“I’ll live.” He let her help him up, one hand pressed to his side, leaning askew to keep the weight off a leg. Fie winced at an ugly burn over one shoulder. She hadn’t kept all the flames off him after all. “How long do we have?”
“Ten minutes at most. But we’ll never outrun them on foot.” Prince Jasimir peered up at the hill’s summit for any sign of Vultures.
“So we don’t outrun them. We hide.” Fie pointed to the trees below.
The prince pursed his lips. “These are the best skinwitches in Sabor.”
“And I’m the worst Crow they’ll ever cross,” she snapped. “They have my family. They’re lucky all I aim to do is hide.”
She slung Tavin’s arm over her shoulders and set off, not bothering to wait for royal permission.
“We’ll hole up and you can fix yourself,” Fie muttered, as much to Tavin as to herself.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re worried.”
“Worried I’ll have to hide your body.” That was a half-truth.
Tavin forced a crooked smile around clenched teeth. “You’re getting sentimental on me.”
“Aye, and that sentiment is ‘don’t leave a trail of bodies,’” she said, grim.
“That’s”—he sucked in a breath as they slid down a tricky bit of path—“touching.”
Fie waited for him to keep chattering off his sauce and nonsense. He didn’t.
“We’ll hole up,” she mumbled again. “Don’t go leaving a trail.”
“Yes, chief.” His voice scarce rose above the rattle of stone.
She half dragged Tavin past the first few trees sturdy enough for them. “First place they’ll look, likely,” she grunted in answer to the prince’s sprouting question. “Too easy.”
The tree she settled for was a cedar sheathed in bark ragged enough to swallow the marks of nailed soles. This time the prince helped push Tavin up and followed on his own. No sooner had Fie steadied herself on a branch than the slow pound of hooves dripped into the air.
These weren’t night-bold Oleanders looking for a scapegoat. She wasn’t crawling past bribe-fattened gate guards anymore, either. The queen’s own Vultures, the best skinwitches in Sabor, were out for her hide.
Fie drew two Sparrow teeth from her bag, rolled them between sweat-sticky palms, and closed her eyes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
OFF THE ROADS
Harmony.
The two Sparrow teeth flickered to dissonant life. Fie wrestled with both until the chord struck and prayed it would be enough.
Fie saw the gaze before she saw the Vulture, lit up by the Sparrow teeth. The skinwitch’s attention flicked and pried about the trees like a forked tongue, lingering on any snapped twigs or traces of nail-lined soles. This was the true face of the Vulture Birthright, the hunger of a predator stalking a scent. The jingle of bridle and creak of saddle leather slid into a creeping dirge, measured in the drumbeat of hooves.
What had Tavin said of the queen’s Vultures a week past? Tatterhelm wasn’t the best of the trackers. He was all twelve hells to cross just the same. He had Rhusana’s favor.
And likely he had Fie’s family.
Fie didn’t know if she wanted to see Tatterhelm, or a Vulture who was a few less hells to cross.
The branch shivered as Tavin shifted. She caught a muffled hiss—and then quiet. The Hawk alone knew true how bad he’d been wounded. But if healing himself burned as much as when he’d healed her, for once, she didn’t envy him.
He’d be fine. He’d be back on his feet soon enough, armed with his short swords and his smiles deadlier still, back to vexing her at every turn.
He’d saved her life. Broken her fall.
