straining the words. “I almost hate to tell you what Father did. If you love

them this much while you believe a monster killed the king, how much

more will you love them when you know the truth?”

Despite the still, humid air in my walled-up room, I’m suddenly cold.

He can’t mean … He can’t …

“It was my father who killed yours,” Bo whispers. “He made it look

like the Monstrous, but … it was him.”

No. No. I pull away from the door and step back, staring hard at the

wood, half expecting it to catch fire and burn, showing me Bo’s face on the

other side. I have to see his face. I have to know if he’s telling the truth.

I reach out and twist the lock, fling open the door. He steps back

quickly, shooting the dagger in my hand a wary glance, but when he lifts his

eyes, there is more shame than surprise in his expression.

“It was the only way for me to be king.” Even Bo’s soft voice seems

too loud with the door no longer between us. Or maybe it’s the terrible

truth in his words that makes my ears ache. “Your father wanted you to be

spared. He was planning to marry again, the same widow I was going to

marry tomorrow morning. She already has children. The line of succession

would have been insured for another generation. So my father decided to

dispose of the king before he took another wife. If the Monstrous hadn’t

invaded the city, he would have found another way. I didn’t know about

any of it until afterward, but … it’s the truth.”

I shake my head. Father was going to remarry. He wanted me to be

spared the burden of being queen of Yuan. He loved me after all.

And Junjie killed him. He killed his king, his friend, a man who trusted

him with every secret in his heart, with his life. With my life. Junjie would

have taken them both if he’d had his way, all so that his family could have

more power, more prestige.

I suppose I should be shocked, and in a way, I am, but deep down

inside …

Isn’t this what Yuan is about? Killing for what we want, what we’ve

convinced ourselves we deserve? The nobles living in obscene luxury at the

expense of the common people, the common people clinging to their small

comforts at the expense of the Banished, and all of us stealing life away

from the land and the people outside the dome so that we can have feast

days and harvest festivals and surplus and more and more and more when

even half of what we have would be more than enough?

Junjie was only doing what the people of Yuan have always done. He

was paying for what he wanted with someone else’s blood.

But not anymore. Not ever again.

“Thank you,” I say, feeling closer to Bo than I ever have. “For keeping

your promise to the city.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? My father—”

“I understand.” I glance down at the dagger in my hand, grateful I

didn’t get the chance to use it. I don’t want to know what it feels like to pay

a blood price. “It’s all the more reason for this to end with us. I know you

don’t believe what I’ve told you, but—”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” Bo says. “It was so clear

before, but now …” He braces his hands on either side of the door frame,

his head sagging wearily between them.

I glance at his bowed head, at the pale hairs weaving their way in

among the black. His short time as king has taken its toll. Bo’s not a boy

anymore. He’s a man, maybe even man enough to be trusted with the

truth.

I’m parting my lips, debating whether or not to tell him the entire

truth, when a great screech and a shattering fills the air, as if every plate in

the royal kitchen were dropped at once. The tower walls vibrate, and Bo

and I cover our ears with twin cries of pain. A moment later, a dull boom

rocks the stones beneath our feet.

The floor tilts, sending me staggering back into my bedroom. My

dagger falls from my hand and scuttles across the stones, only coming to a

stop when it hits the far wall with a clank. My arms wheel and my feet

spread wide to steady me, even as my heart screams that it’s pointless to

fight, useless to resist. The tower will fall and I will fall with it. This is the

moment I thought I was ready for.

But I’m not. I’m not! How could I be? How can anyone ever be ready?

Mercifully, after several endless seconds, the floor steadies and the

stomach-flipping tilting stops. My breath rushes out and my heart pounds

fast enough to make me dizzy as I turn in a careful circle, taking in the

crooked new world left behind in the wake of the quake. My bed curtains

list to the left, and my dressing table has fallen on its face, while the

pictures on the walls hang at disturbing odds with the room, now that

gravity has taken the room one way and pulled the pictures the other.

“Are you all right?” Bo asks, drowning out another faint but troubling

sound.

“Sh,” I hiss, ears straining. Outside, the air is still once more, but from

somewhere deep within the tower comes a crumbling, crunching … loose

sound. A faltering sound; a falling sound.

“Go! Run!” I shout, dashing on bare feet to the door, where Bo

stands braced against the frame, wide-eyed and as panicked-looking as I

feel. I duck under his arm, snatching at his shirt as I dash for the stairs,

dragging him after me, praying the way out is still passable.

It’s one thing to say I’ll die with the city; it’s quite another to climb

into bed and let the tower collapse beneath me. That’s too close to giving

up, and giving up is too close to drawing a knife across my throat. I’ll fall

with Yuan, but I won’t go down peacefully. I’ll go fighting for my life every

second of the way. I am a warrior now. Gem made me this way, and I won’t

betray him or myself by giving up without a struggle worthy of the last

queen of Yuan.

TWENTY-EIGHT

GEM

THE city is a monster, screaming and frothing and losing teeth in its

frenzy to feed one last time.

The soldiers run like frightened children into the desert, dropping

spears and dart blowers and swords in their haste to escape. The few still

left inside shove each other as they fight to squeeze through the narrow

opening that is all that is left of the King’s Gate now that the walls have all

but collapsed. Even before I’m close enough to see the sweat and tears on

the men’s faces, I can smell their terror, sour and filthy on the wind,

tainting the fresh air crashing over the mountains like waves of redemption.

The men are so afraid of their city that they don’t notice their old

monster running toward them until I’m close enough to kill them with a

sweep of my claws. Two short, soft boys scream and put on a burst of

speed, darting closer to the wall to get away from me, before racing back

toward the desert, while the man wedged half in and half out of the

opening in the gate cries out and lifts his arms in a desperate—and

useless—attempt to protect himself.

If it’s necessary to kill him, he’ll be as dead with those arms up as

down, but I’ll leave that decision to him.

“Leave now and I won’t hurt you. Stay to fight me, and you die,” I

growl as I pull him through the opening by his armpits and fling him onto

the ground. I wait half a second—long enough to see that he has scrambled

to his feet and followed his friends—before turning back to the opening

and hauling at the rocks blocking my way.