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I never felt the pain that was supposed to accompany a soulmate growing up. By the time I was old enough to wonder about that sort of thing I had resigned myself to a singular purpose: pulling Tori out of the actual, rotting gutter we called home and letting her live as much a life of ease as I could afford. If anything, I told myself, I was feeling every hunger pang, every quivering lip of Tori’s as fiercely as any bruise or cracked rib from my own enterprises. That had to count for something.
But romance? A soulmate? Anything more than the odd tumble with Hagan or another chance acquaintance? That was the sort of thing you needed a soul for, and I was just an automaton, a thing held together and animated by duty. Nothing so lofty as a soul. Anyway, even as bad as the people in the Sixteenth Ward were, none of them were bad enough to deserve me. Not in the Sixteenth Ward, not in Kahnsoka, not in the whole Blessed Empire.
***
My soulmate must be a great hero, or a valiant warrior, I thought. That was the only way, I thought, to explain the regular wounds he (she, a traitorous part of my brain corrects) must be receiving. Who else would my father pair me with who would receive such punishment? (My mind slips again, this time to the servants who take my beatings for me, and seethes there with regret and frustration.)
I tried to fantasize about the guards and soldiers that passed by, but none caught my eye until a civilian courier rode up, a young woman on horseback, her dark skin glinting with sweat, the muscles in her arms flexing as she worked the reins, and oh, it was too, too easy to picture her, a sword at her side and a gleaming helm perched atop her head. And too easy by far to picture myself, seated in the saddle ahead of her with one strong hand holding me in place.
Yes, I told myself, this will be my soulmate. A hero, a leader of warriors. With a title for their great deeds, and strong soldiers to follow their clever orders. Someone who could protect me, and sweep me away from all this.
***
I didn’t pay too much mind to the southerner - First Princess of Nimar, indeed - until the Butcher slapped her across the cheek and my face burned like someone tried to quench a torch with it.
I tried to hide the gasp but the southerner - Meroe - my rotting soulmate, apparently - caught my eye even as the huge iceling woman gave her another slap, across the other cheek. Of course she would notice. Rot, rot, rot, it all made sense now. I never felt any pain because my soulmate was some rotting pampered aristo girl.
Somehow, I thought, that might just be worse than no soulmate at all.
***
I was far too busy deciding how to handle the inevitable question of my Well and the answer I was forbidden to give to pay much mind to the rangy Imperial girl brought aboard with me. It wasn’t until I was well into reconsidering my plan to simply deny having any mage-gifts at all (a decision spurred by the meaty palm cracking into my cheek) that I noticed her flinch, just in time with my own agony.
Well, I thought. That was certainly an experiment worth repeating. Especially since the Imperial hadn’t batted an eye at the double murder we had just witnessed moments ago. So I continued my lie with the same nonchalance as I might have commented upon the weather at court, earning myself a second slap - and a second glance at the Imperial girl. She did a better job of hiding the wince this time, to her credit, but one does not spend a decade learning to read the body language of politicians who have spent a lifetime learning to hide their intentions to miss when someone has suffered sudden pain.
I only had a second to savor this realization before my lie must continue. And with it, the punishment from the Butcher, doubling me over, driving me to the ground. I heard an Imperial-accented voice, a brief confrontation, and then orders for the two of us to be sent to something called Pack Nine.
My soulmate protected me, I thought. Out of pity, I wonder? Not likely, I thought, remembering the girl’s head, bouncing away from her body and Zarun’s slash. Just out of a desire to stop the pain she was surely feeling. Utterly self-centered, then.
Somehow, I thought, that might just be worse than no soulmate at all.