Otherbound

28

Captain Olym did nothing to help Amara. After the storm, an apology flashed in her eyes, and that was that; if anything, she had to be relieved it wasn’t Cilla who’d gotten caught. “Oh, please,” she’d said to accusations of Cilla helping out Amara, “she’s the daughter of a friend of mine, and she’s under my protection. She’s just a child. Are you really going to put her in front of a minister?”

“Give me one good reason why not,” the miller said. He’d bound Amara’s hands and found her dagger, which he’d pocketed with a smug smile.

No one met her eyes.

“This is my ship. I could lay claim to the servant as easily as you. Do you realize how tricky rewards get when challenged?” Olym crossed her arms. “Keep the servant, but the other girl stays in my quarters. Anyone care to change my mind?”

They spent the rest of the trip repairing the worst of the damage and treating injuries, including a crew member’s broken arm. Throughout, Amara sat tied to a mast, slowly drying in the sun. At one point, the miller freed her hands to ask how long she’d been gone, where she’d been, and why she was dumb enough to go back to Bedam. The answers hovered on the tips of her fingers; the miller was entitled to know and to punish her if she refused to respond.

She spent the journey in silence.

The answer was yes. Yes, Lorres was still the Bedam caretaker.

In theory, the job of caretaker was open to anyone. In practice, caretakers were always barenecked former servants. After completing their service, they’d return to parents they no longer knew, a community they no longer understood, and worry about their friends back at the palace.

So they returned to become caretakers. Taking orders directly from the minister and palace manager, they organized the servant schedules, arranged their educations, acted as a go-between, and looked after them better than anyone else would—because they’d been there.

Lorres had terrified Amara at first. All she’d known of him were narrow fingers prying in her cheeks as he held open her mouth. That memory had faded when she’d gotten to know him—to like him, even. He’d been the only person to look after her.

Now, as he crossed the courtyard toward the gate where Amara, the miller, and the marshal who’d accompanied them from the harbor stood, it took a second for her to recognize him. A fat braid dangled all the way to the middle of his back; in her memory, he’d always worn his hair short. He walked tall, with his shoulders back and head up high, in a way that didn’t match Amara’s memories, either. He wasn’t Elig—or any group she recognized—but she imagined him walking like one, newly arrived in the Dunelands, skulking around like he felt naked. That image fit her memories better.

Lorres opened the gate. “Amara” was the first thing he signed. She hadn’t even had time to wonder if he’d remember her. He even knew the sign for her name. “You’ve been gone a while.”

Amara could only nod.

“Would you look at that? She can communicate.” The miller put his hand on her neck and pulled her hair aside. Amara flinched as he tapped her skin. “Look. I figured you might be interested in getting this one back.”

“You’d be right. I expect you want to discuss a reward?”

Lorres switched to spoken words to address the miller, and the sound jarred Amara. He’d so rarely spoken aloud around her, she’d almost forgotten his voice. With practice, many servants could speak at least somewhat intelligibly, but it was forbidden during their service, and few were willing to risk punishment when their signs served them just as well.

It took the miller a moment to decipher Lorres’s words. “I wouldn’t be opposed.” He sounded stiff. Some people were odd about barenecked servants. Instead of treating them with all possible respect, as was proper, they recoiled at the first hand sign or unclear word.

“Your friend can escort you.” Lorres nodded at the marshal. “Meanwhile, I’ll take this one inside. Would you mind untying her hands?”

The miller’s lips pressed together thinly. He did as he was told.

“Thank you,” Amara said as she followed Lorres. She rubbed her wrists, though any burns or scrapes from the rope had already healed. Inside the courtyard, she looked around. Too many marshals guarded the palace for her to risk an escape. She’d expected as much.

“No one should tie our hands. Ever.” Lorres was back to signing. He shook his head. “I’m glad to see you’re alive, Amara.”

He didn’t say he was glad to see her all right, or back. Her childhood affection for this man was validated in one swift sentence.

She felt stuck in a dream. Every step on the courtyard tiles was a step deeper into a world she knew, with something in the back of her head nagging at her that this isn’t right. Things had changed. The gate looked new, she thought, or maybe just freshly polished. Those trees looked younger than they ought to. Maybe the old ones had finally given in and died. The palace itself looked wider. They’d added extra wings—she was sure of that from the discoloration of the stones and paint; at the same time, Amara herself had grown, and the courtyard that used to go on forever now seemed curiously small.

The palace itself wasn’t as grand as in her memory, either. The setting afternoon sun reflected off a million windows and intricate reliefs and colored the pale walls pink. Of the entrance arches, most were shut, leaving only the wide central arch open. Amara craned her neck to see the bell tower. The same silver windvane stood on top. Some of the older servants used to fight over who got to climb up to polish it. The view would be worth the risk. Few Dunelands buildings stood as tall as the palace. Heavy buildings were dangerous in such muddy earth. Fat poles hammered into the ground were all that kept the palace—and the rest of the city—from sinking.

Amara had always wanted to climb up herself, but she hadn’t been old enough. Maybe she’d get the chance now.

She was back.

Back, her mind sang. Back.

She wanted to keep her attention on the gleam of Lorres’s braid or on his freckles, but the people crossing the courtyard kept drawing her eye: employees carrying papers and escorting accused criminals, servants working on the yard and lighting the evening’s lamps. Their tattoos and the way they signed to one another from afar were unmistakable, but she didn’t see many of them. Servants avoided crossing the courtyard. They had their own passages. Amara knew where to look, though; there, one entrance behind the thicket and trees; there, between that stable and shed … She saw only flashes, people out one door and in another, carrying bags and jugs that contained food and drinks, cleaning supplies, clothes, repair tools, garbage.

Some servants didn’t even reach her hips. Had there always been so many children? There couldn’t have been. She remembered being lonely.

“They’ve done a lot of”—Lorres waffled over the right sign—“recruiting since you left.” He must’ve caught her looking. “And some redecorating. Welcome to Drudo palace.”

They passed one entrance and were about to enter another door, one framed by an elaborate arch. Amara halted. She remembered passing underneath that arch. A quiver would run over her skin every time. “Is there still a protective ward here?”

“You remembered. Ruudde had it removed, though.”

“You’re certain?” She didn’t want to explain out here but couldn’t take the risk. “I’m enchanted.”

He looked surprised, but it didn’t show in his signs. “I’m certain. We can take the servants’ way in if you prefer, though.”

Amara nodded. She remembered that, too; the door was just around the corner, almost indistinguishable from the walls.

She was back. The words repeated themselves over and over in her mind as they walked through the servant passage. Back in Bedam. Back in the palace. Back with Ruudde.

At least she might find answers now. With Cilla roaming Bedam unguarded, though, Amara had a hard time seeing the positives. And what about Amara herself? What would Ruudde do to her?

“Listen,” Lorres signed, “I’m putting you in a cell for now. I’ll be back to cut your hair. Then I’ll alert Ruudde. Normally we wouldn’t go so high up, but you’ve been gone for so long, I suspect he’d want to know.” One corner of his lips tilted up. “Not many runaways manage to stay hidden for so long. Someday I’ll ask you all about where you’ve been. And about that enchantment.”

Someday. Lorres thought Amara was here to stay. That he could cut her hair and expose her tattoo, dress her in palace-issued clothes, and put her with the rest of the servants. She’d cook and clean and build new walls.

Maybe he was right.

“I will ask one thing: did Nicosce take you? You two disappeared at the same time.”

“Don’t make that sign,” Amara said. “She is no longer that. She is the servant who came before … before …” She didn’t know what to call either of them now.

“She’s dead?”

Amara thought back to when they’d both worked at the palace. Those memories were blurry, pushed away by more recent memories of the servant teaching Amara about etiquette and cleaning and games, and of her feeding the horses Jorn once traded for. Horses. She’d always been good with horses. “The Alinean stable servant. Yes. She’s dead.”

“So you did run together.” Lorres turned a corner, unlocked a door, and took them through it. The walls turned rougher, darker. Amara didn’t recognize this area. It had to be one of the newer parts. Had the servant wing changed, too? Did the palace’s main hall still have salt-crystal chandeliers, the finely drawn map of the Alinean Islands on the floor, the seas engraved on the walls? She hadn’t thought she’d ever find out.

“Ruudde will have someone punish you. I’ll tell him the stable servant took you when you were young, that you’re not responsible. It may help.” They exited the servant passage into a larger hallway, where the walls looked polished but stayed dark. Lorres stopped in front of a cell that was nothing but three walls and a pot in its center and steel bars too narrow to wedge through. She touched the bars. Cold. She didn’t recognize this sort of cell. Another export from Nolan’s world? “Not cheerful, I know. Ruudde had them built.” Lorres fished a key from his sidesling, opened the door in the bars, and waited for Amara to step in.

“You need to let me go,” she said.

He squeezed her shoulder, then pulled his hand back to talk. “I’m sorry. I am. Please don’t make me force you inside.”

“Do you know how I stayed hidden for so long? I was with a mage.” She didn’t let him reply. “You worked here before the coup. Do you remember the royal children, the princesses and prince?”

She shouldn’t talk about this to someone working directly under a minister, but she saw no other options. While she was trapped here, Cilla was helpless.

Lorres’s movements were deliberate. “Of course I remember the children. Amara, I need you to step inside.”

“All these years, I’ve been guarding Princess Cilla.” Amara stepped toward Lorres, away from the dank cell.

“Don’t use that—”

“Cilla is alive, but she’s in danger. She’s cursed. She could die without me. You have to let me find her.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Lorres said with soothing gestures. He must figure she’d been taken from the palace young enough for someone to fill her head with all sorts of lies.

Amara slammed her bare elbow into the wall. “Look,” she said as pain flared into the bone. Blood welled up while her skin repaired itself at the edges of the scrape. “This is how I can protect her. I’m a mage.” The lie hurt, but the truth was too complicated, and she needed Lorres to listen.

He held her elbow to the light. He cursed. “Mages never select their own as servants.”

“They made a mistake.” Why was he lingering on this point instead of on Cilla? “Let me leave to find the princess. I have to.”

“Amara … The younger princess died in the coup. The ministers killed her. They choked her in her bed.”

“The ministers lied. Too many people would support Cilla if they knew she survived.”

“I saw the princess’s body. I burned it, after.” Lorres watched her with dark, earnest eyes.

“No,” Amara said. “You’re wrong. Maybe they replaced her with another child …”

“I knew that girl from birth. She had the royal mark on her chest and a mole on her chin. I don’t know what the stable servant or that mage you were with told you—I don’t know who you think you know—but the younger princess is dead.”

Amara’s mind stuttered and reeled and ground to a halt.

“Well,” a familiar voice said from behind Amara. Ruudde. “This is unfortunate.”

Three people stood at the end of the cell wing. Ruudde was in the back, looking older than Amara remembered and draped with more gemstones than ever. A marshal led the group, a short Jélisse man who kept one hand on Cilla’s neck and pushed her forward.

Cilla stared at Amara. Her eyes shone wetly. She’d seen their signs.

Cilla wasn’t the princess.