“I didn’t mean to cause you trouble,” Tavin whispered close behind her. She started. Damn if the dead Hawk Queen hadn’t trained the boys well. “We … we can forget the game.”

That settled it. Fie’d be cinders in a pyre before she let Hangdog say who she could sit at shells with.

“You need a whole set of gambling shells, aye?” she asked, a little too loud. “Madcap? Can we use yours?”

Madcap tossed their small leather bag over Swain’s head, then followed it with a less-than-discreet wink. Fie ground her teeth and stalked to a clear patch of sandy dirt big enough for both her and Tavin.

He sat a moment after she did, glancing sidelong at Hangdog, then dragged a line in the dirt between them. “It’s a fairly simple game. We both start with six shells.” Fie handed half the bag over. He dropped his shells into two rows of three, and she followed suit.

“There are twelve rounds,” Tavin continued. “Each round, you can either take a shell from my side…” He reached for a shell on her side of the line. She seized his wrist out of habit. He snorted a laugh. “Or try to stop me from trying to take one from yours, just like that. Once you touch a shell, it’s yours. After twelve rounds, whoever has the most shells wins.”

She let go of him and blamed the flush up her neck on the campfire. The one a solid dozen paces off. “That’s all?”

“For the basic game. At court we play a couple different variations”—his voice hitched for the briefest moment—“but those are more … complicated. Any questions?” She shook her head. “Then on the count of three. One—two—three.”

He tried for the same shell as before. She caught his hand before it came close.

“Well done,” he said, and drew a tick mark to the side. “Round two.”

This time she caught him again, reaching for an outside shell.

“Beginner’s luck,” he huffed, the corner of his mouth tilting up even as he sat back.

“You’re easy to read,” Fie returned. That was a half-truth. She’d sorted a handful of truths about the prince’s Hawk by now, though most ran as deep as the line in the sand between them. Yet one was clear enough: she’d met holy pilgrims who put less effort into getting to their dead god’s tombs than Tavin did trying to make it onto her good side.

Time to sort out an uglier truth, then.

“Round—”

“It wasn’t right,” Fie interrupted. “What Hangdog said about you.”

About us, that ugly voice whispered. Fie kept that to herself.

Tavin blinked at her, wordless. She’d managed to throw him off-balance once more. The question was if that meant Hangdog had the truth of it.

“Thank you,” Tavin said quietly. “If you’re concerned I’m going to hurt him—”