Fie reached through her triad of teeth and grimaced. “League and a half? We’ve gone northeast. They’re going due north.”
“They must think we’re trying the Sangrapa Pass.” Tavin waved at a dip between two gray peaks leagues north, then handed two more hide strips to the prince. “It’s the fastest route to Draga. But Trikovoi is beyondthe Misgova Pass.” He pointed to a toothsome, winding slope to the east. “We can clear it tonight. And if we make it through Misgova without them catching on…”
It could give them the lead they needed. Fie still heard the question behind the question. She dug a fistful of Sparrow teeth from her bag. “But if they catch on, they’ll know we aim for Trikovoi, and then we’re rutted.” Tavin nodded, grim. She fed the teeth into gloves she’d stripped off a dead Vulture days ago, trapping them against her palms. “So I’ll make sure they don’t.”
“You fainted yesterday,” the prince said. “Are you certain—”
“Aye,” Fie snapped, and pushed on the hide binding her sandals until the nails poked through. “We done dawdling?”
They were done dawdling. Tavin led them along the river, following a game track drawn with a toddler’s shine for nonsense curves. Trees shrank to thorny scrub, and scrub to grass and wiry lichens. Shaggy goats paid them no heed, nibbling daintily at any sprouts of green.
On they climbed, on and on and up and up, and with every breath Fie marked the path of the skinwitches, the searching talons of their tracking spells, the distance between them. It did not grow fast enough, but it grew, enough to keep her weaving tooth after tooth into her triad.
That old headache grew as well, starting as they picked their way over a rope bridge strung across a great ice-mottled ravine. Fie fought it off as best she could. The pain was only another note in the harmony that, by all the dead gods, she would hold until they’d cleared Misgova Pass.
Then as the noon sun crested above, dizziness struck, sending Fie to her knees. She retched up bile and just barely caught herself before the Sparrow teeth slipped into discord.
“Is it the teeth?” Jasimir asked.
“It’s the height,” Tavin answered as she scoured her mouth with clean snow. “Mountain sickness. Some people aren’t used to climbing this far up.”
“Aye,” Fie croaked, and let the Hawk pull her back up, his hand lingering in hers. “Just… keep going. We have to clear the pass.”
“I can carry you.” Tavin’s grip on her tightened.
“Not with that pack you can’t.” She forced her feet into an aching stagger again. “Come on. We clear the pass tonight, or we don’t clear it at all.”
They pushed on, picking a switchback trail over ground that tilted ever steeper. Only plain rope bridges marked the passage of any life here, lashed between boulders, over ravines, along cliff faces. They had just set foot on one when the wind whipped at them, clawing at her cloak and tearing through the rags and fur beneath. Fie turned her face to the rock only to stop the sand pushing into her clenched eyes.
“Keep going!” Jasimir shouted as the bridge bucked.
Fie fumbled along the quivering rope, sliding on her knees. Another blast of wind meant her eyes stayed shuttered. She scrabbled about until her fingers caught in the gap between frosty planks, then pulled herself forward. One plank. Two. Four. She lost count, dragging herself through the howling wind.
At last her hand scraped on solid stone. She heaved herself onto the blessed steady earth, crept into the shelter of a boulder where the prince already huddled, then curled into a shaking ball. A moment later something heavy and warm flopped over her. She had a notion who that was.
“Let’s never do that again,” she wheezed.
“I have bad news for you,” Tavin said into her shoulder, voice muffled in cold and rag. “We have to do that again. A lot.” Then he straightened with a groan. “How are you doing?”
She pushed herself to her knees. “I’ll hold up.”
“I’m fine,” the prince said sharply behind her. “Let’s go.”
Tavin pulled Fie to her feet again. Her bones felt hollow and sick with a three-tooth song. She swayed until he steadied her. “We’re almost at the summit,” he told her. “Almost there. Just hang on.”
This time he did not let go of her hand, anchoring her as they stumbled on through the cold.
Fie’s sight dimmed with each step, her skull pounding. A chant, half a prayer, sifted from the haze:Keep the harmony. Keep your eyes open. Keep the oath. Look after your own.
The world bled into blinding white ice and hard black stone, into one footfall after another, into blurring peaks and burning lungs and belly acid on her tongue.
Keep the harmony.
On, on, on they climbed, higher and higher, into snow that buckled and swallowed them to their waists, through wind that near stripped them from the earth.
Keep the oath.
The sun had sunk near halfway to the horizon when Tavin stopped. “There.” He pointed to a shallow rise ahead. “The summit. After this we’ll clear the pass in no time. Then I’ll send Draga the message-hawk for Trikovoi’s plague beacon, and all we have to do is walk from there. Just a little more, Fie.”
