of them, more than a dozen. Twenty. Thirty. Fires all around, and at the
center of them, an ancient-looking Monstrous man shaking with grief. His
shoulders convulse, his chest heaves, but no tears spill from his eyes. The
Monstrous can’t cry, but they can obviously feel tremendous pain, pain that
takes over and has its way with a body.
I watch him, feeling his agony as my own, and then suddenly I am
somewhere else, in a time before the fires, standing beside the old man as
he places a shriveled black root into the hands of devastatingly thin
Monstrous people. Old men, young children with distended bellies, boys
Gem’s age with their wide shoulders concave with starvation, girls my age
with glassy-eyed babies clinging to their necks. One of the girls is even
thinner than the rest. Her baby still has the strength to wail, to squeeze his
eyes closed and scream as his mother slips the root between his lips.
He’s dead almost instantly.
“No!” Heat floods my face; tears spill from my eyes.
The scene changes again, going back even further, showing
Monstrous men and women gathered around a fire. Their faces flicker with
orange and red from the flames, but their backs are kissed by pale blue
winter moonlight. It’s a night like tonight—it could even be tonight—and
the people are thin, but not dying.
It’s not too late. It’s not too late to help them, to save them. Gem
and I can go into the desert. We can bring food and—
A growl—loud and deep and fierce enough to make the hair on my
arms stand on end—shatters the scene playing behind my eyes. I land back
in my body with a jolt and wrench my neck toward the sound, a relieved
breath already bursting from my lips.
me through my clothes. I squeeze my eyes shut and scream as I cower
closer to the ground.
“Let her go!” Gem shouts. I hear a whistling sound and a muffled
thud as something soft, but heavy, falls to the ground. Before I can turn and
see what’s happened, the roses are moving, their thorns piercing through
my clothes, making me howl like a trapped animal.
“No!” I beg. “They’ll kill me! Don’t touch them!”
“I have to get you out,” Gem says, sounding so fearful and desperate
that I know he cares for me. Now I have to prove I care for him as much.
“You have to go,” I say, panting against the urge to be sick. The pain
is too much, coming from everywhere all at once. “Your tribe. They’re in
trouble.”
“How do you—”
“I saw it. In a vision.”
“A vision.” He lets out a shaking breath. “From the roses? Were
there—”
“Please, Gem. Half your tribe will die if you don’t go.” I grit my teeth,
refusing to whimper, to do anything to make Gem feel compelled to stay
with me. “Needle prepared a pack for you this afternoon. It’s waiting by the
King’s Gate. Take it and go. Now.”
“I won’t leave you,” Gem says, voice breaking. “I can’t.”
“You have to,” I say, and then add silently,
.
If he comes back … If he cares enough to come back … maybe we can
find a way to end this, to escape from the Dark Heart and make a better life
for both our peoples.
The thorns press deeper, and I can’t keep a soft cry of pain from
escaping my lips.
“Isra … they’re killing you.” His hand finds mine. I can’t turn my head
to see him, but I know he has risked his life to reach out for me. I cling to
him, selfishly needing to touch him one last time.
“They’re not killing me. They’re keeping me here. They know my
thoughts. They know I wanted to go with you.” I close my eyes, memorizing
the feel of his fingers threaded through mine. “They’ll release me when
you’re gone.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” I lie, knowing that Gem will refuse to leave unless I properly
convince him. “They need a willing sacrifice, a suicide. They can’t murder
me,” I say, hoping it will be enough to make Gem go before he’s caught.
“How did you get out of your cell?”
“I broke the lock on the door. After I …” His breath shudders out, and
his grip on my fingers gets tighter. “I saw you coming into the garden and I
tried to call your name, but—I felt something, a terrible magic.”
He has no idea
Hurry.”
I hear a rustle in the leaves, and when he speaks again, he sounds
farther away. “I’ll come back as soon as I can,” he says. “If you’re not alive,
I’ll burn this city to the ground. Starting with this garden.” The blossoms
closest to my face rotate on their stalks, moving out of my line of sight as
they turn to Gem.
I lift my head, meeting Gem’s worried eyes through a jumble of
leaves and thorns. I want to tell him how beautiful he is to me; I want to tell
him everything I’ve held back. I want to share everything that’s happened
since he left the tower last night, because only after sharing it with Gem
will it seem real.
I want to tell him that, too, but instead I say, “Please go.” He has to
go. There’s no time. “I’ll watch for you on the wall walk. Every night. Set a
fire by the gathering of stones. I’ll come as soon as I can.”
“You’re bleeding,” he says, throat working. I can see it, even in the
moody blue light of my least favorite moon.
“Don’t forget me,” I whisper. “Please. Don’t forget.”
“I’ll come back,” he says. “If I have to drag my body across the desert.
I swear it. On my life.”
I nod, squeezing my eyes closed to keep the tears at bay. By the time
I open them, he’s gone.
“Let me go,” I whisper to the roses after several long moments have
passed. They’ve gone as still as any plant now, but I know they’re listening.
“You’ve gotten what you wanted.” The Dark Heart clearly wanted Gem to
leave the city. There’s no other explanation for why it showed me the
suffering of the Monstrous out in the desert. It wanted Gem—and the risk
he poses to the continuation of the covenant—removed from Yuan.
But he’ll come back to me. I know it. I haven’t lost yet, not if I gain my
freedom tonight.
“Let me go.” I try to straighten my legs, but the ancient vines lie
heavy and motionless across my thighs. “Let me go! I won’t be held like—”
“What have you done to yourself?” The voice is soft, shocked, and so
unlike Bo’s that I don’t guess who it belongs to until I look up to see him
standing where Gem stood a few moments ago.
“Who were you talking to?” Bo asks again, in that same numb way
that makes me more nervous than his angry voice ever has.
“No one. Myself.” I lick my lips, taste my tears, and shiver despite the
fact that the night is the warmest we’ve had since autumn. Why is Bo here?
How much has he seen?
“The Monstrous is out of his cell, Isra,” Bo says. “Do you know
anything about that?”
“Y-yes,” I stutter, my heart beating faster. “I needed him to take care
of a few things in our garden. He’s going there now,” I say, hoping to buy
Gem more time to reach the King’s Gate by sending Bo in the opposite
direction. “He’s trustworthy. He’ll be back in his rooms within the hour.
There’s no need to—”
“There’s every need,” Bo snaps, anger creeping into his tone.
“There’s every need to do … something.” He shakes his head, his expression
bleeding from anger to confusion to utter bafflement. “What are you doing
here? Why have you hurt yourself?”
“I didn’t do it deliberately. I tripped and fell,” I say, lifting my chin.
“And it seems to me you should be more interested in helping your queen
than interrogating her.” I can’t tell Bo that the roses attacked me, or he’ll
think I’m more rattled than he does already, but I don’t have to endure
being treated like a fool. “Now. Help me out. Use your sword. Cut the vines
if you have to.”
Bo’s lips part, and a horrified look creeps into his eyes. “You want me
to desecrate the royal garden? Are you mad?” He laughs, a single
discussed today. He sent the amendment concerning the Banished to my
rooms a few hours ago. It was exactly—”
“He’s lying to you, humoring you until tomorrow morning,” Bo spits.
“He and the other advisors are going to force you to marry me and give
Yuan a ruler who’s not out of his head. They say the law allows them to
compel your marriage, whether you consent to the union or not.”
My stomach clenches. “But I … I’m still in mourning. It’s against
our—”
“Sometimes big changes are necessary to protect the city,” he says,
mocking his father’s kind words from this afternoon perfectly, setting fire
to the last tattered shreds of my hope. “I tried to convince him to wait,” Bo
continues, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “I wanted you to
choose to marry me, but clearly you aren’t capable of making wise
choices.”
“You don’t decide what I’m capable of! I’m the queen. My word is
law!” I sound like a child having a tantrum, but how can I help it? What
other option has Bo or anyone else in this city given me, when they treat
me like a small girl or an invalid or a madwoman?
“I’m
Bo sighs, but when his gaze meets mine, he doesn’t seem angry. He’s
gone numb again. Numb with a hint of …
Pity. He pities me. He’s so sure of the legitimacy of his hate that he
can’t consider for a moment that the Desert People might be human like
us. Or that
always the healthy mind, simply by virtue of its numbers. Maybe it’s the
definition of madness to believe I’m right and everyone else is wrong, to
find my thoughts rational and reasonable when almost the entire world
finds them damaged and flawed.
The thought makes me want to cry all over again. Cry, and beg Bo to
listen to me, to try to understand. Despite his cruelty last night, Bo isn’t as
terrible as his father. He cares for me—or cared, at least a little. He has a
gentle side, too.
“Bo, please,” I whisper. “I’m not crazy. I swear I’m not. I—”
“Did you mean to hurt yourself tonight?” he asks, ignoring my
protests.
“Of course not!”
“You’re bleeding,” he says, as if breaking a scary bit of news to a
child. “Those wounds are deep. You’ll have scars. Why did you do this?”
“
I say, regretting the words the moment they pass my lips.
“Who was trying to kill you?”
“The … roses,” I mumble, digging my nails into the dirt, wishing I had
fingers big enough to uproot the roses with my bare hands. “I don’t expect
you to believe me, but it’s the truth. They aren’t what they seem. Nothing
is what it seems.”
Bo glances down at the vines, now lying, limp and lifeless, across my
legs. No one but Gem knows what the roses can do, and now no one else
ever will. The roses won’t help me prove that I’m not insane. My allegedly
weak mind stands to gain them a king and a captive queen and
continuation of life as the Dark Heart that caused them to grow prefers it.
For a split second I consider telling Bo about the Dark Heart and the
wicked magic supporting life under the domes, but before I can think of a
way to break the news to him that won’t sound mad, two breathless
soldiers appear behind him.
“The Monstrous has been spotted from the wall, sir,” the short guard
with the crooked teeth huffs. “Running toward the King’s Gate.”
“Go. Take the ten men waiting by the—”
“No!” I shout. “Please, let him go. If you let him go, I won’t fight any
of it. I’ll marry you tomorrow morning.” I begin tugging the thorns from my
flesh, refusing to wince as the stickers pull free. “Just let Gem go.”
“Take the ten men waiting by the tower,” Bo continues as if I haven’t
spoken. “Tell them to kill the beast on sight.”
“No!” I stagger to the edge of the rose bed. “You can’t! I forbid it! As
your queen!” But the soldiers refuse to look at me, let alone listen.
“Bring his body to the dungeon!” Bo shouts as the men rush away
through the orchard, the
away to hear me. “Run!” I scramble off the edge of the bed wall, moaning
as I hit the ground, and every place where the thorns tore my muscles cries
out at once.
Bo takes my arm with a tenderness that startles me. I glance up to
see sympathy in his rich brown eyes.
“It’s for the best,” he says. “When he’s dead, the unnatural feelings
will fade. I’m sure of it.”
“They aren’t unnatural.” I’m too exhausted to scream the words. It
wouldn’t make a difference, anyway. Bo doesn’t think he’s ordered a
murder. He thinks he’s asked for an animal to be put down. Raging at him
for the wicked thing he’s done is pointless until he understands how wrong
he is.
“Gem is like us, Bo,” I say, pleading with him to understand. “He feels
and thinks and hopes and dreams. He loves his family and is devoted to his
tribe. He’s no different, not in the ways that count.”
“Let’s get you back to the tower,” Bo says, ignoring me. Again. He
starts back toward the tower, cradling my elbow as if I’m made of glass. “I’ll
have the healers sent to attend you.”
I dig my heels in. “I’m not going,” I say, jaw tightening as I stare
through the trees in the direction where Gem disappeared. I can’t see him
or the soldiers any longer, but I swear I can feel him. He’s still in the city.
“Not until I know Gem’s safe.”
Bo heaves a tragic sigh, but he doesn’t try to force me to keep
walking. He stands beside me, as silent as I am, though I’m certain he’s not
straining as hard for a sign that the soldiers’ mission has failed.