“He’s fine,” Liv replies. “He was tired from the trip. I could tell he was anxious to get home.” Vale arrived earlier, after supper. For the past month, he’s been away negotiating with a northern Blood Lord, Sable of the Horns. The Tides’ food situation is getting desperate. Aether storms for the last winters have been brutally strong, torching stretches of farmland, so our crop yields have dropped lower than ever. Vale told us that when he returned from seeing Sable, he’d have solutions. He promised us we wouldn’t go hungry.

“He was in good spirits, seeing Mila and Talon,” Liv continues. Vale’s wife and son are both ill. It’s been hard for Perry and Liv, and I can’t imagine how that must make Vale feel. I try not to think about it. I’d rather not waste my sympathy on him.

Liv kicks a stone. I hear it skitter over the dirt trail. “I think he was relieved to see they’re doing well. I mean . . . as well as can be expected. He spent most of the night telling Talon about his travels through Ranger’s Edge. He said it was the hardest journey he’s ever taken. That he didn’t know what cold was until this past month.”

I nod. The Edge is known for its harsh winds and icy slopes. “Anything else?” I ask. Like everyone, I want to know what solutions Vale has come up with.

Liv is quiet for so long that I begin to wonder if she heard me. Finally she looks over and says, “He asked me to go hunting with him in the morning.”

My knees lock up. “He did?”

Liv turns when she realizes I’ve stopped. She nods. “Perry was there too, but Vale was clear. He only wants me to go with him.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah,” Liv says. “Huh.”

As we resume our walk, I can’t stop thinking that this request—command?—is strange. Vale seldom hunts; he’s usually too busy attending to his duties as Blood Lord. When he does hunt, he rarely includes Perry or Liv. My guess is that he doesn’t like competition and wants to be the only Scire.

There’s little warmth between the siblings now, but it wasn’t always this way. When their father was still Blood Lord, they were close. We all knew what happened to Perry in their house when Jodan drank, and I think the terror of those nights kept the three of them bonded. I can still remember Liv and Vale sitting on either side of Perry in the cookhouse, pressed against him like a human shield after he’d taken a beating. But when Vale became Blood Lord after Jodan died, things changed. Vale keeps Liv and Perry at a distance now. The day he put the Blood Lord chain around his neck, he became their lord first and their brother second.