When Prince Kobe is gone, Orrin surges forward to enfold the Heir in an embrace. She closes her eyes, allowing him to hold her, and Orrin murmurs, “He was hideous.”
“And this is whom the scholars select for me,” the Heir says grimly. She stands comfortably in Orrin’s arms, her own hands resting at his sides as he holds her. Ruti watches them from her spot behind the leaves, her eyes sharp and curious as she takes them in. Orrin’s affection is unmistakable, as is the gentleness with which the Heir leans against him.
The Heir is never gentle, never any less than sharp-carved steel, and perhaps that’s why Ruti is transfixed at the sight of them, even knowing what will come next for her. Because her magical barrier failed, because the Heir could have been bonded, because the spirits refused her request—but all she can do is stare at the Heir, the other girl’s eyes drifting shut for a moment as Orrin tucks his chin over her head.
And then, inevitably, the Heir’s eyes snap open, the moment of tenderness forgotten. “Markless traitor,” she hisses, twisting around to glare into the leaves. “Show yourself.”
Ruti panics. Years of being hunted by other Markless, of being attacked by guards, of being a handbreadth from death—they all kick in at once. Ruti moves by instinct, her heart thrumming with fear of what might happen to her now.
She twists away from the Heir and runs, runs from the Heir and from Orrin, runs from the gardens, and flees at a breakneck pace from the punishment to come.
She makes it nearly to the back entrance of the Royal Square before she remembers Kimya and makes an abrupt turn. There are sharp commands somewhere behind her—“Orrin, faster. Find her!”—that sound like a Fanged One’s sibilant hiss, and Ruti ducks down and flattens herself against a tree.
Orrin tears past her, his big angry face twisted into a sneer, and he peers around in the dimness, searching for Ruti. Ruti closes her eyes and sings a silent chant to the Scaled One for stillness, imagining its long snout and deceptively stubby legs barely visible beside logs in the river.
The Scaled One grants her request without need for an additional offering, and Orrin twists around without noticing her at all. Ruti burrows into the trees, closing her eyes and thanking Kalere privately for choosing a dark green gown for her today. She blends into the dark, and soon Orrin is calling, “She’s gone.”
A rustle through the trees, a crack of thunder, and the Heir says coldly, “I refuse to accept that. Send out guards to find the Markless witch. Tell them not to return without her.” Her voice is clear, her words deadly, and Ruti shivers as thunder rumbles above the palace.
She’s been caught before dozens of times, and she knows that the best way to run is not to run at all. Stay put, wait as your pursuers search outside for you, and you can steal away once they’ve given up. She’ll have to go retrieve Kimya, and the two of them can hide out in the massive palace while the Heir fruitlessly tears apart Somanchi in search of her.
Ruti waits until the Heir is gone, the wind quieting around her and the thunder fading, and she regards the door to the kitchens with some suspicion. The cooks and servants in the kitchens know her face by now, have seen her in the Heir’s chambers and in the banquet hall. If they see her in the palace after she’s supposed to be gone, her entire tactic will fail.
There’s only one real option. She can’t walk through the palace without being seen. Kimya is up in the Heir’s chambers, safely ensconced in their room—unless the Heir has already taken her to the dungeons. But Ruti doesn’t think so. Kimya is good at blending in, at being forgotten and overlooked when she needs to be. In the weeks they’d spent together at the shop, she’d spent most of her time out of sight, picking through ingredients and cleaning the dark corners of the shop. If the Heir returns to her chambers in a fury, Kimya will slip away before the princess thinks to arrest her.
Now, Ruti has to get to her.
She slips around the corner of the castle at the center of the palace, squinting up at the large window that she knows marks the Heir’s chambers. Four windows to the right will be Ruti’s room, and if Ruti can somehow make it there, she can climb inside. The windows of the bottom two floors of the palace are shuttered for security, but when it’s cool outside, the attendants open the windows in the Heir’s chambers to let some air into the rooms.
Ruti just has to climb.
She sings in a whisper as she begins her climb, calling to the spirits for even more help—too much, enough that she must be trying their patience—and imagines monkeys swinging through the trees above mighty beasts as the Winged One soars over them. They are quick and nimble, strong and daring, and she borrows their bravery as she reaches up to the next jutting brick, kicking off her sandals so her bare toes can wrap around the cool, weathered foothold.
She is halfway up and can see more bricks jutting out above her. Carefully, she seizes the next, pulling at it as she sings herself more agility, squeezes her fingers around it, and moves.
The brick slips from the wall, and Ruti nearly slips with it. She slaps a hand against the wall unsteadily, adrenaline and terror surging through her, and she regains her balance and makes a terrible mistake.
She looks down.
She’s flat against the wall, halfway between the first-floor windows and the second, and she’s as good as suspended in midair. One wrong move and she’ll fall, break her legs or her neck or worse, and several of the tan bricks she used to ascend have already fallen to the ground. There’s no going back, not this way, and she’ll have to make it to her room or drop.
She takes a shuddering breath. No matter. She’s survived worse situations. This is only a wall, and she has magic. She sings another chant, one she composes on the spot, another plea for agility that lets her dig her hand into the gap left behind by the fallen brick and hoist herself up higher.
Her gloves are gone, discarded with her sandals. Her hands are scratched and her arms and legs ache from the strain of the climb, but she ignores them all to reach higher still until finally—finally—she’s just below the shutters to the window of her room.
The shutters are unlocked, and Ruti slides them open a sliver to see Kimya curled up on her bed. It’s gotten late, and Kimya has been sleeping earlier in the palace than she used to in the slums. Kimya’s eyes are open, though, and she watches the window with quiet attention.
She’s been expecting Ruti. Ruti breathes a sigh of relief, pushes the shutters open all the way, and tumbles through them to the floor of the room. “We have to get out of here,” she says breathlessly. “I’m in trouble.”
Kimya only sits silently, watching her without signing, and Ruti notices two things that she hadn’t before. First, Kimya’s hands and feet are bound with rope to keep her from moving.
“That seems a common dilemma for you,” a voice says crisply, and Ruti lifts her head to stare at the other bed, the one they don’t use.
They aren’t alone.
Of course. Ruti should have known that the Heir would immediately anticipate what Ruti would do next. She sits on the second bed, leaning against the wall as though the bed is her throne, and watches Ruti with inscrutable eyes.
“Oh,” Ruti says numbly. “It’s you.”
She could run again, flee and hope that Orrin isn’t standing on the other side of the door to the Heir’s chambers, but she won’t be able to free Kimya in time for them to have a chance. Instead, Ruti stands very still, staring at the Heir as the Heir stares back.
“Kneel,” the Heir says coldly, and Ruti obeys without question this time.
She drops to her knees, heart thumping with dread, and the Heir rises to stare down at her, looking for all the world as though she holds more power than a witch. Ruti matches her stare, unflinching, prepared to face her doom at last. The Heir circles her once, then speaks. “Who sent you to sabotage me?”
Ruti blinks. Of all the orders and questions and demands that the Heir might make, she hadn’t expected that. “I … what?” she asks, incredulous.
“Who sent you?” the Heir demands. “Was it my uncle? Was it one of the courtiers? Was it Rurana’s prince? Is this a political coup? Who had you sabotage your magic on me?”
“Sabo— No one!” Ruti says, disbelieving. “No one brought me here but you!” The Heir stares down at her, her face stiff and dark, and Ruti says, “I failed, yes. But I tried. I put all I could into my magic. I begged the spirits again and again, I swear it.” She gazes up at the Heir, beseeching. The Heir watches her, a flicker of doubt on her face. “I did all I could.”
“I don’t believe that,” the Heir says darkly. “I saw you summon a Spotted One. I saw you burned and scorched into something monstrous at the market, and you healed yourself in just hours. And this is too much for your magic? A simple mark?”
Ruti takes a deep breath, remembering the spirits’ disapproval at her plea. “The spirits thought … they thought it was unnatural to resist it,” she murmurs, and the Heir sags in front of her. This will be Ruti’s death, now that she is condemned to uselessness, and there is nothing she can do but tell the Heir the truth. “Soulbinding is their gift to humans. It is the gravest of offenses to reject the gift of the spirits. So they refused to keep you from trying to bond with the prince. I’m sorry.”
The Heir turns away from her, thunder crackling around them, and Ruti stands, hurrying to untie Kimya from her bonds. Kimya hisses at her, frustration in her eyes, but she doesn’t push Ruti away.
