And so they did. They shared the quiet as Oleander torches lit the woods, as skin-ghasts prowled beneath the trees they’d climbed. And when the danger passed, silence filled in with letters on slate, stories of the court and of the road, memories traded and admired and mourned.

He said foolish things sometimes, asked questions only someone who’d grown in a palace would have. And when Fie told him as much, sometimes he frosted over again and kept quiet awhile. But more and more often, he simply nodded and listened to why.

“Next challenge,” Jasimir said. “How many leagues to go?”

Numbers. Those were even worse than the alphabet. Fie squinted at the end of the sign. “Two tens and … five?”

“Four. But you were close.”

“So are we.” Fie added up the distance. “Three days’ walk.”

“That’s the end of Peacock Moon.” He rubbed the back of his neck, mouth twisting.

Fie pointed to the nearest league marker. “You know what happened when they lit the plague beacons for you? They sent up colors like ordinary round the palace, all the way out to red. Then every other league marker in Sabor burned black. Last time they did that…” She faltered. “… was nigh on a half-dozen years ago. For your mother. So if aught happens to the king, we’ll know.”

“I didn’t know about that,” he said, quiet.

“Aye. Madcap told me it was a thousand-thousand royal ghosts.” Fie scowled. “Scared the piss out of me.”

Jasimir laughed at that. Then he sobered. “Any change with … with the Vultures?”

Like Tavin, he had a shine for questions beneath questions. She rested a hand on the unbroken sword and called on a Vulture tooth. “The trail’s too far off to read all the way out,” she answered, then reached for a different tooth on her string. Pa’s spark burned there. “Could be past Gerbanyar by now. And Pa’s still alive. That’s all I know.”

No telling how Tavin was keeping. Dead or alive, the skinwitches had stolen him farther than she could see.

“Three days,” Jasimir said after a beat. Then he produced the scrap of slate. “We have a lot of reading practice to do.”

They made it another day and a half before the Covenant caught up.

Seven days since they’d lost Tavin and returned to the roads. It was a generous stretch, but one Fie had always known would end.

The sun was hanging low at their backs, and the prince blushing through the third verse of “The Lad from Across the Sea,” when she saw it waiting down the road.

The dead gods’ mercy called them onward: a string of bloodred smoke needled the sky.

CHAPTER TWENTY

ROYAL GHOSTS

“How far off?” Jasimir asked, squinting at the plague beacon. It near blended into the sundown-soaked sky.