princess is suddenly by my side, tripping over my arm and falling to the ground beside me. “Take him alive!” she pants, turning to address the air around her, blind eyes wide. “Take him alive. We need him to tell us how to remove the poison. If not, I will die.”
My claws dig into the stone so hard, my knuckles ache. There is no poison—these Smooth Skins believe such strange things about my people—but I can arrange for her to die. She’s close. I could slit her throat before her guards could make a move to protect her.
My pulse beats faster. The agony in my legs fades to a high-pitched hum of pain that urges me to act. To kill. This is my last chance to take vengeance. This is their princess, the woman who will be queen and continue the devastation of the land until not a single living creature remains outside the domed cities.
I should do it. I will do it.
My heart races. Faster, faster , until I hear it rushing in my ears.
Faster , until sweat beads on my lip and my scales move farther apart to accommodate the heat building inside me. Faster , until my teeth ache and my brain pulses and colors swim through the night air.
Red for the blood that’s been spilled.
Blue for the sky I’ll never see again.
Green for her eyes.
Her eyes …
They are the last thing I see before black sweeps in, stealing all the colors, all my hope, away.
THREE
ISRA
THERE’S a muffled kapluph , and the Monstrous man’s arm goes limp.
It lolls against my leg, heavy and so hot that it burns through my overalls.
He’s as hot as fire, as hot as I’ve imagined the desert sand would be against bare feet.
No human could live through such heat. Not for long. I don’t know about a Monstrous, but he certainly wasn’t this warm before.
“Take him to the cells,” I say, my breath coming fast. “Bring the healers to see him. Find the king and tell him I’ll meet him there.”
Baba. By the moons, he’ll be terrified. And livid. He’s already locked me away. What will he do now? When he learns I’ve been out of the tower and met such trouble? Put bars on the windows? Brick up the stairs? The thought of being any more trapped than I am is almost enough to make me hope the poison in my blood kills me.
I shiver. I asked the Monstrous to kill me. Why? What was I thinking?
I don’t want to die. I want to live, I want—
“But, Princess—”
“Do as she says,” comes a worried voice from my left. “We need the monster awake. He might be the only one who knows the cure. I’ll escort Princess Isra. Hurry!” The air fills with the scuff, scuff of soldiers’ boots, then grunts and groans as the heavy Monstrous is hauled from the ground and with more scuff, scuffs is carried away.
“Let me help you, Princess,” the remaining soldier says. His voice is
familiar, though I don’t know why. I’ve never spoken to a soldier. I’ve never spoken to any men at all except for my father, Junjie, and now the Monstrous.
The Monstrous was definitely a man, a man the size of a small mountain, the only being I’ve ever seen longer than I am. My people are almost invariably small of stature and petite of bone, with nut-brown skin and straight black hair. The Monstrous had similar hair, but he stood a head taller than me, with shoulders the size of boulders, covered in orange and golden scales, like a fish, but dry and smooth.
No, not like a fish, like … a snake.
The thought makes me shudder as I take the soldier’s hand and let him help me to my feet.
“Are you able to walk, my lady?” His voice pricks at me like one of the needles in my maid’s apron pocket.
It’s how Needle got her name. The day she came to give me a bath, I had just turned five and was still feral with grief. She started unbuttoning my dress, and I shoved her away, pricking my fingers on the sharps in her apron in the process.
Strangely, the pain calmed me.
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