That night, at the moon's peak, Crew had half a mind to shake her two charges awake and beg for some form of entertainment. If it were up to her, they'd have caught up to the wolf by now—not sleeping.

Hunting wolves wasn't a part of Crew's impressive resume, nor was it a common request from the Empire. The only times she hunted wolves were due to reports of the damned beasts terrorizing innocent towns. She took those jobs, only to realize afterward that the towns were killing the wolves' young. Young wolves, after all, were easier targets and slaying one was considered a mark of adulthood.

She still performed her duties those two times, but she wasn't all that pleased about it and stopped taking marks that dealt with werewolves.

The death of the princess was a werewolf mark Crew simply couldn't refuse. Literally. Most marks were shared communally and respected when another hunter claimed it, but others were handpicked—a call. The princess' killer was a call for Crew alone, and it came as no surprise to her as to why.

Crew closed her eyes, her hat cushioning the tree behind her as she reclined back. Devesh Cormaic wouldn't be able to see her here even in the daylight, but as for Crew, she could see her charges in perfect clarity. The daylight made judging distance more of a challenge, but her sight was still better than the average human and therefore made stalking a breeze.

And boring.

Crew lifted a hand of two cards, lips pursed. She studied the distressed paint on them before double-checking her imaginary opponent's cards on the tree root beside her.

She had been playing joust since she was a kid and living north of the border. As many vampires who disagree with the policies regarding werewolves do, her family opted to move south. She was still considered a vampiric infant in all ways that matter to her kind, so whatever opinions she had were null and void even now.

She played her hand—the target card, which was then followed by her imaginary opponent's own target card. It was a small triumph, though neither party won. If she couldn't win, at least her imaginary opponent couldn't, either.

Like most night, she played until dawn when the ominous, hollow sounds of the forest and distant creatures subsided and her charges woke to dappled sunlight in their eyes. Out of pure chance, that night she lost every single jousting round.

Among the many card games that circumnavigated the globe, joust was one known to only a fraction of Inveralwyn, the country across the lake on the Holy Empire's north shore. It was known to an even lesser number of Odranic people and therefore, difficult to teach in taverns where Crew often absorbed her share of socializing. Odranic people, especially this far north, preferred gambling for drinks which Crew might not have minded if she had the sluggish metabolism for liquor.

That morning, Dev glared suspiciously around the forest behind them. They had descended further into the wilderness, and so too did the cold. Frost had built up on the exposed roots and fused Dev's cloak to it with crystals that she tore up with a ripping sound.

Zoyla stood at a distance, studying Dev's paranoia with wary suspicion. She spared quick glances around them, saw nothing nefarious, and said, "Do you think she's out there?"

It took a second for Dev to answer, at which point Zoyla's skin was already prickling with unease. "Definitely," she said at last, turning to continue onward. "Her eyesight is worse in the sun, so if we stay in lighter areas we might catch a glimpse of her."

"Does she sparkle?" Zoyla asked.

Dev nearly answered before realizing what she was asked. She rose an eyebrow at Zoyla. "Of course not. Where did you hear that?"

Mildly embarrassed, Zoyla shrugged. After having lived twice as long as Dev, she expected to know more than her companion. At every corner of this trip Zoyla was being proved wrong.

She grew heated within instants, complaints rising. "It's a common myth, I suppose! You might not know it, being so young, but I grew up being told you can spot a vampire from a mile away by their glow."

In some ways, vampires did have a tendency to glow—with allure and intrigue, of which many humans lacked, though they were oblivious to this (being humans and all). Throughout Dev's years working in the palace, she was guilty of standing and staring when vampires passed her in the halls. Most vampires were cloaked or wore large-brimmed hats to improve their sight in the day, but indoors, their eyes were exposed and compelling to young Dev.

Admitting this would be about as embarrassing as confessing a childhood crush. Dev cleared her throat and said instead, "I guess there weren't as many vampires around then, so I don't blame you."

The three of them were due to cross the border by high noon that day (the third member of the party being Crew, who continued to follow against Dev's consent). Dev's sleepless shadows persisted after having spent half the night thinking of ways to throw Crew off their tracks, but came up empty.

Crew may not have had the superior scent of many other creatures, but her hearing was better, as was her eyesight in the dark. For this reason, Dev kept them close to the rivers.

Unfortunately for them, all rivers were traveling south. The mountain range that lifted the north shore from water level was carved out by glaciers in Inveralwyn. Those glaciers spread their frigid veins over the border and to where Dev and Zoyla now reminisced about swimming. The grime of the last three nights were now darkening the texture in their hands, necks, and shoulders where the rucksacks dug in.

Dev wasn't all that concerned about bathing with Zoyla around. After all, Zoyla thought she was a man and if it came to bathing, she would probably want to bathe separately for that very same reason. They'd give each other privacy, and Dev's identity would remain a secret.

Her only concern was Crew now, who might not care when she was already spying on them.

Dev chewed her lip as the two of them came upon a rugged dirt path leading to a covered bridge. They paused in its shelter to catch their breaths as the air thinned around them. The waterfall just beyond the wood paneling doubled its roar in the tunneled bridge.

They shared the water skin in the general noise of the rushing water. The longer they sat, the more Dev missed the barracks. The metallic tang in the air reminded her of the bricks and the stoney floor. She missed how dust motes scattered in the sunlight when footsteps creaked on the floorboards overhead.

And now the north was dreary and grey in the covered bridge. Damp, cold, and it burrowed under their skin through the saturated fabric of their coats.

"Is it possible that you could..." Dev started, clumsily. "I mean, if you could I suppose you would have... What I mean to say is—"

Zoyla was staring at her like Dev was a child who just tugged at her skirts, only Zoyla had never seen this child before in her life. And hated children.

Dev rubbed her hand back over her hair, and forward again, thoroughly musing it. "Your... fire. Is there some way to...?"

"Warm us up?" Zoyla finished, and Dev shrugged.

At this, Zoyla tucked her hands into the folds of her coat and uttered a shaky breath. "I don't have much more left," she confessed.

Before Dev could ask why, Zoyla's hand reached out, her fingers uncurling around a crimson crystal no larger than one of her spindly knuckles.

"It's all I have left from the palace," she said, her voice now chillingly low. "The rest were confiscated."

Dev studied the gem from a distance, her jerky slice hovering in front of her mouth. She chewed it, contemplatively, as Zoyla pulled the crystal back into the safety of her coat.

Magic wasn't commonplace in Odrana, as it was an expensive skill to maintain and learn. Potions were the most common magical practice, and some ingredients came at a high price.

She wondered how much Zoyla's fire gems cost, and felt her own coin purse ache at the thought.

Dev tore into her jerky stick with the same, dismal vigor as one goes to haul a bin of trash outside. They were down another packet, and as she balled up the paper it was preserved in, she caught a glimpse of a silhouette peeking out from around the side of the bridge entrance.

Crew, she thought, fist curling around the paper.

She shoved to her feet without thinking, startling Zoyla.

"What is it?" Zoyla said, but Dev was already storming to the entrance.

Beyond the waterfall mist, the glimpse she had of Crew vanished behind a nearby tree. Dev charged after her, and Crew jogged another few trees back.

Dev shouted, "Face me, coward!" and wound the paper ball back.

She chucked it. The humidity had soddened the paper enough to give it more oomf in the air, but Dev still missed, and Crew was out of sight.

Zoyla huffed from beneath the overhang, arms crossed. "Littering, I see," she said when Dev tried to return.

Dev groaned and shuffled off after the wad of paper. She trudged back, pissed off and growing ever more mentally threadless.

As the hike continued with ample breaks in between to catch up with the altitude, the dirt road fractured off across the last valley that opened its arms of mountainous peaks to the largest freshwater body in the entire Empire. It was this lake that connected Inveralwyn to them by two brackets—a natural bridge to the west and east, and both of which were split where the border-crossing lie.

The late Emperor Dharos had initiated construction on these two land bridges to engineer manmade canals. Where freshwater met salt, where merchants and navy ships could sail from ocean to lake and dock at the imperial city's piers—it was the largest and most impressive engineering feat of the century.

And they could see it now where a deep, stark line split the mountain in two, far down the valley in the narrowing terrane. Amidst deep green pines and timber fields, Noskait's Eastern Keep lay nestled there. The Empire's brazen, golden flag was sun-bleached on the left tower, and Noskait's provincial flag was tethered to the right. The sun was just over their right shoulder, though, and it would be another hour before they'd breach the bridge over the canal.

"It's beautiful," Zoyla commented as they sat in the shade. The fields were patterned with pines whose high canopies made for more clear forests perfect for logging, and they occupied one such field with lunch on their minds.

They boiled a chip of dry seasoning and protein in water, of which they had few left and of which Zoyla hated almost as much as the jerky. The spring water from the mountains made it sharp, though, and the steam alone warmed her a little to the taste.

They sipped from cups and watched, remiss, as a stag trotted in the distance and nearly out of range—if Dev had a bow, that is.

"What I wouldn't give for venison..." Zoyla sighed.

Dev glanced at her and said, "To be honest, I thought you were vegetarian."

"I've been eating your forsaken jerky!"

Dev picked at a crack in her cup, dejected. "Yeah, but you don't like it."

"That's because it's awful, not because it's meat."

They both watched in silence as the stag changed route, and appeared to be heading in their direction. Dev held her breath, wondering if any human in history had been capable of single-handedly taking down a buck with their barehands. If the chance presented itself, she would be the first.

The deer's antlers came into focus. It was an eight-pointer with a stiff upper body, and it walked with a bulky sway. As it huffed, coming to a slow pause to stare at them from across a space of a dozen trees, Zoyla reached out and grabbed Dev by the arm.

Just as she opened her mouth to speak, the buck slashed to the side and hit the ground with a dull thud.

Zoyla shrieked, "Oh my god!"

The buck let out a wounded gargle just as the mass that hit it moved off its side. It rose into the shape of the worst person imaginable: Crew.

"You—!" Dev cried, lunging to her feet.

Crew dashed off and swung off a nearby fallen log and into the trees, taking them one branch at a time.

Dev raced after them, only to double back to the buck. And then again where Crew vanished from sight.

Zoyla caught up with a winded huff.

The two of them stared at the fresh kill with stomachs still grumbling even after their meal. Dev's fist curled over her gut.

"Do you think she'll come back for it?" Zoyla asked.

Dev bent over the creature where neck was still and exposed. A stream of black ran from a circular indentation—Crew's teeth, surely.

With mild disgust, Dev looked up at Zoyla and said, "I think she already got her fill."

Not only that, but as Dev heaved the beast to the side, they found Crew's knife still in its ribs, just under its leg. Dev wanted to scream at the sight. Not only was she being taunted by her future killer, but she was being armed by her, too!

Dev yanked the knife out and said, "Avert your eyes—or better yet, head back to the fire."

"Why? What are you—"

Dev sunk the hunting knife in and Zoyla audibly gagged.

They feasted past high noon and into the evening. Neither of them wanted to leave the fire, which had started small and for necessity only, and now crackled and popped with the smell of crisp, smoky delights. Their cumulative homesickness died down just enough to be bearable. They could yearn for palace meals all over again, but this was a close second.

With so much remaining and not wanting it to go to waste, they rotated slices over the hours to prepare fresh jerky to replenish their supply. As Dev manned the whole affair, Zoyla watched in gloomier and gloomier silence as she worried for the princess' safety.

Is she eating all right? Zoyla thought. She knew raw animals were normal for a wolf's diet, but the princess wasn't raised on such bacteria. She'd be sensitive to it—possibly sick from it.

Innately she knew that Princess Morrow would prefer her meals cooked, and also knew that Princess Morrow had never cooked a meal in her life. She had spectated in the kitchen, of course, but her hands had never touched a knife. She wouldn't have a knife out here.

"You look so serious," Dev commented.

Zoyla cleared mind and expression with a discrete cough into her shoulder. "I'm just wondering if we should cross the border today when we have so much more left to cook," she said.

They both glanced back at the buck. It was too heavy for Dev to haul on her own, so they kept their distance from it.

"Best to leave it for the forest," Dev said, resuming her duties over the fire. "Better than cooking meat that's already going bad."

"Already?" Zoyla said. When Dev merely shrugged, she sighed. "That doesn't seem..."

"It's not littering."

"Yes, well, it feels like it to me. You should be ashamed of yourself."

Dev laughed, bewildered. "Me? I'm not the one who—"

Zoyla turned her head to shout off into the forest, wherever Crew might be. "Shame on you!"

Distantly, they might have caught Crew's voice on the wind echoing, "I fed you!"

Dev poked at the skillet with a bitter tune in her head that sounded a lot like, Fattening us up, more like.

Upon the itchy sensation of Zoyla frowning at her, Dev relented. She pushed to her feet and fetched the knife for one last farewell. Over her shoulder, she tossed her hand up in a flippant, "If we get food poisoning, just know it's—"

A pop! crackled like fireworks in the distance. Zoyla jumped at the sound, turning to look.

Something hot burst like soup down Dev's left side.

With a hitch, Dev reached under her raised arm where heat began to seep across her skin. It pooled onto her hand where she cupped a divot in her vest that definitely wasn't there before.

"Devesh?" Zoyla said, confused.

Dev looked down, winded before she could confirm that it was indeed blood, and a lot of it.

Like announcing a surprise forecast of rain, Dev said, "I've been shot."

Upon the second pop!, Dev didn't think twice. In fact, she couldn't control it—she dropped to the ground with a graceless thud and rolled onto her good side. A sharp heave in her ribcage called all attention to the wound now, but reassured her that her lungs were intact despite the proximity.

The bullet sang past them and chipped into the root of a nearby tree. A spray of dirt and bark kicked up after it.

Zoyla shrieked, ducking down and covering the back of her head. "Don't shoot!" she cried, as if that would make a difference to someone who was already shooting.

A moment later, beyond the roar in Dev's ears, she heard the telltale chink of a flintlock being cocked. They were close enough now to speak.

"Didn't you two idiots read the signs!" the man yelled across the distance.

It was the closest Zoyla had ever gotten to having her head disconnected from her body, and yet she was being asked to read signs?!

Her hope that Dev had the wherewithal to say something fizzled out. Dev was flat on her back now, only one hand managing to keep the wound at bay while the other struggled to lift.

"No! We didn't see any!" Zoyla cried.

"You're hounds then?!" he shouted back.

She groveled on the dead grass, heaving a bitter sob. "No!" Her voice broke at the expectation of what came next.

Her parents, everything they gave for her better life, was supposed to start and end in the palace. She would be cared after as a valued member of the Emperor's family, and they were supposed to cherish her as a light in Princess Morrow's life that could only be extinguished with age, and years spent well and healthy. She wasn't supposed to die like this!

The gun lowered from the landowner's hand. "Oh. Why didn't you say so in the first place!" he shouted, hitching the strap over his shoulder.

He shouldered the rifle and stomped over, cursing under his breath. Zoyla's eyelashes scraped against the frosted grass as she blinked in alarm. Her eyes burned before she ever felt the cool shadow of the man standing over them, offering his hand.

"Get up," he said. "The name's Bo, and your friend's going into shock."

Sure enough, within the seconds it took for them to address the bloodied Dev on the ground, Zoyla had gone from the most distressed state she had ever experienced in her entire life, to the most fury she had ever experienced in her entire life. If she had an ounce of gem to burn, she'd do it in a heartbeat if it meant damning Bo to the Pit.

She was so livid, in fact, that she couldn't speak as she stood, trembling, over Dev's partially-unconscious body as the man patted Dev's cheeks and said, "Oi, stay conscious for us there."

"Yeah, sure thing," Dev said, voice thin between her purpling lips.

Bo huffed as he propped his rifle up against the trunk of the tree, one knee to the ground, and said, "What's your name, kid?"

"You're asking for his name?" Zoyla said, voice viciously low.

The man gave her a dull look. "You got a better idea to keep him focused?" he said.

A sudden gust of wind nearly sent Zoyla staggering were it not for the weight of her own wrath keeping her grounded. Bo's hat flipped clean off his head.

Between them, Crew now stood staring down at Dev. "I've got an idea," she said.

At the sound of Crew's voice, Dev's breath hitched into a scathing, "You..."

Zoyla didn't think to question a vampire being near such fresh and ready blood until Crew's eyes flashed red before saying, "You're lucky I had a snack earlier."

Dev clawed a hand up, seizing the man by the shoulder with enough force to sway him. Bo only just managed to unbutton Dev's vest before he squeezed a hand under Dev's side to inspect her back.

"That'll work. And we have good news," he said.

What, that you have a bounty on your head? Zoyla thought, because then there would be no repercussions to killing him.

Bo looked up with a wane smile. "The bullet went through, so this'll be an easy stitch. Either of you have thread and needle?"

"I didn't exactly bring my embroidery kit with me," Crew said.

"You..." Dev grunted again, but was once again drowned out by Zoyla realizing that she did, in fact, have a sewing kit.

It didn't dawn on her to offer help because she felt grossly incompetent to this sort of thing. "Oh. Oh," she gasped, snapping into motion. "Yes! I have one in my bag."

"While you get that," Bo said, turning to Crew, "help me with his undershirt."

Dev's hand flopped over Bo's finger's, suddenly breathless. "Wait, don't—" she started, but Crew was already ducking down to answer the request like she had been waiting for this moment her entire life. It was weirdly instantaneous, to Zoyla, that Crew would be the one to offer assistance—but Zoyla's hands were too busy rooting through her bag.

The laces came undone, and within seconds, so too did Dev's secret.