She watches grimly as Torhvin strokes Dekala’s cheek tenderly. Orrin averts his gaze, glowering at Winda instead, and the others in the room turn to give the princess and the prince the semblance of privacy.
But Ruti can’t tear her eyes away, her body buzzing as though she’s been electrified by lightning. Torhvin leans forward, and Dekala doesn’t lean in or pull away when Torhvin kisses her, his lips moving against hers for too long. It’s sloppy and showy, his wide mouth nearly consuming Dekala’s fine lips, but Dekala doesn’t push him away. Ruti trembles with rage and heartbreak and despair, and it takes all she has not to leap on Torhvin in a fury.
But as Torhvin pulls away from the kiss, his eyes catch hers. “Your companion is quite the voyeur,” he says, slipping an arm around Dekala’s shoulders. Dekala leans into it, just a little bit. “I have met quite a few Kaguruki, and I’ve yet to meet one as brazen as … Radi, was it?”
“Ruti,” she bites out, unable to remain silent anymore. Had it been so long ago that she’d been lurking in shadows in the slums, rather than provoking princes? “And not hardly as brazen as a prince who kisses like a donkey eats an apple.” It’s nothing close to what she’d meant to say, and Torhvin’s eyes widen in startled outrage. Winda stifles something that might be a laugh, and Orrin looks smug and astounded at her boldness.
Dekala says in a low voice, “Watch yourself, Ruti.” It’s the most she’s said to Ruti in days, and Ruti scowls at her, too.
Torhvin’s eyes gleam with malice. “Idiot girl. Did you try to bond with my betrothed?” he says, his voice mocking. “Did you think you could ever have what we have together? Dog.” He sneers at Ruti and moves, quick as a wink.
He is upon Ruti before she can open her mouth to defend herself, and she shoves him back. “Careful,” Winda says, her voice dangerous, and lightning sparks from her fingers as she prepares to protect her prince.
But Torhvin is triumphant. With Ruti’s movement, he seizes the glove on her right hand and pulls it, exposing her Markless palm to the room. The witch lets out a hissing noise. Winda’s eyebrows rise. “Dog,” Torhvin says again. “A Markless bitch in the palace, given free rein by my future wife’s kindness. I have no such compunctions.”
He lifts a hand and slaps Ruti across the face, hard and stinging. Orrin takes a step toward her. Dekala’s eyes narrow, though Ruti doesn’t know at whom. “I am kind to those who are worthy of it,” Torhvin snaps, his voice silky, and Ruti punches him in the gut.
He doubles over. Winda is across the table in an instant, pinning Ruti against the wall, and Orrin wraps a big hand around Winda’s neck. “Leave her,” he snarls, and Ruti looks up at him in surprised gratitude. Torhvin laughs in shock, stumbling back against the table, his hands on his stomach and his eyes dark and furious. There is something ugly about them, the sly charm gone and replaced with the glare of a man who would have Markless executed for less, and Ruti would care if she weren’t shaking with sheer rage.
She opens her mouth, a song rising to her lips, and Torhvin rears up again, crashing a fist against Ruti’s cheek. It is hard enough that she tastes blood and feels the bone shift, and Torhvin hisses, “I will take everything from you for that.”
She spits blood. “I have nothing to lose,” she sneers, the pain threatening to overwhelm her. Torhvin’s lip curls and he lifts his hand again—
“Enough.” Dekala’s voice cracks through the tension like a whip. “Torhvin,” she says, and her voice is calm. “Ruti is my loyal companion. She will be reprimanded and this will not happen again. I beg for your understanding.” She does not look at Ruti, shows no sign of care for her bruised face, and Ruti rests the back of her head against the wall, wanting to sob.
Torhvin jerks his head in a nod, his features returning to their unassuming smile. “For you, I will try,” he says. “Loyalty like that can be useful, I suppose, even from a worthless Markless.” Winda lets Ruti go. Orrin reluctantly removes his hands from Winda’s throat, the two bodyguards staring at each other with deep distrust. “I am sure there will be punishment.”
“Of course,” Dekala says, rising gracefully. “It is late, and I must retire for the night. I will see to my rebellious companion before we depart for Byale.”
“Of course,” Torhvin echoes, and he moves forward to kiss Dekala again, Ruti watching him with pure loathing that grips her entire body. This kiss is even longer, even more of a performance, and Torhvin keeps his eyes on Ruti for the entire kiss.
Ruti jerks forward, seized with the compulsion to punch him again, and Orrin grabs her arm before she can do anything stupid. Dekala pulls away from Torhvin, a hand brushing over his hair, and turns almost reluctantly to walk from the room.
Ruti hurries behind her. “Dekala,” she says, remembering her mission. Tomorrow they all leave for Byale, and Ruti will have no time alone with Dekala again. “Dekala, wait.”
Dekala stalks faster and Ruti has to run to keep up, humming a quick call to the spirits to ease the pain in her face. “I need to talk to you!”
“Haven’t you spoken enough tonight?” Dekala demands, hurrying up the main staircase. “You’re going to ruin everything! Torhvin is—”
“Torhvin is a monster,” Ruti says desperately. “What he’s done—”
“He is my promised husband,” Dekala snaps, and Ruti reels at that. It had never hurt quite so much when she’d talked about Orrin like this. “My soulbond. And you will stop provoking him, or I will do away with you before you can interfere any more.”
“I am trying to warn you about him!”
Dekala spins around just outside the door to her quarters. “I don’t need your warnings,” she bites out. “I know my future, and I have chosen it with eyes open. But you—you need to stay away from Torhvin. Do you know what he thinks of.…” She glances around, shoving the door open as she lowers her voice. “Of people like you?”
“Do you?” Ruti counters, and a horrifying thought occurs to her. Dekala might know, might already be aware of what Torhvin is hiding about Rurana’s Markless. And she might have agreed to the soulbinding regardless.
Who is Dekala, really? Does Ruti know? Can she know better than Dekala’s soulbond?
There are only a few attendants in Dekala’s main hall when they enter, Ruti on Dekala’s heels. Everyone is busy with preparations for the trip to Byale, and Kalere hurries the last few in the main hall from the room when she sees Dekala’s and Ruti’s faces. “Do you know what Torhvin does to the Markless?” Ruti persists. “Because—”
“I am meant to marry him, Ruti!” Dekala grits out. “And I need you to stop acting like a jealous lover around him.” Her voice is low and frustrated, and Ruti recoils. “It is humiliating enough that I ever … that we.…” She shakes. A storm howls through the room, thunder roaring and the wind slamming into Ruti with enough force to knock her over. It hits her bruised cheek and she cries out in agony, tears forced to her eyes from the pain. She stumbles back, pressing a hand over her cheek, and sinks to the floor as the windstorm howls over her.
Dekala is on top of her in a moment, shielding Ruti from the effects of the wind that her sewa still blasts through the room. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and her eyes are stricken as she stares down at Ruti, her arms stiff as she holds herself over her. “Please sing. Heal it.”
Ruti sings, helpless in the face of Dekala’s concern. Dekala’s sewa calms as she does, and the pain begins to abate. The song is quiet, a call to the spirits that is mournful and lost, and Dekala runs gentle knuckles along Ruti’s jawbone, eyes fixed to hers.
When she finishes her song she’s angry again, and more confused than she’d meant to be. Dekala touches Ruti and her mind goes blank, every doubt gone and compounded at once. Dekala whispers, “Stay away from Torhvin,” again, then climbs to her feet and walks toward her room.
Ruti says, “For his sake or mine?”
Dekala pauses right in front of her room and smiles. It is thin and cold, the smile of the Heir instead of the girl whom Ruti has learned to know, and her voice is distant. “Wouldn’t we all like to know that.”
She turns toward her door then hesitates, turning around again to Ruti. Ruti is close. She doesn’t remember how she got here, exactly, except that she is standing right behind Dekala, dangerously close, and all she can think about is her. Dekala is close, and Ruti doesn’t know which of them moves first.
All she knows is that they move.
They’re on each other at once, kissing desperately as Dekala grabs at her door to yank the curtain open. In an instant they are against a wall, then another, moving from one side of the room and then pushing the other to the opposite side. They scrabble at each other with hands that crave only to know each other, with lips that only seek the other’s skin, and Ruti thinks of little but Dekala’s touch and the rising ecstasy and warmth that comes with knowing her.
They are tangled limbs and breathless whispers and lips and hands and glowing eyes, and Ruti’s skin hums with euphoria, with relief that she knows is fleeting. This can’t last, and she knows it with every kiss, with every movement. This can’t last, and still, she surrenders to it entirely for a night, to Dekala’s eyes and hands and the whisper of her voice.
Much later that night, Ruti lies next to a sleeping Dekala and knows that she will have to leave her. Dekala will not want her here in the morning. Dekala had been very clear, in the quiet conversation between their kisses last night, exactly what this means. Don’t bond with him, Ruti had whispered. You don’t know what it will do to you. She fears that Dekala will be lost for good with a touch of her palm to Torhvin’s. But Dekala had remained stubbornly firm, certain of what she had to do.
Ruti will not sleep beside Dekala, will not commit to new arguments in the morning. Instead she rolls quietly out of bed, gathering her clothes and pulling them on again. She hesitates for a moment over Dekala’s slumbering torso, and cannot stop herself from pressing a kiss to the princess’s forehead.
