Otherbound

30

Amara got a cell just like Cilla’s. They moved in a mattress, a pot, a privacy screen. They cut her hair to her ears in an uneven bob that left her neck cold and bare.

She was a servant.

They spoiled her, though. They escorted her to a bath and gave her clean clothes and brand-new horse-fuzz boots. She got a thick blanket and fresh meals. The servant who brought her lunch looked old, as if he should have been barenecked years ago. Was Ruudde keeping servants even as adults, like the Andans or some Elig clans did?

Of course he was. He had no reason to care about Alinean laws. About any of this world’s laws.

Down the hall, Amara heard Cilla receiving the same treatment. For whatever reason, Ruudde wanted Cilla healthy and in one piece, but why spoil Amara? Maybe it was his way of showing good will. Of saying, If you go back to Jorn, we’ll treat you right.

Only she didn’t know if he was saying it to her or to Nolan.

Unlike Cilla, Amara wasn’t kept under constant watch. They’d probably have offered her the guest quarters if not for the risk of escape. As it was, they seemed moments away from gifting her a painting or two to brighten up her cell. They needed her. No, they needed Nolan. Amara was just—a vessel. Something to lug around and damage and repair and then damage all over again. If she broke beyond fixing, no problem. They could replace her.

It was a very convenient arrangement.

Sitting on her mattress after her first lunch, she took the privacy screen, tinted paper drawn over slats, and cracked one of the slats over her knee.

She turned her arm, exposing lighter, fragile skin. She slashed the wood across. It healed. She slashed again. She watched the skin pale, then split and redden, and watched it pull together and fix itself and leave nothing but blood and splinters coating intact skin. She slashed again.

You can feel this, can’t you?

Slash. Heal.

Does it hurt? Then go. Go away.

Slash, heal.

Your. Damn. Fault. Everything.

Slash. Slash.

Get out of my body!

It didn’t heal. She watched the cuts, her arm trembling. Her hand balled into a fist. It hurt. She hadn’t realized before. The pain welled up, spread, burned, rooted deep under her skin. The cuts kept bleeding. A steady trickle. She wiped it away and more blood dripped out.

Good.

One day turned into three.

On the first day, the cuts healed within the hour. Amara didn’t try again.

On the second day, Jorn arrived on the mainland. He passed her cell on his way to Cilla’s and looked almost surprised to see Amara there. He said one thing and one thing only: “Nolan, is it? I tried to warn you.”

Amara crawled onto the mattress and waited for Jorn to move out of sight so she could breathe normally again.

She couldn’t go back to him.

Down the hall, she heard Jorn talking to Cilla. “Just eat. This helps no one.”

On the third day, Ruudde stood in front of Amara’s cell and said, “Cilla followed you from the harbor. Did you know that?”

Amara didn’t respond.

“I thought she simply wanted your protection, but no. She keeps asking after you. Come.”

Jorn already stood in front of Cilla’s cell when Amara approached, and the Jélisse marshal—what’d his name been? Gacco?—sat on the same bench as before. Amara had caught glimpses of him when she stood close enough to her bars and twisted her head just right. He rotated guard duties with a couple of other marshals.

On the other side of the bars, Cilla looked gray. She sat on her mattress, legs crossed and eyes closed. Amara’s hands hovered uselessly in the air. She edged away from Jorn, though she had no illusions about Ruudde being any safer. She just couldn’t stand being so close. Jorn’s breathing was too deep, his skin too warm, his chest so broad she couldn’t hide him from her peripheral vision, and when she looked at him, she saw freckles on a flat nose and thought of Maart.

“Amara’s here,” Jorn barked.

Cilla opened her eyes. The skin underneath them was swollen and dark.

“Your hair,” was the first thing Cilla said.

Amara tugged at a lock by her ears. Her fingers ran through it too soon. “My neck is much colder,” she signed.

Cilla’s eyes dropped to rest on Amara’s neck. Cilla had seen her tattoo a million times, but Amara still wanted to turn away or fluff up her topscarf. She felt naked.

“What do they want with me?” Cilla asked. Her voice came close to cracking.

“I don’t know.” Amara kept her signs low, though it wouldn’t hide them from Ruudde or Jorn. “They won’t tell me. They want Nolan to keep you alive.”

“But first they want you to tell me to eat.”

Amara looked at Cilla’s soft wrists, at the fullness of her cheeks. She didn’t look any thinner yet. Amara wondered how long that would last.

“They sent in Jorn first.” Cilla sounded dreamy. “I almost listened to him, too. I guess it’s hard to quit lifetime habits.”

“You have to eat.” It felt like a betrayal. Whatever Ruudde and Jorn wanted, she ought to want the opposite—but looking at Cilla like this, she had no choice.

“Do you know …”

“No.” Amara swallowed. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why they need you.”

“Maybe I’m just that pretty. Do you think that’s it?” A hollow laugh.

“I don’t want you to die.”

“No one does, apparently. Big difference from before, isn’t it?” Another laugh. “Maybe I’m not hungry.”

“At the farm, you said you didn’t want to die.”

“I didn’t,” Cilla said quietly.

“We’ll … Ruudde wants us to go back to how things were before. We’d have more freedom. We’d have the ministers’ support. It’d be easier.” Amara couldn’t go back. But maybe—maybe if Cilla made the choice for her—

No. That wouldn’t be right, either.

“First you run because of me,” Cilla said, “then you want to go back because of me.”

“I didn’t run because of you.” Amara wished it were just the two of them, talking like before, but Ruudde and Jorn watched their every movement. They stood close enough for her to smell the sweat on their clothes and hear their every breath, and she felt their eyes on her hands as she spoke. “You simply made my choice easier. I didn’t want to leave, but I wanted to stay even less.”

“Good.” Cilla’s smile wavered. “Look where it got us.”

“Yeah.”

They watched each other from across the length of the cell.

“Which do you want to do less now?” Cilla asked. “Go back? Or stay like this?”

Cilla didn’t know about Ruudde’s threats. Staying wasn’t an option. Sooner or later, Nolan would cave, or Ruudde would run out of patience. “It’s not that simple.”

“Apparently it never is.”

“Eat,” Amara said. “I … I need you to eat.”

Ruudde took her arm and led her back to her cell.