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The phone in his hand buzzes. He shifts his gaze to it but doesn’t pick up.
“You lied for me,” I say, realizing that the only way The Tribunal would think I was pregnant would be if he told them I was. “Why?”
His cheeks hollow out as he draws in a deep breath. “What you did is a crime punishable by death in the eyes of The Society.”
My knees waver, goose bumps rising along my flesh.
“There is the law and there is our law.”
“The Society’s law.”
He nods. “I was offered three choices for your sentence.”
My heartbeat accelerates.
“Death by poison. Fitting.”
“Santia—”
“Death by hanging.”
He catches my arms when my knees give out and walks me backward to sit me in the chair he’d sat in the night I’d slept in his bed.
“And a loyalty test which I’m not sure you would survive.”
“What is that?”
“The Tribunal has fairly archaic methods when it comes to punishing those who betray us. You probably know this.”
I shake my head but remember that scaffold in the small courtyard hidden by the towering walls of The Tribunal’s building.
“Torture. Something medieval. While I bear witness.”
“But...You can’t let them—” the words are barely audible, my palms sweaty, fingernails digging into the leather of the chair I cling to in order to control the trembling.
“The benefit of this final method is threefold when you think about it. It will ensure you provide the name of the person or persons who supplied you with the poison as well as confirm your loyalty—”
“By torturing me.”
“And it will test me as well. My loyalty to The Society as I stand by and watch my wife punished.”
“But…”
“Not that they’d forego the methods necessary to draw a name from your lips if I were to choose either of the other options.”
My face must go very pale. I feel the blood drain and watch him watch me.
“But, as you know, I have standing within The Society.” He gives a dark smile and brushes his knuckles over the stenciled side of my face. “Since your crime was against me, as your husband, I offered an alternative.”
“The tattoo.”
He nods. His phone buzzes again and he silences it. “Considering the fact that you are carrying my heir—”
“But I’m not…”
“I know that.”
“You lied to save my life.”
His eyes narrow again. He takes a moment to answer. “For selfish reasons, Ivy. Do not be fooled.”
“What if I can’t get pregnant?”
“Can’t?” He cocks his head to the side. “Is there something I should know?”
I shake my head quickly. Too quickly. And as I rise to my feet, for the first time in my life, I am grateful for the vertigo, for the dizziness, because when I stumble into his arms, he catches me and I hear the curse he mutters as he easily lifts me off my feet.
For a moment, just one moment, I close my eyes and lean against him and just let him hold me, cradle me, give in to this illusion of safety. I can give myself that, can’t I? I can have just this little stitch in time.
He lays me down on his bed, on the bed in which we just made love. It still smells like us.
“Let me clarify then, if there’s nothing you have to tell me. If there is no baby, their sentence will stand. They will not accept mine.”
“What happens to you if they find out you lied?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “There will be a reckoning, I’m certain, but I will live.”
“And I won’t.” I can't think about that part. “And you’ll be punished because of me. If I can’t get pregnant, I mean.”
He doesn’t reply but I don’t need him to.
“And the tattoo…my face, it still happens. You’re still going to do it.” It’s not a question. The pregnancy, this non-existent, impossible pregnancy, it doesn’t get me or him out of this. Me to take the punishment. Him to deal it.
“Why did you do it?” he asks, looking wretched, sounding even more so.
I can’t control the emotion, the tears that come. I don’t even try. Because I’m doomed. We both are.
17
Ivy
Back in my room I study my face by the dim light in the bathroom mirror. The stencil is smeared but not completely gone. It matches his but is somehow more feminine.
In a grotesque way, it’s beautiful. Like his.
Like him.
I turn away, fingers tightening around the counter. I can't think that. I am his enemy even if he was never mine. He hates me.
But he also lied to The Tribunal to save me no matter his simple excuse of selfishness. It’s not for the reason of having me birth his babies or torturing me himself. I just don’t believe that’s true. Because just as ugly and beautiful are both too simple concepts for him, so is this. We are bound to one another. There is something here. And he’s human no matter how much he tries to prove himself a demon.
