Not someone worth everything he had to give.
Some distant side of her unspooled Jasimir’s words short hours ago: He saved your life.
Strike.
Tavin did not step back. Neither did she, lingering too close, far too close, locked in their makeshift duel.
“When you said you don’t do what you want…” She trailed off, knowing stark what she asked, too unsteady to say the words aloud.
He bent his head to her, near enough that his hair dusted her brow. Fie didn’t mean to turn her face up, but her chin had a mind of its own.
“You know what I mean,” he whispered.
Fie’s traitor heart thundered its assent, even as her mind rattled through its protests. She ought to run, to cool her head, if only her feet would cooperate—she had to run, she couldn’t have what she wanted—not the way she wanted him—
Yet Tavin moved first. His breath caught; she felt its absence on her cheeks.
And then he stepped back.
Something old and familiar slid across his features easy as a paper screen, hiding any sign of the unpolished, unpracticed boy of a moment ago.
“It’s late,” he said, voice fraying at the very edges. “You should rest. I’ll take watch.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WOLF COUNTRY
The humming woke Fie, as it had near every morning since Cheparok.
Tavin sat with his back to her, humming quiet into the dark. She couldn’t tell if he meant to rouse her by it, or if he’d been at the song awhile. He never seemed to be at the same place when her eyes opened.
Gray-blue gnawed at the eastern horizon. Her watch had come.
Fie rolled up onto her knees, yawning. Tavin glanced back at her, nodded, and folded himself to the ground near the prince.
She stretched and fished the laceroot seeds from her pack, letting their bitter pulp prick her awake. The pot went on the coals with a fistful of wild mint for tea. She settled beside it, running a hand through her dusty hair, and tried not to dwell on how she welcomed the quiet in the mornings now, with her two false Crows fast asleep.
Instead Fie’s mind circled round the moment, not long enough past, when she’d near done the unthinkable.
But this time, Tavin was the one who’d run.
Her face warmed, whether with humiliation or something else, she couldn’t say. Perhaps he’d thought twice on distraction with Tatterhelm on their trail. Perhaps she’d pushed his mummer’s bluff too far.
Perhaps he’d remembered she was a Crow.
She didn’t know what she’d hoped for. Oh, there were tales to be sure, songs of Sparrows and Hawks struck apart by caste law, beggars and queens, lords who gave up their caste for love of a Swan … but her faith in songs had long run dry. Only the gentry found happy endings in those songs. Only a fool would believe them true.
Only a fool would believe, for even the scarcest moment, that she’d walk a happier road with a Hawk.
She didn’t realize her stare had snagged on his sleeping face until a crackle from the embers drew it away.
Fie lost track of time as silvery light seeped into the dark overhead. Cricket-song trickled up through the grass. She sipped her mint tea and watched a lone wolf trail a cluster of shaggy goats, threading through a distant hillside of stone and brush and yellowing bramble. She’d no call to fear wolves in summer, not with fresh kill in their belly. The wolves of winter, though …
Pa’d taught her to watch the starving wolf. When beasts go hungry too long, he’d said, they forget what they ought to fear.
Now, in the dry chill of a gray dawn, Fie thought of the wolf, and then she thought of Hangdog’s tooth hanging cold on her string, and an arrow shot through an eye as the Peacock lord watched.
A twig snapped behind her.
Fie went still, every nerve flaring. When no sound followed, she let out a sigh, put down her tea, and picked up the pot.
Then in one swift twist, she flung its boiling water into the tree-barred dark at her back.
A man’s scream shattered the quiet.
A shadow broke from the trees, only to stumble straight into Fie swinging the scalding pot. He dropped. Six more shades erupted from the dark, flashing blades and teeth, but they struck too late: they’d already woken the prince and the Hawk.
The rest was a frenzy of noise, steel, and blood. One body fell, then another—and then, curiously, the last four assailants whipped back into the thinning dark.
A chorus of sick whistles trailed in their wake.
Fie stared after them, belly churning. In the fray, they’d looked the same as any other Vulture, yet—
“Eyes,” Prince Jasimir croaked. “They had no—no eyes—” He doubled over, retching.
Tavin braced Jasimir’s shoulders. “They saw us fine, Jas. It was just the dark.”
A laugh gurgled through the camp. Fie wrenched about and found one of the Vultures clutching his spilling tripe.
“Aye, Highness,” he giggled. “Just the dark.”
Fie stalked over and knelt. The Vulture was fading. She snatched up a Crane tooth and called it to life. It wasn’t enough to force truth, but enough to smell a lie. “How did you find us?”
A bloody grin split his face. “We have something that belongs to you.”
Fie felt as if someone had unraveled her with one sharp yank.
So that was how the Vultures had caught their trail. Whatever they had—a loose hair, an old shirt, a worn ragdoll—it meant any Vulture would see a path to them as long as it sat in their bare hands, witch or no.
By rights, the Vultures should have shown up hours ago. Something had to have broken the trail.
Three teeth. She’d burned the trio of Sparrow teeth.
So three could shake even the best of the Vultures. Pa would be proud—
Pa.
“How many of your Crow hostages are still alive?” she demanded, suddenly horrified that it hadn’t been her first question.
The man convulsed, choking.
“How many?” she demanded. It was no use. In moments, the Vulture had gone still.
Tavin crouched by her side. “The scouts that ran will bring Tatterhelm as fast as he can ride. We need to get away.”
“There’s at least a week’s worth of food here.” Jasimir had pried a pack from a dead Vulture. “Tatterhelm must have sent them to search ahead of the main party.”
Fie stood. “Take anything of use from the dead—provisions, gloves, furs. We need cold gear and food more than they do. Then we move out.”
Jasimir looked up from the pack. “We have to give them final rites.”
“That better be a royal ‘we,’ cousin.” Fie set about dragging the bodies together. “If these scummers were dying of thirst in the desert, I wouldn’t give them a single drop of my piss.”
“If we leave them like animals, we’re just as bad as they are,” Jasimir insisted. “You’ll give sinners final rites, but not them? Is that what you call mercy?”
“No,” Fie answered, looking pointedly at the distant hill, where a bloody goat carcass painted a red smear in the grass. Three dead Vultures. Easy prey. “This is what I call wolf country.”
“Tav.” The prince gave his Hawk a look. “The code says, ‘I will not dishonor my dead.’”