“Yes.”
“If he finds them—if anyone finds them…”
My teeth are gritted. “I know.”
“What were you thinking? You shouldn’t have taken such a risk.”
I edge slightly away. “I was thinking,” I say thickly, “that I couldn’t bear having to sleep with him.”
Wren’s face drops. “Lei—”
“And I was thinking you’d understand.”
“I do. Oh, love, of course I do. I’m so sorry.” Warm fingertips trace my cheek, winding round to cup my head as she leans down and brings her lips to my hairline, holding me close. “You know how much this hurts me, too. But if you had managed to poison him, don’t you think the royal doctors would have been able to figure out how it happened? It could ruin everything we’ve been working toward. They could increase the King’s security. Stop us from seeing him. Even cancel the Moon Ball. Not to mention what the King would do to punish you.”
Tears sting my eyes. “I—I didn’t think about any of that. I just… I couldn’t bear the idea of having to go through with it. Even once.”
Sighing, Wren laces her arms around me, hugging me tighter. “Oh, Lei. Of course not. I’m so sorry. If there was anything, anything I could have done, any way to save you tonight…” Pulling back, she scans my face. “Do you want to talk about it?”
It.
Such a tiny word for everything contained within.
I squeeze my eyelids, trying to expel the images from them. But I know that no matter how hard I try, what happened tonight is going to stay with me forever. The shamans might have healed my bruises, but the King’s brutality is still all over me. It lives in my skin.
It breathes in my bones.
More than anyone, I know how some wounds can stay hidden and yet still be felt so keenly, day after day, year after year.
“Not yet,” I tell Wren eventually.
She takes my hands. “Well, when and if you need to, I’ll be here.”
I nod. Then, eager to change the subject, I ask, “What are we going to do about the herbs? Maybe I can get them back. I’ll go back to the King’s chambers, make up some excuse—”
“No.” Wren stops me. “It’ll only make them suspicious. And I’m not letting you go anywhere near that monster.” She looks away, forehead puckered, then nods. “I’ll get word to Kenzo. He should be able to get to them before the King.”
“You think so?”
Her lips curve into a half smile. “It’s Kenzo. He’ll find a way.”
I try to return her smile, but the tuck of my lips is wrong and all I can do is grimace. Then her words just a couple of minutes ago echo back to me.
“The Moon Ball,” I say. “Isn’t that the party the King is hosting to celebrate the New Year?”
Wren nods. “What about it?”
“You said you’re worried they might cancel it.” Her expression stiffens, and suddenly I understand. All this while we’ve been sitting on my sleeping mat, close enough to whisper, but now I shift back, my voice hollow. “That’s when it’s to happen, isn’t it? You’ve been given the order.”
She looks down, long lashes hiding her eyes. “Kenzo told me when he brought you back earlier. Everything’s in place.”
“The New Year is less than four weeks away,” I choke out. I let out a dull, humorless laugh. “Did you know it’s my birthday then, too? Some present you’re giving me, Wren. You’d better not die, too, or it’ll all be too much.”
I mean it as a joke, even if it is a twisted one. But her jaw sets and her eyes flick away, and in that moment I know.
“Oh, gods.” I scramble to my feet, something wild racking through me. Wren reaches out, but I back into the wall, shaking my head, my ears rushing with the whoosh of blood, the deep pulsation of my heartbeat. “Tell me there’s an escape plan, Wren. Tell me they’re going to get you out.”
She falters. “They’ll do their best.”
Neither of us moves as the morning gong rings. Footsteps and voices began to spill into the corridor. The normalcy of it seems absurd, obscene even. How can the world still tick simply by when this beautiful girl is admitting her fate to me, when I can still feel the pain of the King’s fury imprinted upon my body?
How can we just go back to that life, knowing what we know now?
Feeling the way we do now?
“You think you’re going to get caught,” I say, not taking my eyes from Wren’s.
“Lei—”
“Tell me the truth! You think there’s no hope of you getting out. That they’ll capture you once you’ve killed him.”
Something in her face slackens. After a beat, she whispers, “Yes.”
The word cleaves me, splits me straight in two.
“That’s why you didn’t want to tell me. You knew what was going to… you didn’t… didn’t want to hurt me.…”
She gives a tiny nod.
My breath rattles through me, almost painful, but I force myself to draw another. Then another. And with each new inhale the fire returns to me—the red flames that burned through my bloodstream when I walked into the King’s chambers last night, the boldness of my love for Wren that sings in our veins every time we’re pressed skin to skin, our hearts racing each other.
I recall Mama’s saying: Light in, darkness out.
Perhaps it works another way, too.
Fire in, fear out.
“Let me help,” I say steadily. I take a step forward. “You’re going to kill the King, and I’m going to help you do it.”
Wren tenses. “I told you the other night. No.”
“Yes.” I close the distance between us, my fingers sliding between hers. “When the world denies you choices,” I say, echoing her words to me that night in the rain-filled garden all those weeks ago, “you make your own.” I keep my eyes fixed on hers. “This is my choice. The King hasn’t just harmed me and you. Think of all the Paper castes he has his soldiers capture as slaves and kill as easily, as if we weren’t even human. All the families and lives they tear apart. Just like they did with ours.” I grip her tighter. “I don’t know how much longer I can bear it. So I’m going to help you, and then we’re getting out of here—alive.”
Her lips press. “Lei—”
“He gave the orders, Wren.” My voice catches. “He told me. It was him who ordered the soldiers to raid my village.” The wet kiss of a tear tracks my cheek. “How many others has he ordered? How many more families have been broken the way mine was? I can’t take it anymore. I can’t just keep sitting here doing nothing.”
More tears flow. Releasing my hands, Wren cups my face to thumb my tears away, her dark eyes soft. Then she draws me to her. We kiss slow and deep, a kiss I feel from the very tips of my toes to the core of my being. A kiss I feel in my soul. And for a few moments we get a glimpse of what the future could be like for us—to be with each other, free, with no fear that our love might get us killed.
When I was young, my parents used to kneel by my sleeping mat at bedtime and tell me stories from the Ikharan Mae Scripts, the myths about how our world was born. According to the Scripts, the sky began as a sea of light. There were no distinctions between stars or moon or clouds. Everything was white.