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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 begi
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