Dear dead, the queen's skeleton had to be carried, along with the sacks of supplies and the tent. Or, part of her had to be carried. Her shin bone, right foot; the rest of her crawled along okay.

You and Tatter-cloak trekked away from the tiny town and the smudge of gray tents, letting the clanking percussive bones do all the talking. It was easier that way. You both knew what happened; not that many days ago and the skeleton was a real, physical person, determined with the force of a mountain to see her queendom avenged.

Not that she ever used that word.

You walked, through the tundra, Tatter-cloak leading by squinting at the red sun and muttering about the after-solstice and its season of navigation. You walked, through the tundra, your senses straining backward for some kind of familiar blood in the myriad of the town's textures, like you'd left someone important behind.

Tatter-cloak broached the topic barely before noon. "So...did she do it?" he called, pausing to let you catch up.

"Do what?"

"You know...kill the empress?"

"Yes."

You both trod forward, shoulders burdened by sacks.

"How are you sure?" Tatter-cloak muttered.

"The fire. I saw her dancing," your gaze slid sideways. Your boots crushed moss, kicked stones. "Did you want to hear more?"

Tatter-cloak shook his head. You both slowed, since the crawling bones beside you had wandered into mud and struggled to roll free. "Just...I hope she didn't regret it. Afterward, when they caught her."

"I didn't see that part," you said. Glanced sideways again. "I guess you're officially king of the Nunait."

Tatter-cloak grimaced. "I've been thinking I don't like that word. Makes me think of either Panuk, or that slimy murderer."

You tilted your head. "So...no king?"

"Maybe I could just be the royal, or--" he shook his head. "No, that sounds dumb."

"You're also not technically royal by marriage or birth," you said.

"That doesn't matter," Tatter-cloak waved a hand. "Only half the queens and kings of the Nunait were descendants of other royals. That's a luxury of family inheritance."

The jet bird cometed behind you, boulders cracking, mud splatting. You sighed. "Meal break?" you asked.

"Sure," he laughed breathily. "You probably weren't interested in hearing the whole dynastic saga of the palace city, were you?"

You shrugged. "Probably less terrifying than the saga of death mages. I only know that one back a single generation, but still pretty bad," you carefully knelt in a patch of relatively mud-less moss and relieved your shoulders of their burdens.

"I mean, some of the rulers did pretty terrifying stuff," Tatter-cloak knelt across from you. He unknotted a sack, peered inside, wrinkled his nose, and set it aside. "Do you have the vegetable bag?"

"I don't remember," you muttered, fingers working to unknot the sacks beside you.

***

Morning glows a soft gray in the pristine bathroom. I open my eyelids, gaze blurring at the papery screen in the doorframe. Rustling feathers announce the jet bird waking.

I pry fingers away from my face, coated in sticky aquamarine. Achily, I sit up. The cloak holds a darkening puddle the width of both fists. The contents of the backpack lie half scattered across the tile, none of them bandages. I don't remember falling asleep.

The jet bird flutters free of the tub. Alights with clacking claws on the rim. Her blood shifts from drowsy snowfall to inquisitive wind and she tilts her head.

"Don't be surprised," I mutter. "It's just this again." And I push myself toward the backpack to find the bandages in the faint light. The jet bird hops from the rim of the tub to the hollow sink. Squawks. I glare at her, nobody knows she is here, I can't imagine the thieving room owner would be happy about a bird roosting in the pristine bathroom. Now slicked in blood.

I find the corner of the bandages sticking out of the lumped-up extra cloak, at the bottom of the backpack. I shake the cloak over the tile and the dark roll falls out, wheeling into the pristine wall. Teeters and falls sideways. Glaring, I grab the roll, free hand catching a drop of blood trying to plummet to my shirt. Then I crawl to the sink.

The jet bird crawls up my arm to my shoulder, I push the faucet handle up and down and it squeaks. I reach for the handle by the tub instead, pump it up and down, water spurting stingily. I glare at it. But, I suck in a breath and put my face under the faucet and pump, down and up, cold water scouring my skin in brief bursts.

I pull away from the faucet, drip water over the sink and unwind the roll of bandages, tear off a length and plaster it to my jaw. Tear off another length, plaster it to my chin. Another over my lips. Viciously down my cheeks.

I hurl the roll of bandages at the backpack in the corner. I rub water from my eyes, I am ice, I'd say I hate the bandages but that's not the whole truth.

The jet bird squawks. Patient, she suddenly seems. Squawking instead of crashing through the door in hunger's claws for breakfast. I nod at her, then splay my fingers out and collect the puddle of blood from the cloak on the floor, trickle it up towards the sink and use it to scrape off the crusted remains of dried blood on the white glaze. I am halfway successful. I use the tub pump to rinse off my hands. Wielding my dripping knuckles, I scrub out the stained sink, and halo the slightly un-dried blood above my fingertips, making it dance weakly like a day old birthday wish.

The jet bird squawks, again. I nod at her. Vaguely shoving the tossed contents of the backpack toward the corner, I rise up and slide the door open. Today, I wish the market not open. I wish the streets empty on this too-early morning. But already, the textures of bustling blood burst the courtyard at its seams, utterly ignorant of me.

***

And that, dear dead, was how you found a little town by the seaside. By walking.

You and Tatter-cloak left the queen's bones in a patch of pale green grasses, scattered them to make it look unintentional. The charcoal stains helped. Gave them age.

You and Tatter-cloak walked to the little town by the seaside, smoke curling from the tallest building. A building with the skeleton structure of giant fish ribs, animal skin stretched taut into an unnatural pyramid.

You both walked to the little town, more little than town, you counted four buildings with your darting eyes and ten people with your questing senses.

"Good day!" Tatter-cloak called, pausing at the last edge of grasses bumping to black sand. You stopped behind him.

Tatter-cloak cupped his hand around his mouth. "Good day!" You both waited. "Maybe no one's around?" he suggested.

"I count ten," you said.

His eyebrows furrowed, gaze studying the town. "We bring dire news!" he shouted.

One of the textures moved. A tent shifted, a door sliced open, and a figure in bright green unfolded onto the beach.

"Good day!" Tatter-cloak called again.

The figure in bright green, tall, waved a hand.

"Let's go," Tatter-cloak stepped forward, sand sliding under his boots. You followed, bags on your shoulders bouncing.

The bright green figure resolved into a woman, white braids coiled about her ears. Tatter-cloak waved at her, and she dipped her head. Briefly. Clasped her arms in front of her. A few steps away Tatter-cloak stopped, and you did too.

"What dire news?" the woman asked, consonants thick and round.

"The queen," Tatter-cloak said, fingers fluttering. "Is dead. The Jani empress killed her."

The woman frowned, eyes glittering brightly. "We have heard no news of a Jani empress for...a year. She comes to our land?"

You tilted your head, straining to make out a sound like laughter, or bird calls, or splashing waves.

"Yes, she comes to our land," he said. "She burns it. And now she has killed our queen, in front of an audience of witnesses. We fled from that place."

A thundering heartbeat in the tent behind the woman gradually quieted. Then a slow pulse, like a whispering breeze against your fingertips, became clearer. "You've got a baby," you blurted. Tried to swallow back the words, tilted your head and wished for the laughter, or bird calls--a baby's cries--to splash in your ears as a reason you would know. Silence.

The woman in bright green blinked. "Yes." she blinked again.

"Sorry," Tatter-cloak extended an arm to you, tent cords swaying from it. "I forgot to introduce us. I am Uyagaq, and this is..."

"Kaloona," you said. Meaning foreigner, more or less.

Tatter-cloak rushed on. "Can you spare hospitality? We don't have a place to live."

The woman in bright green kept blinking at you. You shifted uncomfortably. A baby screamed, and broke the silence.

"You can stay," the woman spoke. "Until we leave with the freezing ocean, and journey to the hunting island," she lifted a finger, pointed to the fourth tent--empty. "None of us live there. The sea sickness took my daughter, days ago."

Tatter-cloak audibly gulped. "Thank you. For..." he trailed off, and side-stepped away down the beach. You frowned at the woman. Who stood still like a carved glacier, pointing to the abandoned tent.

***

Dear dead, you pushed into the tent ahead of Tatter-cloak, who mumbled frantically, "she gave us the dead tent? That's basically a curse!"

You, naturally, ignored him.

"Hospitable!? Why, wh--" he scoffed, boots scuffing the sand.

You found the tent bare, cleaned out, why had they left it standing at all?

"That's not hospitable!"

You sighed, relieving the bags to the dark whale-skin floor.

"She hates us already!"

"Talk softer," you whispered to the wall. "And get in here."

The tent flap opened, light dancing off the ocean. "Sorry," Tatter-cloak hissed. "She gave us the dead tent. Someone died in here days ago! Do you know how cursed that is?"

You leveled a glare at him. "You're worried about that?"

"I am worried about being stabbed in the middle of the night by someone who hates us, yes," he hesitantly stepped inside. Sniffed. "It smells better than I thought."

"You can put the sacks down," you scooted to the corner, but he just crouched, eyes examining the ground.

"You don't think there's a bone about to stab me through the floor, do you?"

You shook your head. Scooted deeper into the bowels of the tent. "The only bones are in the walls."

Tatter-cloak reluctantly sat. The sacks slid from his arms and he rolled them to the wall, beside you. He shifted to his knees, shoulder to the entrance flap. "Now what?"

You raised a finger. Pointed to the door. Tatter-cloak gave a puzzled eyebrow squish. The tent flap opened. "May I come inside?" Tatter-cloak's eyebrows rose in understanding.

"Of course," Tatter-cloak scooted away. "This is your tent."

"It is my grandmother's tent," a boy, parka near-black, crawled through the flap on three limbs, the fourth holding a crinkly package. "And you are guests, so I should ask permission." The door swayed in his wake, and you found him less a child, closer to your age. Chin sharp, arms long. "I brought fish," he set the crinkly package in the circle of light from the tent's top.

You wiped clean the grimace forming in your lips. "I'm not very hungry right now," you said, swallowing against the spreading scent of fish oil. Tatter-cloak reached forward and grabbed the package, pulling it to his lap.

"A messenger came by two days ago," the boy said. "Saying what you said."

"About the queen?" Tatter-cloak asked, over the rustling package.

"Yes. But also..." his eyes darted between you. "About the death mage who killed her and her husband. The messenger said the new king is asking the good people of the Nunait to bring the death mage to justice."

The rustling package went abruptly still. "What?" came Tatter-cloak's muffled voice.

You picked the least damaging thing. "How did the messenger get here so fast?"

The boy's brown eyes fixated on you. "She rode a big creature. Two legs, looked very furry above the legs. Ran very fast."

"She must have gone directly to the coast from the camp," you said quietly, "since we didn't sense her."

"What?" Tatter-cloak interrupted. "The new king?"

You'd been trying to ignore that part.

"And I'm sorry," Tatter-cloak added, "but it was a fire that killed the queen, thank you very much." The crinkly package ended up bouncing off the far wall. Fish oil reeked from the splattered landing.

"So," the boy fidgeted. Didn't seem capable of settling on the scattered fish, you, Tatter-cloak, the door, or his wringing hands. "One of you two aren't the death mage, are you?"

You'd been trying to ignore that part too.

"What is it to you?" you asked. Crawled to the door, trying not to inhale the fish oil scouring the roof of your mouth. "I'm leaving. That smell..." you stepped out onto the black beach, boots crunching.

"I'll clean up," Tatter-cloak's voice floated after you, towards the waves. "Don't worry about it."

The erratic heart of the boy ducked from the death tent, footsteps quiet like you were a predator to sneak from. Wordlessly, he scurried away.