Otherbound

20

The first things Amara saw when she woke were her hands. They said one simple thing: “I’m sorry.”

Nolan was back.

Her hands dropped. She tried to fight. It didn’t work. Her body slipped from her bedroll. Her hands wrapped her topscarf around her body—and they did every twist and fold right, too, because of course Nolan would’ve felt her do it countless times. She stood, blinking against the moonlight coming in from the windows. Morning would come within hours.

She knew she needed Nolan—Jorn would discard her if she stopped healing—but did that mean he had to claim her body in the middle of the night? She needed sleep. A few hours to herself before life went on. Quiet and dreams and darkness and nothing at all.

Her feet padded quietly. Pebbles pricked her skin. She thought she’d gotten rid of all those for Cilla’s safety, leaving only harmless webs and spiders’ egg sacs tucked into shadows.

Nolan didn’t steer her gaze toward Maart’s bedroll, still messed up and untouched. Amara would’ve. Her thoughts were there, even if her eyes weren’t.

Her hands found a sidesling. Nolan packed a fresh winter-wear, then an extra topscarf. Maart’s. She felt the fabric slide through her fingers, its embroidered edges, a clumsily repaired seam, and she wanted to shout. Not with her hands. With her voice. As loud as she could.

Nolan silently stole food and coins. The sidesling went around her waist. Her boots went on last. “You can’t stay here,” Nolan said once they stood by the exit. Moonlight lit her fingers, slanting in through the windows. “Not after what Jorn did to …”

At least he had the decency to stop.

What would she call Maart from now on? What name would settle into her hands and mind? The boy she loved. The boy who hummed. The boy who won every game they played. The boy who teased and laughed and kissed letters onto her skin. The boy whose words she stilled. The boy who didn’t understand. The boy who wanted to understand.

The boy who tried to save her. The boy she might’ve chosen every version of, if she’d had the chance. The boy she failed. The servant who came before … whoever came next.

No, she wouldn’t use that word. He wouldn’t want to be remembered that way. The servant before Maart probably hadn’t, either, but Jorn had called her that before Amara had thought of a name of her own. It’d stuck. Whatever else happened, Amara wouldn’t do that to Maart.

“I don’t want to control you,” Nolan said. “I thought I did, but I don’t. I didn’t know it was all my fault. I promise. I’m sorry.”

Her hands signed that—I—pointing at her own chest, but that wasn’t right.

“Tell me you’ll run.” The doors were within reach. “Tell me you’ll go on your own.”

Nolan was like Maart. They thought everything was simple. They thought Jorn wouldn’t find her. That people would help someone who spoke her servant signs. That bartenders wouldn’t let her bleed out because of the ink scratched into her neck.

Amara used to wonder why Maart thought they could run. Maybe his palace had been better than hers, his minister friendlier. She’d wondered a hundred times and could think of only one thing: nothing was different, only he couldn’t bear to watch her get hurt.

Maybe neither could Nolan. But Maart and Nolan weren’t the ones who had their noses cracked on the bottom of a bloodstained bowl. Whatever pain of hers Nolan felt, he had a place to run to. Their guilt made them focus on now, on this can’t go on.

They didn’t stop to think about what would come after.

Amara’s lips pressed together. Then she realized: her lips. She pursed them again. They obeyed without question. She stared at those doors in front of her. Two seconds. Two seconds, a firm push, and she’d be out in the cold.

She turned and walked back to her bedroll. She set the sidesling carefully on the floor. She leaned over. She untied her boots. She needed to be quick. Jorn might wake. She’d need to put the contents of the sidesling back, too, all the coins and clothes, exactly where Nolan had found them.

Movement to her right made her freeze. Tears pushed behind her eyes. Jorn would kill her. He’d killed Maart, and now he’d think Amara was trying to leave, so he’d kill her, too. She knew how he’d do it. He’d wait between eye blinks, when Nolan wasn’t there, and strike quickly.

Her heart seemed to delay every beat, pressing against her ribs until it could take no more and slowly, finally, thumped.

But the movement wasn’t Jorn. Cilla crouched by her side. Amara watched her through a haze of unshed tears, then looked at Jorn, who was still asleep. His shape on that roll was big but so quiet. This couldn’t be the same person who’d grabbed her hair, who’d collapsed the back of Maart’s skull. This Jorn was just a man, sleeping. This might be the Jorn who’d taken over cooking sometimes to experiment with bizarre meals, or who used to call her kid, or who, years ago, had bought them toys when they’d done their jobs well. A Jorn from forever ago.

Amara wanted to check on Maart’s bedroll next. She turned to Cilla, instead.

Cilla was signing. She hadn’t used signs in weeks. The last time Jorn had seen her do it, he’d shouted at her. She was a princess—she couldn’t teach herself these things—she was a disgrace to her family.

She was doing it, anyway, sitting cross-legged on Amara’s bedroll. She must not want Jorn to wake up. Her movements were loose and hesitant, and she spread her fingers in places she shouldn’t. Someone like her was only supposed to understand servant signs, not use them. She had her voice, her words, her tongue.

Maart’s signs were nimble in comparison. Safe.

“I want to come with you,” Cilla was saying.

“I’m not running. I—Jorn can’t think I’m running.” Amara took off one boot and flexed her toes. She moved on to the other.

“You think I would tell him?” Cilla signed.

“You used to tell him everything. You told him about the blackouts.” Amara met Cilla’s eyes, too tired for fear. She had all of that saved up for Jorn. Cilla was … just Cilla, now.

“I was worried. I’m sorry. I won’t tell him. I didn’t tell him you contacted the mage, either. On my life. On the names of the dead.”

Maart, Amara thought.

“I was lying the other day.” Amara was an idiot for saying this. She no longer cared. “When I said I didn’t hate you.”

“I … thought as much.” Cilla breathed deeply. Amara caught a whiff of garlic. Now she knew what Maart had cooked last. When Cilla went on, it was as though Amara had said nothing. “If you’re not running, why do you have your boots on? What’s in the bag?”

Nolan returned without warning. Her hands halted in opening her other boot, the cord biting at cold fingers.

No, she wanted to tell him. No!

Cilla leaned back. “Nolan.”

Was Amara that obvious, that Cilla detected a change in this fraction of a second?

“So … running wasn’t Amara’s idea,” Cilla signed.

“You have to tell her to go.” Amara felt her expression change but couldn’t tell how. She wanted to claw at it. “I won’t force her. I’m just giving her the option. Making it easier. Listen. I know her parents’ names and what they look like. They lived in Bedam. If we go there, we can find them. They’ll have to hide her or return to Eligon, but she’ll be safe.”

Her parents. Amara had never considered that option. All she remembered were words that weren’t Dit, said by voices she couldn’t place. The words had to be Elig; the voices had to be her parents’.

How come Nolan knew, and she didn’t?

She still couldn’t leave. Her parents could be dead or could have moved hundreds of miles away. Jorn would track her. He’d find her. Or maybe Ruudde would, the moment she set foot in Bedam.

She couldn’t.

“I’m leaving now,” Nolan said. “I’ll keep watching in case she needs to heal. Earlier, when she told me to leave, I swear, I didn’t know what’d happen.”

Cilla’s lips pursed. “If we tell you to leave, you leave. And you don’t take control unless she asks.”

Nolan nodded. He clawed at the blanket of her bedroll—then her body sagged. She had to remind herself to sit up, to lift her hands, wake the muscles he’d left unattended.

“I can’t go,” Amara said. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

“Jorn killed Maart,” Cilla signed, and she didn’t even seem ashamed of having that name on her fingers. Amara shut her eyes too late to miss it.

Maart. Maart. She sang his name in her head, the only place she could keep it safe. She didn’t want to decide on another name. Not yet.

“We’ll go together,” Cilla signed. “We’ll find your parents.”

“Why do you want to come?” Amara knew the answer before she finished asking.

“He. Killed. Maart.” Cilla’s eyes hardened.

And, oh, Amara knew Cilla was right, she knew, but part of her could not help thinking, That’s what it took? That’s how far he had to go?

“And he’s working with the ministers. Our enemies. You’re the only person I can trust.”

“And you need me to survive.”

“Yes. And I need you.”

It was as though the word hate had never been on Amara’s hands. It changed nothing. She sat there, her fingers on the edge of her boot. If she stayed, she’d need to remain useful to Jorn. She’d be stuck with Nolan.

If she ran—she might have a chance. And Maart had wanted her to. If she’d gone with him before, he might still be alive.

Her hands dropped from her boot. “We’d need to cross Jorn’s detection spell.”

Cilla’s face broke into a smile. Just like that. From hard eyes to that lit-up smile that made Amara love and hate her more at the same time. “We’re safe. Jorn never reactivated it. He went straight back inside after … He seemed really out of it.”

“He’ll still track us. He has anchors on us—must be our clothes or boots, or your medicine.”

“We’ll take the airtrain to the harbor and get out of Jorn’s reach before he notices. I don’t know how far he can track an anchor. Leaving the island should be enough, shouldn’t it?”

Amara couldn’t believe she was discussing this.

Cilla’s smile faded. “If you don’t want to go, don’t. You’re the one who should decide.”

“But you want me to.”

“Yes. I want you to.”

No, Amara wanted to tell Cilla. No. I don’t want to go.

She took her other boot. “We’ll find a ship, then. I’ve already packed money.”

“I’ll get my things.” Cilla bolted for the bag where Jorn kept Cilla’s medicine, both the kind that stopped her monthly bleeds and the kind that sped her clotting. She’d need the brush for her teeth, of course, and her clothes, her knee and elbow pads …

The smile might have gone, but as Cilla packed, her every movement contained a barely restrained excitement. Was this an adventure to her? She could take the risk of running. She’d get off easily if they were caught. Maybe her only punishment would be watching Amara’s.

Amara pulled her boots back on. It didn’t matter. She’d made her choice. She felt … relieved. It would work or it wouldn’t, and either way, all this would come to an end.

She took her knife from her boot and pricked her arm. A drop of blood welled up. She smeared it away, finding the skin underneath whole. “What about you?” she asked Nolan. “Is this just an adventure to you, as well?”

No answer came.