The wet, sliding sound of the copper plate was instantly swallowed by the rushing of the river. The scavenger’s body went limp beneath Georgia, his heels giving one brief, spasmodic kick against the gravel before settling into the quiet of the stones. The dark red stain blooming beneath his neck was black under the moonlight, spilling into the shallow water and dissolving into the turquoise current. Georgia stood up slowly. Her breath came in even, measured sighs, completely undisturbed by what she had just done. She dropped the blood-slicked piece of copper boiler, letting it clatter uselessly onto the rocks. Behind her, the sound of violent retching cut through the wind. Corin was on his hands and knees in the shallows, vomiting water and bile into the river. His entire body shook so violently that his teeth clicked together. When he finally looked up, his face was green, his eyes wide with a horror that was directed entirely at her. "You... you killed him," Corin whispered, his voice cracking with a high-pitched, fragile terror. He scrambled backward on his rear, away from the body and away from Georgia, until his back hit the splintered hull of the skiff. "He was... he was yielding. You didn't have to—" "If he lived, he would have brought three more," Georgia interrupted, her voice as smooth and unyielding as the frozen stone beneath them. She didn't look at Corin. Instead, she knelt beside the dead man and began systematically untying his gear. "If we ran, they would have tracked us. In this wilderness, Corin, mercy is just a slow way of dying." With practiced efficiency, she unbuckled the leather harness from the scavenger's torso. She took the heavy hunting knife and its sheath, immediately strapping it to her own thigh where the torn silk of her gown exposed her skin. Next, she took his leather water skin, a small pouch containing flint and dried meat, and the crude iron crossbow. "Get up," she commanded, tossing the scavenger’s heavy fur-lined cloak toward the shivering pilot. It landed with a heavy, damp thud at his feet. "Put that on. Your clothes are soaked, and if the cold doesn't kill you tonight, the fever will." Corin stared at the fur cloak, then at the dead man it had belonged to just moments ago. A shudder ran through him, but the biting, freezing wind of the northern night made his choice for him. With shaking hands, he dragged the heavy, grease-stained furs over his shoulders, shivering as the dead man's warmth—already fading—wrapped around him. "What... what do we do with him?" Corin asked, nodding toward the corpse. "The river will take him down," Georgia said, seizing the dead man's collar and dragging the heavy body into the deeper, rushing channel of the turquoise water. With a heavy splash, the current caught the scavenger, pulling his dark silhouette into the foaming rapids and swallowing him into the shadows downriver. She walked back to the skiff, her eyes cold and scanning. "We have less than an hour before his pack realizes he isn't coming back," Georgia said, grabbing the brass wrench Corin had dropped. "The brass fittings. The copper wire. Strip them now. We are leaving the river, and we are not looking back." Corin looked at her—this delicate, pale girl who had once been the celebrated, silent jewel of the Eastern court—and realized there was nothing fragile left inside her. The Songbird had died in the sky. And the creature that had taken her place was far more dangerous than the wilderness they were about to enter.

Chapter 13: The Weight of Steel