“I feel quite certain that you are my soulbond as well,” Ruti says, glancing down at her palm to make sure the paint hasn’t smudged. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and Kedron smiles.
They walk through the coral hibiscus shrubs of the front courtyard, past the sky-flowers and the plumerias toward the wild gardens of the rear courtyard. Kedron is followed by his shirtless, muscular bodygards, and Ruti is followed by the Heir and Orrin. Kedron tells them all stories of his home. They are stories of Phecia’s might and Kedron’s skill in battle, and they stretch on and on until Ruti nearly dozes off. She is sitting beside the Heir just outside a mass of wide green fronds, and her head has only just touched the Heir’s shoulder when the Heir jabs her in the side and awakens her.
Ruti jolts back up. “How wonderful,” she says quickly.
Kedron looks bewildered. “A famine is wonderful?”
Ruti blinks. “Wonderful that your people have a prince like you, of course,” she says. The Heir lets out a quiet breath of laughter. “You seem to care so deeply for them, and you are … both wise and beneficent.”
Kedron’s eyes clear. “I am, aren’t I?” he says serenely. Ruti disguises her bark of laughter as a coughing fit.
The more time she spends with Kedron, the more unbearable he becomes. The sun rises and curves across the sky, and it is beginning to set when Kedron suggests they join the others for dinner. “Your uncle was most eager for us all to get to know each other,” he says, leading Ruti toward the castle. “I think this alliance will benefit us all.”
“Particularly your people,” Ruti says, raising her eyebrows. “You did mention that famine, didn’t you?”
Kedron scoffs. “Hardly a famine anymore. We have been in recovery for years now, thank the spirits. Zidesh’s fertile farmland combined with Phecia’s new income from fishing and trading will be a force to be reckoned with. As will you and I,” he says, stopping suddenly to take Ruti’s hand in his.
Abruptly, Ruti notices that they are alone. Kedron’s pace has been swift, and he’s been leading her through the winding hallways of the palace. Ruti was focusing so hard on not tripping that she hadn’t realized until now that they’d lost Orrin and the Heir along the way.
For the first time since she’d been painted with ochre and dressed in the Heir’s clothing, she is afraid at how vulnerable she is here. Kedron’s fingers run along her hand and he presses her wrist to the wall, her painted palm exposed to him. “We are to be Bonded,” he says, his voice pleasant. “Why delay?”
“Why delay indeed,” Ruti echoes, a flash of trepidation weakening her words. Kedron, she is suddenly afraid, will not take it well when nothing happens. And she has no protection. She would even take Orrin right now. For all his grumbling and posturing, she trusts him more than she would ever trust Kedron.
Kedron’s hand on her wrist is firm, clamped around her in possession instead of courtship. He lifts his right hand, holding out his sign of ashto, and presses his marked palm to Ruti’s painted one.
Nothing happens, of course, and Kedron does it again, this time pressing her hand with more force. Ruti’s knuckles scrape against the wall, and Kedron slaps his hand hard against hers, forcing her hand to his. The paints will run if he continues, and Ruti is afraid. “Stop,” she hisses. “Stop. It won’t work!”
“Shut your mouth,” Kedron snaps. He is no longer smiling. His eyes are dark and angry as he stares at her. “You were meant to be mine. Zidesh was meant to be mine.”
“Apparently not,” Ruti says, and she feels fury bubble up beneath the fear, the anger that comes with someone trying to force her into being something she isn’t. “Zidesh belongs to—”
“Zidesh belongs to someone with the power to rule it,” Kedron bites out, pressing her to the wall with his lithe body. “Not a foolish Unbonded girl. You are a laughingstock amongst the princes, did you know that? A child who believes she can rule with the great men of the land. No prince comes here to be subordinate to you.”
Ruti wants to sing, wants to chant away this vile prince, but she can’t risk him finding out who she is—or worse, telling the other princes that Princess Dekala is a witch. But she isn’t defenseless, even without her songs. “You underestimate me,” she manages, and brings her knee up between his legs as she has done to attackers a hundred times in the slums, using her free arm to elbow the prince in the face.
He staggers back and then comes at her again, his eyes narrowed and mean. “Bitch,” he snarls, a painting on the wall lighting on fire. “You will never—”
Ruti punches him in the gut and he deals her a glancing blow, slamming her head against the wall. “You could do with some rule,” he says, his voice low and dangerous. “And I shall—”
A wind rages through the hallway, hurling into him with roaring force. Orrin is there a moment later, pinning the prince to the wall as Ruti sinks to the floor. The Heir rounds the corner as Kedron rages at Orrin, shouting for his own bodyguards. “You will pay for this humiliation!” he snarls. “Phecia will not sit lightly after this!”
The Heir stares down at him, her eyes very cold. “You threatened our Heir,” she bites out, her deep voice sharpening like a knife. “You will be very fortunate if she chooses to spare your head.” She turns, bending to kneel beside Ruti. “Did he attempt the bonding?” Ruti offers a jerky nod, her head still pounding from the last blow.
The Heir lifts her hand and Ruti squints down at it. Her knuckles are scraped and bruised, the blood seeping from them red and black with dirt, and the Heir says, her eyes on Ruti’s hand, “Orrin.”
Orrin looks up. “Yes, Your—” He hesitates, unsure of what to say, Kedron still pinned beneath him.
The Heir doesn’t wait for him to come up with something. “Bring that feckless little princeling to the banquet hall,” she orders. “Tell the Regent what transpired. Phecia can reclaim its worthless royalty at once.” Her gaze is still on Ruti’s knuckles, and she straightens. “Can you stand?”
Ruti nods. Orrin drags off the prince while Ruti stumbles to her feet, head still spinning, and she manages, “I can chant my skin healed,” as the Heir stalks with her down the halls.
“Not here,” the Heir shoots back, glaring around them. They emerge into the main hall, mostly empty but for guards from both Zidesh and Phecia, and the Heir ignores them all and leads Ruti toward the kitchens. “You’ll need to wash out the dirt first.”
“I’ve never done that before.”
“You’ve been living in squalor for a lifetime,” the Heir says curtly. “It was only a matter of time before you bled black and died.”
“Touching,” Ruti says dryly, but she follows the Heir obediently, still a little dazed from the blow to her head. She can’t even think of a fitting jab to provoke the Heir, and she sits when the Heir orders her down.
The Heir has taken them to a corner of the kitchen where only a few servants cast a nosy eye toward them. Ruti is still dressed as the Heir, but the Heir stands over Ruti with the regal bearing of a princess, making their interactions all the more curious. “Here,” the Heir says, bringing her a wet cloth. She swipes at Ruti’s knuckles, making them sting, and Ruti lets out a little gasp of pain. “Don’t be a child,” the Heir says briskly.
“Don’t be a sadist,” Ruti grits out. It hurts, hurts like her knuckles are being rubbed raw, and tears of pain spring to her eyes.
“Good,” the Heir says, satisfied at the bloody mess she’s made of Ruti’s knuckles. “Now you can sing.” She is still holding her hand up, her fingers streaked with paints that have washed off of Ruti’s palm, and Ruti feels suddenly hot again as she surveys their joined hands.
Carefully, shakily, she begins to chant in a whisper, leaning back against the wall as she sings to the spirits. The tears still streak down her cheeks, over the ochre and down to her ears, and she feels the spirits accept the tears as an offering and grant her request.
She exhales, singing again and leaning forward, and notices that the Heir is still watching her, eyes fixed on Ruti’s as her skin begins to heal. Ruti flushes, staring back at the Heir as her heart thumps rapidly, and the Heir whispers, “Keep singing.”
She had stopped without realizing, struck dumb by the Heir’s gaze on her, and she curses herself silently and resumes her desperate call to the spirits.
They do not try dressing up as each other again when the next man arrives. Instead the Heir puts him off, manufactures an outrage and refuses to try bonding with him altogether. He is a minor noble, a grandson of a king’s brother, but the Regent’s scholars are insistent that he fits the profile for a potential soulbond and the Regent pushes until the Heir finally, irritably, presses her palm to his.
They aren’t a match, and Ruti exhales when she sees that. She has yet to find a chant that will do the trick for the Heir, and pure luck and the scholars’ incompetence are the only reasons why the Heir isn’t bonded yet. “I don’t know what else might work,” she admits one afternoon. The Heir has had shelves and closets put into Ruti’s room for her ingredients, and Kimya is sorting through them on the spare bed, squinting down at dried beetles and dried dung in an attempt to figure out which is which.
The Heir wrinkles her nose and turns away from Kimya. “Find something,” she snaps. “It’s been weeks. Every day, the scholars find another potential match for me. Every day, they swear that another royal is my perfect soulbond.”
