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Her dark hair is coiled on top of her head like a nest of snakes. Her
lips are stained the red of a cactus flower. Her body is covered in a dress
the color of her eyes, but not a dress as Desert Women know it. Our
women’s dresses tie with straps at the back of the neck. They end at the
knee, with slits up the sides to give their legs room to move. This dress has
sleeves that clutch at the girl’s arms, holding her shoulders prisoner. It
squeezes her chest and waist. I roll my head to see that the squeezing
continues all the way to her ankles.
She looks like a worm wrapped up in green silk for a spider’s di
“I asked you a question,” she says, still calm, unmoving except for her
red lips. It feels like we’re alone in this room, but she doesn’t seem afraid.
I roll my head, forcing my stiff neck to turn one way and then the
other. My eyes roam, taking in the stone walls, the barred windows, the
heavy wooden door. Still a cage, but not as miserable a cage. And we are
alone. The princess and the monster.
I turn back to her, watch her pale throat work as she swallows. I
could kill her now. I’m weaker than I’ve ever been, and my legs ache in a
way that assures me that standing isn’t possible, but I could still take her
life. My arms aren’t restrained. One swipe of my claws at her neck where
the blood flows quickest, and it would be done. She’d bleed to death before
the guards could open the door.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Her lips twitch.
My right hand flexes. My claws descend with a sluggish lurp, oozing
from above my nail beds.
“It would be a tragedy for the city.” Her words float on their own
cloud, hovering above us in the crisp air. “I should be married,” she
a
“Seventeen is young, and I’m in mourning until the spring, but I could do it.
I’m sure someone would be willing to risk the bad luck that comes from
breaking tradition.”
Seventeen. Two years younger than me. Not young at all.
“But then they’d have no reason to humor me.” She sighs. “Being the
keeper of the covenant only goes so far, you know. I’ve learned that in the
time you’ve been sleeping. People still feel free to tell a blind girl what to
do. My maid had to sneak a sleeping draft into your guards’ tea in order for
me to be granted a private visit with my own prisoner. Maybe it would be
different if …” Her empty eyes slide toward the door, her ears lift until the
tips are hidden in her hair. “They’ll lock me up again if they find me here,”
she whispers. “Junjie will take my father’s place as jailer. I will never be
seen again.”
“Then … go,” I rasp.
Her lips curve in a hard smile. “I knew you’d speak to me. Sooner or
later.” She leans closer, stretching her long neck. “How did you learn our
language out in the desert?”
I think about refusing to answer, but I don’t want the princess to
leave, not until I’ve decided whether or not I’ll take my piece of her. “My
mother.” I lift my fingers and let them drop, one by one, bringing life back
into my hand. “She carried the tradition.”
“What does that mean?”
“She carried Yuan words in her mind. Her mother carried them
before her, my great-grandmother before that.” With a steady movement I
pull the whisper-soft blanket down my body. It slips off my shoulders, down
my chest. I keep pulling, slowly baring my right hand. “Women usually carry
language. They take words faster. But I have no sisters. I was the youngest,
so my mother taught me.”
“How did your ancestors learn?”
“I don’t know.” My hand is almost free. My focus is on ridding myself
of the blanket. “Mother never told me, and she died four winters …” My
words trail away as I realize what I’ve said.
The princess is quiet. I lie still, not wanting her to hear me
rearranging the covers. “My mama is dead, too. When I was four years old.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t feel sorry. The Smooth Skins deserve to
suffer, this girl most of all.
“Well …” She clears her throat. “You speak well.”
“Thank you.”
Her laughter startles me. My arm jerks, baring my claws in one swift
pull. But there is still no sound, and the princess doesn’t flinch. Thank the
ancestors the girl is blind.
“And good ma
“The other Monstrous killed my father.”
I pause. Is she telling the truth? Is the king of Yuan dead?
“They cut him open from his throat to his belly. I felt the wounds.
Before we put him in the river,” she says, her throat working harder. Her
bound shoulders tremble, straining the seams of her dress. It looks as if it
were made for someone else, some girl even frailer than this one. “He was
taking a walk. He was unarmed. He wouldn’t have hurt them.”
He would have. He did. He hurt them every day that he ruled this city.
But I don’t say the words aloud, no matter how much I want to.
Instead I ask, “Where are the others? What did you do to them?”
“If it were up to me, I would have gutted them the way they gutted
the king.” I let my arm creep toward her neck, remembering how her flesh
parted so easily for my claws the first time. “But I told you, being queen
only goes so far. My advisor said we should send the others back to your
people with a warning to stay away from the city. Junjie could
communicate with your leader. They drew symbols on the dirt floor of the
cell. Your leader—your father, if he’s to be believed—offered to leave you
here as a gesture of good faith. He knows we’ll kill you if the city is attacked
again.”
Her words would wound, but I remember what Father said that night
I lay shivering in my cell. I’m not a gesture of good faith; I’m a weed in their
garden.
“He seemed confident that you’d recover. I wasn’t sure.” She reaches
out. I hold my breath, ready to drop my hand back to the pallet, but her
fingers alight on my forehead, not my arm. “But you’re cool now.” The pads
of her fingers trace the slope of my nose, over my lips, sending a strange
zinging sensation across my skin.
She continues, over my chin, down to my neck, where her hand curls.
Her fingers begin to squeeze, and the zing is banished by the thud, thud,
thud of blood struggling to flow.
I should do it. Now. Cut off her arm; go for her throat. But I don’t. I’m
still weak. Not only in body, but in mind. I don’t want to kill a motherless,
fatherless blind girl. Even if she is my greatest enemy.
“Did you know they would kill him?” she asks.
I think about saying yes, just to see if she’ll try to strangle me to
death, but instead I say, “We weren’t here to take lives.”
Her grip loosens. “Why were you here?”
I swallow, throat rippling beneath her fingers. “We’re hungry. We
hoped to steal food to take back to our people.” I can’t tell her that my
chief’s vision revealed that the roses are the secret to the Smooth Skin’s
paradise under the dome. And I can’t kill her. If I do, I’ll never leave this
room alive.
My arm falls; my claws ease back into their beds. I don’t know why
I’m alive, but I am, and I must make the most of it. I have to find a way into
the garden.
“My people are starving,” I say.
She makes an angry sound beneath her breath. “If my father weren’t
dead, I would feel sorry for you.” Her fingers tighten again, until my eyes
ache and green and pink spots dance around her face. “I would have put