Of Beast and Beauty - Jay Stacey - Страница 5

places as I ready myself for the rush. Her eyes fall on me, huge round eyes

in a face so different from my people’s, but somehow still so … familiar.

I hesitate. I shiver.

I didn’t expect the Smooth Skins to look like this. I expected softness

like uncooked dough, empty eyes sunk in privilege-rotted flesh. I didn’t

expect whisper-thin skin peeling like old tree bark, skin so pale I can see the

blue blood flowing beneath. I didn’t expect a sharp chin or a sharper nose

or eyes that seem to see everything.

Except me.

She doesn’t see me. She doesn’t startle. She doesn’t scream. Her

gaze doesn’t waver. She looks past me, into the orchard. I turn, but there’s

no one there. I turn back to find her still motionless, her hand in the

flowers, her eyes focused on some faraway nothing. The truth hits, and my

claws slide back into their chambers with a shup so hard, it hurts.

She’s blind. I was about to kill a blind girl. Maybe even a simple blind

girl. Now that I’ve seen her face, there’s no doubt she’s nearly a woman,

but she skips and plays in the flowers like a child. No near adult of the

Desert People would behave that way unless they were rattled in the brain.

A strange heat creeps up my neck, making my face burn. Shame.

That’s what this is. Not something I’ve had reason to feel more than once

or twice, but now it curdles inside me.

This isn’t the way. No women or children. We’re not like the Smooth

Skins. They are as soulless as a sandstorm. We are better. We know the

power of transformation. This planet has changed us, but its magic is good

magic. It would be enough to sustain us all if the Smooth Skins hadn’t

twisted it to serve their unnatural purposes.

They are the murderers. Their domed cities rob the surrounding

lands of vitality. Their prosperity is paid for by the slow death of the desert,

and if something doesn’t change, it will lead to the extinction of my people.

This raid isn’t about killing Smooth Skins; it’s about keeping them from

killing any more of us.

I back into the shadows under the orchard trees. I’ll wait. The girl will

leave eventually, and then I’ll—

“Please,” she says.

I freeze, skin crawling, claws slicking out again. Was I wrong? Has

she—

“Show me this garden,” she begs. “Show me myself. Just once.”

She isn’t talking to me. There must be someone else. But where? The

flower bed looks dense, the thorns dangerous. I ease closer, circling around

her on quiet feet, braced for attack. But there is nothing in the shadows

beneath the roses. Only her hand, with a thorn buried deep in one finger

and her blood dripping slowly to the earth below.

“You’ve shown me the nobles’ cottages and the soldiers on the walls

and the desert outside and the monsters who live there,” she says, spitting

each word. “But you refuse to show me what’s right here. Right now. All I

want to see is my face! You promised me. You promised!”

The girl is rattled. No question.

“I hate you,” she whispers, sightless eyes narrowing. “I’ll set fire to

the entire lot of you.” She laughs, a cruel laugh, not childlike at all. “I’ll do it.

I swear I will if—”

She breaks off with a cry as the flowers begin to move. Squirm. Coil

like snakes preparing to strike. The giant blossoms roll on their stems,

turning to fix me with their alien eyes.

Naira’s visions are sound. The roses do have magic, greater than the

planet magic that touched our people in the early years, granting us size

and strength and protection from the sun and our new predators; greater

than the blessings our dead bestow as their final flames burn. And the girl

knows the magic. She speaks to the flowers.

A plan takes shape quickly. I’ll trap the girl, creep up behind her, and

hold my claws to her throat. I’ll make her dig up one of the bushes and

whisper the roses’ secrets while she does it. If she’s helpful and quiet, I’ll let

her go. If not, I’ll—

“No,” she gasps. Her eyes go wide. Her thin chest heaves as her

breath grows faster. If I didn’t know she was blind, I’d think—

“No!” she says, louder this time. “Help me!”

I lunge for her, but she darts away, leaping off the edge of the flower

bed, leaving a smattering of blood behind. “The Monstrous are in the city!”

She runs, as fast as the desert wind, around the flower bed and down a

stone path lined with more flowers. “Monstrous! In the royal garden! Help

me! Help!”

I race after her. I have no choice. I need her silence before it’s too

late, before—

More Smooth Skins appear at the end of the path, spears raised. I

know the moment they see me. I see their silhouettes ripple in the yellow

moonlight. I smell their fear. I lift my clawed hands and roar—a warning to

my people. Wherever their search has taken them, my father and brother

and the others in our raid party will hear me and know I’ve been

discovered. They’ll make it to the caverns and into the river before they’re

caught, but they’ll do it without the roses we came for. We’ve failed. I’ve

failed. I let this girl doom my tribe. I should have killed her. I should have

slit her throat and lapped the blood from my claws. Now everyone I love

will die—my father, my brother, my friends. My son.

He’s only six weeks old. He’ll be the first on the pyre.

I roar again, a sound so terrible the girl screams and stumbles, falling

to the ground. I leap and land on top of her before the guards can throw

their spears. They’ll kill me sooner or later, but I’ll kill this girl first. I’ll take

her life as payment for the destruction of my people.

I grab her shoulder and flip her onto her back, the better to get at her

throat. Her skin gives like water beneath my claws. Her blood is the exact

color of the roses, red that swallowed brown and black and holds them

prisoner in its belly.

I stare at it. It’s beautiful. Terrifying.

I’ve never killed something so large before. So large or so delicate. I

didn’t even mean to cut her. I didn’t—

“Do it,” she whispers, her voice fearful, but angry, too. She trembles

beneath me, her long body quaking, her eyes once again without focus. “Do

it! Kill me!”

Her words make my blood burn. “You’re so ready to die?” I demand

in her language. “My people would do anything to live. Anything.”

Her eyes bulge in her narrow face. “You—you—s-speak. How—”

A spear falls next to my arm, and another glances off my bare

shoulder, but my skin isn’t like theirs, so thin that it’s practically pointless to

have skin at all. My hide is thick, scaled across my chest, over my neck and

shoulders, and down my back. If they want to kill me, they’ll have to hit my

belly. I lift my head, roaring at the two guards who’ve dared come close

enough to hurl their weapons.

“Wait!” the girl screams. “Take it alive! Don’t kill it!”

It.

I snarl into her face. She screams, and her eyes squeeze shut. Her

hands cover her mouth, muffling her sobs. Another spear flies. And

another, but I knock them away, rage making my warrior’s reflexes even

swifter.

I am not an it. I am a Desert Man. I have nineteen years. I have a son.

I might have had a mate if there were no Yuan, no tunnel to dig, no

scouting missions to take me away from my tribe over and over again. But

Meer chose a different mate, and my son sleeps in another family’s hut.

Now my son will die and be burned without ever knowing my face. Because