“Four. But you were close.”
“So are we.” Fie added up the distance. “Three days’ walk.”
“That’s the end of Peacock Moon.” He rubbed the back of his neck, mouth twisting.
Fie pointed to the nearest league marker. “You know what happened when they lit the plague beacons for you? They sent up colors like ordinary round the palace, all the way out to red. Then every other league marker in Sabor burned black. Last time they did that…” She faltered. “… was nigh on a half-dozen years ago. For your mother. So if aught happens to the king, we’ll know.”
“I didn’t know about that,” he said, quiet.
“Aye. Madcap told me it was a thousand-thousand royal ghosts.” Fie scowled. “Scared the piss out of me.”
Jasimir laughed at that. Then he sobered. “Any change with… with the Vultures?”
Like Tavin, he had a shine for questions beneath questions. She rested a hand on the unbroken sword and called on a Vulture tooth. “The trail’s too far off to read all the way out,” she answered, then reached for adifferent tooth on her string. Pa’s spark burned there. “Could be past Gerbanyar by now. And Pa’s still alive. That’s all I know.”
No telling how Tavin was keeping. Dead or alive, the skinwitches had stolen him farther than she could see.
“Three days,” Jasimir said after a beat. Then he produced the scrap of slate. “We have a lot of reading practice to do.”
They made it another day and a half before the Covenant caught up.
Seven days since they’d lost Tavin and returned to the roads. It was a generous stretch, but one Fie had always known would end.
The sun was hanging low at their backs, and the prince blushing through the third verse of “The Lad from Across the Sea,” when she saw it waiting down the road.
The dead gods’ mercy called them onward: a string of bloodred smoke needled the sky.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ROYAL GHOSTS
“How far off?” Jasimir asked, squinting at the plague beacon. It near blended into the sundown-soaked sky.
“Seven leagues. A day.” Fie squinted at the angle of the sun, the lines of the mountains. “Due east, so could be close to Trikovoi. Could also be another trap.”
“We would know if the Vultures passed us, right?” Jasimir rubbed his chin. “Do you suppose the Oleander Gentry have gotten clever?”
“Maybe.” A curl of unease twined in her gut. If she didn’t answer, the Covenant would stack every one of the plague-dead on her head alone.
If she did… Tatterhelm could be waiting.
“Let’s keep going,” Jasimir said. “Either we reach the beacon first and can look for signs of a trap, or we reach Trikovoi first and I’ll ask Aunt Draga to loan us an escort.”
“‘Us’?”
“My caste hasn’t caught the plague since Ambra,” he said firmly. “I’ll just wash up after to be safe. Didn’t I tell you? A leader should be skilled as any of their followers.”
“Aye. And then you said you were too good to live as a Crow.”
Jasimir cringed. “Right. Well. Let’s say my perspective has shifted.”
Fie allowed herself a strained laugh as they started walking, but her heart wouldn’t settle.Always watch the crowd.She hooked a finger around a Vulture tooth on her string, then reached for Tavin’s sword.
His trail rolled south, on and on down the flatway, just as it ought. Fie let out a breath.
Then the trail stopped. She stopped as well.
“What’s wrong?”
