“They know it is,” Fie said grimly, scanning the dark for torches. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be so hell-bent on pretending it isn’t.”

“I don’t know how to fix it.”

And I don’t think we can.

Fie’s eyes burned. “Tavin said that, too,” she said, hoarse. “You can’t fix it, not everywhere and not all at once. But you can begin by keeping the oath. By telling the Splendid Castes and Hunting Castes that we’re part of Sabor.”

“I hate it,” Jasimir admitted. “I hate being the heir. Nothing can ever be simple or easy. Most of the time it just feels like … like choosing which finger to cut off that day.” He glanced over at her and sighed. “And here I am whining about hard choices to the girl whose family is being held hostage by my enemies.”

Fie laughed.

It was not a happy laugh.

But nor was it an angry one this time.

“Now you’re catching on,” she said wearily.

Iron bells clanked soft across the pasture. A thin cloud smeared the moonlight across the sky. A rider passed down the distant road, and both of them held their breath, listening for the whistle of skin-ghasts, until the hoofbeats faded.

“I’m sorry,” Jasimir said. “I thought … I thought I knew who I had to be, to deserve the crown. But all that’s done is brought you pain.”

Before Fie could answer, a flicker of torchlight kindled in the woods at pasture’s edge. She and Jasimir both went still, then shrank into the hay. A Sparrow tooth sparked to life.

A woman strode out of the trees, flanked by two hollow-eyed skin-ghasts. Her linen cloak flapped like the skin-ghasts’ lank arms as she swept her torch about; the skin-ghasts’ empty faces followed that flame.

The Oleander woman’s gaze passed over the hay heaps. She took a few steps closer.

Please, Fie begged the Sparrow tooth, the dead gods, the Covenant, aught that was listening. She was so, so tired of monsters at her door. Please, just let her pass.

A goat grazing nearby raised its head and bleated, the slaughter bell clanking at its throat. Another goat joined in.

The woman hesitated, then turned back to the woods. Soon enough the shadows swallowed her and the skin-ghasts both.

Fie let the Sparrow tooth go, eyes blearing. A long, long watch lay ahead. But at least she wasn’t keeping it alone.

“I … owe you another apology,” Jasimir said, twisting straw round his fingers. “You were right. I thought all Tavin saw in you was company in his bed. I thought that was all he could possibly want with … with a Crow. But you were more.”

The stars above blurred and burned with tears. Fie squeezed her eyes shut again.

“He looked at you the same way you look at roads.” Jasimir’s voice cracked. “Like where they go frightens you, and you love them for it.”