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braid hangs down his back like a weary pet in need of a brushing.
I step closer, and touch the top of his head ever so softly. He glances
up, surprised, unguarded. “Please stay,” I whisper. “I want you to be here.”
He nods, rather unhappily I think, and turns back to his apple.
“There’s a washbasin and towels in the sitting room down the hall.
By the pantry,” I say. Though, aside from his dusty shirt, Gem doesn’t seem
to be in nearly as bad a shape as I am. “If you want to freshen up, feel free.”
“All right,” he says, eyes still glued to the fruit in his hand.
“I won’t be long,” I say, hoping both of our moods will improve once
this is done. I’ve felt my own face and my peeling flesh. I have a fairly good
idea what I must look like. Strange, different, big-featured and
rough-ski
than what I’ve imagined.
Or so I tell myself as I turn toward the washroom, half hoping Needle
neglected to haul up the usual supply of water in my absence, and I’ll have
a good excuse to fall into bed filthy and deal with facing my face in the
morning.
SEVENTEEN
GEM
I eat everything left on the tray. I drink all the water and then the tea.
Tea in the desert is bitter and smoky, the way a drink intended to get
you out of your hut on a winter morning should be. Smooth Skin tea tastes
like crushed flowers, so sweet it made me gag the first time I put a cup of it
to my lips. I detest Smooth Skin tea, but I drink the honeyed liquid anyway.
I’m on edge. Drinking gives me something to do with my hands.
Isra, Isra, Isra. Her name knocks around inside me as I wash up and
return to my seat on the tiny couch. Isra. It hurts and heals and makes me
hope.…
I can’t hope. Not yet. It’s too dangerous.
I don’t know what will happen when she looks at herself, but I know
there’s a good chance she’ll hate me. I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell the truth,
either, and my halfhearted attempt last night was worse than no attempt at
all. I don’t want her to hate me. I want her to keep looking at me with eyes
that confess all her secrets.
I thought seeing me would remind her of our differences, but instead
she looks at me like …
Like I look at her.
“Gem?” She’s suddenly standing in front of me, her freshly combed
hair tumbling around her shoulders, her body encased in a black skirt and a
long-sleeved green shirt with silky ruffles at the throat. I smile despite
myself. It’s a playful shirt. It suits her better than her silkworm dresses.
Her fingers tangle nervously in the ruffles. “This was my mother’s,”
she says. “It was one of the few things of hers to survive the fire. I’ve never
tried it on, but I thought … It seemed right to wear it.”
“I like it.”
“I do, too.” She fidgets, frowns. “I can’t believe it fits.”
“Your mother must have been tall like you.”
Isra nods, but her brow remains wrinkled. “I suppose. I don’t
remember her as … Father never said anything about my mother being
tainted, but I suppose I—”
“Where is the mirror?” I rise. It’s time.
“Needle said she has one by her bed.” Isra takes a breath and tucks
her hand into the crook of my arm, despite the fact that she no longer
needs anyone to guide her.
She leads me down a narrow passage to a bedroom where a giant
bed with a scarlet quilt the same color as the royal roses stands proudly in
the center. The bed is too big for a girl alone. It’s a bed built for two, solid
and sturdy and meant to withstand the use of generations of men and
women.
Of Isra, and her soon-to-be husband.
“Wait.” I stop inside the door, unable to pull my eyes from the bed. I
have to reach Isra before she decides I can’t be trusted. “You don’t have to
keep your promise. Once I’m back in my cell, it will be your word against
Bo’s. No one has to know you let me out. You don’t have to marry him if
you don’t want to.”
“Do you think I want to?” she asks, voice shaking.
I look down at her, at her parted lips and her shining eyes, and
immediately I hurt. Because she hurts.
I cradle her face in my hands. “Then don’t do it.”
“I don’t have a choice,” she whispers. “I have to be married by
spring.”
“Why? You said seventeen was young to marry.”
“It is, but it doesn’t matter.” The tears sitting in her eyes roll down
her cheeks. “I’m queen. I’ll be married as soon as my mourning is through.”
I catch a tear with my thumb and rub it gently into her skin. “Why?”
“There are reasons. I’d rather not explain them, but they’re real.
Inescapable.” She drops her gaze to my chest with a sigh. “There isn’t time
to get out from beneath Junjie’s thumb. If I’m going to change anything for
the better, I’ll need his support, and he won’t give it if I refuse to marry his
son.”
“Find someone to take Junjie’s place.”
“There isn’t time,” she repeats, lifting troubled eyes to mine. “He was
at my father’s side for twenty years. He makes the people feel safe. I’d
never find someone fit to take his place in a few months.”
“Then put off the marriage,” I say, fingers tightening, pressing lightly
into her jaw. “Have a … I don’t know what you would call it. In our tribe it’s
a trial.”
“A trial?”
“Two people spend time together, sometimes even live together, but
nothing is official until the woman claims the man in a ceremony before the
tribe.”
“The woman does the claiming?” Her eyebrows lift. “Interesting.”
“The man has to agree, but the decision to end the trial is the
woman’s.”
She hums beneath her breath. “If my father had lived, he would have
chosen my husband. He might have even chosen Bo. Whoever he would
have picked, I wouldn’t have had much say about it. That’s how it is for
most noblewomen. We marry within the descendents of the founding
families, being careful not to marry too closely. I’ve heard some of the
common women marry for love, but …” Her eyes shift to the side, as if she’s
suddenly become very interested in the door frame. “Did you ever … Were
you ever …”
“No,” I say. “Meer and I … it was never a trial. At first I thought we
might, but … She chose someone else.”
“Oh.” She plucks at her shirt. “Women in Yuan aren’t supposed to … I
mean, I know some do,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I’ve
heard there are herbs they take to make it possible to”—she waves a hand
nervously in the air—“without any babies. For Yuan women, a baby is only
supposed to come after marriage. It’s scandalous otherwise.” She tilts her
head back and blows air through her pursed lips. Even in the dim light of
the lamp burning by her bedside, I can see how pink her cheeks have
gotten.
“Different from our ways,” I say, trying not to smile.
It’s strange to me that she’s embarrassed by something my people
consider natural. But then, for my people, there is no shame in it. No man
or woman is forced to be with someone not of their choosing. No baby is
left unloved because it came from one man and not another.
“Yes,” she says, casting another glance toward the corner of the
room, where a narrow bed sits next to a chest of drawers with a blue and
white washbasin on top. Above the basin, a mirror hangs on the wall. “We
don’t have trials. A couple will be betrothed for a time before they’re