For the first time, both of them kenned he was wholly at her mercy.
Fie cocked her head, eyes glittering sharp. Some part of her had been ready for this from the moment he tried to duck cutting the oath. He could spout his high-minded hogwash all he wanted, but she’d waited for what happened when it stopped being easy to keep his word. And here they were.
What’s your word worth, Hangdog asked on a night too far away, when you’re good as dead?
Nothing, it turned out. It was worth nothing.
It’d be so easy. She could march the prince into Tatterhelm’s camp at sword point. She’d barter all the hostages back. She’d buy them time.
She’d look after her own.
You’re the girl with all the teeth, Viimo said on a faraway dune. Maybe we can deal with you, too.
Just like they’d dealt with Hangdog.
A dull despair smothered that merciless fire. Aye, she could hand Tatterhelm the prince. Then he’d fill her kin with arrows because he could.
And even if she could get them all away, she’d still have one moon at most before Oleanders turned the roads red with Crow blood.
All the fire and steel in the world, and she’d still always be a Crow. Aught else was one of Pa’s stories, a child’s game of pretend, a little girl riding a goat, hoisting a stick, and calling herself Ambra.
“That oath,” Fie forced through a choked sob, “is all I have left. And it’s cost me everything. Everything. So spare me your noise about what I’ve given up. You didn’t care when I lost all my kin, as long as you were safe. As long as I kept the oath. You know why I made you swear before the Covenant? Because I knew the second that oath started to pinch, you’d run.”
Jasimir’s eyes flashed in the gloom. “It turns out you’re better at abandoning your family than I am. Leave if you want. I won’t forsake my blood.”
Fie regarded him for a long moment. The frost reclaimed her voice. “Aye. I’m going to Trikovoi. I don’t have a choice. And neither do you. You’re coming with.”
Jasimir stared at her, fists clenched. Then he sat in the dirt, back to her. “Go ahead and try.”
The last of the sunset bled out, and a chill settled on the mountainside like a fog.
Fie scrubbed at her face with a rough sleeve until the tears smeared away.
She marched over to the prince, wrapped both hands around the straps of the pack on his back, and began to walk.
“Hey—hey—” Jasimir squawked in protest as she yanked him along. “Stop—!”
“No.” Fie sought the horizon for the lingering stain of sunset past. Trikovoi lay to the northeast; the sun and moon would have to be her compass.
Then she staggered and fell on her rear. Jasimir had slipped his arms from the straps.
Fie shot to her feet before he did. In one savage lunge, she snatched a handful of his collar. And she began to walk again. The dull nails in her soles crunched against the rocky earth.
Jasimir half stumbled, half dragged behind her. “Let—me—go,” he wheezed. “You faithless—I order you to—I order you—”
Fie let go, then gave him a spiteful push to the ground.
“Ken me,” she grated out. “You will keep your oath. That’s what Pa and Tavin gave themselves up for and you know it. So you and I can walk to Trikovoi nice and quiet, just like they asked. Don’t even have to pretend to like each other. Or, by every dead god, I will drag you to Trikovoi myself.”
She turned to the northeast and pointed to the crescent winking above. “One week left in Peacock Moon. Choose quick.”
She began to walk.
For a moment, she heard the scrape of her own footfalls, alone.
Then she caught a scuffle. The prince’s footsteps gritted behind her.
Not another word passed between them as they marched in silence, stiff and hollow, into the swelling dark.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SKIN DEEP
They stumbled over ridge and plain, through the night and the dark, stopping only as dawn pushed a questioning thumb of light along the eastern ridge. For a short half hour they rested, gnawing dried grapes and long-stale panbread that lumped up in Fie’s gut, hard as the silence between her and the prince.
He did not pray to the dawn this time.
As they chewed, Fie called up two Vulture teeth, one hand on the hilt of Tavin’s sword. She told herself she just needed to know the skinwitches hadn’t resumed their hunt.