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—”