The sky was pearly like the inside of an oyster, not quite morning blue, when Crier finally opened her eyes. She did it slowly, as carefully as she did all things. One eye cracked open, pupil dilating, then the other. She blinked once. Twice.

“Hello,” said Ayla, and was rewarded by Crier’s full-body twitch. Crier jolted upright and then gasped in pain, one hand flying back to touch the place where, a few hours ago, there had been a deep wound. Ayla had checked it once, just before dawn. By then, the bleeding had long since stopped. Crier’s skin was already knitting itself back together, shiny like scar tissue, though Ayla knew there would be no scar. Below the surface, the damage to her inner workings—severed veins, pierced organs, nicked bone—would be repairing itself too.

Crier’s hands fluttered over her own body, checking for other injuries. Finding none, she went still. Her face was hidden behind her hair, and she could have been made from stone, she was so still, all her tiny human movements—breathing, blinking, shifting—ceased. A prey animal frozen at the first hint of danger: First, you hope they don’t see you. Then you run.

Don’t run, some part of Ayla wanted to say. I am not the hunter here. Not the wolf.

Instead:

“I’m not going to stab you this time,” she told Crier.

“You didn’t stab me last time, either,” said Crier, and unfroze. She tucked her hair behind her ear. The last time Ayla had seen her—the last time, and all the times before—Crier had been perfectly groomed. Hair clean and glossy, skin soft and smelling of rose oil, certainly no dirt or blood anywhere. Silk nightgown. Silk sheets. Only the best for the sovereign’s daughter.

Now, it looked like she’d been dragged by the ankles to hell and back again. She looked like a survivor.

Ayla bit back what would have been a half-hysterical laugh. A few months ago, she would have looked at Crier and thought viciously, You will die by my hand and my hand only, and convinced herself that was why she hadn’t abandoned Crier to the bandits. How wholly things had changed since then. Ayla hadn’t been able to kill Crier that night in the palace, and she wouldn’t be able to kill her now. Some things were impossible.

That begged a new question: If she wasn’t going to kill Crier, what was she going to do?

She’d been staring at Crier for too long.

And Crier was staring back.

“Did you know all of Zulla’s searching for you?” Ayla blurted out, just to fill the silence. “It’s not every day the sovereign’s daughter runs away from her own wedding. You’ve caused quite a stir.”

“I don’t care,” Crier said hotly. “I couldn’t marry Kinok. I’d rather run forever. I’d rather die.” She pinned Ayla with an uncharacteristically fierce glare. “Are you going to turn me in? Finish what you started that night? Go ahead and try it. I have—” She broke off, feeling at her hip for a weapon that wasn’t there. “I have—”