Of Beast and Beauty (34 page)

that as a child, my father would have bound my hands in cotton. “I want to start the process as soon as possible. Things can’t continue as they have.”

“Certainly not.” Father nods, but I see his eyebrows draw tightly together. “I’ll have the first drafts of the amendments to the code drawn by late tomorrow. The next day at the latest.”

“That isn’t soon enough.” Isra’s fingers move even faster, tracing an elaborate, repeating pattern I can’t begin to sort out. “I need them sooner.

At least the amendment related to the treatment of the Banished. I’d like to see a draft of that tonight.”

“Tonight it is, then.” Father’s forehead smoothes, and the hint of a smile gentles his lips. He looks as pleasant as he ever does—even more so, actually—but I’m not fooled. “I’ll work through dinner and have the amendment delivered to you in the great hall as soon as I’m finished. The texts you requested on the covenant should already be waiting in your rooms. I ordered them sent before we sat down to chat.”

“Thank you.” Isra’s breath rushes out, and her fingers finally still.

“But have the amendment sent to my rooms as well, please. I won’t eat in the hall tonight. I need some time. Alone. It’s been quite a day.”

“Indeed.” Father smiles. “I’ve never discussed this many amendments to our code of law in the course of a year, let alone one afternoon.”

Isra bites her lip and shoots Father a wary look from beneath her long lashes. “I know this must seem strange, but I’m certain this is right, and the only way to move forward. I think Baba … what he did … giving me the herbs for all those years …”

“Your baba loved you very much,” Father says, apparently not minding if Isra uses childish words. “Never doubt that.”

“I know. I believe he did,” she whispers in a trembling voice, but when she lifts her chin, her expression is calm, strong. “I was shocked, at first, but I think the choice Father made was for the best. He gave me fresh eyes. He allowed me to see Yuan and our people in a way those who have lived in the midst of this … confusion no longer can. Being an outsider, and ignorant of many things, has allowed me to see where our city has gone astray.”

Father inclines his head in a gesture so subservient, it makes my jaw drop. “An interesting and wise perspective.”

Isra glances my way, and I hurry to return her hopeful smile. “Thank

you,” she says, turning back to Father. “I’m glad we could come to an agreement, and I’m grateful for your support. I know the other advisors will find the changes easier if you’re there by my side when I announce them.”

“Certainly,” Father says. “Change, even drastic change, can sometimes be the only way to move forward.”

Isra’s smile is … dazzling, and for a moment I remember why I wanted to marry her. She’s lovely in her happiness. So lovely it makes me ill to know this moment isn’t what she thinks it is. I know my father hasn’t been won over so easily. I
know
, even before he puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “Bo, would you join me in my chamber? I have some business I’d like you to attend to while I draft the amendments Isra and I discussed.” He shifts his attention to Isra with another kindly smile. “If that’s acceptable, my lady? If you’d rather Bo escort you back to your rooms first, then—”

“No, no, don’t worry about me,” Isra says, her smile still lighting her face. “I have my guards, and Needle is waiting for me.” She watches with a satisfied expression as Father and I bow. “Until later.”

And then she turns and glides away, the confidence in her new walk making her seem like a different person from the girl who scurried across the field to her tower rooms a week ago. I watch her greet her guards, with a hint of guilt worming its way into my heart. I told myself I didn’t care about the queen anymore, but I can’t help but feel bad for her, to fear for her.

She’s barely out of sight when my fears are confirmed.

“We’ll have the wedding tomorrow,” Father whispers. “Prepare yourself. It might be an unpleasant ceremony.”

“But her period of mourning isn’t over.” Mourning rituals are strictly observed in our city. It’s bad luck to go against them, such bad luck that the advisors decided it was better to leave Isra unmarried for several months rather than go against the grieving customs.

“I know, and it may bring dark days to Yuan to have her married while still wearing green, but there’s no help for it. The girl is out of her mind.” Father waves a weary hand through the air. “The other advisors were listening in on my conversation with Isra. They sent this just before the conclusion of our meeting.” He hands me a note on parchment paper, written in the unmistakable cramped, slanted hand of Tai, the late king’s oldest advisor and the man second in power only to my father.

The girl has fallen prey to her mother’s weakness. She is no longer fit

to rule. Arrange for the marriage to your son to take place tomorrow
morning. We’ll compel the union if we must. The law allows it in cases like
these. We must secure the safety of our city first. Once a new king sits on
the throne, we’ll decide how best to keep Isra safe from herself
.

“They think she’s mad?” I ask, shocked, though I shouldn’t be. I’ve had similar thoughts all day, but when the word “insane” flitted through my head, I didn’t mean it. Not really. Isra is odd and stubborn and strange, no doubt, but she’s not out of her mind. At least not in a dangerous way. “But, Father, I don’t—”

“You should have heard her, Son,” Father says with a sigh, plucking the parchment from my fingers. “She wants to put an end to the Banished camp and bring those pitiful creatures into the city center to live with our people.”

I lean in, certain I’ve heard him wrong. “But she saw them. They’re animals. They barely speak our language, they lack the sense to keep their waste in the assigned trench, and ran from us every—”

“She thinks they’re afraid.” Father sighs again before shuffling over to the bench and easing himself down. He looks older than he ever has before, as if the meeting with Isra has aged him ten years. More. “She saw bruises on their bodies. She thinks the guards beat them, and that’s why they run from whole citizens.”

“They beat them because they attack each other,” I say, pacing in front of the bench. “They’d tear each other apart if the guards didn’t keep them in line.”

Father lifts his hands in the air. “I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen to reason. She thinks the Banished could learn to speak our language and behave properly if they received different treatment.”

“She’s stubborn.” I curse myself for not making the facts clearer to her. I’m willing to go against her wishes once we’re married, but I wanted our marriage to be her decision. I know Isra well enough now to realize that marriage to her won’t be pleasant if she’s forced into it. “Let me talk to her.

Maybe I can convince her to change her mind.”

“It isn’t only the Banished,” Father says. “She wants to improve conditions for the commoners in the city center as well. She wants to build more housing and provide nurses for those with the worst deformities and no family to care for them.”

Now it’s my turn to sigh. “Where will we get the resources to build?

We can’t cut down trees. We need them to refresh the air.”

Father shakes his head. “She thinks we should tear down the king’s cottage and a number of the other noble cottages and use those materials.”

“What?” I laugh. The idea is ridiculous. “And where would the nobles without homes live? In the barns with their horses?”

“She thinks the noble families can learn to be comfortable sharing a home with another family.”

“She what? She’s out—” I almost say “out of her mind,” but bite my tongue at the last moment. “She doesn’t understand. She’s been kept separate from our people. She doesn’t know how things work or that no one is bothered by it but her. At least give me one day to make her see reason.”

Father’s head stays down when his eyes lift, emphasizing the brown shadows beneath his eyes. He’s exhausted, and I can’t help but feel responsible. If I hadn’t told Isra to stop drinking her tea, all of this could have been avoided. “She also wants to send food into the desert,” Father says. “To the Monstrous tribes.”

It’s as if he’s struck me. “She … she doesn’t. She can’t.”

“She says she’ll send the Monstrous boy with a wagon. She believes he’ll come back if he’s released.”

Exhaustion settles in my bones, and I wish Father would ask me to sit beside him. There’s no hope, then. Isra might not be mad, but she’s wandered too far outside the realm of what even
I
will tolerate. The Monstrous deserve
nothing
from our city. Isra’s ideas are too radical, and she herself is too different to be good for Yuan.

“I’m sorry,” Father says as he rises from the bench to stand beside me. “I know you had hopes for a different sort of marriage, but I was prepared for this from the beginning. Your mother and I will help you through the ceremony, and everything that comes after.”

“What do you mean?”

“She can’t be allowed her freedom,” he says, regret clear in his eyes.

“She’s a danger to herself and to the people. To the city itself. We’ll have to keep her contained in the tower.”

I nod, but my stomach roils inside me. I threatened to lock her away myself, but I didn’t really mean it. I don’t want my wife to be a prisoner. If only Isra could see reason. If only she could be less … Isra.

“It won’t be too terrible for her,” Father says, as if sensing how much I loathe the idea. “She’s spent most of her life there. She’ll have her entertainments and her maid as her companion, and you may visit her anytime you wish.”

“She won’t want me to visit her. She’ll hate me.”

“No, she’ll hate me.” Father grips my shoulder. “Let me bear this burden. I’ll make it clear this is my decision, not yours.”

“No, it’s my fault. All of it. If I hadn’t told her—”

“If you hadn’t given her sight, we would have had more time,” Father says. “But the end would have been the same. I knew that, Bo. I knew it the day she insisted on working side by side with a monster that could kill her in an instant. She’s put the entire city at risk. She’s selfish and childish, at best. At worst, she’s on the path to becoming as mad as her mother.” He sighs, and his arm drops to his side. “The king should never have married an outsider.”

“Were all the people of New Persia mad?” I know the story—that King Yuejihua married a woman from across the planet who arrived in the last of her people’s flying carriages, fleeing a city on the verge of collapse in the wake of Monstrous attack—but I never thought to wonder anything more.

“No, not that I know of. It was a small city, but they kept their technology functioning throughout the centuries,” he says, motioning to the servant waiting in the shadows beneath the arbor, indicating we’re in need of drink. “In the beginning, the king was more interested in the technology than the wife. He wanted to see what our ancestors had given up when they’d adopted our more primitive way of life. He agreed to marry the king of New Persia’s youngest daughter only if the flying machine used to deliver her was also his to keep.”

“He kept the flying machine?” What would it be like to see something like that? Something from long ago, built on another world?

“Where is it?”

Father’s brows lift, clearly disapproving of my interest in the machines our ancestors chose for us to live without. They believed technology was evil and led to the destruction of our old planet.

“It’s in pieces,” he says. “Its parts put to other uses. The New Persians failed to send fuel. Without it, the machine was useless. There was no way to lift it off the ground, or to send Queen Kanya back to where

she’d come from.” He turns, fetching a goblet of peach juice from the tray the servant has brought. When the tray is shifted before me, I wave it away. I’m thirsty, but it seems wrong to sip something sweet at a time like this. “But by then the king didn’t want to send her away,” Father continues.

“Kanya was a beautiful woman. Very tall, bold-featured. Nothing like our women, but beautiful. As Isra is beautiful. And she was kind and gentle, before the madness took her.”

I think on that for a moment, of Isra’s mother, and madness, and beauty, and other things passed down from parents to their children.

“There will be no children for Isra and me,” I say, unable to imagine Isra tolerating me in her bed.

“It’s for the best,” Father says. “Better to wait and try to be a true husband with your second wife.”

My second wife. I haven’t even taken my first. It’s … too much. I can’t think about it. Not now. I’ll think about it tomorrow night, when Isra and I are married and I am king. Surely all of this will seem more manageable then.