her pack and leapt up the steps as she pulled Tavin up and followed. More hoofbeats rumbled a tattoo down the road.
They scuttled over the uneven ground, rounding the edge of the stone pit. Two Hawk guards planted themselves between them and the gateway, arrows trained on them.
Fie didn’t think, just called two Gull witch-teeth in her string and whipped them into harmony. A vicious wind howled down the road, picking up the guards and slamming them into the stack-stone walls. She almost laughed at how easy it was.
Aye, and now you’re down two witch-teeth, her colder voice reminded her. But hadn’t Pa said to burn as many teeth as she needed?
She glanced back and saw the flashburn-white fading away, though the gold Phoenix fire had swallowed the sinner whole.
“Welcome to our roads, cousin,” she whispered, and kept running.
Hoofbeats clattered off the rock at their back.
The road was too clean, too easy for riders. She called after Tavin and Jasimir and veered off the flatway, into sparse trees and yellowing grass, aiming for a rocky hillside thick with trees.
The nails in her soles scraped and slid on more and more stone as the ground climbed and dirt thinned. The thunder in her ears could have been hoofbeats, could have been the boys behind her, could have been her own heartbeat; she didn’t dare stop to find out. Branches whipped at her face, withered vines catching at her feet. Her lungs burned. She couldn’t suck in air fast enough to drown their fire.
The rumble in her ears could only be hoofbeats now.
Up. Up. She scrambled up and onward, tracing the worst path for riders to fight through. The trees gave way to a sharp crest capped in a slide of broken slate. Only a few thumbs of basalt boulders kept it moored to the hillside.
The dead gods had at last granted her a kindness.
Fie shot straight into the slate. Shards rattled free, slipping beneath her sandals.
Good. She needed that.
“Are you mad?” Jasimir demanded behind her, hoarse. “There’s no cover.”
“Horses,” she wheezed between breaths, fighting for another foothold, then another. Each step set off a cascade of tumbling slate. She angled for the steepest path and pushed on, taking each step twice, sliding back and hissing a litany of curses through her gasps for air. Broken stone bit into her palms every time she tried to steady herself.
Then one foot scraped on softer earth, sole-nails biting down hard. Every muscle screamed as she shoved herself up, up, up to steady ground, up to the hill’s summit. Her knees wobbled as she turned about.
Sure enough, a handful of Vultures had stalled at the base of the slate slide, their horses tossing their heads. If Fie’s sandals had struggled, hooves had no chance at all. She’d bought them time—
A glint caught her eye, just in time to see the arrow loosed direct at her.
Something knocked her clean off her feet. The arrow whizzed over her head, streaking across the sky in the brief moment before everything went dark.
For a heartbeat she thought she’d fainted—but shouts and sliding slate still rattled in her ears. A hand kept her head tucked down, and arms anchored her to crowsilk and flesh as impact after dizzying impact shuddered through them both. Soon they fetched up against a boulder.
Fie took a moment to ken that they’d stopped, her brains still skittering about. Then the grip on her loosened. She raised her head and found Tavin sprawled under her, gray-faced and wincing. He’d taken the brunt of their fall.
He’d taken it for her. To save her life. To save her.
Fie didn’t know why the notion gutted her so.
Jasimir skidded down to them. “Is he hurt?”
“No,” Tavin grumbled.
Fie rolled to her feet. “Are you lying?”
He shot her a sour look. “Yes.”
“How bad?”
“I’ll live.” He let her help him up, one hand pressed to his side, leaning askew to keep the weight off a leg. Fie winced at an ugly burn over one shoulder. She hadn’t kept all the flames off him after all. “How long do we have?”
“Ten minutes at most. But we’ll never outrun them on foot.” Prince Jasimir peered up at the hill’s summit for any sign of Vultures.
“So we don’t outrun them. We hide.” Fie pointed to the trees below.
The prince pursed his lips. “These are the best skinwitches in Sabor.”
“And I’m the worst Crow they’ll ever cross,” she snapped. “They have my family. They’re lucky all I aim to do is hide.”