Where horns and hooves and howling wind had raged, now reigned silence.
Fie did not hear Tavin hit the ground. She did not hear the prince cry out beside her. She did not hear the triumphant yips of skinwitches scenting their victory at hand.
She heard naught a thing but the horrified roar in her skull.
Jasimir crawled over to the edge of the canyon, his mouth moving in the fading sunlight. Shouting? Was he calling down to the Hawk? To the Vultures?
Keep the oath.
Tavin’s last words sent the cogs in her head grating into a mad spin. The gates opened; noise and fear and wrath flooded back in.
Gone, he was gone—
You have to keep—you have to—
She had a screaming prince and a broken bridge and a pack of Vultures coming for her head. And she had an awful cold part of her that knew no matter what, getting caught by Tatterhelm could bring naught but hell on their heads.
With a ragged sob, she drew Pa’s broken sword. Then she hurled herself at the prince.
He didn’t see her coming. She slammed into his back, knocking him flat to the ground. Something crunched in his pack.
“What in the twelve hells are you doing?” he gasped.
“Stay down,” she growled through her tears. “You’ll give us away.”
Jasimir thrashed, trying to toss her off his back. “No, we have to help him—he can’t—we can’t just—”
The hoofbeats slowed below. If the prince kept yelling, they’d all be rutted.
Fie flipped the broken sword and leveled its jagged, trembling point to Jasimir’s right eye.
“Stay down and shut up, or else,” she said, ice in her voice, ice in her spine, ice in her gut. “You can still be a king with one eye.”
Jasimir went still. For once, he’d taken her at her word.
“… don’t understand!”
Tavin’s voice drifted up from the ravine.
“I’m not—you—you’re after the prince, right?” he whined. “He abandoned me, him and that Crow girl—they cut the bridge—”
“Shut him up.” A gravelly bass rolled off the stones. Fie had heard it before: Business of the queen.
Fie heard a crack and a brief yelp. If she strained, she could peer just over the edge.…
The Vultures surrounded Tavin, trapping him against the far rock wall, their backs to her. Tavin had yanked his sleeves around his hands and wrists, hiding his burn. His left shoulder sagged in a way that made Fie queasy, and blood painted his mouth and chin bright in the dying light.
“No, you’ve got it wrong,” Tavin said, piteous as Barf begging for scraps. “I’m the double. The prince took off with that girl. They tricked me, they cut the bridge while I was crossing. I’m just a decoy to slow you all down.”
Jasimir squirmed beneath her. Fie twitched the sword’s jag closer. Tavin always had some scheme up his sleeve, she had to believe in him—
And if that scheme meant dying for the prince?
Her fingers slipped a little on the hilt.
She inhaled through her nose, imagining cold iron running down her backbone, keeping her steady.
“If he’s right, we’re losing time.” A third skinwitch twisted about to scan the canyon. Fie ducked from sight.
“It’s a bare-assed lie.” Viimo’s drawl echoed up. “Princeling doesn’t fancy girls. He ain’t running off with one. The double’s the one with a shine for the Crow.”
“No,” Tavin pleaded, “they left me, they left me—”
Fie knew it for a ruse. She kenned his game now: let them chew over the half-baked lie and never know they’d swallowed another whole.
The words still tore at her heart without mercy.
She’d abandoned him just like she’d abandoned her kin in Cheparok, in the hands of murderers, all for the sake of this damned oath.
“This one’s noisy for a Hawk,” another skinwitch observed. “I’m with Viimo.”
“You have to believe me,” Tavin babbled. “They’re getting away—”
“Pipe down.” Another crack and cry. Fie’s gut wrenched.
She wanted to set the canyon ablaze. She wanted to wipe the blood from his face. She wanted to leave naught of the skinwitches but scorched earth.
Broken steel shuddered in her hand, less than a finger-span from Jasimir.
“One way to know for certain,” Tatterhelm rumbled. “Test him.”
Test him? She didn’t dare try for another look. She caught a jingle, a thin scratch-scratch-scratch—then a hiss. Murmurs swept through the Vultures.
“Aye,” Viimo said. “It’s over. That’s our prince.”
“Pack him up,” ordered Tatterhelm. “We’ll send a message-hawk to the queen after we get back to the caravan.”
The air clotted with shuffling, grunts, and whickering horses. Fie kept still, kept steady, kept the broken blade trained on the prince’s eye lest he ruin it all, kept thoughts of Tavin at arm’s length.
She shivered. Tears streaked down her chin, landing in Jasimir’s dusty hair. She told herself she would not grieve.
Part of her knew she didn’t. Grief scarred over wounds. This, now—all this meant was she still couldn’t stop the bleeding.
A horn shrieked the marching order to a chorus of victory whoops. Slow and unstoppable, the hoofbeats and horns drained from the ravine, until only the howling wind remained.
Tavin was gone.
Fie rolled off the prince and, for a long moment, stared at the sky purpling like a bruise above.
She wanted Tavin’s smile. She wanted his arms around her, the warmth of him at her back, the moment not three days past where she believed, really believed, that perhaps they two could put things to rights.
But it didn’t matter what she wanted when it was far, far from her grasp.
In the long, fearful months after she’d found the ruins of her ma, night after night, she’d kept watch with Pa. Madcap, newer to the band than Fie, had called her Little Witness: the dead Crow god, a beggar girl who saw all misdeeds and recorded them for the Covenant’s judgment. Likely Fie looked the part, staring out into the dark from under Pa’s cloak with her wide, solemn, black eyes, her hair in ragged tufts that she wouldn’t yet let Wretch tidy.
It wasn’t long before someone told Madcap what had happened to Fie’s ma, and they never called her Little Witness again. But Pa told no one the truth of it: Fie only kept watch because she couldn’t bear to dream.
Instead, Pa told her stories.
He told her tales of tricksters and queens as they sat and watched the roads for strangers in the night. He told her of heroes who fought monsters from beyond the mountains and seas. He told her of Ambra and the tigers she rode, the villains she conquered, the fires she burned through Sabor. He told her how every witch of a caste was one of their dead gods reborn, even him. Even her.
And when Fie at last fell asleep, she did not see her mother. She saw adventures grander than her world of dusty roads and shrouded dead. And she wanted to believe Pa: once upon a time, she could have been a god.
She did not feel like that god now.
She felt like Little Witness. She’d done nothing but watch.
The sky above swam and marbled with tears.
This was all her doing. She’d chosen this road. She’d brokered the oath herself. And if she’d been stronger, if she’d been a better witch, if she’d kenned what Tavin meant to do—
No. A stronger witch still wouldn’t have made it all the way to Trikovoi. Tavin had known this day would come; he’d planned it for near ten years.
That’s the game, get it? They’ve naught to lose by playing with us.
Her own words echoed back, cold and hard.
And there’s no way for us to win.
It was always going to come to this.
She wasn’t a god or a hero on a grand quest to slay some beast from beyond the seas.
She was a chief. And her monster sat on a throne.
So you cut your losses, Tavin had said.
It was harder to believe when every loss had a name. Tavin. Pa. Wretch. Madcap. Swain. All her kin.
Even Hangdog.
The oath, the oath, that damned oath had eaten them all whole.
That damned oath was all she had left.
By every dead god, she was going to keep it. There was one way off this road, and that was to walk it to its end.
Fie took a deep breath and closed her eyes. If she didn’t think of him, think of any of them, she could do this.
She sat up, aching from crown to toe, then crawled over to Tavin’s pack. Jasimir didn’t stir from the ground, eyes clenched shut, mouth moving in something like a prayer. She only caught snatches of words:
“… not dishonor my blood … a Hawk who … not forsake…”
Her hands shook as she worked at the knots cinching the pack shut.
The words came clearer now. “… follow until I must lead. I will shield until I must strike.”
She cut through the ties with Pa’s sword.
“By my blood, I swear, I will serve my nation and the throne above all.”
She did not look at Tavin’s sheathed blade still lying in the dirt.
The prince’s mumble cut off. Jasimir pushed himself up to glower at her. Clean tracks ran down his face from red-rimmed eyes. “That—that isn’t yours.”
“Aye,” Fie said dully. “You’ll have to carry some of it, too.”
“It belongs to Tavin,” Jasimir said. “It’s his.”
Fie’s mouth twisted. She turned back to the pack and pulled out the cooking pot. “He knew what he was doing.”
“We have to go after him. Hawks don’t forsake their blood.”
“He wanted us to keep the oath.”
“Stop that. Stop saying he knew and he wanted. He’s not dead.”
The pot fell. She didn’t answer.
Even if they didn’t catch the fading Peacock glamour, sooner or later, one of the skinwitches would spot the scar tangling about Tavin’s wrist, a burn that a fireproof Phoenix prince would never have. Fie just prayed they caught on while they still had use for hostages.
“He’s not dead,” Jasimir repeated, angry.
Fie just pulled a spare cloak out of the pack, winding it around her shaking fist. Her silence only seemed to stoke his anger.
“He only gave himself up so you could get away,” Jasimir railed on. “He did this for you. And you didn’t even—you won’t even go after him. You don’t care.”
Fie bit her tongue hard, hard enough to taste blood. Then she looked at the modest heap of Tavin’s supplies and decided she’d carry them on her own after all. Anything to leave this damned canyon faster.
“You could have saved him. You have every Phoenix tooth in Sabor. Why didn’t you do anything? You just let them—”
Finally Fie picked up Tavin’s sword and stood.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Jasimir demanded, scrambling to his feet.
“We have to leave,” she croaked.
“Twelve hells we do!” Jasimir’s voice cracked. “We’re getting him back.”
“Shut your mouth.” She needed him to stop talking about Tavin. She needed to cut her losses and move on, move out before anything else fouled up.
“You did nothing, it’s your fault—”
She spun around. “Aye, to be sure it’s all my fault, it’s not like you kept harping on Hawks and duty and how he had to keep you alive—”
“You didn’t stop him, you let him go—” Jasimir sputtered back.
“—and it’s my fault your rat-heart cousin turned on us in Cheparok, and I’m sure it’s my fault your rotten pappy let the Oleanders grow strong enough to sway a queen, aye—”
“Don’t talk about politics you don’t understand—”
“—and of course, when this all goes guts-up because no one in their right mind will buy that you have a drop of Ambra in you, that’ll be my fault, too, aye?”
“How much more will you let them take from you?” The prince’s hands balled into fists. “They have your father, they have your family, and now they have Tavin. What else are you going to give up?”
Fie turned, half to get moving, half because her lip quivered. “We have to keep the oa—”
“Fuck the oath!” Jasimir shoved her from behind. The sword tumbled from her grip and clattered to the earth.
Fie stood a moment, breathing hard. Then she collected the sword and turned, slow, to face Jasimir. His chin jutted out, eyes burning in the bloody dusk.
“Say that again,” she rasped.
He glared dead at her, tears cutting fresh lines down his face. “Fuck. The. Oath.”
The iron in her spine yielded to murderous fire.
A curious thing happened then: the crown prince of Sabor looked at Fie, and for the first time, fear crept into his eyes.
Perhaps it was the sword that she had and he didn’t. Perhaps it was the memory of what she’d done to Viimo and the knowledge that more Hawk teeth waited in the bag at Fie’s side.
Perhaps it was the fact that to most of the nation, he was good as dead.
For the first time, both of them kenned he was wholly at her mercy.
Fie cocked her head, eyes glittering sharp. Some part of her had been ready for this from the moment he tried to duck cutting the oath. He could spout his high-minded hogwash all he wanted, but she’d waited for what happened when it stopped being easy to keep his word. And here they were.
What’s your word worth, Hangdog asked on a night too far away, when you’re good as dead?
Nothing, it turned out. It was worth nothing.
It’d be so easy. She could march the prince into Tatterhelm’s camp at sword point. She’d barter all the hostages back. She’d buy them time.
She’d look after her own.
You’re the girl with all the teeth, Viimo said on a faraway dune. Maybe we can deal with you, too.
Just like they’d dealt with Hangdog.
A dull despair smothered that merciless fire. Aye, she could hand Tatterhelm the prince. Then he’d fill her kin with arrows because he could.
And even if she could get them all away, she’d still have one moon at most before Oleanders turned the roads red with Crow blood.
All the fire and steel in the world, and she’d still always be a Crow. Aught else was one of Pa’s stories, a child’s game of pretend, a little girl riding a goat, hoisting a stick, and calling herself Ambra.
“That oath,” Fie forced through a choked sob, “is all I have left. And it’s cost me everything. Everything. So spare me your noise about what I’ve given up. You didn’t care when I lost all my kin, as long as you were safe. As long as I kept the oath. You know why I made you swear before the Covenant? Because I knew the second that oath started to pinch, you’d run.”
Jasimir’s eyes flashed in the gloom. “It turns out you’re better at abandoning your family than I am. Leave if you want. I won’t forsake my blood.”
Fie regarded him for a long moment. The frost reclaimed her voice. “Aye. I’m going to Trikovoi. I don’t have a choice. And neither do you. You’re coming with.”
Jasimir stared at her, fists clenched. Then he sat in the dirt, back to her. “Go ahead and try.”
The last of the sunset bled out, and a chill settled on the mountainside like a fog.
Fie scrubbed at her face with a rough sleeve until the tears smeared away.
She marched over to the prince, wrapped both hands around the straps of the pack on his back, and began to walk.
“Hey—hey—” Jasimir squawked in protest as she yanked him along. “Stop—!”
“No.” Fie sought the horizon for the lingering stain of sunset past. Trikovoi lay to the northeast; the sun and moon would have to be her compass.
Then she staggered and fell on her rear. Jasimir had slipped his arms from the straps.
Fie shot to her feet before he did. In one savage lunge, she snatched a handful of his collar. And she began to walk again. The dull nails in her soles crunched against the rocky earth.
Jasimir half stumbled, half dragged behind her. “Let—me—go,” he wheezed. “You faithless—I order you to—I order you—”
Fie let go, then gave him a spiteful push to the ground.
“Ken me,” she grated out. “You will keep your oath. That’s what Pa and Tavin gave themselves up for and you know it. So you and I can walk to Trikovoi nice and quiet, just like they asked. Don’t even have to pretend to like each other. Or, by every dead god, I will drag you to Trikovoi myself.”
She turned to the northeast and pointed to the crescent winking above. “One week left in Peacock Moon. Choose quick.”
She began to walk.
For a moment, she heard the scrape of her own footfalls, alone.
Then she caught a scuffle. The prince’s footsteps gritted behind her.
Not another word passed between them as they marched in silence, stiff and hollow, into the swelling dark.