Of Beast and Beauty - Jay Stacey (читать хорошую книгу txt) 📗

TWENTY-NINE

GEM

HER body goes limp, but I don’t stop. I run for the gate while the city

does its best to kill me before I can escape. Chunks of glass as big as houses

ram into the dirt, sending soil exploding into the air and raining down on

my shoulders. I clutch Isra closer and run with her head held to my chest,

hoping to protect her from the worst of the debris.

Trees uproot in my path, reaching gnarled roots out to catch at my

legs, but I leap over them. I’m starting to believe we’ll make it to the desert,

but when I reach the King’s Gate, the hole I crawled through isn’t there.

There’s nothing but rubble and an impenetrable shield of broken glass

blocking the way.

With a curse and a prayer to the ancestors, I turn and race back

toward the Hill Gate. It was larger to begin with. There has to be some of it

left, some way out.

I run through fields planted with glass and twisted metal, through

trees ripped from their orchards and left to shrivel in the rain now falling

through the holes in the dome. I run past the rose garden, where the

flowers screech and writhe in their bed, tossing their great heads back and

forth, reaching with vines like clawed tentacles to try to snatch Isra from

me as we pass.

But I’m too far away and they are too late. This city will never rise

again. The world outside is reclaiming its power. It will be healed. It will

heal Isra. It will. It will.

I run on—lungs burning, legs aching, but I force myself to move

faster. There’s no time. Isra is moving further away with every moment. I

can sense her soul separating from her body, considering flight the way I

did that night in the dungeon.

“Stay, Isra,” I pant. “Stay with me.”

By the time I reach the Hill Gate and squeeze through the last space

big enough for a man carrying another person, she’s more than limp. She’s

as still as the stones on the ground.

I want to stop right away and lay her down, let the rain kiss her face

and bring her back to me, but we’re too close to the city. Most of the

wreckage is falling inside the walls, but there is still danger near the gate. I

have to keep going.

I run until we are at a safe distance, and then a little safer still, and

then farther than we really need to be, and still I don’t put her down. I

don’t want to put her down. Somewhere deep inside I know. I know like I

knew Herem was dead before he rolled from Meer’s arms, like I knew Meer

was gone before she touched the ground.

Isra’s gone. Too far gone for even magic to bring her back.

“No, please,” I beg as I finally fall to my knees and settle Isra on a

patch of newly grown grass. “Please, please, please.”

I brush the wild curls from her face, smooth a bit of dirt from her

cheek. I let my hand linger at her waist, hoping and praying to feel her body

stir as she draws breath, but there is no breath. There is nothing, even

when I cup her face in my hands and press the softest kiss to her lips, even

when I tell her I need her, even when I beg and beg the Desert Mother to

bring her back to me. Even when I throw back my head and howl up into

the pounding rain, there is nothing. Isra only lies there, until her lips pale

and her cold skin is dotted with raindrops.

I sit on the ground beside her, holding her hand as the last of the

storm clouds roll away and the setting sun makes one last glorious crimson

appearance, casting the newborn desert in rose and gold, making our world

look like paradise.

Inside me there is nothing but misery so fierce it burns. Burns my

heart, my throat, my eyes.…

My eyes. Something hot and wet and impossible pushes at my eyes,

through my eyes, to burn two desperate paths down my cheeks. Tears.

From the eyes of a Desert Man. It’s impossible. Never in the world, never in

my life …

But here they are, as wet and salty as Smooth Skin tears, pouring

from my eyes as I grieve her. I feel them drip from my chin, watch them

land on Isra’s pale hand, still cradled in my lap, and I understand. This is

what the desert gave me. It gave Needle a voice. It gave me tears, a place

for all the pain to go, a way for it to leave my body and be swept away, but

it will take forever. Years of weeping, rivers of tears. I can’t imagine ever

standing up again. I can’t tolerate the thought of building a pyre and placing

Isra on top and setting it aflame.

I can’t. I won’t. I will sit here and cry for her until my body runs dry

and I turn to dust. I will cry, and each tear will be another miracle she didn’t

live to see.

“Isra, please,” I whisper. “Don’t leave me here alone. I love you.”

It’s only when the words are out that I realize I never told her. I felt

the words, but I never said them aloud. There was never the right time or

place, and now there never will be. Never. Isra is gone, and she never knew.

Not for sure.

I cry harder. And harder, until my vision swims and I can barely see.

But I can feel. I can feel the ground shake as the last of Yuan

crumbles to the ground behind me. I can feel my soul thrashing inside my

body, beating at the walls of my flesh with tight fists, determined to escape

the torture of living through losing her. I can feel my teeth grind together as

my

jaw

clenches,

trying

and

failing

to

hold

back

the

moaning-keening-growling-suffering sounds vibrating in my throat. I feel it

when more tears fall onto my hands, sliding onto her hand, sealing us

together.

I feel it when her skin warms and her fingers brush—ever so

slightly—against mine.

I suck in a breath, and look down to find her … glowing. Not some

trick of the setting sun reflecting off her skin, but light beaming from within

her, painting her bare arms a soft orange, lighting the hollows of her eyes,

illuminating her lips until they are redder than the roses dying in the city

behind us.

“Isra?” I whisper, with equal parts fear and hope. “Isra?”

With a soft moan, her chest lifts, her throat lengthens, and the

fingers still twined through mine squeeze tightly. I clutch her hand with

both of mine, wishing so hard that I’m afraid to breathe as her head tilts

back and her lips part. She sighs, and gold and orange sparks fly from her

mouth.

Instinct tells me to move back, but I stay, refusing to be frightened

away as more and more sparks fly with each breath until Isra is breathing

fire, but showing no signs of burning. Instead of feeding on her flesh, the

fire is nourishing her, transforming her.

Ribbons of flame whip out to tease at her chest, her arms, all the way

down to her knees and bare toes. Her legs grow longer, her hips and

shoulders wider. The bones of the hand still clutched in mine shift and

reshape, while above her eyebrows and down her cheeks orange and gold

scales unfold like cloth laid across her skin.

The light shining from within her glows brighter, the flames between

her lips rise higher, and higher, until I can’t resist the urge to reach out and

touch them. I brace myself for pain, but my hand passes into the center of

the fire without a single burn. The flames are hot, but they don’t hurt.

They … heal.

Warmth and sweetness stitch up things inside me, soothing and

reassuring, kneading and molding, taking and giving. My teeth grow smaller

and slicker against my tongue, my tongue creeps farther back into my