The Heir ignores her gibe. “I remember my parents,” she says finally. “My father was a good and noble ruler. My mother was tender and cared for all of her people. They passed on to the spirit world when I was seven.”
Ruti’s brow furrows. “You talk about them like a subject, not their daughter.”
The Heir rolls her eyes. “I was adored and pampered,” she says. “It isn’t something I’d like to discuss with you.” She reaches for Ruti, her palm closing over the back of Ruti’s hand, and turns their joined hands together to display Ruti’s bare palm. Ruti is staggered into silence, her heart thumping against her chest, and the Heir reaches over to trace a pattern into Ruti’s bare palm. There is no more fear when she touches it, none of the wariness of that first night at the palace. Instead, she runs her finger over it with fascination.
The fire crackles, and Ruti murmurs, “It isn’t your fault that I’m Markless. It isn’t anyone’s fault. This is just … how things are.”
The Heir says, “Not in Niyaru.” Ruti looks at her, taken by surprise. “Tembo was born up north, did you know? He told me once.…” Her eyes are distant, her finger still running along Ruti’s palm as her voice falls into a deeper, huskier storytelling lilt. “There aren’t cities in Niyaru’s deserts. The people live in little villages where every hand is needed, marked or not. Most Markless stay with their families. They even marry Unbonded sometimes.”
Ruti’s heart clenches so hard that she has to take a moment before she can respond, blinking away traitorous tears. “It sounds like a fairytale,” she says finally. “I don’t believe it.”
“Maybe it was,” the Heir whispers, but she turns to look at Ruti, her ever-unreadable eyes suddenly penetrating, and Ruti feels the heat of the flames as warm as the heat of the Heir’s gaze. “Tembo is prone to exaggeration.”
Orrin clears his throat before Ruti can respond. “We’ll need to set out again in a few hours,” he says, and the Heir drops Ruti’s hand, shifting away from her incrementally. “The Markless girl should sleep now if she’s going to take the second watch.”
Ruti glowers at him, irritated at the interruption and at his careless designation of her. The Heir nods. “I can take the third,” she says, moving to the far side of the fire. Ruti sets up her bedroll and stretches out on it.
Her last sight before she slumbers is of Orrin wrapping an arm around the Heir’s shoulders, and her dreams are full of turmoil.
By the next day, Ruti’s legs are numb, the pain from riding a dull ache that she can hardly feel anymore. As the days continue, there are only the tall pines of the mountains, the scent of goats in the air, and the howls of the wind through the trees.
At night, Kimya is the one to find them shelter. Ruti lights a tallow candle that smells of cardamom and plumeria for the Spotted One and sings for them before she sleeps, a chant she puts together that might enervate and sate them with artificial strength from the spirits. The Heir watches Ruti one night as she sings, her eyes glowing, and when Ruti is finished, the Heir says, “You sing beautifully.”
Ruti ducks her head. “It’s the magic,” she says, biting her lip. The Heir somehow makes her more nervous when they aren’t squabbling.
“Not only the magic,” the Heir says, and she tilts her head and smiles.
It’s the most remarkable thing that Ruti has glimpsed in a dull life free of shine, and she is struck speechless by it. She can’t respond, can’t come up with anything snide to say, and she instead stretches out on her bedroll and watches the Heir, the smile that softens the sharp edges of her face and brings a glow of warmth to her cold eyes.
The terrain is less uphill the next day. There’s a pass between the mountains that tower above them, a rocky route through a low-running river. The donkeys walk through the water easily, moving faster than expected. “We’ll reach Rurana by nightfall,” the Heir proclaims, running a finger along their route as they ride. “Beyond that, I don’t know what we’ll face.”
“The visitors at the palace were from Rurana,” Ruti recalls suddenly. It had meant little to her then, another name of a place she’d never gone, but now it seems relevant. “Is it safe for us to travel through it?”
“We have no choice,” the Heir says grimly.
“Have you ever been there before?”
“I never met Prince Torhvin,” the Heir explains. “Rurana has never invited outsiders, but the older princes of Rurana came to Somanchi a few years ago. Prince Torhvin was the third son. Not likely to be any more than a noble with a city to rule, back then.”
Kimya signs the same question Ruti speaks aloud. “What happened?”
“A coup.” The Heir’s donkey shifts, rising and falling as it climbs over a rocky protrusion. “The king died a year after that visit. The oldest son, Prince Jaquil, was meant to rule, but the second son, Prince Serrold, made a power grab. There was deep unrest in Rurana for months, culminating in what should have been the fatal injury of Prince Jaquil. But he didn’t die. Doctors managed instead to keep him in a deep sleep. After that, the people of Rurana rose up against Serrold.”
It’s safe to assume that Rurana treats Markless with disfavor, but it seems an unpleasant place even to be Marked. “And Prince Torhvin saw his chance.”
“Prince Torhvin was put into place as the new Regent of the throne. He had Serrold put to death and rules in Jaquil’s stead. He is a strong leader, one who will probably lead his people forever as prince, not king.” The Heir looks pensive. “That is all we know.”
Ruti pieces together another part of the puzzle. “That’s why he was so willing to come to Zidesh,” she says. “He’s smart. He knows that if he bonds with you, he can take your throne and become a king. Then he would have full authority over both Zidesh and Rurana.”
The Heir scoffs. “He will never bond with me. I won’t be some power-hungry ruler’s tool to gain even more.” She rides carefully, her donkey stepping up above the river as Ruti and Kimya follow. Orrin leads them, but there is space here for the rest of them to ride side by side. The river turns, and they continue straight across sparse mud and dirt that is thin and gritty like sand along the mountains.
“You’d rather be Orrin’s,” Ruti says snidely.
The Heir gives her a dark look. “Orrin doesn’t want the throne,” she says. “He only wants me. There have been Unbonded queens in Zidesh’s past. Two hundred years ago, there was even a queen who ruled alone. The people then didn’t question her.”
“A lot has happened in two hundred years.”
“Yes,” the Heir agrees. “But the people are more malleable than my uncle believes. If I am a strong ruler and the land is prosperous, no one will care about what is on my palm or yours.”
“Mine?” Ruti says, casting her a look. The Heir has spoken before of aiding the Markless in the slums, but never of anything as dramatic as acceptance. It’s an oddly idealistic concept for her. “I think we’d have a better chance of getting the people to accept you as a queen who rules a—ahh!”
She lets out a strangled cry. Out of nowhere, her donkey’s front hoof has slipped, tilting him downward and sending Ruti tumbling to the muddy ground. Ruti struggles to stand, but it’s as though she’s being restrained, as though the mud itself is holding her down.
She looks down. The mud is holding her down, as though it’s being controlled by a Bonded with matching endhi signs. But there is no one in sight, and the more she moves, the deeper she sinks into the ground. Quicksand, she realizes dully. She’s never experienced it in Somanchi, but there are stories of mud that swallows people whole near the sea.
The Heir sees her. “Ruti!” she cries out. “Orrin, help!”
Orrin turns around, looking in alarm at them. Ruti sinks deeper into the mud with every movement, her legs and hips encased in it now, and she screams. She can’t help herself, the terror of being devoured by the earth too great to think, to sing, and the Heir calls her name desperately, on her knees in front of the quicksand and reaching for her as the wind whips against her face.
Orrin bounds over, his eyes taking in Ruti’s terror, and he steps back cautiously. There is indecision in his eyes, a reluctance to risk himself over a Markless he dislikes so deeply, and Ruti is certain for a moment that he will leave her to die.
“Stop struggling,” Orrin says at last, and his shoulders straighten, resolve settling on his face. “You’re going to trap yourself even deeper.” He spins around suddenly, seizing Kimya as she makes a desperate leap for Ruti. Her eyes are narrowed with ferocious determination as she struggles against Orrin’s arms.
“Kimya, stay back!” Ruti bites out. “Hold her, don’t let her—” She feels claustrophobia begin to envelop her, her heart racing as she stops moving at last. She isn’t sinking anymore, the mud somewhere around her waist, but she can’t seem to move either, to lift herself from the mud.
“We need water,” Orrin says curtly. “Pour water in and lie still and the mud will release you.” It’s the Heir who grabs a flask and flies down to the river, running back to them with her chest heaving from the speed and incline as she pours the water into the mud. The pull on Ruti’s legs is a little less now, and the Heir reaches over the pool of mud to take Ruti’s hands.
