Markless, p.8
Markless, page 8
Ruti waits until the Heir is gone, the wind quieting around her and the thunder fading, and she regards the door to the kitchens with some suspicion. The cooks and servants in the kitchens know her face by now, have seen her in the Heir’s chambers and in the banquet hall. If they see her in the palace after she’s supposed to be gone, her entire tactic will fail.
There’s only one real option. She can’t walk through the palace without being seen. Kimya is up in the Heir’s chambers, safely ensconced in their room—unless the Heir has already taken her to the dungeons. But Ruti doesn’t think so. Kimya is good at blending in, at being forgotten and overlooked when she needs to be. In the weeks they’d spent together at the shop, she’d spent most of her time out of sight, picking through ingredients and cleaning the dark corners of the shop. If the Heir returns to her chambers in a fury, Kimya will slip away before the princess thinks to arrest her.
Now, Ruti has to get to her.
She slips around the corner of the castle at the center of the palace, squinting up at the large window that she knows marks the Heir’s chambers. Four windows to the right will be Ruti’s room, and if Ruti can somehow make it there, she can climb inside. The windows of the bottom two floors of the palace are shuttered for security, but when it’s cool outside, the attendants open the windows in the Heir’s chambers to let some air into the rooms.
Ruti just has to climb.
She sings in a whisper as she begins her climb, calling to the spirits for even more help—too much, enough that she must be trying their patience—and imagines monkeys swinging through the trees above mighty beasts as the Winged One soars over them. They are quick and nimble, strong and daring, and she borrows their bravery as she reaches up to the next jutting brick, kicking off her sandals so her bare toes can wrap around the cool, weathered foothold.
She is halfway up and can see more bricks jutting out above her. Carefully, she seizes the next, pulling at it as she sings herself more agility, squeezes her fingers around it, and moves.
The brick slips from the wall, and Ruti nearly slips with it. She slaps a hand against the wall unsteadily, adrenaline and terror surging through her, and she regains her balance and makes a terrible mistake.
She looks down.
She’s flat against the wall, halfway between the first-floor windows and the second, and she’s as good as suspended in midair. One wrong move and she’ll fall, break her legs or her neck or worse, and several of the tan bricks she used to ascend have already fallen to the ground. There’s no going back, not this way, and she’ll have to make it to her room or drop.
She takes a shuddering breath. No matter. She’s survived worse situations. This is only a wall, and she has magic. She sings another chant, one she composes on the spot, another plea for agility that lets her dig her hand into the gap left behind by the fallen brick and hoist herself up higher.
Her gloves are gone, discarded with her sandals. Her hands are scratched and her arms and legs ache from the strain of the climb, but she ignores them all to reach higher still until finally—finally—she’s just below the shutters to the window of her room.
The shutters are unlocked, and Ruti slides them open a sliver to see Kimya curled up on her bed. It’s gotten late, and Kimya has been sleeping earlier in the palace than she used to in the slums. Kimya’s eyes are open, though, and she watches the window with quiet attention.
She’s been expecting Ruti. Ruti breathes a sigh of relief, pushes the shutters open all the way, and tumbles through them to the floor of the room. “We have to get out of here,” she says breathlessly. “I’m in trouble.”
Kimya only sits silently, watching her without signing, and Ruti notices two things that she hadn’t before. First, Kimya’s hands and feet are bound with rope to keep her from moving.
“That seems a common dilemma for you,” a voice says crisply, and Ruti lifts her head to stare at the other bed, the one they don’t use.
They aren’t alone.
Of course. Ruti should have known that the Heir would immediately anticipate what Ruti would do next. She sits on the second bed, leaning against the wall as though the bed is her throne, and watches Ruti with inscrutable eyes.
“Oh,” Ruti says numbly. “It’s you.”
She could run again, flee and hope that Orrin isn’t standing on the other side of the door to the Heir’s chambers, but she won’t be able to free Kimya in time for them to have a chance. Instead, Ruti stands very still, staring at the Heir as the Heir stares back.
“Kneel,” the Heir says coldly, and Ruti obeys without question this time.
She drops to her knees, heart thumping with dread, and the Heir rises to stare down at her, looking for all the world as though she holds more power than a witch. Ruti matches her stare, unflinching, prepared to face her doom at last. The Heir circles her once, then speaks. “Who sent you to sabotage me?”
Ruti blinks. Of all the orders and questions and demands that the Heir might make, she hadn’t expected that. “I … what?” she asks, incredulous.
“Who sent you?” the Heir demands. “Was it my uncle? Was it one of the courtiers? Was it Rurana’s prince? Is this a political coup? Who had you sabotage your magic on me?”
“Sabo— No one!” Ruti says, disbelieving. “No one brought me here but you!” The Heir stares down at her, her face stiff and dark, and Ruti says, “I failed, yes. But I tried. I put all I could into my magic. I begged the spirits again and again, I swear it.” She gazes up at the Heir, beseeching. The Heir watches her, a flicker of doubt on her face. “I did all I could.”
“I don’t believe that,” the Heir says darkly. “I saw you summon a Spotted One. I saw you burned and scorched into something monstrous at the market, and you healed yourself in just hours. And this is too much for your magic? A simple mark?”
Ruti takes a deep breath, remembering the spirits’ disapproval at her plea. “The spirits thought … they thought it was unnatural to resist it,” she murmurs, and the Heir sags in front of her. This will be Ruti’s death, now that she is condemned to uselessness, and there is nothing she can do but tell the Heir the truth. “Soulbinding is their gift to humans. It is the gravest of offenses to reject the gift of the spirits. So they refused to keep you from trying to bond with the prince. I’m sorry.”
The Heir turns away from her, thunder crackling around them, and Ruti stands, hurrying to untie Kimya from her bonds. Kimya hisses at her, frustration in her eyes, but she doesn’t push Ruti away.
“I knew you’d return,” the Heir says, her back still to them. “I knew you would come back for your sister. It doesn’t make you a good person,” she says, but her voice lacks bite. “It makes you weak.”
“It can be both,” Ruti counters, and the Heir turns back, her eyes black pits. “What will you do with me now?” Ruti whispers. She is afraid. There is something thrumming in the air around them, something unpredictable hovering around the Heir, and Ruti has endured enough threats to know that her admission of failure will end in her suffering.
She has to protect Kimya, who sits beside her stiffly and refuses to look at her right now. Kimya is angry, and Ruti can guess a dozen reasons why. She will negotiate with the Heir, find a way to trade some songs for Kimya’s protection within the palace. Kalere likes her, the attendants dote on her, and Kimya is a hard worker. Kimya can be safe here, instead of alone in the slums. If the Heir wills it. The Heir will decide their fates right now, and Ruti can do nothing but await her decree.
But instead the Heir sinks to her knees in front of Ruti, bowing her head and closing her eyes. Ruti gapes, dumbstruck.
“I lied to you,” the Heir says quietly. “I don’t know how many witches there are in Ntuka or Aelin. I have only seen one witch in Somanchi’s market, and he was a fraud. I led you to believe I have options, but I have none. Only you. And I saw your strength and I thought you might be.…”
Ruti stares at her, at the quiet, desperate humility from a ruler who raises herself so high above everyone else. The Heir looks up at her, and now her eyes are pained, a raw vulnerability within them. “My life is in your hands, Ruti of the Markless,” the Heir whispers. “I can’t be bonded. I can’t be chained down to someone I didn’t choose.”
“I know,” Ruti says, and she’s surprised at the frustration she feels on the Heir’s behalf, the sudden empathy she feels with someone who has done little to deserve it from her. “I’m doing all I can. Maybe there’s another way, a better way, but I don’t know how.”
The Heir lets out an irritable sound that she quashes, rising to sit on the bed opposite Ruti again. “Will you try?” she says, and she still sounds … less imperious, perhaps, a plea tempering her words.
Ruti hesitates. The Heir says swiftly, “I can offer you coin. Protection. A space in the Merchants’ Circle—”
“How about we start with a promise that you aren’t going to kill me if I fail?” Ruti says. The Heir blinks at her, a ghost of a smile on her face. “And that I’m not yours. No more kneeling or—or waking me up in the middle of the night just to talk or.…” The Heir’s lips are curving upward, and it has Ruti flustered, discomfited at the Heir’s amusement. “I don’t care if I have to work to earn my keep here. But I want my freedom. Mine and Kimya’s. And that coin you just offered,” she says hastily, because she isn’t naïve.
“I will give you everything your heart desires,” the Heir promises. “Please, I only need.…” Her voice trails off and she looks very, very lost. “I want to be free, too.”
“Okay.” Ruti puts out her hand, palm out in the way that she’s seen traders make deals. It’s a challenge, and the Heir accepts it, pressing her palm to Ruti’s unmarked one.
The contact sends a tingle through Ruti, and the Heir startles a bit as though it’s done the same for her. “If I do find that you are playing me for a fool, though,” the Heir warns her, “I will not look lightly upon that. Any sign of treachery and all our deals are off.”
Ruti stares at her, unpleasantly reminded of why she dislikes the Heir. “I told you I’m trying,” she says irritably. “Is it really this hard to trust me?”
The Heir retreats, her eyes closing off again and her back straightening. “I would be a fool to trust a Markless,” she says scornfully. “Particularly a Markless who has control over my fate.”
Ruti turns away from her, disappointed with no reason for it. “I will try, Your Highness,” she bites out.
The Heir doesn’t respond, only stands, turning to walk to the door. Ruti watches her leave, the sour feeling returning with the Heir’s aloofness. But the Heir pauses at the doorway, and she says, “Dekala.”
Ruti stares after her. “What?”
The Heir doesn’t turn. “If we are to be free companions, then it is best that you call me by my name,” she says smoothly. Her back is still to Ruti, and Ruti glowers at it, her stomach tying itself into knots at the offer.
“If we are to be free companions, then I think I’ll make that decision by myself, Your Highness,” she shoots back, and the Heir’s shoulders shake in what Ruti is unpleasantly certain is a silent, mocking laugh.
“Very well,” the Heir says—and there is clearly laughter in her voice—and she steps out of the room.
Ruti groans. “I hate her,” she says, untying Kimya and stretching out beside her. But Ruti’s heart is beating quickly, a bubble of air somewhere within it. She’d won somehow, had run off and been found and had still managed to get more than she’d ever thought she might. Maybe the Heir will renege on her word, but she’d still given it, had admitted that she needs Ruti more than she’d ever let on before. The Heir can’t afford to do more than level empty threats at Ruti, and she’s willing to compromise in order to get what she wants.
And what she wants might be beyond Ruti, but she wonders if there might be someone out there who can help her. If Ruti can—
A sharp poke to her ribs interrupts her thoughts, and Ruti rolls over to face an unsmiling Kimya. “What?” Ruti demands finally. “I came back for you, didn’t I?”
Kimya shakes her head and her eyes flash, lips twitching with frustration. “Tell me,” Ruti says, forcing herself to focus on Kimya instead of the insufferable Heir.
Kimya signs. “It’s long,” Ruti translates, and Kimya nods. “Tell me,” she murmurs again.
Kimya signs, and it is long, a convoluted explosion of emotions that takes Ruti some time and guesswork to fully understand. “You’re angry because I left?” she finally asks, bewildered. “I was going to bring you with me.”
Kimya’s hands fly, her eyes accusing. “We have food at home, too,” Ruti protests, watching Kimya’s hands. “We’re safer there, too. We’re—”
Kimya slaps her palm, a vicious little motion that Ruti has seen her use before, followed by the curve of her hand against her heart that means home. “We’re Markless at home,” Ruti repeats, and Kimya looks at her with such loss that Ruti’s heart cracks. “Kimya, we’re Markless here, too.”
Kimya signs a word that she’s only ever used for Ruti before. Friends. Here, Kimya is comfortable, surrounded by attendants who make no mention of what lies beneath her gloves. She folds linen and helps prepare food and is treated like anyone else, like a favored child instead of a monster, and Ruti slips her arms around Kimya and tugs her close. “I made you a dreamer, didn’t I?” she whispers. She’s spent so long railing against Markless dreamers, against children who believe that they can someday become just like all the Marked people out there, that she hadn’t thought about what feeding and sheltering a Markless child might do to her.
Kimya shakes her head, then nods, just a short little motion that breaks Ruti’s heart even further. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to Kimya’s temple. “I wish … I wish you could have this everywhere. But we had a good life in the shop, didn’t we?” Kimya refuses to answer.
Ruti sighs, kissing her hair again. “You heard what I told the Heir. I’m going to try to help her. We’ll stay here for as long as she needs us,” she promises, and Kimya presses a hand to Ruti’s upper arm, a silent sign of gratitude. “As long as I don’t kill her first,” Ruti mutters wryly.
Kimya’s head bumps against her laughingly, followed by a sign that Ruti recognizes. “I do not like her,” Ruti says, horrified. “She’s a monster.”
Kimya shrugs, offering Ruti a sign that she uses to mean gift. Swiftly, she digs into her robe and emerges with a neatly-wrapped paper that she opens as Ruti stares in bewildered surprise.
Sometime tonight, before the Heir tied up Kimya and used her as bait to draw Ruti in, the Heir had taken a moment to offer Kimya a little chunk of chocolate. Kimya signs again, grinning, and Ruti translates it in her head: Well, I like her.
Ruti glowers at her. Kimya smiles, her anger receding, and breaks off a piece of the chocolate to place into Ruti’s hand.
Ruti pops it into her mouth, still scowling. It’s the sweetest candy she’s ever tasted.
Nothing changes very much after that evening. The Heir is still snide and distant, and their rare conversations begin and end with questions about Ruti’s progress with her song. Ruti begs out of afternoons with the Heir now, focused on mixing offerings and testing out new chants to see if they might appease the spirits.
Thus far, she’s had little luck. The spirits remain stubbornly immobile as they have never been before for her, and she fears their patience may run out. Soulbonds are destined to be Bonded.
Ruti senses the Heir’s impatience growing with each day, and when she’s awakened in the middle of the night, she fears the worst. “You promised,” she gasps out before she even opens her eyes. “If you lay one finger on me, I’ll sing you to your death.”
“Calm down,” the Heir says disgustedly. She stands over Ruti, the light of the sun’s rise haloing her as she snatches her hand from Ruti’s shoulder. “I’m not here to kill you.” Her eyes narrow as Ruti sits up, squinting at her through the bright light. “I need your help. My uncle only just sent word. A new prince is arriving today.”
“I’m doing my best,” Ruti says, but dread suffuses her at the thought of trying to persuade the spirits with what she’s done so far. “There’s no way that I’ll be able to—”
“I know,” the Heir says abruptly. “But there is another option.” She raises her voice. “Kalere,” she calls, and Kalere hurries into Ruti’s room. “Can you do it?”
“Do what?” Ruti asks, but suddenly Kalere is running her hands over Ruti’s hair, cupping her face, eyeing her with calculating eyes.
“I think we can,” Kalere decides, and pulls Ruti unceremoniously from her bed and herds her toward the bathing room without another word.
“Wait, what?” Ruti says, keeping up with Kalere as the Heir gives her a cool once-over and slips out of her nightgown.
Ruti stares, averts her eyes, then stares again, her face very hot as her eyes flicker over the Heir’s smooth skin. The Heir, for her part, seems unbothered by her own nakedness, accustomed to being touched and bathed by the attendants around her.
The Heir steps into the bath and says, “The only option I see is that this new prince believes we are trying the bonding when we aren’t. You and I are about the same height, even if you’re too light-skinned,” she says, assessing Ruti. Ruti still feels heat passing through her as the Heir’s body disappears beneath the water. “I think with some styling and heavy makeup, we can make you look like I do in paintings.”
“You want me to pose as you?” Ruti repeats, the full import of what the Heir is asking finally settling in. “How am I supposed to—”
“I haven’t met Prince Kedron of Phecia,” the Heir says. “He won’t know the difference. And you’ve spent enough time with me to do a crude facsimile of me. It will be enough, at least until dinner with my uncle.”
Mikuyi urges Ruti into the bath, tugging the gown off her shoulders, and Ruti feels the Heir’s eyes lingering on her torso. Ruti flushes, self-conscious of what she knows is nowhere near the smooth perfection of the Heir’s skin. She is scarred from various fights and bad weather in the slums, and she’s always been a little too scrawny, even after weeks at the royal palace. Her ribs are visible, her figure uneven, and she wants to cover herself the moment the Heir sees her.
