Otherbound

6

Amara lay in the alleyway, the clatter of the arrow still echoing—

—then she was running. Stumbling. The alley no longer choked her, the world having opened back up. Storefronts and pubs lined one side. On the other, dunes blocked any view of the ocean but not its salt on the air. She crashed to the ground before she could take in the image properly. Her palms scraped open, just like—just like a moment ago, she wanted to think, but more than a moment had passed. She’d blacked out again.

The mages couldn’t be far behind. She had to keep moving. She couldn’t let whatever was happening cost Cilla’s life, but—how had she been able to get here while blacked out?

Amara scrambled to her feet. She’d almost finished healing, but that didn’t stop her lungs from burning or her mouth from tasting of metal. Cilla was still running in that way she did, at once precise and raw, unpracticed. Cilla looked over her shoulder. The wind tugged at her chin-length hair.

All right. Focus on Cilla. Focus on the stinging of her own healing palms. On the now. Everything else came later.

“Into the carecenter.” Amara signed as broadly as she could. Servant signs weren’t suited to speaking across distances. “I’ll delay them.”

Cilla looked as if she’d object but whipped her head back anyway.

Another arrow flew. Amara ducked instinctively into its path. The arrow clipped her arm, and she hissed, slapping her palm against the cut. Sweat pasted her hair to her face, smoky strands obscuring her vision.

She couldn’t afford another blackout, but right now, she couldn’t prevent one, either. What she could do was slow down the mages. She had her knife and one advantage: not worrying about getting hurt. She’d go for the Elig mage first. Wrestle away the bow.

Then, on her right, blocky shoulders came into view, thick black curls, things she recognized in a heartbeat. “Keep going!” Jorn snapped, and faced the mages. “Find her!”

Amara ran before fully processing his order. Jorn told her to run. So she ran.

Up ahead, Cilla was sprinting up the carecenter steps. Once under the archway she went left, and Amara followed. The sting in her arm had already faded. Up two steps. Two more. She didn’t like having Cilla out of her sight like this. At least no one would stop them: island carecenters were poorly staffed, simply places for the sick and injured to gather as they waited for volunteer doctors or the mages on duty to stop by—and for those already enchanted to avoid any magic that’d interact with their healing spells. Mages weren’t supposed to cast spells out in the open that might affect passersby. Not all mages cared.

Amara found Cilla rubbing her ankle in the second-floor hall, by a tall window overlooking the boardwalk. “Jorn is holding them off,” Cilla said, breathing a sigh of relief.

“We still need to go.” Amara’s hands were urgent. That window made them too visible. Something else worried her more, though. “Your ankle?” She jogged past patient rooms to close the distance between them. A girl’s sticky coughs leaked out through hardwood doors.

“I twisted it going up the stairs,” Cilla said. “It’s fine. It’s all internal.”

Amara crouched and loosened the tie that bound Cilla’s boot and removed it gently, prompting a stifled grunt of pain. She needed to be sure, though.

Cilla’s skin was the near-black of soaked bark, which made contusions hard to see. Blood stood out better. She scanned the back of Cilla’s ankle and the warm curve of her calf, and ignored the jump of her own heart. She rarely came this close to the princess.

She ignored the coarse hairs and the imprints from Cilla’s winterwear, too, and the stink of sweat-drenched horse-fuzz that drifted from the boot lying next to her. Cilla had to wear her boots all hours of the day, taking them off only to sleep. Otherwise, her toes might stub or her toenails might tear. Splinters, rocks, or grass might cut her open. Bugs could sting her too easily. Cilla’s winterwear was extra thick, too, and they’d sewn pads to the knees, and when the weather chilled further, she wore long Jélis-made gloves.

Amara leaned away. No blood.

“See? It’s fine. Look outside. Jorn …” Cilla smiled feebly despite the strain in her jaw.

Amara’s own jaw clenched for different reasons. She knew what she’d see. Jorn, fighting the mages, risking his life for Cilla’s, using magic the spirits had never let Amara access. She understood Cilla’s gratitude and what Jorn’s dedication to the Alinean crown must mean to her. Cilla had nothing else left of her family.

Amara also understood what Jorn’s dedication would mean to her. He couldn’t afford to have her blacking out while protecting the princess. She was a liability.

She moved automatically as she thought, taking Cilla’s boot and widening the opening, then taking her toes to guide them back in. Cilla pulled her foot away and tried that same smile again. Tentative. It lit up her face regardless. Amara wished she didn’t notice those things.

“You don’t have to,” Cilla said.

“I do.” Amara kept her gestures direct. “Can you run?”

Experimentally, Cilla leaned on her still-bare foot. Her eyebrows pulled together. “I doubt it. What I mean is, I’d appreciate it if you weren’t so—if you could act normally around me.”

“This isn’t the time.” Amara shouldn’t talk to the princess like that. Ever. But surviving took priority. She stood and looked out the window. In the distance, a gust of wind spiraled around Jorn, then swept out and knocked down both mages. The Elig rolled over and clasped a pale, blood-smeared hand with the other mage. The air around them glimmered.

Amara had meant to simply assess the situation but found herself drinking in the sight. The only time she could see magic was like this, when it was raw and fleeting. Once a mage used a spell to bond that magic to something physical, an object or a person, it became invisible to non-mages.

And to Amara.

It was said that spirits favored some people, and that made them mages; that the spirits favored some mages in particular, watching over their health without even making them pay the price of backlash. The thought of Amara being favored made her smile wryly. Not favored enough, apparently, if she couldn’t even detect other mages’ spells, let alone cast her own. All she could do was wait out her healing.

Maybe she was simply doing magic wrong. It was hard to tell, when no one would explain how to do it right.

Jorn turned to run toward the carecenter. Amara watched the glossy magic of the Elig mage’s shield, and his upheld arm, which even from this distance she could see was shaking with exertion. Spirits provided the raw energy. Mages were responsible for the rest.

Amara’s knowledge of the process started and ended there. She wondered what it felt like.

Cilla’s arm brushed past hers and snapped her from her thoughts. “Amara?”

Amara made a questioning sound.

“Do you hate me?” Cilla spoke with an oddly clear voice for such a loaded question.

Amara shook her head automatically. “Of course not.” Jorn was coming up the stairs. Dull bricks muted his footsteps. They shouldn’t be talking about this now. Or ever.

“You’ve saved my life so often. I owe you.”

“May I speak honestly?” Amara’s signs came awkwardly. Cilla leaned on her shoulder as they moved away from the window and the display of magic. Cilla had put her boot back on but still walked slowly.

“Yes! That’s what I’m trying to say.”

Amara darted another glance outside but couldn’t see anything. “It’s not that simple. You’re the princess. You can’t owe me.”

“I …”

Cilla’s voice and Amara’s hands dropped the second Jorn came into sight. He didn’t even look tired. “You should’ve been gone by now.”

Amara gestured at the way Cilla favored her foot; she couldn’t run like this. Did they still need to? Amara had no place asking those questions.

Cilla, on the other hand— “Are we safe?”

“No,” Jorn snapped, then checked himself. He smiled thinly. “Apologies, Princess. No. Dissolving the mage’s shield would have cost too much time. Others might be coming.” Only now did Amara notice the red stains spreading across his topscarf. Small. She’d expected worse. At least Jorn focused on Cilla, not Amara. He didn’t know about the blackouts. When he did find out—

She couldn’t let that happen. If the blackouts were another ability the spirits had given her, she’d need to learn more, put a stop to them before she got Cilla—and herself—killed.

“I think the mages are too weak to follow,” Jorn said. “Let’s find Maart and go.”