Ruti doesn’t look up. “I don’t know yet.”
The Heir’s voice lowers. “Show some respect, Markless brat,” she bites out. “Rise.”
Ruti grits her teeth. The Heir says, “You will kneel when I enter your room. You are not my equal. When we are together in public, we will have to appear companions. But in private, you are nothing. Kneel.”
Ruti glares at the wall. The breeze has become a full-blown wind, whipping around the room and pulling at Ruti’s gown. She thinks of Kimya beneath the blanket and slides slowly out of bed. The Heir watches her, eyes as barbed and cutting as those of a Winged One, and Ruti makes a very gradual descent to her knees.
The wind slows. “Good,” the Heir says. “Stand.”
Ruti stands, glaring at her. The Heir contemplates her for a long moment. “I have told my uncle that I have chosen a new companion. The search for a soulbond can be a long and arduous task, and I will need a friend to help me through it.” She smiles mirthlessly. “My uncle will not recognize you. You looked like a demonness when you were brought on trial. And my attendants are discreet.”
The Heir scrutinizes the room, her hard eyes landing on the untouched bed beside Ruti’s. “Where is the little one?”
Ruti doesn’t answer. The Heir snaps, “I asked you a question, Markless.”
“She’s here,” Ruti says irritably, gesturing at the lump under the blankets. The Heir’s eyes flash, and Ruti adds, reluctant, “Your Highness.”
The Heir’s lip curls. “We are going to have to do away with this attitude of yours, Markless. There are other witches in Zidesh.”
“Not as good as I am, Your Highness,” Ruti retorts, foot falling to one side so her hip can jut out in a semblance of confidence. Maybe it’s a lie, maybe not. She’s never met another witch. “You need me.”
The Heir doesn’t respond for a moment, her face sculpted like those of the Spotted Ones that sit at the entrance to the Merchants’ Circle. “We shall see,” she says at last. She wears white even to bed, a gown with a gold thread that ripples down the front. Her hair has been divided into five sections and braided, a few loose curls at the sides, and she wears no paint or jewelry. Even without it, she’s a vision, and Ruti remembers Kalere’s words and looks stubbornly at the wall instead.
The Heir says, “You will keep your gloves on at all times. Speak only when necessary outside of my chambers. Breathe no word of your true purpose here to anyone.” Her glare is probing, digging deep into Ruti and taking hold of her. “Have you finished your composition for me yet?”
“I’m trying.” She can hear the petulance in her voice. It makes her sound less capable than she is, and she rephrases. “I’m too far from nature here. I can’t feel the spirits.”
The Heir regards her, studying her as though she might be able to see Ruti’s lies with only a glance. “Very well,” she says at last. “Come with me. You will rest when we are done.”
Ruti half expects to be brought down to the dungeons now, already written off, but instead the Heir takes her down the stairs and through the quiet kitchens to the back courtyard. Ruti slides the offering around her wrist and hurries to keep up, inhaling the scent of the wet woods as they walk down the path through the trees and flowers and vines.
The Heir turns, stopping abruptly, and Ruti nearly crashes into her. She slips instead, tumbling back to her knees, and the Heir smiles, satisfied. “Good. Keep that up.”
Ruti scowls. “I hate you,” she snaps, climbing back to her feet. Her red tunic is soiled at the knees now, brown with mud.
“You don’t have to love me,” the Heir says coolly, “only obey me.” She straightens, staring at Ruti with distaste. “Well? Sing.”
Through her clenched jaw, Ruti bites out, “Yes, Your Highness.” She scowls, and it takes a moment before she can collect her chants again. She clears her throat and her mind, holds out the offering that she’d woven together, and begins the lilting melody that she had sung in her room.
Now she can feel the energy that it sparks, the magic that seems to flow from the spirits to her as she follows the lines that wind through the world, calling to the spirits for guidance and assistance. She asks the Spotted One again for persistence, calls on the Scaled One’s speed and agility, cries to the Toothed One for power, and the Maned One for dignity. Each listens, and each gives her a little piece of itself, and she can feel the power floating around her as she lifts her hands to take the Heir’s—
The Heir recoils, repulsed, and Ruti is jolted rudely from the song. “Don’t touch me, Markless,” the Heir snarls, thunder rumbling around them.
Ruti straightens, flushing. “Do you want me to stop your soulbinding or not?” she demands. “I thought that you, of all people, would be less … less prejudiced about it,” she says resentfully. The Heir only glares at her, delicate hands tucked together away from Ruti. “You don’t want to be Bonded. I can’t be Bonded. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
The Heir stares at Ruti’s hands. Ruti had tucked the gloves under one arm when she’d begun her song, and now she twists her fingers together uncomfortably, sliding them through the untaken offering to return it to her wrist. The Heir’s eyes are drawn to Ruti’s blank palm. “It’s unnatural,” she says.
Ruti scoffs. “Strong words for someone who wants to resist her own soulbond. At least I was born not to bond.” The Heir’s eyes flash, but she doesn’t reprimand Ruti this time, and Ruti plunges on, digging the hole around herself a little deeper. “Don’t you think it’s kind of selfish to leave your Bonded to be alone forever?” she challenges. “With an uncontrolled energy around him for eternity instead of the powers he was born for?”
The Heir is not impressed. “He’ll survive,” she says curtly.
“What about Orrin’s Bonded? She must already know him, if he has his powers.” Ruti hasn’t thought about Orrin, Bonded and in love with someone else, until now. The thought of a Bonded choosing someone else is scandalous, a story to whisper in the dark and giggle at, but hardly a real experience. “How can you take away her soulbond?”
The Heir is silent, standing rigid, and she says at last, “Orrin and his soulbond don’t know each other. He was born in Kîaene, in the south. He was bonded at only three to a girl in his village. My father had young Bonded children collected and trained. Her family refused to let her go and left Zidesh. Orrin was brought to the castle. He has no connection to his Bonded. And he loves me.” She says it with grim certainty, with no joy or affection in her eyes. Even in love, she is emotionless.
“Of course he does,” Ruti says scornfully, if only to get a reaction from the Heir. “You’re the Heir. You’re powerful and you’re pretty and …” Her voice trails off. The Heir blinks at her, and Ruti isn’t imagining the amusement in her eyes this time. It gentles them, makes her look like a girl instead of an imperious royal. “But he doesn’t belong to you,” Ruti finishes too late, her cheeks hot.
The Heir stares at her, her gaze growing cold again, and she holds her hands out to Ruti. They waver in place, betraying anxiety, and her wrists stiffen to quell the trembling. “I think we should begin now,” she says abruptly, and Ruti reaches out to hold her hands.
They are warm, warmer than Ruti would have expected, and they are delicate in Ruti’s grasp. The Heir’s jaw works beneath her skin as Ruti’s palm touches hers, but she is silent this time, eyes fixed on Ruti’s face. They drift closed as Ruti begins to sing, her breath emerging in quiet little puffs, the lightest whisper.
Ruti sings a larghetto barrier between the Heir’s mark and anyone who touches her, and hopes that it will be enough. She is asking too much of the spirits, can feel their displeasure at the request, and she infuses her desperation into the song, begging them only to give her this.
There is a sharp movement from the Winged One, who reigns above the others in the sky and thinks little of the small humans and their pleas from the ground. Ruti feels talons rake into her skin as she sings, a warning that she asks too much. The invisible mark they leave stings, but she persists through the pain, turning her cry to the mighty spirits of the land.
At last they answer, and the offering is pulled apart and blown away into the wind. The Heir’s hands glow and she opens her eyes again, staring at Ruti. Ruti stares back, mesmerized by the way that the Heir’s skin seems to almost shine like fire in the light of the magic, an orange tinge to her face, and the air feels heavier as their gazes lock, harder to breathe through it.
Ruti chants more, again and again singing her request, and finally, reluctantly, the spirits grant it. Magic washes over them both. The Heir shivers, her hands trembling in Ruti’s, and she looks less imposing for a moment, more like that girl Ruti’s age again. The magic engulfs her as Ruti sings, and then, at last, it seems to retreat, leaving behind an invisible barrier.
“It should stop your mark from touching the mark of another,” Ruti says, her voice throaty with the effort of singing and the force of the Heir’s eyes on hers. “I don’t know how long it’ll hold.”
The Heir hesitates a moment, eyes closing as she takes a deep breath, and when she looks at Ruti again, her gaze is ice and steel. “Your life will depend on the answer to that question,” she says, and Ruti lets the Heir’s hands go.
They had been so warm, and Ruti’s cold hands—to her chagrin—feel their loss at once.
After a morning meal in the windowed hall, Ruti is brought, sleepy-eyed, to stand before the Heir again. “You will join me in my daily routine,” the Heir orders. She wears white again, the color reserved only for royalty, this dress with an elaborate gold midsection. Her temples have been painted with a gold ochre highlight, the color glowing against her brown skin, and she looks particularly regal today.
