Orrin scoffs. “I saved us all,” he retorts. “You were going to give it a nice nap before it came right back after us.”
“It didn’t need to be killed! I was sending it away!”
“You were slow.” Orrin nods in satisfaction. “Lightning is fast.”
“It was mine,” Ruti mutters, and Orrin’s eyes narrow, his gaze flickering to Dekala and then back to Ruti.
He says, his voice rough and harsh, “Nothing is yours, Markless dog.”
“Enough,” Dekala says, her voice commanding as she directs a cold look at Orrin. Ruti puffs up, just a little bit, until Dekala turns her glare on Ruti. “We don’t have time for petty squabbling,” she says. “And Orrin, we needed that donkey.” Ruti tosses a cool glare at Orrin, who has bowed his head in apology.
“I erred,” he says, and there is a flicker of shame in his voice, soon replaced with resentment. “The Markless girl brings out the worst in me.”
Dekala turns away from him, casting an eye to the grassland that stretches out before them. “The maps have a village marked to our right, with a friendly innkeeper who might give us lodging if we have enough coin. Let’s take an evening to rest.”
It’s a relief to ride into a quiet town, to haggle with an innkeeper and sit in a crowded tavern. For too long, she’s been with her traveling companions, out in the open and raring for a fight. Now she sits in silence and drinks the sweet drink that Dekala brings her. It has chocolate with a hint of something stronger, and it makes her mind happily hazy. “How much longer before we leave Rurana?” she asks Dekala in a low voice.
“A day or two. We’ve been riding faster than anticipated,” Dekala says, glancing down at the map. Ruti can’t read the words on it beyond the few names she’d been taught to recognize, but she can see the line that runs between Rurana and Guder’s peninsula, just a bit below where they are now. “Then it’s only a few hours down to the Lake of the Carved Thousand.”
“And then we travel back,” Ruti says, eyeing the ground they’ve already crossed on the map. It’s a long trip. It’s been a long trip. “What if we—”
She stops abruptly when she hears Dekala’s name. It isn’t coming from anyone in their party. Instead, it’s from a group of Unbonded at the next table, and Ruti puts a hand on Dekala’s thigh and squeezes it before she can speak again. Dekala falls silent.
The Unbonded are gossiping. “I heard that Princess Dekala was kidnapped,” a narrow-faced one says in a hushed voice. “That she wanted to marry Prince Torhvin so her jealous bodyguard stole her away and ran.”
Orrin glowers at them. Another Unbonded says, “I heard she never even got a chance to meet our prince. The bodyguard took her in the night.”
“I wouldn’t mind marrying the prince,” a third says wistfully, downing his drink in a single gulp. The Unbonded break into raucous laughter, each one chiming in with their own dreams of marrying Prince Torhvin.
“I know we’re Bonded,” another says, holding up her calloused hand to show the others. “Majimm and ashto. Imagine me with powers of the mind.”
“Imagine the prince with them,” Prince Torhvin’s first fan says dreamily. “He deserves a strong Ruranan soulbond. Not some Zideshi royal brat.”
The third chimes in again. “He says he won’t rest until he finds her. That’s true love.”
“Or political expediency,” someone retorts. There is more laughter, and the conversation shifts to a discussion of the unconscious heir to the Ruranan throne, King Jaquil. They debate his merits in comparison with Prince Torhvin’s, and Ruti loses interest in the conversation. Dekala still listens, never one to turn away from political discussion, and Ruti sips her drink and talks to Kimya with the signs she’s learned from her.
Orrin says irritably, “I know you’re talking about me. I see my name.” Kimya’s sign for Orrin is to stiffen and raise her shoulders and wrinkle her forehead. Ruti hadn’t realized that Orrin had recognized it.
Kimya ignores him, instead twisting her hands beside her head in the braided sign that represents Dekala. Are you holding hands with her? she asks silently, and Ruti snatches her hand from Dekala’s thigh and shakes her head.
It’s okay if you are. Kimya’s signs convey plenty. She’s very pretty.
Ruti makes a rude gesture in response. When she glances to her left, Dekala is watching them, eyebrows raised. Her hands move quickly, an amused response to Kimya. So is, her hands say, and she presses the tips of her fingers to her mouth from the side and does the arc from her mouth that represents Kimya’s word for Ruti.
Ruti’s eyes widen. Dekala smiles enigmatically. Ruti, flustered and lost for options, signs a sharp, harsh be quiet. Kimya laughs silently, Dekala’s eyes sparkling, and Orrin mutters, “I’m going to bed.”
He shoves his chair back and rises, stomping toward the steps, and Dekala sighs. “I’d better go, too.”
She follows him, and both of their doors are closed and bolted when Ruti and Kimya make it upstairs later in the evening.
At about midday on the next day, Ruti sees her first sign that they’re approaching the lake. It’s a bird, wings folded as it lies on the ground. Or rather, it was a bird. It’s blackened and brittle, the skin sunken into itself and the moisture squeezed from its body, and it appears made from stone.
“There we have it,” Dekala murmurs when Ruti shows the bird to the others. “The first of many.”
The closer they get to the Ruranan border, the fewer people they see. Ruti remembers from Dekala’s lessons that the Guder people are based mostly in the Southern Sea, where they vie for naval territory with Rurana. It doesn’t seem like the dry land at the north of the peninsula holds any interest to them, and the area around the lake is all but empty.
As they near the lake, more stone carcasses are visible. Many birds and bats that had flown into the lake without knowing what they’d encountered. A few large rodents that had run afoul of the lake’s banks. “The lake must overflow during the rainy season,” Dekala says, eyeing the most recent stone animal they pass. It’s a large antelope, its knees bent and its face as blank as a statue. “That’s why no one rides this way.”
When they cross the border, they find something that stops them in their tracks. It’s a body, shrunken into something black and empty, its face stretched into an eternal scream. Ruti stares at it in quiet horror. “Be cautious,” she says to Kimya, riding with her on her donkey. “Do not get off of this donkey until I say so.”
Ahead of them is the lake. Ruti can see it now, and she thinks at first that she’s seeing the reflection of the sun distorted in the water. But no, the Lake of the Carved Thousand is an unnatural red so dark it’s nearly purple, glistening in the sunlight like a pool of blood. Dekala takes in a breath, staring out at the water.
The donkeys lurch forward, mesmerized by the water, and start running. They’re moving faster than they ever have before, and Ruti seizes the reins, pulling hers back before it charges into the lake. “Keep the donkeys,” she orders Orrin when he dismounts behind her. “I’m going down there without them.”
There is something in the air that makes animals mad, and Ruti can almost smell it herself. Birds screech from above and dive toward the purple-red waters of the lake, careening toward its center, and they don’t rise again. Ruti feels the same odd compulsion to touch the water, to immerse herself fully in the toxic liquid and let it consume her.
She resists, walking gingerly toward the lake with her satchel slung along her back. Dekala follows from a distance, hanging back but never quite retreating to safety. Ruti feels the wind brushing against her neck, a reminder that Dekala’s attention is on her. It is a strange comfort when she’s all alone in front of this deadly lake.
She kneels down into a careful crouch at the shore of the lake, pulling out the two vials that she’d brought along for the water. It’s a dangerous offering to hold on to, and she’s leery of bringing too much back. One vial, and another for backup if the first fails. Slowly, she dips one vial into the water.
Even with spells in place to keep the vial secure, it still begins to turn to stone from the moment it touches the water, becomes heavier and harder as the water splashes into it. A droplet of water hits Ruti’s gloves, and Ruti feels it burning through them, the soft cloth becoming hard and brittle against her skin.
She fills the second vial and caps it, slipping both back into her cloak and peeling off her ruined gloves to see the damage. Her hands are splotched with burns, and she hisses out a curse at the sight of them. “What happened?” It’s Dekala, hovering nearby with her eyes narrowed at Ruti’s hands.
Ruti shakes her head, stepping back and clearing her throat. All it takes is a quick healing chant and she’s fine, the burning sensation gone and her skin whole again. “I’m fine,” she promises Dekala. “Stay away from the water. Just a touch is enough to burn—”
