Of Beast and Beauty - Jay Stacey - Страница 62

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Gate or the desert beyond. Even if Gem sets a fire burning by the gathering

of stones, I’ll never see it. I’ll never see Gem again.

I’ll never leave this tower, not until the day they lead me to the

garden to die.

My knees give way and I crumple to the floor, but I don’t cry out. I

don’t sob or scream. There’s no point in it. Bo is here by my side, three

strong men occupy my balcony, and guards with spears and sleeping darts

wait at the bottom of the stairs. There is no way out. There is nowhere to

run. It’s over. Everything is over. I am over.

The world goes soft around the edges, my mind softer.

I don’t remember rising from the floor. I don’t remember Needle

tending my wounds or mixing a sleeping draft or tucking me into

bed—though she must have, because when I come back to myself hours

later, I am bandaged, and the bitter taste of valerian root is strong in my

mouth.

I don’t remember throwing off my sheets or dragging the chair in the

corner across the room. I don’t remember ordering Needle to help me lift it

on top of my bed, or threatening her with dismissal if she refused to assist

me. I don’t even remember climbing up to stand on top of the tower of

furniture and nearly falling in the process.

Later, when Needle asks me how I knew the diary was there, I tell her

it must have come to me in a dream, but the first thing I recall between my

falling to the ground at Bo’s feet and the slender volume dropping into my

hand is reaching for the beam above my bed, fingers prickling as I released

the secret latch I was certain I’d find on one side.

I tell Needle it must have been an ancestor dream, like Gem said. My

father was always proud that we could trace our ancestry all the way back

to King Sato and his third queen.

I don’t know what he’d feel if he were alive to read our ancestor’s

words now. It takes more time for Needle to read and sign each word than

it would if I could read the diary myself, but still it doesn’t take long to learn

that the volume belonged to that very queen. Or that everything I’ve been

raised to believe is a lie.

TWENTY-FOUR

GEM

I hear the heavy footfalls and turn to see soldiers rushing around the

granaries, but the men scrambling through the tall grass inspire more relief

than fear. I’m already at the King’s Gate with the pack of food and supplies

strapped to my back, and they’re coming from the direction of the royal

garden. They must have found Isra and freed her from the roses. I know

these people have no issue with killing a queen, but only after she’s

married, and that day is still months away. Isra should be safe until I return.

Please let her be safe.

With one last glance back at the tower, the peak of its highest roof

barely visible over the rise, I step through the door and walk away from

Yuan.

I walk. There’s no need to hurry. It’s too dark for their arrows to find

me, and the soldiers won’t dare follow me into the desert.

I walk until the dome is a faintly glowing speck on the horizon, on

through the darkest part of the night, and into the next morning. I walk

until the sun bakes my head, and the straps of my pack rub blisters on the

scale-free flesh on the undersides of my arms, on through another night

and the pale blush of a second morning, before exhaustion hits like a rock

slide crushing me into the ground. I collapse into a hollow between two

cactus plants, but I don’t sleep for long. I don’t know which is stronger, the

need to reach my people, or the need to return to Isra, but both drive me

like nothing has before.

I walk until my good leg throbs and my bad leg screams for mercy. I

walk until both legs go numb and my joints begin to creak like the wheel of

an overloaded cart. I walk until my entire body is a collection of aches and

pains and my mind exists outside it all, lulled by the endless rhythm of my

footfalls, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the misery of my flesh. I drink

little; I eat even less, determined to save as much food for the others as I

possibly can. The pack is brimming with dried fruit and nuts and salted

meat, enough to keep the hundred souls still remaining in my tribe from

starvation for a month if the food is rationed carefully.

I think of how wonderful it will be to see my father’s face, my son’s

smile as he gums a piece of dried fruit, the relief in my people’s eyes as

they eat well for the first time in months. I think of Isra, of her lips on mine

that night in her tower.

I can’t be without her. Seeing her held captive by the roses settled

any question about that. I can’t accept her death as a necessary evil. I won’t

have her blood spilled. Not for Yuan, not for the Desert People, or anyone

else.

Gare will never understand. Father, maybe, if I explain myself well,

but Gare … never. He’ll never forgive me for caring for a Smooth Skin. He’ll

hate me until the day he dies, and he’ll go to his funeral pyre with a curse

for me lingering in his soul.

I’m sure most of my people will feel the same way. The Smooth Skins

are the enemy. Our rage against them has been building for centuries, a

bonfire stoked and fanned by every loved one lost too soon, every night

spent listening to a child cry out in hunger, every morning a mother rolls

over to find her baby starved to death on the pallet beside her.

I know now that most of the Smooth Skins have no idea how their

actions have affected my people, but I still have hate for them in my heart. I

hate Bo and his father and the soldiers who damaged my legs, but I care for

Isra more than I loathe them. I … I love her. And love is stronger than hate. I

believe that. I believe Isra and I can change our worlds. Together. If we are

brave.

I finally feel brave. I won’t ask Father to cut my warrior’s braid. I’m

not a coward. I’m a different kind of warrior, one who will fight with my

heart instead of my hands, and I’ll start by telling my people the truth. It

would be easier to lie, but lies will never change the way they see the

Smooth Skins, and we’ve all told too many lies. I’m sick of them.

Sick …

I’m nearly half a day’s walk from my tribe’s winter camp when I smell

it. Smoke. Funeral smoke. In the middle of the day. My people burn our

dead at night, but there’s no mistaking the smell—charred and oily,

bittersweet, musky … terrible. The smell of burned hair and melting flesh

and all the dreams the dead will never dream going up in flames.

I start to run. My leg buckles and bends the wrong way, and my

bones knock together with a sick crunch. Pain and heat explode behind my

kneecap, but I don’t stop. I run toward the smoke billowing on the horizon,

with my leg burning like fire. I run until my ankle turns and my run becomes

a hobble. I hobble until my good leg fails me and I fall to the ground and

crawl.

I come into the midst of the fires on my hands and knees, and I’m

glad. This isn’t something to see standing up. It isn’t one fire or three or

even five. There are a dozen. No, more. Fourteen … fifteen. A city made of

funeral pyres, flaming houses eating up their lonely residents with no

mourners gathered below to cry their souls into the next world.

Where are they? Where are the families? The mates? The friends?

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