She turned to the northeast and pointed to the crescent winking above. “One week left in Peacock Moon. Choose quick.”

She began to walk.

For a moment, she heard the scrape of her own footfalls, alone.

Then she caught a scuffle. The prince’s footsteps gritted behind her.

Not another word passed between them as they marched in silence, stiff and hollow, into the swelling dark.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SKIN DEEP

They stumbled over ridge and plain, through the night and the dark, stopping only as dawn pushed a questioning thumb of light along the eastern ridge. For a short half hour they rested, gnawing dried grapes and long-stale panbread that lumped up in Fie’s gut, hard as the silence between her and the prince.

He did not pray to the dawn this time.

As they chewed, Fie called up two Vulture teeth, one hand on the hilt of Tavin’s sword. She told herself she just needed to know the skinwitches hadn’t resumed their hunt.

They hadn’t. Tavin’s trail led into the forests they’d left behind, farther from her than ever.

A knot in her throat tightened. Suddenly Fie couldn’t abide sitting quiet anymore. She stood, checked her pack, checked her map, checked the dawn. Once the prince was on his feet, they set off again.

She couldn’t stop herself from tracing Tavin’s path near every hour as they carried on beneath the stare of a cold sun. The fifth time, his trail stretched beyond the crest of Misgova Pass.

She let the Vulture tooth go and did not call on it again.

Early in the afternoon, they passed within eyeshot of a handful of scattered huts nestled in the crook of a steep valley. Herds of goats and cattle wreathed the village. If Fie squinted, she could spy children picking snow figs. A narrow roughway road trickled out of sight, rolling down to what had to be a flatway.

“We should go back on the roads.”

Fie jumped at the prince’s voice. “What?”

“The Vultures aren’t following us anymore,” Jasimir said. “So we can afford to take the roads. They’ll be faster.”

She bristled. The notion was solid enough, aye. But the way he said it … he made it sound as if she ought to have thought of it hours ago. “No,” she said. “If we hit a plague beacon, we’re rutted.”

Jasimir scowled. “Don’t play naïve. You’re passing them anyway.”

If Tavin were here, he’d spout some nonsense to settle both their hackles. Instead, they only had empty air for a buffer, and it did not measure up. For a moment Fie wondered if Tatterhelm would accept the prince’s corpse for trade. She might have tested it if she weren’t so tired.

But the prince was right, and they had but a week of Peacock Moon left.