of circles and curves and slashes. The hourglass of
an eight. The dangerous corner of a seven. The soft belly of a six. I trace
their shapes in the air as I walk, my fingers busy at my sides, frantically
trying to bring order to the world.
But even numbers are powerless against chaos. Disorder. Madness.
I’m beside myself, outside myself. I watch my long body glide down
streets filled with the twisted and the wrong, and everything is … upside
down. Inside out. I look down, expecting to see the sky beneath my feet
and my heart settled on the skin outside my chest, but there is only the
shimmering green of my dress, tight at my bust, tighter still at my waist, but
loose enough near the ground.
Loose enough for hands with missing fingers to reach out to brush
the fabric as Bo and I pass by.
This particular hand belongs to a child, a girl with only three fingers, a
wee thing with silky black hair that hangs over her face, partially concealing
the fact that her nose is missing … pieces. Pieces of skin. Maybe bone. Skin
and bone. I don’t know. I can’t look too closely. Not at her, or her parents,
or all the others gathered by the side of the street to kneel as I walk by. I
just can’t.
I lift my eyes and find a tiny rectangle of blue sky high above the
laundry lines zigzagging between the intimidating buildings of the city