backs were turned, Fie would scrub a fistful of slush over her face to sting herself awake.
It didn’t work. Midway through the afternoon, gray choked her vision off. Fie stopped, bones screeching in protest as she fought to keep upright. They had to keep moving. The Sparrow tooth triad showed her Vulture webs prowling at the horizon, waiting for her to foul up. Keep moving. Keep your eyes open. Keep the oath—
Her knees buckled. Someone called her name, once, twice—then nothing.
She’d no notion of how much time passed before Tavin’s face swam into view. His voice followed a slow heartbeat later.
“… too much. We need to get somewhere safe so she can rest.”
“You managed in Gerbanyar,” the prince argued. “What if she just walks—”
“No.” Tavin cut him off. “It’s not the same. I lost control. She’s been burning herself out for days.”
“Have not,” she tried to grumble. Instead what she said was “Hrmmgh.”
The world tipped. Tavin had shifted her in his arms. “Easy now,” he said in something uncomfortably close to a Safe voice, dabbing at her nose with one sleeve. Red spotted the cloth. “You’ll be fine, you just need to sleep it off.”
She didn’t want to sleep it off. The Vultures were coming.
“Hngh,” she protested before gray clouded her sight again.
Everything spun as Tavin stood, gathering her to him. “We need to get to shelter.”
No, she tried to say, but couldn’t manage even that. You have to keep moving, you have to keep your eyes open—
“Are you sure?”
“She’s the only reason the Vultures haven’t rounded us up already,” Tavin said tightly. “Yes, Jas. I’m sure.”
Gray faded to black and took Fie with it.
* * *
She woke to the scratch of stone.
“Let me.” That was Tavin.
Scratch. Scratch. “I can do it.”
“Jas—”
“Just—just let me…” Scratch-scratch-scratch. “… give me a moment. It just has to catch—”
“Go wash up, Jas,” Tavin sighed. “We probably won’t have another chance before we reach Trikovoi.”
“If we don’t get captured by Vultures first,” Jasimir muttered amid a scuffle of sandal-nails.
“We won’t.” Tavin went unanswered. Footsteps echoed and dwindled. Fie caught the rattle of flint, then a hiss and crack before orange light bloomed beyond her eyelids.
She forced her eyes open. The blur of color and shadow sifted into jagged stone walls, a meager fire clambering up dried brush, a kneeling shadow with his back to her. The rest of the world filled in slow: air warmer than it had any right to be this far into the mountains, ground harder than dirt, furs heaped heavy and soft over her, copper in the back of her throat.
Tavin had found them shelter after all. Groggy, she watched him add kindling to the fire and wondered if she could reach him from where she lay, what would happen if she ran her fingertips down his spine.
Then Tavin turned to check on her, his face for once raw and open with worry. It softened into a smile when he saw she was awake. She couldn’t help but smile back, too tired, too far off the roads to hate herself for it.
“How long was I out?” Fie asked.
Scratch-scratch-scratch. This time the scrape came from the prince’s return.
“Not nearly long enough.” Tavin fumbled for the pot, dumped a few fistfuls of rice and dried peas and salt pork inside, then poured water over the mess and set it by the fire. “My turn to wash up. If I’m not back in an hour, assume cave ghosts got me and make a run for it. But eat dinner first.”
Jasimir took Tavin’s place, frowning, as the Hawk strode away. Fie sat up, every muscle fighting back, and took a second look at their home for the night. Her pack had been repurposed as her pillow; the other packs sat nearby. She saw neither beginning nor end to the cave, only walls bending out of sight. A cooler draft wafted from the passage opposite of where Tavin had gone off to, yet their camp stayed balmier than the fire alone ought to have managed.
She cleared her throat. “How’s it so warm in here?”
The prince glanced at her, brief as a static shock. “There’s a hot spring farther in.”
That explained it. The notion of washing up in a proper spring near made Fie weep. The notion of Tavin washing up in a hot spring had an entirely different effect on her.
“You should leave him be.”
Fie stared at the prince, heat rushing up her neck. “What?”
“I’m not utterly oblivious.” Jasimir almost looked shamefaced. “But you’re only going