Corinne Duyvis - Otherbound

Amara curled her hands into loose fists. The skin on her knuckles stretched but stayed even and whole. She didn’t want to anger Jorn further, but she hated the thought of giving up on her words now that she’d come so far. She knew how to write most letters and recognized them almost always, from Cilla’s neat, instructive slashes to stallkeepers’ shortened loops on signs advertising bread and grains and kommer leaves. Reading made every trip outside into something more , like strangers talking to her, words and connections wherever she looked. The world had been so empty before.

But she couldn’t anger Jorn. And she couldn’t trust Cilla.

“Here.” With a flourish, Cilla retrieved a crumpled broadsheet from her topscarf. She placed the paper on the floor and moved to smooth it out. A formless sound escaped Amara’s throat. She shot forward to still Cilla’s hands before they reached the page.

Cilla started. Then, after a moment, she said, “I … wasn’t planning to touch the floor.”

Slowly, once Amara was sure Cilla wouldn’t make another move for the paper, she let go. She couldn’t risk the bareness of Cilla’s skin so close to the splintered wood. Cilla shouldn’t even come near the edges of the paper. Even one small, spilled drop of blood would activate her curse, and then Amara would need to lure the harm her way, and she’d already hurt enough for today.

“I really wouldn’t have touched it,” Cilla reiterated, but for all her care, one misstep could mean her death, and Amara’s task was to not let that happen.

Even if—too often—she wanted to. No Cilla, no curse. No pain. Then she’d see that restrained smile on Cilla’s face, or they’d sit hunched over a book, thigh by thigh, and Amara didn’t know what she wanted.

It didn’t matter. If Cilla died, Jorn would make certain Amara did, as well.

“It’s colder every day,” Amara ended up signing. She couldn’t tell the princess what to do outside of emergencies, but this was within bounds. “Shall I find your gloves?”

A smile wavered on Cilla’s face. “I’ll fetch them myself. Thank you.”

Amara watched her rise and move for her bag. The curse meant Cilla needed to be fully aware of her every movement, which made her graceful and cautious at the same time. People would say it was simply her Alinean arrogance, but it went further than that: Cilla owned every step she took. Even when she ate, she did it gently to avoid biting her cheeks or tongue. That kind of thoughtfulness—the barely there sway of her hip, the deliberate way she crouched and her fingers plucked open her bag—drew the eye.

It shouldn’t. Amara averted her gaze and smoothed out the news sheet. She shouldn’t be reading, either, should do as she ought and search the floors, but she started with the far-right headline, anyway: Developments—In— She didn’t recognize the next word and read it slowly, mentally sounding the letters. Am — Ma — Lor — Ruh. Ammelore, the town. A tiny thrill ran through her. The next headline: Ruudde—Celebrates—Capture—

A lock of hair fell past her shoulder into her face. She recoiled at the scent of her own burned flesh trapped in the strands. Pressing her hand to her mouth, she kept going—Ruudde was the minister closest to the island they were hiding on, and that made him a threat, and that made him worth reading about—but the letters came slowly, far too slowly, and by the time Cilla sank down by Amara’s side with her hands safely gloved, Amara had only made it past the first few words.

“Bedam’s minister made a rare public appearance,” Cilla read, her index finger moving down the page, “to celebrate … Oh.”

“What does it say?” Urgency showed in every twitch of Amara’s fingers. Shouldn’t read this. Shouldn’t trust Cilla. If there was news on their enemy, though, they ought to know.

Cilla scanned the rest of the column. She read so fast, her dark eyes moving up and down, right and left—Amara couldn’t imagine what that was like. “They captured the Alinean loyalists—‘rebels’—who attacked Ruudde’s palace the other day. Ruudde’s palace?”

Amara doubted Cilla remembered the palace where she was born; Ruudde and the other ministers had slaughtered the Alinean royals and taken over the Dunelands when Cilla was only a toddler. Cilla scoffed, anyway. “Ruudde made an appearance to celebrate on the Bedam town square … a woman threw a stone … Ruudde retaliated …”

“Who’d be stupid enough to throw a stone at a minister? It wouldn’t hurt them.” Ministers didn’t have to be mages, and mages didn’t necessarily heal, but the current ministers were masters at both. They were trained mages, like Jorn, who drew on the spirits of the seas and winds for their spells in a way Amara had never been able to mimic. The spirits let her do nothing but heal herself, and slowly at that, with jerks and stutters and long pauses.

“I imagine it’s satisfying,” Cilla said humorlessly. “But no. Not smart. The article doesn’t mention the woman’s name.” That said enough. Nobody, least of all an official news sheet, would disturb the dead by calling on them.

Cilla stared at the page, her eyes unmoving, no longer reading. Amara understood. Ruudde had killed Cilla’s parents and siblings in the coup. He would’ve killed Cilla, too, had one of the palace mages—Jorn—not smuggled her out in time.

When Ruudde and the other ministers had discovered Cilla’s escape, they’d cursed her. And while that curse was active, she was too fragile to make her survival public. Anyone could kill her with a scratch. Plenty of hired mages had tried over the years. The only way to stay alive was to duck her head and run from town to town, which gave Cilla no chance of reclaiming her throne. That throne was in the Dunelands’ capital, Bedam, only hours away from where they were hiding now. They hadn’t been this close in years.

Amara wondered if that weighed on Cilla the same way it did on her.

Footsteps approached the inn room. Cilla stuffed the news sheet back into her topscarf. Amara crouched and pressed her hands to the floor. Her heart slammed. Jorn wasn’t supposed to return yet. He took long, slow baths, and given the mood he’d been in, he’d be in no rush to get back, and—

The door creaked open. Maart stood in the doorway, his waves of hair tangled from the wind. Amara’s breath hissed in relief. Not Jorn. He and Maart might have the same splotch of freckles and the same blocky jaw, the same splayed Dit nose and shallow Dit eyes, and both let their hair spill to their elbows in the old way, but the resemblance people always remarked on was lost on Amara. It had nothing to do with the hint of Alinean features on Maart’s face or even the age difference; Maart could simply never be like Jorn.

Maart could never scare her.

He hurriedly put down his bucket so he could sign. “Are you OK? Your hands?”

Amara showed the backs and palms—not a trace of her injuries left but her too-short nails—then glanced past him. Cilla had sat down in her alcove, leaning forward to keep her head in the light.

Maart turned to follow Amara’s gaze. “Princess.” His hands moved rigidly.

“I was just showing Amara a news sheet. Do you want to take a look, too? We’ve decided to keep up her studies.”

Had they?

“I’m meant to wash our clothes.” Maart took his eyes off Cilla the second he finished signing. He had to be more careful. Cilla would pick up on his reticence. A warning hovered on Amara’s fingertips, but she saved it for later, when they were alone.

“I’m … not certain I should keep studying,” Amara signed instead. She didn’t dare look away as Cilla’s eyes darkened, hope fading. “Thank you, though.”