Otherbound

4

By late afternoon, Amara had decided that, as dangerous as sneaking downstairs was, she’d do it anyway.

She hovered at the top of the inn stairs, listening to the noise from the ground-floor pub. The clinking of glasses, shouts and laughter, a flute player’s screech. She smelled greasy bread and alcohol—Jélisse ports and wines, and beers from all over the Continent. She’d never liked the taste but wished for a sip anyway; at least she had enough of a stump in the back of her throat to notice that taste, or any taste at all. Maart rarely did.

Amara moved down a stair, then two, until she had a sliver of a view of the crowd. Most were Dit workers, sun-freckled, flat-faced, broad-shouldered. Jorn fit right in, sitting at a booth near the bar and shouting for another beer. He’d drunk more in the past few weeks than he had in years. He hadn’t punished Amara so badly in just as long.

In the deepest end of the booth, with her back safely to the wall, Cilla nursed her own drink—her first and last. They couldn’t risk her losing her coordination. Cilla took a tiny sip and glanced up as a gangly boy leaned into their table with a lopsided smile. His words were lost in the noise.

Jorn said two words of his own, and the boy stumbled back before Cilla even had a chance to return his smile. Amara relaxed marginally. Jorn was still alert enough to be cautious. No one should come near Cilla, especially after drinking.

Amara looked for the news sheet pinned to the wall downstairs, in a weakly lit niche. The innkeeper refreshed it every three days. She moved down another stair, keeping a close eye on Cilla and Jorn as she went—part caution, part habit. Most people in the bar gave Cilla a wide berth. Amara didn’t know if that had anything to do with Jorn telling off her last suitor, or just her being Alinean in a predominantly Dit bar; most Alineans had returned to the Alinean Islands after the coup, but the ones who remained in the Dunelands still made all the money, still had the best jobs, and still walked with their heads held high, and that was starting to bother even those who’d supported the monarchy.

And Cilla—she might not wear her hair the proper way, but she was Alinean through and through, from the way her dark skin blended into the shade of the booth to the way her nose pinched between her eyes, then flared wide. The candle glow accentuated the full curve of her cheeks, her dark, narrow eyes. Her tongue darted out to wash the wine from her lips, then she leaned toward Jorn to ask him something.

Amara used the distraction to sneak down the most open part of the stairs. She’d be seen if she went too slowly. In this dimness, her skin—though dark for an Elig like her—practically glowed. She dashed into the niche, then waited for a moment. No one came. She put her finger on the broadsheet, following along with the words just as Cilla had. Amara knew she shouldn’t be reading. She especially shouldn’t do it within spitting distance of Jorn. She couldn’t give up, though—and if she was going to do this, she’d do it because she wanted to. Not because Cilla urged her on. Not because Maart liked their futile rebellions.

Knowing roughly what the article said made it easier to follow. Cilla had summed up the main points. What must not have occurred to Cilla was why Amara would care. Had she forgotten that Amara had lived at Ruudde’s palace, as well?

Amara had served in Bedam for barely a year, half of that working for Cilla’s family, the other half for Ruudde once he’d taken over. She’d still been a child when Jorn had stolen her away from Ruudde. A healing servant came in handy when protecting a fragile, on-the-run princess.

If Amara were ever caught, though, her tattoo marked her as belonging to the Bedam palace. She’d be returned to Ruudde, so she ought to know of him what she could.

—suspect—Alinean—loyalties, Amara read about the woman who’d tossed the stone, but—no—family—members—have—

“Amara!” a voice whispered. Amara spun. If Jorn saw her reading—or realized how careless she was, getting so caught up—

Cilla stood across from her. She gripped the sides of the niche. Normally her eyes were narrowed, hidden in the shade of her lids, but now they spread wide, and under her wrap, her chest heaved from exertion or panic or both. Cilla never rushed unless it was important.

Amara’s heart sped up, a thump-thump-thump with no pauses in between. With practiced speed, she scanned Cilla’s face and the arms exposed by her loose topscarf; she checked the winterwear that went from right below Cilla’s arms to her horse-fuzz-lined boots. No scratches, tears, scrapes, nothing.

“Where?” Amara signed, and automatically reached for the knife in her boot pocket. Shit. She’d left it upstairs. If Cilla’s injury was small enough that Amara missed it, Cilla’s blood might not yet have tasted enough air to activate the curse, but when it did, it could bring down the entire inn. Normally Cilla was faster about alerting her where she’d been injured. They had enough experience to know all the moves.

“We need to leave,” Cilla hissed.

No injury, then. Mages working for the ministers instead.

Amara ran up the stairs after Cilla and dove into their room, searching for her knife. Using her voice, she pushed out the single syllable of his name, “Mar!”

Cilla thumped the closed hatch of Maart’s bunk. “They’re close,” she said, talking fast. “Jorn went out to hold them off. He’s dissolved his detection spell. We can pass safely.”

Amara slipped her knife into the side pocket of her horse-fuzz boots. “How many?”

Cilla was helping Maart from his bunk; with her head turned away, she missed Amara’s signs. Didn’t matter. They’d need to run fast no matter what.

They hadn’t encountered hired mages in months. Jorn normally sensed them coming once they passed his boundary spell, giving him the chance to take the group out of range. He must’ve been distracted. Or drinking. Amara swallowed an oath.

Maart stumbled on the floor and made for his boots. His shoulders were bare. No time to wrap a topscarf. “Go,” he said, and the pleading in both his hands and eyes told Amara things she didn’t want to know: to be careful, to run, to let whatever happened to Cilla happen. “Go!”

She pretended not to see, and he grabbed his boots and yanked them on as he scanned the room. They all had their tasks. Jorn fought. Amara fled with Cilla. Maart safeguarded their essentials.

The mages wanted Cilla, but if they couldn’t trigger her curse, they’d hinder the group any way they could. They’d steal the herbs that stopped Cilla’s bleeds, their money, Jorn’s enchantments. They’d kill the group’s servants.

They had before.

“Hide when you can,” Amara told Maart, and ran.

Cilla followed footlengths behind. Their boots pounded narrow, steep stairs. “They’re coming from the direction of the mill,” Cilla said, a whisper of wine on her breath.

The nearest mill was two houses south, close enough that they heard the wings creak during quiet moments, the wind fluttering through the fabric. They’d go north, then. The mages could track Cilla by the curse, but only when close enough. All Amara needed to do was get Cilla out of reach and hide.

Amara paused on the third step from the bottom to look over the pub. If the mages had arrived, they were lying low. She squinted at the smell of fungi, penetrating enough to stab at her eyes. To reach the exit, they’d need to slip past a good ten people in various stages of drunkenness. If Cilla was grabbed, that’d be bad. If Cilla was grabbed a little too roughly, that’d be worse. Amara didn’t want anyone finishing the mages’ job for them.

A touch on her neck. Her hands flew up to guard herself, but the look on Cilla’s face stopped her. Calm. How could Cilla be calm? There were mages on the street—who knew how close, who knew how many.

“Your tattoo.” Cilla’s voice cut through the pub-goers’ shouts.

Amara flattened her hair against her neck. If it didn’t cover her tattoo, they’d be sure to get held up. She dipped her head in thanks and took Cilla’s wrist. After regrowing only that morning, Amara’s nails were in no state to cut skin, but she was cautious, anyway, even with her eyes fixed on the entrance.

She held her breath when the door opened and people stepped through. The first thing Amara searched for—always—was the knife-wielding mage. Tall and Alinean, she carried that same curved knife every time.

Instead, the first person to enter was male, and Amara recognized him instantly. He always stood out among the mages who chased them. Elig people like he and Amara stood out in any crowd, no matter how silently they spoke or furtively they walked. And, unlike Amara, this mage was pink-skinned and pale-eyed, with hair like fire—exactly what everyone north of Eligon expected them to look like.

The second mage was a Dit woman, just as familiar. The last time Amara had seen her, the mage had been side by side with the knifewielder. Amara’s cheek ached with a long-ago memory: encountering the hired mages for the first time, that blade hooking into her cheek—

Focus. Amara double-checked the entrance to make sure the knifewielder wasn’t with them.

She wasn’t. Just the two mages. It should’ve calmed Amara, should’ve made her grab Cilla and flee.

But what Amara wanted—needed—was to burst through the crowd and kill these mages, knifewielder or not. Killing a mage ended their spells. A curse like Cilla’s would’ve required tens of mages working in unison, but in the end, a single person channeled the magic. A single mage responsible. It could’ve been a minister. Could’ve been someone they hired. Could’ve been one of these two.

Without the curse, Cilla would still need to stay on the run, but life would be infinitely easier. The mages wouldn’t be able to track her. She wouldn’t need endless drugs to stop her monthly bleeds. She wouldn’t have to worry about stray paper cuts.

She wouldn’t need Amara to get hurt in her stead.

Amara wanted the mages dead. These two. The knife-wielder. All of them.

But that was Jorn’s task. She reined herself in, focused on her own. Were the mages tracking Cilla? She checked the lamps suspended to the walls and the beers in people’s hands for any immediate reactions to nearby magic. Nothing.

Magic backlash wasn’t always visible, though.

They needed another exit. Amara nodded at the door to the dumphouse and didn’t wait for approval to pull Cilla along toward it. She’d grown up protecting Cilla, and Jorn let her do that however she saw fit.

The dumphouse’s shit-stink grew thick as they neared it, streaking past rented rooms. Amara chanced a look over her shoulder. Someone waltzed into the dark behind them. Too big to be the woman, too dark to be the man. Too drunk to be either of them. Good, so—

—Amara barely corrected her stumble. Cilla’s grip kept her upright. Her hand squeezed Amara’s in reassurance, or a wordless Careful!

What had she stumbled on? No time to check. The dumphouse door stood ajar. They barged inside. Shuddering gas lamps lit the hut, illuminating men leaning into walls to piss into ditches, two other shapes sitting in crouches. Amara ran straight through, Cilla’s hand safe in hers.

“You girls in a hurry?” a woman shouted, her voice thick with alcohol. Too loud. If the mages heard, it’d point them right at Cilla.

Amara reached the doors on the other side of the dumphouse, the ones that led to the street, and stood aside so the light hit the lock. Often, inns locked their dumphouses, unlocking them only for back-street cleaning. No one wanted to drag shit through the inn, and no one wanted a dumphouse on a respectable street front.

Amara really missed the mainland’s sewage system. For all you could say about the ministers, they’d still come up with a decent invention or two.

If the doors were locked, she could manage the mechanism with her knife, but if she was lucky she could—

—Amara’s hand rested loosely around the handles. She blinked a couple of times fast. Cilla stood awfully close all of a sudden, close enough for Amara to smell the wine on her breath despite the dumphouse stink.

There’d been a full footlength between them a second ago. What’d happened?

“What is it?” Cilla asked, tension visible in the hunch of her shoulders, the press of her lips, the balls of her hands. Both hands. Just a moment ago, Amara had been gripping Cilla’s fingers tightly. Why hadn’t Amara noticed them slip away? She should’ve noticed.

Shaking her head to clear the fuzz, she pressed the handles together. The doors opened wide, fresh air and light bursting in. Amara shielded her eyes. The inn was all low ceilings, black wood, shimmering gaslight, and flickering fire pits. She’d almost forgotten it was daytime.

Amara checked behind her. A woman stumbled in and hunkered by the door. Another two shapes approached. Their steady, sober gait told Amara enough.

This time, Amara probably did grab Cilla’s arm too tightly. They turned north and ran.