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that. I never dreamed how quickly a kiss could get out of hand. It’s
terrifying. Dangerous. Who knows how far things would have gone if I
hadn’t accidentally bumped into a pelican beak and come to my senses?
My chest flutters, but thankfully my throat strangles my nervous
giggle before it can escape. Pelican beak. What a terrible piece of poetry.
That was nothing at all like a pelican beak, or anything like what I imagined
that would feel like, and … and …
I can’t think about it for another second or my cheeks are going to
catch fire.
“Are you all right?” Gem asks in a careful way that only makes me
more embarrassed.
“Fine.” I pull my knees to my chest and cover my face with my hands
and wish that Gem were the blind one. I would very much like for him not
to see me confused and vulnerable and lost in my own skin. I don’t know
this skin. It’s different from the one I’ve worn for seventeen years.
“Isra … I …” He clears his throat, and pauses for a moment so long
and awkward that I consider ru
know.”
Didn’t know? I curl my fingers beneath my chin. “What?”
“I didn’t know that you … that …” He sighs, but keeps going despite
his obvious discomfort. “In my tribe, by the time a girl is seventeen …”
I realize what he’s trying to say, and my face burns even hotter. Was
it that obvious? That everything between a man and a woman is new to
me?
No, Isra. I’m sure most girls bleat like sheep and set their boots on fire
when they first encounter a pelican beak.
My stomach drops. I want to bury my head in my lap and never tilt it
up again, but instead I force myself to lift my chin. “I’m not a girl. I am a
queen, and—”
“Yes, I remember. You don’t have to put your nose in the air.” He has
the nerve to chuckle afterward. I consider getting angry—mad seems like a
good alternative to mortified—but when he continues, his voice is kind,
sincere. “And you don’t have to be embarrassed. There’s nothing wrong
with being … new. I just … If I’d known … It can go more slowly. It can be
nice that way, too.” His fingers brush the back of my hand. His touch is
light, undemanding, obviously meant to be comforting, but I pull away all
the same.
I’m not ready to touch him again. Not now, maybe not ever.
By the moons, what was I thinking?
I fist my fingers in my hair and give my head a shake before digging
the heel of my palm into my forehead. No matter how good it felt to be
close to Gem, no matter how much I want to kiss him again. I can’t— We
can’t— This is—
“Impossible,” I mutter beneath my breath.
“Not impossible.” Gem scoots closer, until his hip touches mine.
“Yes,” I insist, but I don’t move away. “Impossible.”
“Maybe. But it felt right. You felt right,” he whispers, sending warmth
rushing in my chest and a hint of that tingling I felt in his arms zipping
through the rest of me. Even if every other being on the planet would think
we’re mad, it’s good to know that Gem felt it, too. That I wasn’t … that I am
not alone.
I sigh. “There are so many things I wish.” I lean into him, resting my
head on his shoulder, overwhelmed by everything I want to be different.
My life, my purpose, my death. But none of that will ever change, and what
we want is more impossible than Gem knows.
“I’m sorry,” I say, despair settling in my heart. “I would change the
world if I could.”
“Then change it,” he says, a hint of yesterday’s gruffness in his tone,
though the arm he puts around my shoulders is gentle. “You’re a queen.
You’re young and strong and clever. And kind, when you want to be. That
city is yours to command.”
I shake my head. “No, not yet. And even when—”
“Yes. Yet. You can change your world. You have that power.”
“You don’t understand,” I say. “Even if the garden—”
“Forget the garden. You don’t need the garden.” He turns me to him
before pushing my hair from my face with a tenderness that makes me
ache. “You can make the wrong things right without the garden. You can
give the outcasts a place in your city. You can send food to my people. You
don’t have to wait. Children are starving now. My … my child is starving.”
My lips part. I never even considered. He’s only nineteen.
“I don’t know his name. He didn’t … He wasn’t named before I left,”
Gem says, grief clear in his voice. “But I think of him every day. His mother
chose another mate, and I’ll never be a father to him in the way that man
will, but I want to know him. I want him to live to see the first a
of his birth, but many don’t.”
“Please,” I beg, the thought of those hungry children, of Gem’s
hungry child, hitting me harder than it has before. He has a child, and I’m
still not much more than a child myself. I’m crazy to think we’ll ever
understand each other. “I’m sorry. I don’t want your people or your baby to
suffer, I truly don’t, but I … I don’t …” I try to drop my head to my chest, but
Gem catches my chin in his hand.
“Then don’t back down.” His finger traces slowly back and forth
across my cheek. “Help my people. Help yourself.”
“I can’t.”
“You can,” he whispers, leaning so close I can feel his breath on my
face. My lips tingle and my heart beats faster, and all I want to do is taste
him again—to lean in and lose myself in the dizzy rush of his mouth on
mine—but I can’t.
I push his hand away gently but firmly. “I can’t. The people wouldn’t
allow it. I’m tainted.”
He makes a disgusted sound, but I push on before he can make
another grand speech about what his chief would do in my place.
“I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but that matters to my
people,” I continue. “They are repulsed by Monstrous traits, and it isn’t just
the outer ugliness of the tainted that they despise. We’re raised to believe
the Monstrous are worse than animals, that they are savages who kill for
pleasure, and that their ugliness is a sign of the corruption of their souls.”
He sighs, his frustration clear in the sound. “But you know that isn’t
true.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything for sure,” I confess before I
think better of it, the pressure of his expectations making me anxious. As
soon as I realize how my words sounded, I hurry to explain. “I mean, I know
you aren’t anything like what I imagined a Monstrous would be like, but
one of your people slaughtered my father. And I—I’m not like the rest of
my people. It isn’t just my size or my rough skin or my wild hair. I’ve never
done as I was told. I lie and take chances I shouldn’t and think only of
myself and—”
“And you think …” His breath rushes out. “You think that means your
soul is corrupt?” he asks, disgust and shock warring in his tone. “Like
mine?”
I shake my head, sending my hair flying into my face. “No! No, of
course not. I don’t think your soul is corrupt. You’re not listening.”
“You’re not listening,” he snaps. “If you were, you’d hear how rattled
you sound.”
“I am not rattled. I’m trying to explain why I can’t rush in and change
the world. The world is complicated,” I say, feeling more confused with
every passing second. I’m not ready for this. I don’t know what to say. “I
just … I know some of what I’ve been taught is wrong, but you can’t deny
that we are different. You said so yourself.”