“I knew you’d return,” the Heir says, her back still to them. “I knew you would come back for your sister. It doesn’t make you a good person,” she says, but her voice lacks bite. “It makes you weak.”
“It can be both,” Ruti counters, and the Heir turns back, her eyes black pits. “What will you do with me now?” Ruti whispers. She is afraid. There is something thrumming in the air around them, something unpredictable hovering around the Heir, and Ruti has endured enough threats to know that her admission of failure will end in her suffering.
She has to protect Kimya, who sits beside her stiffly and refuses to look at her right now. Kimya is angry, and Ruti can guess a dozen reasons why. She will negotiate with the Heir, find a way to trade some songs for Kimya’s protection within the palace. Kalere likes her, the attendants dote on her, and Kimya is a hard worker. Kimya can be safe here, instead of alone in the slums. If the Heir wills it. The Heir will decide their fates right now, and Ruti can do nothing but await her decree.
But instead the Heir sinks to her knees in front of Ruti, bowing her head and closing her eyes. Ruti gapes, dumbstruck.
“I lied to you,” the Heir says quietly. “I don’t know how many witches there are in Ntuka or Aelin. I have only seen one witch in Somanchi’s market, and he was a fraud. I led you to believe I have options, but I have none. Only you. And I saw your strength and I thought you might be.…”
Ruti stares at her, at the quiet, desperate humility from a ruler who raises herself so high above everyone else. The Heir looks up at her, and now her eyes are pained, a raw vulnerability within them. “My life is in your hands, Ruti of the Markless,” the Heir whispers. “I can’t be bonded. I can’t be chained down to someone I didn’t choose.”
“I know,” Ruti says, and she’s surprised at the frustration she feels on the Heir’s behalf, the sudden empathy she feels with someone who has done little to deserve it from her. “I’m doing all I can. Maybe there’s another way, a better way, but I don’t know how.”
The Heir lets out an irritable sound that she quashes, rising to sit on the bed opposite Ruti again. “Will you try?” she says, and she still sounds … less imperious, perhaps, a plea tempering her words.
Ruti hesitates. The Heir says swiftly, “I can offer you coin. Protection. A space in the Merchants’ Circle—”
“How about we start with a promise that you aren’t going to kill me if I fail?” Ruti says. The Heir blinks at her, a ghost of a smile on her face. “And that I’m not yours. No more kneeling or—or waking me up in the middle of the night just to talk or.…” The Heir’s lips are curving upward, and it has Ruti flustered, discomfited at the Heir’s amusement. “I don’t care if I have to work to earn my keep here. But I want my freedom. Mine and Kimya’s. And that coin you just offered,” she says hastily, because she isn’t naïve.
“I will give you everything your heart desires,” the Heir promises. “Please, I only need.…” Her voice trails off and she looks very, very lost. “I want to be free, too.”
“Okay.” Ruti puts out her hand, palm out in the way that she’s seen traders make deals. It’s a challenge, and the Heir accepts it, pressing her palm to Ruti’s unmarked one.
The contact sends a tingle through Ruti, and the Heir startles a bit as though it’s done the same for her. “If I do find that you are playing me for a fool, though,” the Heir warns her, “I will not look lightly upon that. Any sign of treachery and all our deals are off.”
Ruti stares at her, unpleasantly reminded of why she dislikes the Heir. “I told you I’m trying,” she says irritably. “Is it really this hard to trust me?”
The Heir retreats, her eyes closing off again and her back straightening. “I would be a fool to trust a Markless,” she says scornfully. “Particularly a Markless who has control over my fate.”
Ruti turns away from her, disappointed with no reason for it. “I will try, Your Highness,” she bites out.
The Heir doesn’t respond, only stands, turning to walk to the door. Ruti watches her leave, the sour feeling returning with the Heir’s aloofness. But the Heir pauses at the doorway, and she says, “Dekala.”
Ruti stares after her. “What?”
The Heir doesn’t turn. “If we are to be free companions, then it is best that you call me by my name,” she says smoothly. Her back is still to Ruti, and Ruti glowers at it, her stomach tying itself into knots at the offer.
“If we are to be free companions, then I think I’ll make that decision by myself, Your Highness,” she shoots back, and the Heir’s shoulders shake in what Ruti is unpleasantly certain is a silent, mocking laugh.
“Very well,” the Heir says—and there is clearly laughter in her voice—and she steps out of the room.
Ruti groans. “I hate her,” she says, untying Kimya and stretching out beside her. But Ruti’s heart is beating quickly, a bubble of air somewhere within it. She’d won somehow, had run off and been found and had still managed to get more than she’d ever thought she might. Maybe the Heir will renege on her word, but she’d still given it, had admitted that she needs Ruti more than she’d ever let on before. The Heir can’t afford to do more than level empty threats at Ruti, and she’s willing to compromise in order to get what she wants.
And what she wants might be beyond Ruti, but she wonders if there might be someone out there who can help her. If Ruti can—
A sharp poke to her ribs interrupts her thoughts, and Ruti rolls over to face an unsmiling Kimya. “What?” Ruti demands finally. “I came back for you, didn’t I?”
Kimya shakes her head and her eyes flash, lips twitching with frustration. “Tell me,” Ruti says, forcing herself to focus on Kimya instead of the insufferable Heir.
Kimya signs. “It’s long,” Ruti translates, and Kimya nods. “Tell me,” she murmurs again.
Kimya signs, and it is long, a convoluted explosion of emotions that takes Ruti some time and guesswork to fully understand. “You’re angry because I left?” she finally asks, bewildered. “I was going to bring you with me.”
Kimya’s hands fly, her eyes accusing. “We have food at home, too,” Ruti protests, watching Kimya’s hands. “We’re safer there, too. We’re—”
Kimya slaps her palm, a vicious little motion that Ruti has seen her use before, followed by the curve of her hand against her heart that means home. “We’re Markless at home,” Ruti repeats, and Kimya looks at her with such loss that Ruti’s heart cracks. “Kimya, we’re Markless here, too.”
Kimya signs a word that she’s only ever used for Ruti before. Friends. Here, Kimya is comfortable, surrounded by attendants who make no mention of what lies beneath her gloves. She folds linen and helps prepare food and is treated like anyone else, like a favored child instead of a monster, and Ruti slips her arms around Kimya and tugs her close. “I made you a dreamer, didn’t I?” she whispers. She’s spent so long railing against Markless dreamers, against children who believe that they can someday become just like all the Marked people out there, that she hadn’t thought about what feeding and sheltering a Markless child might do to her.
Kimya shakes her head, then nods, just a short little motion that breaks Ruti’s heart even further. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to Kimya’s temple. “I wish … I wish you could have this everywhere. But we had a good life in the shop, didn’t we?” Kimya refuses to answer.
Ruti sighs, kissing her hair again. “You heard what I told the Heir. I’m going to try to help her. We’ll stay here for as long as she needs us,” she promises, and Kimya presses a hand to Ruti’s upper arm, a silent sign of gratitude. “As long as I don’t kill her first,” Ruti mutters wryly.
Kimya’s head bumps against her laughingly, followed by a sign that Ruti recognizes. “I do not like her,” Ruti says, horrified. “She’s a monster.”
Kimya shrugs, offering Ruti a sign that she uses to mean gift. Swiftly, she digs into her robe and emerges with a neatly-wrapped paper that she opens as Ruti stares in bewildered surprise.
Sometime tonight, before the Heir tied up Kimya and used her as bait to draw Ruti in, the Heir had taken a moment to offer Kimya a little chunk of chocolate. Kimya signs again, grinning, and Ruti translates it in her head: Well, I like her.
Ruti glowers at her. Kimya smiles, her anger receding, and breaks off a piece of the chocolate to place into Ruti’s hand.
Ruti pops it into her mouth, still scowling. It’s the sweetest candy she’s ever tasted.
Nothing changes very much after that evening. The Heir is still snide and distant, and their rare conversations begin and end with questions about Ruti’s progress with her song. Ruti begs out of afternoons with the Heir now, focused on mixing offerings and testing out new chants to see if they might appease the spirits.
Thus far, she’s had little luck. The spirits remain stubbornly immobile as they have never been before for her, and she fears their patience may run out. Soulbonds are destined to be Bonded.
