Of Beast and Beauty (8 page)

As soon as we are through the door—stepping into shadows that cool my flushed skin—she takes me by the hand and sets a much swifter pace. I follow her up stairs and stairs and more stairs, nearly as many as there are in my tower, until we reach the top floor, where the Monstrous has been kept separate from the other ill and ailing.

As we hurry down the hall, I expect to hear sounds of a struggle—growls and snarls—but there is only one harsh voice, shouting, “Move, beast! On your feet!” and a muffled thud followed by a moan so piteous, I understand immediately why Needle called the monster a boy.

He sounds like a wounded child.

For the first time I wonder what the creature must be feeling. What must it be like to be abandoned by his family, to be held captive and pressed into slavery to people he loathes? To be alone and hurt with no one who cares enough to insist he stay in bed long enough to heal?

This is my fault. I told the guards to drag the Monstrous from his bed if they had to. A wave of self-loathing rushes inside me, making my stomach lurch and my voice break when I order the guards to, “Stop! Leave the monster be!”

I draw a deep breath, trying to compose myself, knowing the soldiers must be staring. “One of you, go fetch the healers. The rest, give the beast some room.” I squeeze Needle’s arm as one pair of boots tromps down the hall, the guard thankfully obeying my order without question. I can’t always trust the soldiers to do as I say, especially if Junjie is close by. I may be the queen, but Junjie is their true leader. “Take me closer,” I tell Needle.

I don’t need to add
but not too close
. Needle is nothing if not protective of me. She nearly had a fit yesterday when I ordered her to help me meet with the monster in private.

“Where does it hurt?” I ask the Monstrous as Needle settles me on the stones near where he has fallen. “Is it your legs?” The Monstrous

doesn’t say a word, not a word, for a long, strained moment. “I only want to help you.…”

I hesitate, realizing I have no idea what the Monstrous calls himself.

He has language, he must have a name, but in the three weeks since he was captured no one has bothered to ask it. “What is your name?”

“Gem,” he says, forcing the word out with obvious difficulty.

“Isra,” I offer before I think better of it. A prisoner shouldn’t call the queen by her first name, but for some reason that seems like a silly rule at the moment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were still unwell.”

The Monstrous makes a sound—a sigh or a laugh, I can’t tell which.

Either way, the message is received. “Sorry” is a feeble word, and hardly sufficient when a person is brought to his knees by pain.

“I don’t want you to suffer any more than you have already,” I say, hoping he can tell that I mean it. “We’ll postpone our work until you’ve fully recovered.”

“What if I’m never recovered?” he asks, so softly that I know only Needle and I can hear him. “What if I never walk again?”

“You will walk.”

“You can’t know.”

“No, I can’t,” I say. “But I’ll do everything in my power to make certain you do.”

He sighs again, a defeated sound. An alone sound.

“I wasn’t always blind,” I say, strangely compelled to convince him I understand his fears. “There was a fire in my bedroom when I was four years old. My nightgown caught fire and my father threw me to the ground to put out the flames. I hit my head, and the world went dark. It has stayed that way ever since.”

“But you still see,” he says beneath his breath, as if he knows my moment of sightedness in the garden is a secret. “By the roses.”

“Only sometimes,” I whisper. “And only since I was ten.”

My tenth birthday, to be exact, the last day I was knowingly allowed out of the tower. Before then, Baba and I went to the royal garden every year on my birthday, but that was the first year that he let me explore on my own, let me feel my way around the edge of the ancient flower bed to the place where the vines spill over one side.

I pricked my finger by accident, and the sunlit world rushed up to meet me. The roses showed me the city from high above, all the flowers

and the green, green springtime grass, and every tall, white building gleaming in the morning light. It was beautiful, breathtaking to a girl who had nearly forgotten the world of color and light.

I would have stayed there forever, grateful tears streaming down my face, if my father hadn’t pulled me away.

As soon as he realized I was bleeding, Baba carried me back to the tower, but the damage was already done. I knew the roses had more magic than anyone else realized. I knew they could be my eyes. I told Baba, but he forbade me to speak of such mad things and refused to take me to the garden again. Months passed, but I didn’t forget that shining moment. It took a year, but I found a way out, risking death climbing over the edge of my balcony, rather than returning to the hopeless darkness.

The loss of hope is the worst kind of loss. I don’t want to be the cause of that in someone, even if that someone is a monster.

“I will help you recover,” I say, with an intensity that surprises me. “I swear it.”

“Thank you. Isra.” My name is uncomfortable in his mouth, strange-sounding in that accent of his, but there’s something nice about it all the same. Something nice about being Isra instead of “my lady.”

Before I can assure him there’s no need to thank me, the healers arrive. Needle pulls me to my feet, guiding me down the hall after Gem and the healers, fingers busy beneath my palm as she describes the scene. Two male healers carry Gem back to his room, but it is a woman who runs her hands lightly over his legs, examining the Monstrous with a gentleness that Needle approves of.

“How is he?” I ask when the healer is finished.

“There’s no bleeding on the inside, my lady,” she says. “But the muscles are still healing.”

“But they
will
heal. He’ll be able to walk again?” I ask, anxious for her answer.

“I don’t see any reason why not,” the healer says. “He’ll need a brace on the left leg and crutches for a time, but the muscles should mend. If I’d been notified he was to work today, I would have had the aids prepared.”

Her tone is nothing but deferential, but I feel chastised all the same.

“I’ll consult with you before we try again,” I say. “How much time do you think he needs? A week? Two?”

“He should begin exercising as soon as the leg is braced,” she says.

“We don’t have anything in his size ready-made, but the brace makers work quickly. I can have him fitted this afternoon and able to work tomorrow, my lady.”

Brace makers. Surely Yuan doesn’t have need of more than one brace maker to service the thousand-odd souls under the dome? But then, maybe people turn ankles and break wrists more often than I assume. There’s so much I don’t know about my city, my people.

“What do you think, Gem?” I ask. “Will you be up for trying again tomorrow?”

“Does it matter, my lady?” he asks, mimicking the healer’s subservient tone perfectly.

I get the strong feeling that he’s mocking me, and I scowl, but clench my jaw against the harsh words on the tip of my tongue. He’s hurting, and despite the fact that I didn’t intend for him to suffer, that hurt is my fault.

“Yes. It matters,” I say. “Do you think you’ll be ready?”

“Anything to escape these white walls for a few hours,” he says, but there’s still something … off in his voice.

“We can wait. I’m eager to begin, but I don’t want you to be in pain.”

“That’s kind of you, my lady, but I’m also eager to begin.” There’s a sneer beneath the words this time, I’m sure of it. The only thing I’m not sure of is whether he’s wrong to think me contemptible. Yesterday, there was no doubt in my mind which one of us was the monster, but now …

I’m
the one who neglected to ask his name.
I’m
the one who insisted he be pulled from his bed without consulting the healers to make sure he was fit to work.
I’m
the one who has treated him like an animal when I know that he has language and at least a certain degree of intelligence.

The thoughts make me feel sour inside. They make me wish I could have a moment alone with Gem to speak frankly. I want him to know that I understand what it’s like to be a prisoner. That I know what it’s like to walk a road I didn’t choose to a destination I fear, and that I will do my best to make his life in Yuan tolerable.

But the guards and the healers would never knowingly leave me alone with a Monstrous, and it doesn’t matter anyway. I am Gem’s jailer and his enemy. Why should he feel anything for me but contempt? He shouldn’t. And I shouldn’t care one way or another.

“Tomorrow, then,” I say, taking Needle’s arm and allowing her to lead me from the room. I have enough misery to bear. There’s no need to

take the hatred of a beast to heart.

But as I walk away, I can’t help remembering Gem’s cry in the hall, how desperate and human he sounded, and how much something inside me wanted to protect him from the soldiers.

From Yuan. From … me.

GEM

THE healer gives me more bitter water to drink, and the agony in my legs fades to a distant ache. My eyes grow heavy, but I fight the muddying of my thoughts. I don’t want to sleep.

I want to lie here and stare at the white wall until my mind is as soft as windswept sand. Then I will bury all my hate deep beneath it, so deep that not even an outline can be spied from the surface. The queen may be blind, but she saw through me. I have to try harder.

She was kind today, open in a way she hasn’t been before. She even confirmed my suspicion that the roses’ magic gave her the power to see for that moment in the garden. I should have welcomed her confidence. I should have shared a story of my own. I should have done
something
to begin the long journey to earning her trust.

Instead I mocked her. I mocked her because the worry in her eyes hurt more than my legs. Because her promises to help made me hate her more than I did before.

It’s too late for kindness. No amount of kindness can change who she is or what her people have done to mine. Her moment of compassion only proved she’s worse than I first assumed. To be cold and incapable of pity is one thing; to have compassion and use it only when it’s convenient is nothing less than evil.

I hate her so much my body aches with it, but I hate myself more. I hate that I felt even a moment of pity for that little girl with her nightgown on fire, or for the queen whose guards roll their eyes before obeying her commands. No warrior of my tribe would ever treat his chief with such a lack of respect, but the soldiers clearly feel no need to conceal their disdain from the blind queen or her silent attendant.

Or from the monster whimpering on the floor.

They should be more careful. Everything I see and hear is my weapon. Everything. From their disdain, to the way the silent woman’s fingers move with words, to the flash of guilt in the queen’s eyes.

“Isra’s eyes,” I correct myself aloud. “Isra.”

I practice saying her name again and again, until it sounds the way it did when she said it, until I sound like a Smooth Skin, until I fall asleep with her name on my lips and dream of sand.

Thick, warm sand, rising up my thighs, trapping my chest, spilling into my nose and mouth. Burying me alive.

“HERE. Use the middle fork,” Bo says, pressing a utensil with a smooth bone-covered handle into my hand. “The spoon is only for soup.”

“Thank you,” I mumble, cheeks flaming as I run my fingertips over the heavily glazed duck on my plate, searching for a place to aim my fork.

By the moons, I
know
which utensil to use. I was simply trying to spare myself the embarrassment of dirtying yet
another
napkin.