think too hard about the way his breath caught, too. She rolled her thumb in a steady, even circle over the back of his hand, over tendon and scar, feeling his pulse jump beneath her fingertips with only river water and melting salt between them.
“Scrub with the salt, at least that hard,” she said, and let go. “Everywhere. I’m not taking any chances.” She handed him the bag, then stepped back into deeper water and cracked a grin at him. “And if you miss a spot, I’ll know.”
Then she ducked her head underwater again before it could burst into flame. Even just touching his hand had sent a jolt through her, one that reminded her in no uncertain terms that it had been a sore long moon without her Hawk.
She stayed under about as long as she could manage, trying to cool her head. Sadly, it was beyond even the river’s help.
When she surfaced, Tavin was rinsing salt from his hair. He straightened up, uncertain. “I think I got everything,” he said. “Are we … Can I—”
“Aye,” Fie said. “If you want to be really safe, you can pray to the Eater of Bones not to take you, but—”
He crossed the space between them before she could finish, pulling her into his arms.
Then, to her surprise, they stayed that way: up to their waists in the river, her forehead resting against his rattling heart, his arms wound almost too tight around her. Tavin didn’t speak, didn’t stir, didn’t do aught but hold her as close as he could.
First she realized he was shaking; then she felt his chest shudder beneath her cheek and knew something was wrong.
“Tavin?” She tilted her head up to look him in the eye.
Fie thought she’d seen more than enough terrible things for one week, but clearly she was wrong. The boy she loved was crying.
“What is it?”
“I—” He cut himself off, looking like he was about to be sick. He shook his head. “I can’t—”
Fie laid her hand against the side of his face, and he closed his eyes, leaning into her palm. “Show me,” she said, and moved her fingers to brush his mouth. He sucked in a breath, then nodded, lips parting just enough for her fingertip to catch on a tooth.
The teeth of the living always sang brighter than the dead, even more so when they were still part of the person. There was no need to call Tavin’s ghost from a spark in a bone, for there was no spark—only a rush like wildfire that swallowed her whole.
She felt his stab of fear when he’d realized Rhusana had painted targets on the Crows. Unending needle-pricks of anxiety, of impatience, of growing anger as he bartered with his mother for permission to find his chief. The brief reprieve as Viimo traced a steady, clear trail to lead them to the tooth bag.
Then—horror, when he reached it.
Tavin had told Fie he’d found the bag at the roadside, and that much was true. But Drudge hadn’t emptied it out and cast it aside like she’d assumed.
Instead, she felt the moment Tavin rounded the bend in the road, found a still-smoking ruin of corpses and ash strewn across the flatway, and drew a catastrophic conclusion.
She felt something irreparable break in Tavin as he all but threw himself from his horse, stumbling through the embers toward a figure burned beyond recognition, lying beside a charred leather bag.
He’d always known she wasn’t immortal, that she could bleed and weep and fall like anyone else. But deep down, he’d never really believed it. He’d never believed she’d do anything but simply refuse to die.
And even after Viimo shook him from his screaming, after she told him that wasn’t Fie lying dead in the burning grass, that his chief was still alive—it didn’t mend what had been broken.
It didn’t matter that he’d found her again just hours later, furious and filthy and beautiful in the wreckage of Karostei. For those few, terrible moments, he’d known what it was to see the girl he loved dead. And that could not be unbroken.
Fie jerked her hand back and found tears streaking down her own face. “Oh—hells, Tavin.”
Tavin bowed his head until his brow met hers. “I thought you were gone,” he said, voice cracking. “I thought if I was faster, or if I’d left with you, or … I thought I lost you, Fie.”
“You didn’t.” She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to fight. She wanted to find Drudge and give