On they climbed, on and on and up and up, and with every breath Fie marked the path of the skinwitches, the searching talons of their tracking spells, the distance between them. It did not grow fast enough, but it grew, enough to keep her weaving tooth after tooth into her triad.
That old headache grew as well, starting as they picked their way over a rope bridge strung across a great ice-mottled ravine. Fie fought it off as best she could. The pain was only another note in the harmony that, by all the dead gods, she would hold until they’d cleared Misgova Pass.
Then as the noon sun crested above, dizziness struck, sending Fie to her knees. She retched up bile and just barely caught herself before the Sparrow teeth slipped into discord.
“Is it the teeth?” Jasimir asked.
“It’s the height,” Tavin answered as she scoured her mouth with clean snow. “Mountain sickness. Some people aren’t used to climbing this far up.”
“Aye,” Fie croaked, and let the Hawk pull her back up, his hand lingering in hers. “Just … keep going. We have to clear the pass.”
“I can carry you.” Tavin’s grip on her tightened.
“Not with that pack you can’t.” She forced her feet into an aching stagger again. “Come on. We clear the pass tonight, or we don’t clear it at all.”
They pushed on, picking a switchback trail over ground that tilted ever steeper. Only plain rope bridges marked the passage of any life here, lashed between boulders, over ravines, along cliff faces. They had just set foot on one when the wind whipped at them, clawing at her cloak and tearing through the rags and fur beneath. Fie turned her face to the rock only to stop the sand pushing into her clenched eyes.
“Keep going!” Jasimir shouted as the bridge bucked.
Fie fumbled along the quivering rope, sliding on her knees. Another blast of wind meant her eyes stayed shuttered. She scrabbled about until her fingers caught in the gap between frosty planks, then pulled herself forward. One plank. Two. Four. She lost count, dragging herself through the howling wind.
At last her hand scraped on solid stone. She heaved herself onto the blessed steady earth, crept into the shelter of a boulder where the prince already huddled, then curled into a shaking ball. A moment later something heavy and warm flopped over her. She had a notion who that was.
“Let’s never do that again,” she wheezed.
“I have bad news for you,” Tavin said into her shoulder, voice muffled in cold and rag. “We have to do that again. A lot.” Then he straightened with a groan. “How are you doing?”
She pushed herself to her knees. “I’ll hold up.”
“I’m fine,” the prince said sharply behind her. “Let’s go.”
Tavin pulled Fie to her feet again. Her bones felt hollow and sick with a three-tooth song. She swayed until he steadied her. “We’re almost at the summit,” he told her. “Almost there. Just hang on.”
This time he did not let go of her hand, anchoring her as they stumbled on through the cold.
Fie’s sight dimmed with each step, her skull pounding. A chant, half a prayer, sifted from the haze: Keep the harmony. Keep your eyes open. Keep the oath. Look after your own.
The world bled into blinding white ice and hard black stone, into one footfall after another, into blurring peaks and burning lungs and belly acid on her tongue.
Keep the harmony.
On, on, on they climbed, higher and higher, into snow that buckled and swallowed them to their waists, through wind that near stripped them from the earth.
Keep the oath.
The sun had sunk near halfway to the horizon when Tavin stopped. “There.” He pointed to a shallow rise ahead. “The summit. After this we’ll clear the pass in no time. Then I’ll send Draga the message-hawk for Trikovoi’s plague beacon, and all we have to do is walk from there. Just a little more, Fie.”
She tried to nod. Tried to keep her eyes open. Tried to hold the harmony.
She couldn’t.
Look after your own.
Her knees buckled. The teeth snapped into screaming discord, then drowned beneath the roar in her ears.
As everything faded away, part of Fie whispered, They only have to catch you once.
When her eyes cleared of shadows, the world was a-tilt, rocking steady and even. Tavin’s taut face above drowned in a sky that had begun to lose its light. He’d wound up carrying her after all.
Shaking, Fie called three Sparrow teeth to life, but she already knew what she’d find. The webs of skinwitch spells peeled away from her and the boys, but the damage was done. The Vultures had changed course for Trikovoi. She’d cost them their lead and betrayed their destination in one swoop.
Look after your own.
She’d failed to keep the only rule Crows had. Tears rolled down her face and froze there.
“It’ll be all right,” Tavin said quietly.
Her whisper broke halfway through. “I’m sorry.”
Jasimir jabbed into her line of sight, pausing at Tavin’s side. “So what now? The Vultures know—”
“We keep going.” Tavin did just that, passing the prince.
Jasimir strode to catch up. “You keep saying that, but that isn’t working, is it? We’re going to keep doing precisely what Tatterhelm thinks we’re going to do? What’s the point if she’s going to keep giving away our location?”
“Leave it alone, Jas.” For the first time, Fie heard an open warning in Tavin’s voice.
“It’s time to go to the Hawks. If she can’t throw the Vultures off—”
“Leave. It.”
“This is my life, our lives at stake here!” Jasimir shouted. “My condolences if that conflicts with who you want in your bed this week!”
Tavin stopped. His grip on Fie shook, anger rolling off him like a heat wave.
“Put me down,” Fie said, partially to head him off from saying some fool thing.
Tavin set her on her feet. “Can you walk?”
“Aye.” Fie wobbled a moment before planting herself sturdy in the snow.
Then she slapped the prince.
A resounding crack bounced off the stone as he gaped at her, hand on his jaw. His eyes flicked over to Tavin’s face before flinching back to Fie’s.
“First of all,” Fie snarled, “you keep your voice down out here, unless you fancy an avalanche. Second. Aye. I fouled up. Likely I’ll do it again. But Ambra help me, you leave who’s bedding who out of it, or I swear to every dead god I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Jasimir spat. “Leave me to die out here? Let the Oleander Gentry ride down your caste?”
“The sad thing,” Fie hissed, “is you really think you’re better than Rhusana.”
Jasimir’s whole face tightened, then crumpled. Wind shrieked through the comb of the summit behind them.
Eventually Tavin spoke, softer now. “Changing course now does nothing. Trikovoi is still the closest fort in the Marovar. And we still have to clear this pass tonight.”
He took Fie’s hand and headed down a snowbank.
“If you’re wondering,” he said after a long moment, “that is what it’s like to deal with the king. And every one of us knows Jas is better than that.”
Fie wasn’t so sure. She kept that much to herself. “The king throws a tantrum when his Hawks stop doting on him for an hour?”