Markless, p.6
Markless, page 6
“What about Orrin’s Bonded? She must already know him, if he has his powers.” Ruti hasn’t thought about Orrin, Bonded and in love with someone else, until now. The thought of a Bonded choosing someone else is scandalous, a story to whisper in the dark and giggle at, but hardly a real experience. “How can you take away her soulbond?”
The Heir is silent, standing rigid, and she says at last, “Orrin and his soulbond don’t know each other. He was born in Kîaene, in the south. He was bonded at only three to a girl in his village. My father had young Bonded children collected and trained. Her family refused to let her go and left Zidesh. Orrin was brought to the castle. He has no connection to his Bonded. And he loves me.” She says it with grim certainty, with no joy or affection in her eyes. Even in love, she is emotionless.
“Of course he does,” Ruti says scornfully, if only to get a reaction from the Heir. “You’re the Heir. You’re powerful and you’re pretty and …” Her voice trails off. The Heir blinks at her, and Ruti isn’t imagining the amusement in her eyes this time. It gentles them, makes her look like a girl instead of an imperious royal. “But he doesn’t belong to you,” Ruti finishes too late, her cheeks hot.
The Heir stares at her, her gaze growing cold again, and she holds her hands out to Ruti. They waver in place, betraying anxiety, and her wrists stiffen to quell the trembling. “I think we should begin now,” she says abruptly, and Ruti reaches out to hold her hands.
They are warm, warmer than Ruti would have expected, and they are delicate in Ruti’s grasp. The Heir’s jaw works beneath her skin as Ruti’s palm touches hers, but she is silent this time, eyes fixed on Ruti’s face. They drift closed as Ruti begins to sing, her breath emerging in quiet little puffs, the lightest whisper.
Ruti sings a larghetto barrier between the Heir’s mark and anyone who touches her, and hopes that it will be enough. She is asking too much of the spirits, can feel their displeasure at the request, and she infuses her desperation into the song, begging them only to give her this.
There is a sharp movement from the Winged One, who reigns above the others in the sky and thinks little of the small humans and their pleas from the ground. Ruti feels talons rake into her skin as she sings, a warning that she asks too much. The invisible mark they leave stings, but she persists through the pain, turning her cry to the mighty spirits of the land.
At last they answer, and the offering is pulled apart and blown away into the wind. The Heir’s hands glow and she opens her eyes again, staring at Ruti. Ruti stares back, mesmerized by the way that the Heir’s skin seems to almost shine like fire in the light of the magic, an orange tinge to her face, and the air feels heavier as their gazes lock, harder to breathe through it.
Ruti chants more, again and again singing her request, and finally, reluctantly, the spirits grant it. Magic washes over them both. The Heir shivers, her hands trembling in Ruti’s, and she looks less imposing for a moment, more like that girl Ruti’s age again. The magic engulfs her as Ruti sings, and then, at last, it seems to retreat, leaving behind an invisible barrier.
“It should stop your mark from touching the mark of another,” Ruti says, her voice throaty with the effort of singing and the force of the Heir’s eyes on hers. “I don’t know how long it’ll hold.”
The Heir hesitates a moment, eyes closing as she takes a deep breath, and when she looks at Ruti again, her gaze is ice and steel. “Your life will depend on the answer to that question,” she says, and Ruti lets the Heir’s hands go.
They had been so warm, and Ruti’s cold hands—to her chagrin—feel their loss at once.
After a morning meal in the windowed hall, Ruti is brought, sleepy-eyed, to stand before the Heir again. “You will join me in my daily routine,” the Heir orders. She wears white again, the color reserved only for royalty, this dress with an elaborate gold midsection. Her temples have been painted with a gold ochre highlight, the color glowing against her brown skin, and she looks particularly regal today.
Kalere dressed Ruti in a matching dress of brown-gold, and Ruti only realizes that when she sees the Heir. She scowls, and the Heir catches it. “Is that a problem?” she says, her voice low and dark, and Ruti shakes her head.
“No,” she says, and tosses out a mocking, “Your Highness.” Behind the Heir, Mikuyi winces at her tone. The Heir’s eyes flash.
She’s distracted by Kimya, who moves to stand beside Ruti, her eyes inquisitive as she slips a hand into Ruti’s and signs. “No,” Ruti says immediately, recognizing her request. “You aren’t coming along.”
Kimya frowns at her. Ruti lowers her voice. “Stay, Kimya. Kalere will look after you.” Kimya has never been looked after, not in the sense that Ruti knows Kalere will.
Kimya looks unimpressed at that. Kalere sweeps in, crouching beside Kimya. “Today, we wash the linens and clean these chambers,” she says. “Do you think you could help with that?”
Kimya bobs her head, distracted, and Ruti straightens. The Heir gives Kimya a cool glance and then turns to Ruti. “Your sole purpose here is to provide comfort to me,” she says. “No one you meet will ask you for any more than that.” She glances at Ruti’s hand, her nose wrinkling. “Just your name will suffice.”
Ruti tilts her head. “You’re going to have to come up with a better name for me than Markless filth, then,” she says. Mikuyi, again, looks faint at her boldness.
But the Heir barks out a startled, throaty laugh, her eyes lighting up like jewels against her skin for an instant. She looks to regret it a moment later, thunder rumbling and her expression settling back into its emotionless façade. “Shame,” she says dryly. “It suited you so well.”
She walks toward Ruti abruptly, and Ruti stiffens as the Heir approaches. She blinks and the Heir has walked past her to the door of her chambers. “Keep up,” the Heir orders, and Ruti twists around and trails after her, already annoyed.
Outside, Orrin awaits the Heir, as though Ruti isn’t irritated enough already. “Her,” he says, looking at Ruti with deep dislike. He presses his palm to the Heir’s in greeting, but ignores Ruti’s gloved one. “Has she proven useful?”
The Heir turns her right hand over to regard the semicircle sign of sewa on her palm. “Only the spirits know,” she says. “Come.” Her hand slides over Orrin’s for a moment, an instant of tenderness that Ruti nearly misses. Orrin smiles at her, his distaste for Ruti forgotten. When he watches the Heir, it is without the grip of ownership that Ruti has seen from boys in the slums, only attentiveness. “I must change. I have lessons this morning.”
The Heir keeps a structured day, moving through the palace grounds with Orrin trailing behind her. The Royal Square is in fact a hollow, one-story rectangle, with guards’ rooms and barracks and servants’ quarters in the rooms within it. Inside the rectangle are a series of courtyards and gardens and temples for the spirits, well protected by the guards, and in the center of the rectangle is a tall, squarish castle that holds the Heir’s quarters and the Regent’s as well. There is a large banquet hall that they pass through on their way out, busy with servants who tidy up for the next meal, and a main hall beyond the banquet hall that leads into the front courtyards.
Ruti recognizes the far courtyard as the one where her trial had been. To the right of it, she sees a staircase leading below the rectangle of barracks into the dungeons, and she shudders. The Heir sees it. Her eyes are on Ruti when Ruti looks up, and her smile is thin and sharp.
They’re walking through a different courtyard, toward the outer rectangle, when the Heir pauses. She looks unhappy, her fingers pressing against her palms, and Ruti watches her warily. The Heir is unpredictable, and she seems to revel in it, in the fear that threatens their interactions time and again. Ruti refuses to let fear consume her. She has spent a lifetime learning to sing so she could live a life without fear, and no royal will change that.
The Heir’s fingers twitch again, and Ruti’s wariness begins to shift to curiosity. “What?” she says, staring at her.
Orrin says gruffly, “Do not speak to the princess in that tone.”
But the Heir doesn’t respond to Ruti’s tone, only stiffens as a look of sheer frustration crosses her face. Finally, she bites out, “Well, what is it?”
It takes Ruti a moment to understand, and when she does she can’t stop the laugh that escapes her lips. “Your Highness,” she says, and it feels good to be this smug, to talk down to the most powerful person in the kingdom. “Are you asking for my name?”
The Heir’s lip curls and she refuses to respond. Ruti prods further. “I know your name, Dekala,” she says. It’s daring to say it like that, bordering on treasonous, but the Heir appears too stymied to respond to it. “It’s rather rude to subjugate someone and bring them into your palace as a companion without even learning their name.”
She’s dancing on a fine line, hovering above the ground with her life in the Heir’s hands, and she should be sensible. And yet there is something addictive about the cold murder gleaming in the Heir’s eyes right now, her discomfort at having to ask something. “How will you introduce me as your companion?” Ruti wonders aloud. “Witch? Brat? A girl you picked up from the slums?”
The Heir turns on her heel and marches toward an open door in the rectangle. Ruti hurries to catch up, Orrin left a distance behind them, and says, “I go by Ruti. Your Highness.”
The Heir doesn’t respond. Ruti says, irritable, “You’re welcome.”
“Insolent brat,” the Heir says at last, the wind remarkably cold around Ruti. “Ruti.” Her voice seems to caress Ruti’s name, lingering at the final note of it for a moment before she lets the syllable drop. Ruti swallows, an odd warmth washing over her. Kimya doesn’t speak, and there are few others who call her by name. She is known as witch, as Markless, as girl and nothing more. The youngest Markless make friends, and the friends who live until adulthood have allies and power because of it. But the solitary ones survive by keeping to themselves.
There is a power to names, but Ruti never understood the depth of that power until now, as the Heir speaks her name into existence. If Ruti were Unbonded, she thinks, the world’s energies would be thrumming around her right now.
The Heir doesn’t notice Ruti’s reaction—or if she does, she doesn’t comment on it. Instead, she steps through the open door and is greeted by a smiling man named Tembo, who instructs the Heir on stick fighting.
Ruti says in surprise, “You fight?”
Tembo blinks, looking startled at her appearance. He presses his palm to her gloved one, and Ruti sees that he is Unbonded, the sign of ashto on his palm.
“Of course,” the Heir says, and she flicks her wrist. The stick in her hands moves with shocking dexterity, a blur in the air as she maneuvers and twists and stands in defensive position as Ruti scrambles back from her. “A queen must know how to defend herself.” She moves again, leaping in a dance with the stick that has Ruti composing a new song to it in her mind, and Tembo takes another stick and matches her movements.
By the time they’re done, the Heir is drenched in sweat and retires to her chambers for a bath. In the afternoon, the Heir sits patiently through lessons with a tutor, discussing kingdom policy and geography while Ruti tries not to doze off. “Prince Torhvin’s farmers have been bringing in paltry harvests this year,” the tutor says. “Hardly anything to watch.”
The Heir shakes her head. “But Rurana is flourishing. You said that they’ve been rebuilding their old palace in Byale and have made a new treaty with the Diri pirates. How can that be possible if the harvests are bad?”
The tutor raises her hands helplessly. “We can’t ascertain why. Prince Torhvin’s palace is impenetrable. Even our spies learn only what Torhvin wishes them to.” She brightens. “Perhaps he will share his methods with you if he arrives to court you.”
Orrin grumbles under his breath. Ruti whispers, “He sounds very capable,” if only to watch Orrin’s glower deepen.
Her tutor’s words are enough to displease the Heir, and she rises abruptly. “It is time for the evening meal,” she says. “My uncle the Regent awaits me.”
Ruti tenses. Once they’re outside of the tutor’s chamber, she hurries to walk beside the Heir and says, “Wouldn’t it be better if I ate in your chambers?” The thought of seeing the Regent again makes her nauseous, aware of how tenuous her safety here is.
The Heir gives her a cool look. “You will eat the evening meal as my companion,” she says in a tone that brooks no argument, and she strides down the staircase, Ruti trailing behind her.
Still, there’s a tense thunder that sounds as the Heir walks into the banquet hall, each step accompanied by a dull roar. The Regent sits at the head of a long table, his wife at his left and an empty seat at his right. The Heir stands in the doorway, Ruti hovering behind her with a sick feeling in her stomach.
But the Regent doesn’t recognize the grimy girl from the slums who now stands in front of him in royal-made finery. “Who is this?” he says, his eyes narrowing as he takes her in. Ruti gets the sense that her worth is being assessed beneath his glare, and she is found wanting.
“Uncle,” the Heir says calmly. “I have chosen a companion.” She looks pointedly at the courtier seated beside her empty chair, and the woman scrambles to her feet, hurriedly taking a seat at the far end of the table. “This is Ruti, cousin to the king of Kaguruk. We have been exchanging letters for a number of years, and she has been so kind to offer to comfort me throughout this … ordeal.”
“A companion,” the Regent repeats, and cocks his head. “I did not know that you had a friend.” He says it with a note of curiosity, apparently genuine. Ruti doesn’t trust a word from his mouth, and she stays stiffly beside the Heir and awaits her cue.
The Regent stands, raising his hand, and the Heir nods Ruti forward. “A pleasure to meet you, Ruti,” he says, still with a glimmer of suspicion in his eyes. “I don’t think your cousin has ever mentioned you.”
“Disappointing,” Ruti says as she presses her hand to the Regent’s. Her heart races as she struggles to keep a calm demeanor. “He always told me that I was his favorite.” She knows nothing of Kaguruk, but she can tell from the curious eyes on her that no one else here seems to, either.
The Regent eyes her gloved hand. The Heir says, “It is the custom in Kaguruk to wear gloves until soulbinding. The people choose to search for their Bonded before their bonding.” There’s a murmur at the table, and the Regent’s glare turns to his niece. “Imagine,” the Heir says dryly, “having a choice in your bonding.”
“An idiotic waste of time,” the Regent counters, pulling his hand from Ruti’s and sitting back at the table. The Heir takes the seat beside him, Ruti sitting with her and noticing with spiteful pleasure that Orrin remains standing. “As is you bringing this girl all that distance for what will be a quick soulbinding with no complications.”
The Heir lifts her chin. “Orrin thought it might calm me.” She shoots a rare smile at the bodyguard behind her. His chest puffs out and Ruti makes a face at her plate. There is food on it already, a thick piece of meat and flat cornbread and a mixture of fruit, and she begins to eat.
She hears a gasp. When she looks up, she sees horrified, scandalized faces fixed on her, and she notices suddenly that every other plate is untouched. Orrin bends down to hiss, “Wait for the princess, you boor!”
The Heir sighs loudly. “Well?” she says, turning to Ruti. The Regent looks livid. The Heir ignores him, her eyes boring into Ruti’s but her lips curved into a polite smile. “Is it any good?”
Eyes are fixed on them, awaiting Ruti’s punishment. Ruti shrugs. “I’ve had better,” she says, an outrageous lie that only one person at the table will recognize for what it is, and the Heir lets out a little huff of laughter and takes a bite.
The courtiers relax, turning to their food at last. The Regent still looks thunderous. “Orrin,” he says, seizing on the last thing that the Heir had mentioned. “That boy spends too much time around you.”
Orrin stubbornly stays where he is, three feet back from the Heir’s seat. The Heir says, her voice sharp, “He is my bodyguard.”
“But he is not your Bonded,” the Regent reminds her. “Forgetting that will cause you nothing but heartbreak.” A cool breeze whips around him.
The Regent’s wife speaks up. Ruti remembers that the Regentess Adyana had been a third princess of Guder before she bonded with the Regent. She is plain-looking, not nearly as radiant as the Heir, but her smile has a brightness that brings warmth to the room. “I once thought I was in love,” she says. “I had a dear friend in my city with whom I was sure that I would spend my life. But when I met your uncle, Dekala, everything changed. I knew before our palms ever touched that he would be my Bonded.” She touches her hand to her glass and water fills it, clear as crystal. “It will be like that for you as well.”
The Heir’s voice is cold, a sharp contrast to her aunt’s words. “It will never be like that for me,” she snaps, thunder rumbling through the banquet hall.
The Regent’s voice is just as sharp. “Very well,” he barks. “You wish to get to know each suitor before you attempt the soulbinding? I will grant you that. But you will attempt the soulbinding.” He impales his meat with a sharp fork, cutting it vigorously.
“I don’t want to be Bonded at all,” the Heir says irritably. She sounds younger in the presence of her guardian, closer to her twenty years. Ruti focuses on her food, unwilling to attract the Regent’s attention again.
The Regent pops a piece of meat into his mouth. “An Unbonded girl can hold no kingdom,” he says definitively. “You are weak and uncontrolled.” He chews, the food visible in his mouth. “Perhaps Prince Kobe of Machajabe will change that when he arrives next week.”
The air in the room grows abruptly thin, as though they have all scaled a great peak and can hardly breathe. The courtiers choke, as does the Regent, spitting out his meat onto his plate as the Heir glares at him. Ruti struggles for breath, but it comes in jagged bursts.
