Of Beast and Beauty, стр. 19
on the ground beside me, a strange thing for a soldier to do, but I’m
grateful. I’m not ready to stand. “Are you really all right?”
“I told you, I’m fine.” I smile to soften the frustration in my voice.
“Gem and I had a disagreement. Nothing to worry about.”
“A monster shouldn’t quarrel with a queen.”
“Why not?” I laugh my new bitter laugh. My parsnip laugh—sour and
gritty. “Everyone else does. Even Needle, and she can’t speak.”
“Do you want a new maid?” he asks, making my heart skip a beat. “I
know a wonderful girl, a noble, who mentioned she’d be honored to—”
“No, no,” I hurry to say. “I love Needle. She’s devoted to me. It’s
nothing like that. It’s …” I brush the hair from my face with an angry whip of
my fingers. “Forget I said anything. Please. I’m not myself.”
“Are you ill?”
“No, I …” My stone-filled pockets suddenly feel heavier. “I’m
just … tired.”
“And dirty.” Bo cups my chin in his hand. “I’ve never seen a lady of
the court who enjoys dirt as much as you.”
“I’m not a lady of the court. I’m a lady of the tower.”
“Not anymore,” he says.
“Always.” I turn my head, breaking contact. His touch still makes me
nervous, and his hands feel even softer than usual.
“Isra …” His sigh blasts my neck like a wave of heat from the fire. I
curl away, brushing my ear with my shoulder. “I need to tell you something.
I think … I wanted to ask …”
My pulse picks up. Have I been wrong about Junjie and Bo waiting
until my mourning is over? What if Bo asks me to marry him right here,
right now? What will I do? What will I say?
I will say yes, of course, but how? Should I say I hope we’ll be
friends? That I hope our marriage will be a happy one? That I look forward
to our wedding day—but not our wedding night, because I’ve heard he has
a reputation with the ladies at court, and that petrifies me, because how
will a girl whose entire experience consists of one wet kiss ever compare to
all the girls, and women, he’s already been with?
No. I can’t say that. Of course I can’t.
I lick my lips, preparing to give him his answer and hoping it comes
out right.
And then he asks, “Does your maid take breakfast with you?” and I
feel like a fool.
“Excuse me?” My forehead wrinkles.
“Does Needle take food or drink from your tray?”
“No. Needle has her own tray.” I don’t understand what he’s getting
at, but I don’t see any harm in telling the truth. “It’s brought before mine.
She wakes early.”
“That’s what I thought,” he says in his stone-plunking voice.
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t drink your morning tea.”
Plunkier still. “What?”
“Stop drinking your morning tea. Get rid of it,” he whispers, leaning
close enough for me to smell the cabbage on his breath. “Pour it into the
plants on your balcony or into your bed pot or someplace no one will think
to look.”
The casual mention of my bed pot makes me cough awkwardly into
the crook of my arm. I’m far from shy, but I’ve never discussed my bed pot
with anyone. Ever. “And why should I do that?”
“So that no one will realize you’re not drinking it.”
My skin crawls beneath my shawl, but I refuse to scratch it. “Are
you …” I swallow, shaking my head as I understand what he’s implying. “No.
No one would try to poison me. I’m the queen. I have no husband, no
children. If I die now, the city—”
“Not all poisons kill, Isra.” He takes my hand, his thicker, fatter
fingers cushioning my longer, thinner ones like ten little pillows. “I may be
wrong, but please, indulge me. Pour out the tea for a week, maybe two.
That should be enough to know.”
“Know what?”
“I think you’ll see,” he says, a smile in his voice. “I hope so, anyway. I
hope many things for you.”
“What kind of things?” I ask, a little breathless.
“You’ll see,” he repeats in that same cryptic tone.
“Bo, I …” I pull my hand from his. I want to believe Bo has my best
interests at heart, but the idea that someone has been poisoning me … it’s
too strange. I feel fine, the same as I always have. Mostly.
Except for the exhaustion. And the creeping certainty that winter will
never end. And the troubling stretching of my bones, and the dresses with
popped seams.
Could that be it? Could someone be slipping something into my tea
to accelerate my mutation? Is that why I grew nearly three centimeters and
put on ten catties in the past two months? Gem and I are planning to grow
herbs and roots that will impede mutation. It makes sense that plants exist
that would amplify the process.
I want to ask Bo if that’s what he believes is happening, and why
someone might do such a thing, but I can’t. I can’t discuss my defects with
any whole citizen of Yuan. I am the empress without clothes, and no one
can speak of my nakedness, not even me.
“All right. I’ll do it,” I say, rising to my feet. “I’ll dispose of the tea.”
“Thank you.”
“I should be thanking you.” I try to smile but can’t. I’ve gone too sour.
I’m past parsnip, bittering to a turnip inside. “I should change for dinner,” I
say, backing away.
“Let me escort you.”
“Thank you, but I can find my way. I’d rather go alone.” Or as alone
as I ever am, considering that the guards at the edge of the field will be
shadowing my every move. Since the night I slipped away from them at the
coronation banquet, they’ve been careful not to lose track of me. “I’ll find
you later. In the hall,” I say.
I turn and walk away, counting my steps to the edge of the field. I
wouldn’t really rather go alone. I just don’t want to go with Bo. Or any
other member of court, or any of the soft, silky, whole citizens of Yuan.
I’m filled with a sudden longing for Gem. Only with him is it safe to
be the ugly thing I am. He’s the only one I can talk to, the only one who tells
me anything close to the truth. And now I’ve made him hate me all over
again.
But perhaps I can do something to make amends. Perhaps …
He craves a walk beyond the walls. Maybe I can give that to him. The
state of the Banished camp isn’t the only thing I’ve learned from Bo. I’ve
also learned the location of a hidden gate, the King’s Gate, created to
provide an escape route for the royal family if the city were ever
compromised.
Long ago, there were other domed cities close enough to be reached
on horseback. There was a chance a refugee from Yuan might find
sanctuary before falling prey to sun damage. With a little help from Needle,
I might be able to sneak Gem through the King’s Gate, or perhaps … if I’m
careful … and if Needle agrees to help …
I walk faster, eager to talk to my maid. She’s as excited about the
healing garden as I am. Surely, if I explain my plan and beg and wheedle for
an hour or two, she’ll see that what I propose is the only way.
I have to escape the tower and offer Gem a bargain he can’t refuse,
one that will ensure his return from the desert and keep my Monstrous in
Yuan, where I, for one, feel he belongs.
EIGHT
BO
I stand and watch her go, though I would rather be by her side. I like
the feel of her hand looped through my arm, the rich tone of her voice
when she speaks. Her voice is like music from a faraway city, unfamiliar, but
seductive in its strangeness.
Isra is nothing like I imagined she’d be from listening to my baba’s