“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.