“I’m trying. There might just … there might not be any way to stop a bonding,” Ruti admits. “Have you ever heard of it being done before?”
The Heir glowers at her in silence, then deflates abruptly. “No,” she says flatly. “I haven’t. But I refuse to believe that there is no alternative.”
“Maybe not,” Ruti says, and she stares at a closet shelf packed with little bags of offerings for the spirits. “I just don’t know it. There might be some other witch out there who does know, but I don’t know them, either. The only witch I’ve ever met was an old man in the slums who disappeared soon after.”
“You’ve met another witch?” the Heir says, her eyes suddenly focused on Ruti again. “You never mentioned him before.”
Ruti shrugs. “He’s dead, I assume. It’s been years, and he was old even when I saw him. He taught me my first song.”
The Heir is undeterred. “Take me to him.”
“I haven’t seen him since,” Ruti protests. “I have no idea where he is, let alone if he can actually help you … and you want to go to the slums? You? The princess? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”
“I’ve been there before,” the Heir points out. “Orrin searched for you and then brought me to you. And I can hold my own.”
Ruti scoffs. “With a stick, maybe. The Markless kids in the slums aren’t competing to see how skilled they are. Plenty of us can’t afford to give up the chance to steal some coin. And the biggest ones—the ones who’ve survived long enough to help us find that man—they aren’t going to hesitate.”
The Heir rises, drawing her gown around her. “I can hold my own,” she repeats. “I will have an animal cart prepared for us. If my uncle asks, we will tell him that we’re journeying to the river for a brief excursion.” She glides from the room without waiting for Ruti’s response.
Ruti glares into the cabinet. “She’s unbearable,” she mutters. Kimya signs a denial, and Ruti turns her glare on the other girl instead.
Yet again, the Heir has decided what will be done next, but this time, Ruti knows the Heir will regret it. One journey into the slums and out again is nothing compared to spending a lengthy period of time there, surrounded by Markless and misery. Ruti knows the slums as well as any Markless who’s lived until eighteen, and she still isn’t fool enough to stride through them now as though she owns them.
The slums are unpredictable, and Kimya scowls and protests but ultimately stays behind as Ruti and the Heir ride together toward them. “You’ll need to purchase a new cloak,” Ruti says, peering over at the Heir in the seat beside her. The Heir is wearing blue today instead of the royal white and gold, but they both stand out regardless. “We look rich. No one rich makes it out of the slums with their possessions intact.”
The animal cart only goes as far as the Merchants’ Circle, where Ruti finds a pair of roughspun brown cloaks. “This is a rag,” the Heir says, scowling. “You paid coin for this?”
“Not very much, don’t worry,” Ruti says wryly. The Heir drapes it around her shoulders, somehow managing to wear it like royal robes. Ruti reaches over to rearrange it, letting it fall haphazardly around her.
“What about a cloak for Orrin?” the Heir asks, nodding to the bodyguard behind them.
Ruti shrugs. “I don’t care if he gets robbed,” she says. Orrin glowers at her.
The Heir lets out a little puff of laughter. “He will be my consort one day,” she says. “Must you provoke us both?”
“This is provoking?” Ruti wrinkles her brow. “I thought we were getting along.”
The Heir flicks a finger against Ruti’s shoulder. Outside the Royal Square, she veers from wary to light, still cold but less domineering. She smiles more, is quicker to laugh at Ruti—the only way Ruti can ever get her to laugh—and she offers more information. “I came out to the Merchants’ Circle the first time because I thought my uncle was lying to me,” she says. “He claimed that the people were starving in Zidesh and we needed a strong ruler to bring them back to order.”
“The only people starving in Somanchi are Markless,” Ruti says grimly. Somanchi is built on the convergence of river and forest, the most bountiful of places in the land, and all that is needed for someone to flourish is a mark on their palm.
“So I saw.” The Heir purchases a third cloak for Orrin and arranges it on his shoulders with care, mimicking the way that Ruti wears it. It looks awkward on him—he is too boxy and well built to look like a beggar, and Ruti watches the Heir as she takes care with the cloak, offering Orrin a smile as she helps him.
Something unpleasant thrums in Ruti’s stomach, and she turns away with a pang of uncertain melancholy. “We should hurry if we want to have a chance of finding the witch before nightfall,” she says abruptly. “Keep up.”
She strides through the Merchants’ Circle, paying no attention to the Heir or Orrin. She might not care for either of them, but Orrin in particular is so distasteful. She can’t comprehend the Heir’s fascination with him, and she says so when the Heir strides forward to catch up to her. “What does he have that the princes courting you don’t?” she demands. Orrin is keeping pace with them, a few feet back. “Why is he worth fighting the spirits for?”
The Heir says, “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“He’s devoted to you,” Ruti says, moving faster. “But any soulbond would be devoted to you. He isn’t particularly wise or strong or any other trait that might make him a good ruler. Why would you fall in love with him?” A thought strikes her. “Is it that he is the only man you know well who isn’t your uncle? Because you have much better prospects than Orrin.”
The Heir’s voice is sharp now. “Bite your tongue, Markless girl,” she snaps. “Remember whom you address. My choices are my own, and they are right.”
“By virtue of what, Your Highness?”
Wind slams into Ruti’s face. “By virtue of the fact that I am your queen,” the Heir hisses. “I will treat you as a companion if you wish. I will allow you to fail and fail again and withhold punishment. But you will not question my decisions. I have my limits, even for you.”
There is danger in her voice, a warning that sends a chill through Ruti, but she refuses to answer and concede the point. Instead, she stalks away from the Heir, leading the way toward the slums without looking back.
She knows that Orrin has fallen into step with the Heir. Of course he has. The Heir has given him no reason not to.
Ruti’s shop is already gone. The two rooms where she’d once squatted have been taken over by a group of Markless adults who come to the door with knives when Ruti tries to come inside. “Stay back,” one barks out. “This is ours.”
Ruti steps back, feeling oddly forlorn. The shop had been the only place that was hers, a shelter when she’d never had one before. Now it’s been possessed and remade in an instant, someone else’s dwelling with no sign that she’d ever been there. In the slums, no one leaves a mark on the world, and all are forgotten as soon as they disappear. She just hadn’t expected it to happen to her, too, at least so quickly.
The Heir is watching her, and Ruti looks away, afraid of what emotion she might have revealed to her. “Wait,” she says, staring at the men. They are a group, old and powerful enough that they will have had the run of the slums instead of hiding in the closest shadows. “I’m looking for someone. An old man.”
“In the slums?” one says incredulously. “No one grows old here.”
“That’s not true,” one of the other men calls out. “I saw an old man once, out by the Wastelands. Decrepit old coot. Claimed he was a witch.” They laugh raucously, and the man says, “Never saw him again.”
“He was probably our age,” another calls out. “Just ugly.” More laughter, and the man at the door gives Ruti an assessing glance. “You look pretty well off for a Markless,” he says, eyeing her bare palm. She’d slipped the gloves off once they’d reached the slums.
Ruti ignores him. “Where in the Wastelands did you see him?” she calls out, but there is no answer from the men inside. Instead, their eyes run over Ruti, calculating and hungry, and Ruti stands steady and tall. To flinch back now is to tell these Markless that she’s an easy target. She might not like them, but she knows that Orrin is waiting for the opportunity to blast them with his lightning.
No one deserves Orrin.
