Even if they could keep one step ahead of the Vultures, it would take near three weeks to get to the south end of the Marovar. And all they had were the boys’ blades, Pa’s broken sword, and a bag of very inedible teeth.
Jasimir had said days ago that the king could be dead before the end of Peacock Moon. Fie wasn’t sure they’d make it that long, either.
Fie’s stomach growled again as they passed slabs of spiced shark and onion searing on a griddle, kettles of honeyed maize-meal, stacks of buttered panbread, and more, all meant for those with coin. She tried not to look. Her nose, however, could not be leashed in.
A Crow shrine. They’d find a Crow shrine outside the city and see what could be foraged from the viatik stash. Fie had managed on an empty belly plenty of times.
A woman guarding a griddle cracked an egg over sizzling lentils, then rained a pink glitter of sea salt and paprika into the pan.
Fie bit her lip.
Tavin paused at the stall a moment, then hurried on. A few steps later, a calamity erupted at their backs, pots and pans clanging to the ground amid a flurry of swearing.
“Don’t look,” Tavin mumbled to them and sidled behind a stall, then turned his hands out. Three dumplings sat in each palm. “Found us some dinner.”
Fie’s eyes widened. “Did you steal those?”
“Borrowed,” Tavin said. “Relieved. Liberated.”
“So stolen,” the prince said, flat. His hand paused halfway to a dumpling.
“Academically speaking.” Tavin waggled his fingers, straining for his old humor. “But I have it on good authority that they taste exactly like dumplings obtained through more orthodox means.”
Fie knew square how Pa felt about thieves.
She didn’t know if the hunger did it, or the wear of the long day, but either way her Chief voice came back. With a vengeance.
“You ken me, aye?” Fie jabbed a finger at him. “See how I walked through that whole market without taking a damned thing? The last thingwe need right now is an angry merchant bringing Hawks down on our heads.”
“Only if they catch you,” Tavin said with a haggard grin.
She didn’t smile back. “If you’re fixing to keep me along as your stand-in for chief, then you’d best act like it. Steal what you please when you’re not mumming as a Crow. But if you’re going to keep rolling our fortune-bones over something slight as an empty gut, I’d rather turn around right here and go try my luck with the Floating Fortress.”
Tavin raised an eyebrow. “There are shorter ways to say ‘I don’t want a dumpling.’”
“How about ‘don’t steal, bastard boy’?” she shot back. “Is ‘steal again and I’m out’ too many words for you?”
His grin faded. “No, chief.”
She gave a stiff nod. And then she swiped two dumplings. “Rule number two: don’t waste food.”
Prince Jasimir had the decency to look faintly disapproving as he also took two.
Before Fie could take a bite, she caught splinters of torchlight on steel in the corner of her eye. A pair of Hawks strolled down through the market, spears tipped against their shoulders.
She shoved her thieved dumplings into her bag and jabbed an elbow at Tavin. He blinked up around a mouthful and sighed, resigned. “It’s that sort of day, isn’t it?”
He stuffed the second dumpling into his mouth and led them away from the road, into the great swells of grass-studded sand betwixt them and the bay. Fie couldn’t say how long they stumbled through the dunes, sharp seagrass whipping at her legs, only that the walls of Cheparok had shrunk too far and yet not enough by the time they stopped.
“Here.” Weariness sapped the expected lilt from Tavin’s voice as hegestured to a copse of squat sandpines at the edge of the beach. “This is… this is good.”
Jasimir didn’t say anything, just staggered to a patch of seagrass and dropped. Fie cast a last look behind her, then found her own sandy hassock and allowed her legs to give out. The hilt of Pa’s sword jabbed into her ribs until she laid it aside.
Then, finally, she pulled the dumplings from her bag and took a bite.
Pa should have salted it for her first, as a Crow chief did.
Pa wasn’t there.
