They stumbled over ridge and plain, through the night and the dark, stopping only as dawn pushed a questioning thumb of light along the eastern ridge. For a short half hour they rested, gnawing dried grapes and long-stale panbread that lumped up in Fie’s gut, hard as the silence between her and the prince.
He did not pray to the dawn this time.
As they chewed, Fie called up two Vulture teeth, one hand on the hilt of Tavin’s sword. She told herself she just needed to know the skinwitches hadn’t resumed their hunt.
They hadn’t. Tavin’s trail led into the forests they’d left behind, farther from her than ever.
A knot in her throat tightened. Suddenly Fie couldn’t abide sitting quiet anymore. She stood, checked her pack, checked her map, checked the dawn. Once the prince was on his feet, they set off again.
She couldn’t stop herself from tracing Tavin’s path near every hour as they carried on beneath the stare of a cold sun. The fifth time, his trail stretched beyond the crest of Misgova Pass.
She let the Vulture tooth go and did not call on it again.
Early in the afternoon, they passed within eyeshot of a handful of scattered huts nestled in the crook of a steep valley. Herds of goats and cattle wreathed the village. If Fie squinted, she could spy children picking snow figs. A narrow roughway road trickled out of sight, rolling down to what had to be a flatway.
“We should go back on the roads.”
Fie jumped at the prince’s voice. “What?”
“The Vultures aren’t following us anymore,” Jasimir said. “So we can afford to take the roads. They’ll be faster.”
She bristled. The notion was solid enough, aye. But the way he said it … he made it sound as if she ought to have thought of it hours ago. “No,” she said. “If we hit a plague beacon, we’re rutted.”
Jasimir scowled. “Don’t play naïve. You’re passing them anyway.”
If Tavin were here, he’d spout some nonsense to settle both their hackles. Instead, they only had empty air for a buffer, and it did not measure up. For a moment Fie wondered if Tatterhelm would accept the prince’s corpse for trade. She might have tested it if she weren’t so tired.
But the prince was right, and they had but a week of Peacock Moon left.
“Fine,” she sighed. “Skirt the village. No going to the Hawks. Don’t look other travelers in the eye.”
“Yes, chief.” He said the title like a curse, just like he’d done with Pa. Fie took that as an endorsement and set off down the hill.
An ugly thought crossed her mind as she plowed over hassocks of wiry grass. They had planned on Tavin signaling Draga for them. Now they would be approaching Trikovoi unannounced and uninvited, a pair of battered, road-worn Crows. And she had a keen notion of how they’d be received.
Perhaps she ought to burn Pigeon teeth for luck before they arrived. And she’d surely need to pray the Hawks at guard had open minds.
Returning to the roads should have felt like a homecoming. Part of her did steady once her worn sandals touched ground on the roughway. But the rest of her felt the stares from Hawks as they passed league markers, the lingering glances from Sparrows in the pastures. Three Crows had made a small band. Two made an oddity.
The roads were her home. That didn’t make them less of a trap.
They staggered on through the twilight until they at last reached the flatway. A road marker stood at the crossroads, brandishing signs for every direction. Crow marks had been scratched into each, but naught told her which way led to Trikovoi, and Fie had forgotten her letters by now.
Jasimir said nothing.
Fie didn’t know if he meant to be difficult or if he truly didn’t remember. She didn’t want to find out which. Instead she just cleared her throat and said, “Which one’s Trikovoi?”
“Oh.” He leaned forward to peer at the letters, face rigid and blank, then pointed to the right. “This way.”
They carried on past another league marker. Jasimir eyed the Hawks pacing about the brazier at the top but kept his mouth shut.
Eventually he broke the silence as they trudged into a twisting forest. “We should stop.”
Fie stuffed down a protest. A distant part of her knew she couldn’t walk straight to Trikovoi, but by every dead god, she wanted to.
“Fine,” she said dully, and sat at the roadside. “Here’s as good as anywhere.”
That was a lie: she’d in fact sat on an uncomfortably angular rock that she remained on out of sheer belligerence. But Jasimir only nodded and joined her.
She fished out her bag of laceroot and counted out a few seeds, blinking away the stinging in her eyes. No sense in stopping now, with or without Tavin there—not with Trikovoi still so far off.
“Don’t tell me you’re worried I’ll get you with child,” Jasimir scoffed.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she shot back. “And learn how bleeding works. I don’t need any more pains in the ass.”
The tyrant silence reigned cold betwixt them. Jasimir started rummaging in his pack. “I still say we should go to the Hawks. They’re honor bound to—”
She couldn’t hide her irritation. “I still say no.”
“Because I said it and not Tavin.”
That hit closer than she’d own to. “Because it’s a fool notion. They’ll never believe us.” Jasimir rolled his eyes. Her temper flared. “And if we’re going for the cheap hits, when Tavin told you no, you listened.”
“This is different.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Fie said.
“Tavin was trying to protect us. You’re just—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “Never mind.”
“I’m. What.”
The prince would not look at her. “You’re no Tavin,” he mumbled.
“Neither are you,” Fie said, prying a few pelts from her pack. Jasimir flinched. She heaved one in his general direction. “Enough. Sleep in that. I’m taking watch.”
He wrinkled his nose as if the pelt was still attached to a rotting doe. “You’re joking. I know what you two did in these.”
“Oh aye?” Fie asked with nasty, sugar-bright cheer. “You sorted out what rutting is? You’re such a grown-up little man!”
His lip curled. “Don’t be vulgar.”
“And you grow the hell up.” She didn’t feel like pulling punches anymore. “Stop whipping me because your Hawk did square what you wanted him to.”
Jasimir recoiled like she’d struck him. “Don’t you dare. I didn’t want him to—to—I just wanted him to do his duty—”
“Which is to die for you—”
“It’s to put me first!” Jasimir slammed a palm over his heart. “He’s the closest thing to a brother I have! He had his pick of the court, did he tell you? Every week he brought back a different Hawk sword-maid, a different Peacock lord-in-waiting, a new Swan apprentice, and he still put me first. He was never going to parade around a little Crow half chief for a wife.”
“Did he tell you he never meant to go back to court?” Fie snarled. Jasimir’s jaw dropped. “Aye. Never. He said it’d blow your story if both of you survived the plague. He said when I left Trikovoi, it’d be with him at my side. And he said the only reason he never stayed with a lover before was because he thought he’d have to die for you someday. So I hope you feel real damn kingly about every time you’ve thrown that in his face.”
Jasimir stared at her, aghast. She wasn’t done.
“I knew I wasn’t the first,” she hissed. “And I know who I am. Now you tell me. Is your problem that you came second to me? Or is it that you came second to a Crow?”
Jasimir froze.
“Which is it, palace boy?” she demanded.
The answer came out in a ragged rush. “Both.”
Fie caught her breath. To her astonishment, her eyes pricked with tears. She hadn’t expected the prince to own to it. To fight her, to whine, to dodge, to deny—all likely. She didn’t know why hearing him admit it shook her so.
Jasimir ran his hands over his face. Then he got to his feet and stalked off into the trees without another word.
When he came back, it was with an armful of fallen branches. Some had dried out enough to hold a flame, but others still showed green at the heart of their splinters, the leaves barely wilted. “I need the cooking pot and a fire.”
Fie blinked at him, hackles rising again at his imperious tone, but she kept silent and yanked open her own pack, pulling out the cooking pot.
He snapped the larger branches in twain and set about stacking them with methodical precision into the tidiest pyramid of firewood Fie had ever seen, a feat double impressive considering she burned bodies for a living. Jasimir rocked back on his heels and looked at her, impatient.
He’d built the green branches into the stack. Amateur. “That wood won’t light with just a flint,” Fie said.
“You’re the one who can start fires out here, remember?” the prince snapped. “Not me.”
“I don’t have Phoenix teeth to waste on every little thing,” Fie said. “I won’t squander one on a campfire. Find better firewood, or we don’t get dinner.”
“You go find it. You’re the one who won’t burn a tooth.”
Sparks caught on a different kind of tinder. Fie threw down the cooking pot. “Apologies if I won’t give up more on your account—”
“Apologies if extorting me had consequences,” Jasimir retorted. “You knew I was vulnerable, and you took advantage of that to drag me into an oath that could very well tear this kingdom apart.”
Fresh fire spiked up Fie’s backbone. “Don’t act like you didn’t invite this. If your scum-hearted father had done his job—”
“Don’t talk about my father like that.” Jasimir glowered. “You have no idea what it’s like.”
“I see it every time I use one of your miserable teeth!” Fie’s empty belly rumbled. “Aye, I’ve seen how you Phoenixes live. All the food you want, all the clothing, the wisest scholars to tutor you, the strongest Hawks to watch your walls, and the prettiest gentry to kiss your asses.”
Jasimir got to his feet, livid. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t just force the nobility to do what I want. They’re already going to try to beggar their towns with new taxes and claim that it’s to pay for your Hawk escorts. I can’t fail my people like that.”
By every dead damned god, Fie was sick of bartering for her right to exist. She stood to face him down. “And who in the twelve hells do you think Crows are? Someone else’s people? Someone else’s problem? Because you already made my oath with the rest of Sabor: you protect your people and set our laws, and we pay for your crown. That’s your oath as king. You just don’t want to keep it with Crows.”
He took a step back, shaken. “It’s—it’s not that simple—”
“I don’t get to look away from the throats I have to cut. Why should you?” Wrath roared in her ears. “You can’t even admit—”
Fie cut herself off. The ground trembled beneath her soles.
The shaking was more than wrath, more than hunger. When she whipped about, she found torchlight closing in on them from both sides of the road.
“Oleanders,” she whispered. Jasimir cursed and snatched up his pack, then froze. The torchlight was too near for Sparrow teeth to save them.
Wrath turned to sick panic. How had she missed it? How long had she been off the roads, running from being a Crow, that she’d foul up this bad?
Fie’s head scrambled for a plan. Pa would have known what to do—a Peacock illusion—no, no time—Phoenix teeth?
Flame couldn’t stop steel, though. Moreover, she carried every Phoenix tooth in Sabor. If she called on them now and even one Oleander made it out to report back to Rhusana … if they saw Jasimir unscathed by fire …
Her time ran dry.
Within heartbeats, the Oleander Gentry had them surrounded. A dozen or so riders, all armed, all on horseback, clogging both sides of the road.
She’d have to scrap another way out.
“Now this is odd, eh?” A man dismounted, the oleander blossom shivering on his breast as he angled a bronze-tipped spear at Jasimir. He wore a crude mask: just two eyes gouged in a pale leather rag. “Two bone thieves. Made enough noise that we thought you were a proper mess of the rats.”
Fie sucked in a breath, eyes darting about the road. Most of these Oleanders had cloaked themselves in undyed cotton and linen. No fine lords this time. Behind the riders lurked another half-dozen people on foot. Too many to take on herself.
“Look at this.” The ringleader strolled over to Fie and drew Tavin’s short sword from its scabbard at her side. “Little one’s gone and stole steel teeth.”
She had to get them out.
No, her Chief voice said. Just the prince.
If she bought the prince a chance to get away … she could sort herself out after.
“We found it.” Fie didn’t feel like concocting a tale when the Oleanders didn’t care for the truth either way. All she needed was a distraction. She caught Jasimir’s eye, then sent a pointed look to the forest.
“Oh, they found it,” the Oleander man laughed, dropping Tavin’s sword in the dirt. He leaned so close, the rawhide drape of his mask brushed her nose. “Where’d you find it, dirty little thief?”
Silently she called two Sparrow teeth to life on her string, anchoring them to her weary bones. By now, finding balance was easy as a whistle.
A subtle shift rippled through the Oleanders: heads tilted and eyes shifted until they were all decidedly not looking at the prince. Jasimir’s face dropped as he caught on. Fie flicked her eyes to the forest again, then stared the ringleader down.
“Found it up your ass,” she announced, voice carrying clear over the road. Hisses swept about the Oleanders. They’d expected her to beg. Now they’d make her pay.
Fie shut her eyes. Whatever came next—it had to be enough to cover Jasimir’s escape. It had to.
But nothing came.
When she opened her eyes, the ringleader still stood before her, chuckling. Worse, Jasimir hadn’t moved, his face clouded with uncertainty.
“Two bone thieves,” the Oleander mused. “So peculiar. Not the only peculiar thing this moon, either. A friend, a very kind lady, sent along a message this way, you see. Look for bone thieves, traveling in three, maybe two. And she sent us … oh, some help.”
Fie caught a horrid slippery whisper, like a sinner’s last wet breath.
Two men appeared behind Jasimir and seized his arms, forcing him to his knees.
No, not—not quite men. The torchlight made ghouls of all the Oleanders in their masks and scarves, but something about the figures seemed … wrong.
“Let—go—” Jasimir thrashed.
Then she saw it. The men’s arms coiled about Jasimir’s elbows like asps, like rope, boneless and wrenched tight. Their clothing—Vulture make—slipped in odd places, slumping below shoulders and hips.
An arm slithered about Fie’s throat, a weight pressing against her back like a cold sweat. She gasped and jammed Pa’s broken sword into the place where a gut ought to be.
It sank to the hilt without a sound, but the flesh round her throat stayed iron-solid. She twisted until her captor swam into view.
She knew his face.
The skinwitch who’d ambushed them a week and a half ago. The one they’d left for the wolves.
His slack face had turned a sick gray. His mouth gaped in a silent, toothless hole; limp skin flapped like a flag where a nose belonged.
He had no eyes. Instead, torchlight slicked off a dark maroon paste where a skull ought to be.
If she’d had the breath to scream, she would have. All she could do was claw at the arm about her throat. The skin bent and stretched about her fingers, like it was filled with naught but air, yet the grip on her stayed crushing as stone.
“Skin-ghasts got no bones for you, little thief.” The Oleander man ruffled Fie’s hair hard enough to rip strands out, then whirled to face Jasimir. “Special present from the White Phoenix herself, since her pet Vulture’s taking too long. Wanted us to find someone very important to her and help him come home.”
Jasimir went still.
“The White Phoenix said if we find him, tell him he can come back, that they’ll sort it out with his father, and it’ll all be fine.” The ringleader came to a halt one pace from Jasimir. “Of course, this important person, he’s a prince. Not a Crow, just mumming as one. Risky business to be sure, since we’ve our own way of dealing with Crows here. But all that prince would have to do is come forward, and we’d get him back to Dumosa, safe and sound. Easy as that. It’s just been one big misunderstanding, hasn’t it?”
The skin-ghast’s arm tightened, crushing the last of Fie’s breath.
Jasimir looked from Fie to the ringleader. Then he bowed his head. “What about … the Crows?”
Fie almost started laughing.
Hangdog had been right. She’d dragged the prince this far, she’d given everything she had and more, all for an oath he’d never meant to keep.
“Don’t you fret.” The Oleander flicked his hand. “We’ll handle them, Highness.”
Fie’s sight dimmed.
“Let’s get you back to Dumosa.” The Oleander waved off the skin-ghasts holding Jasimir, then reached out to help him up. “Your father’s waiting.”
Fie took some wretched comfort in the fact that even if she died here and now, the Covenant would not forget the oath. The prince could run from her, from Pa, from every Crow in Sabor, but he’d carry that oath to the grave and beyond.
It would have to be good enough.
Jasimir straightened. He took the Oleander’s hand.
Then he yanked the man closer. Steel flashed, a thorn darting through torchlight.
The Oleander man gaped, dumbfounded, at the dagger in his belly.
“There’s been a misunderstanding.” Jasimir jerked the dagger free. “I’d have sworn that prince is dead.”