“She’s coming around.”
“Am not,” Fie grumbled into unyielding dark.
“I, for one, am not convinced,” another voice said, dry. Fie had heard that one before, grating through dust and smoke … Jasimir had called her Draga—
Her eyes flew open and saw only stone.
Fie blinked and craned her aching head about, tallying up the surroundings. Stone walls, stone floors, stone ceiling, diamond-shaped windows letting in near-sunset light. Dark figures at a desk. Another figure crouching by her side.
The weight of her swords was gone. Fie threw a hand to her throat and found the string of teeth untouched, Pa’s tooth yet humming.
Trust Hawks to take her steel but leave her teeth.
“Stay still,” the first voice ordered, the one who’d announced her awakening. A little sting of pain darted through Fie’s right leg. She blinked once more and found herself sprawled on a low wood bench. A bloody arrow lay on the ground nearby. Someone had cut gashes through her wool leggings—likely the Hawk woman at her side, who was frowning at the gore. Fie felt naught but a faint unpleasant tickle until the woman rocked back and stood. “All done. It’ll be stiff for a day. Expect flashburn scars.”
The healer didn’t address Fie, instead directing her report to the woman across the room. Now that Fie could see her plain, it was clear the master-general did not need the mammoth in order to loom. Draga hadn’t bothered changing out of her dusty leather armor; the only concession she’d made was a discarded helmet, which was leaving a rim of sweat on the parchment scattered across the desk. Fie saw the family resemblance between her and Jasimir at once: same dark gold skin, same sharp jaw, same lean build.
Where Jasimir fidgeted in a chair before the master-general, however, his aunt all but lounged against the desk, the picture of ease. “Good work, Corporal Lakima.” Draga nodded to the healer, who saluted and posted herself at the door.
She’d dealt with Fie’s wounds faster and more painlessly than Tavin ever had. He’d been right about being a middling healer after all. Fie sat up and stretched out her sore leg. “Where are we?”
“Inside Trikovoi,” Draga answered. “The fort’s commander has generously lent us his office. Corporal, please arrange for food and water to be sent up. The children look rather peaked.”
“I can escort you to a location more … suitable for the master-general,” Corporal Lakima said with the kind of delicacy that suggested the commander’s office had not been lent so much as commandeered.
Draga glanced at her, something metallic tinkling in her gray-streaked black hair. Her smile showed a few too many teeth. “I find this office suits me, corporal. I’d hate to refuse the commander’s generosity. Oh, and if you would? Send wine, too.”
Once the door shut, Draga shed the smile like a winter coat. “You two reek of questions, among other things. Yes, Taverin got the message-hawk through. Half the north’s league markers are staffed by Markahns, so don’t look so impressed.”
Taverin sza Markahn. Bastard or not, Tavin’s name had been good for something after all. Fie swallowed.
Draga’s voice roughened. “The Hawks who took his message said he appeared to be injured at the time, which tells me he was still pretending to be the prince. Clearly that didn’t last long enough. I can’t tell you if he’s still alive, but Tatterhelm would be a fool to throw away any of his bargaining chips. Scouts are sweeping the mountains nearby to see if we can pin down his location as we speak.”
“What of Father?” Jasimir asked.
Draga looked as if she’d stepped in dung. “What of him?”
“Is he … Has Rhusana…?”
“Ah. No.” Draga leaned back. “For better or worse, he’s still on the throne.”
A knock at the door interrupted them. Draga straightened, and Fie saw that the tinkling came from finger-length steel feathers dangling from a tight knot of dark hair at the back of her head. Hawk custom. One for each battle won. Draga wore more than Fie could count. “Enter.”
A cadet near about Jasimir’s age walked in, bearing a platter of fresh panbread, soft goat cheese, figs, and smoked meats. A second cadet followed with one sweating pitcher of water and another of rich red wine. They both snuck fleeting, sidelong glances at Fie and Jasimir. One’s lip twitched into a curl before flattening out.
Fie almost laughed out loud. Between the prince’s grime, his ragged clothes, and his lost topknot, the cadets had taken him for a Crow.
Draga cleared her throat. “Give my gratitude to the commander,” she said pointedly. After the door shut she rolled her eyes. “Prissy little things. Eat up, I’m certain you’re famished.”
Draga poured two brass goblets of water and handed them to Jasimir and Fie, then poured herself wine. “So. Highness. The last time I heard from Taverin, Rhusana had just arranged to have ground glass dumped in your wine, because I suppose that harridan needed a hobby. He mentioned you might be paying a visit to your auntie soon. Then the next thing I know, a Phoenix has conveniently died of the plague for the first time in five hundred years, and just as conveniently, so has Taverin sza Markahn.”
“I didn’t know he was in contact with you.” Jasimir’s knuckles tightened on his goblet, though he’d schooled his face into granite.
“Markahns. We’re dirty gossips to the bone.” She grinned that toothy, sharp grin again, and Fie suddenly kenned where Tavin had learned to make the slightest gesture look lethal. “As my blood, my protection is yours, and as my prince, my loyalty is yours. But if you’ve got more in mind than taking up residence in the Marovar, you’d best lay it out for me.”
“Tavin’s original plan was to claim I survived the plague through the strength of Ambra’s bloodline,” Jasimir elaborated. “I’d return to the capital with the regional governors rallied behind me. The lord-governor of the Fan said he’d aid us, but we walked straight into Rhusana’s ambush.”
“So you came to me instead.” Draga eyed her goblet and sighed. “Only Taverin would come up with a scheme that ludicrous in the first place. I’m going to need more wine.” She tipped the glass at Fie. “And you, Lady Merciful. I can’t believe you shepherded the boys across the whole wretched nation out of the goodness and charity in your heart. I also can’t help noticing you’re missing your flock.”
“Tatterhelm took my kin hostage in Cheparok.” Fie sipped her water, a show of ease as deliberate as Draga’s choice of stolen offices. “I’m here because Rhusana allied herself with the Oleander Gentry.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Draga muttered into her wine.
“So I swore the prince to a Covenant oath,” Fie said.
Draga winced and took a swig of wine.
“We’d get him to his allies, and in exchange, the Crows will be guarded against Oleanders. By Hawks.”
Draga spat out her wine.
“What?” she demanded. “What kind of—never mind. Forget Taverin’s scheme, that is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard and will ever hear again, in this lifetime or the next.”
“The ludicrous thing is that it hasn’t happened sooner,” Jasimir said. “I’ve seen Oleander rides with my own eyes. And I’ve seen how the rest of the country thinks they can treat Crows because there are no repercussions. It’s going to end.”
Draga’s brow furrowed. “Let me be plain with you, Highness. You need the cooperation of the Hawks. You won’t get it, not when you’re asking them to roll shells with the Sinner’s Plague.”
“Is the plague the problem, or is it the Crows?” Jasimir met her gaze steady and hard.
“I won’t pretend that’s not part of it,” Draga returned.
“They need to get over it,” Jasimir replied. “I’m not asking the Hawks to take any risk Tavin and I didn’t take, and survive, ourselves. If you want to look at it as a general, we’re preventing a takeover of the throne. I have to look at it as a king. The Crows are my people. Our people. They’re part of Sabor. It’s long past time to act like it.”
Draga gave him a long, heavy look and poured herself more wine. “You’re right. But it’s not enough to just be right. I know my Hawks. You force this on them, and they’ll turn on you. The answer is no.”
Fie dropped her goblet with a clang of brass. Water spilled across the floor, flashing peach from the reflected sundown.
She hadn’t heard right. Tavin had said Draga was loyal, that she’d follow royal commands. And the prince—
“He swore an oath,” she said, furious. “And my end’s kept.”
Jasimir’s hands balled to fists. “Fie’s right. I made a vow to the Covenant.”
“That’s not how it works,” Draga interrupted, iron in her voice. “I could swear to the Covenant that I’ll leap mountains in a minute, but that won’t mean I can. Did you explicitly promise you’d assign Hawks to guard the Crows?”
Jasimir blinked. “I … I said I’d ensure the Crows’ protection as king.”
“And I asked for Hawks,” Fie added.
“That doesn’t sound like you’re sworn to give them anything of the sort, then.” Draga frowned at the desk, hunting for a place to set her goblet down, but found none. “Once the hostages are recovered, I’ll parade you back to Dumosa. While I’m there, I can personally encourage Rhusana to retire quietly to some country manor before I find a lawful way to send her to her choice of hells. After that, we can discuss more … reasonable measures to keep your oath.”
Fie laughed out loud this time, burying her face in her hands. Of course the Hawks would turn their backs, even on their own prince. They’d break every code they had to keep from helping Crows.
All she’d done, all she’d lost, all she’d borne to bring the prince down her road … it wasn’t enough. The next laugh came out a half sob. “You should have left me to Tatterhelm.”
A hand braced her shoulder—Jasimir. His voice hardened. “What if I’m not asking, master-general?”
Draga tossed aside her empty goblet. Then she drew herself up to her full height, steel feathers whispering a warning. “Your mother taught you the Hawk code, Highness. What comes first?”
Jasimir licked his lips. “‘I will serve my nation and the throne—’”
“Correct. ‘I will serve my nation.’” Draga folded her arms. “Before I serve the throne. I agree that the Oleanders pose a significant threat, but I don’t consider alienating allies good for my nation. And that is what I serve first.”
Every Phoenix tooth in Fie’s string wanted to burn Trikovoi to the ground. She knotted her hands to keep them still. If the Hawks thought her teeth a threat, they’d take them, too.
Jasimir sent Fie a look that said, This isn’t over.
Fie wished she could believe it. She might yet get her kin back, but without the master-general, the oath lay hollow as a skin-ghast.
“Tomorrow, we’ll work on rescuing the hostages.” A shadow crossed Draga’s face and vanished. “You two will be quartered in adjacent private rooms. I’ll arrange for baths and meals to be provided. Open the door only if you hear four knocks, understand?”
The last comment ought to have been aimed at the prince. Instead, the master-general’s steely gaze pointed at Fie.
Of course. Draga didn’t trust her own troops to guard Crows on the road. Why would a fortress be any different?
“Aye,” Fie said, matching her stare, steel for bitter steel. She’d get Tavin and her kin back. She’d stop the queen. But the fight for the oath—for Crows to walk more than a murderous road—was nowhere near over. “I understand.”
Fie was not sure what to make of the bed.
In her sixteen short years, Fie had slept indoors, outdoors, on sun-warmed dust, in shady tree boughs, on the tiles of shrine floors, through sweltering heat and relentless rains and sometimes creeping frost. She’d slept on mountain and plain and in city and marsh.
But she had never slept in a fortress. The room itself was peculiar enough: plain stone walls lined with heavy tapestry, more diamond-shaped windows barred against intruders and the moonless dark, a cold brazier, oil lamps dangling in the corners. Fie had been surprised to find both her swords left in a plain rack. Then she kenned why: the Hawks had decided they didn’t pose any true threat in the hands of a Crow.
A puddle glossed the floor where a copper tub had waited for her alongside a change of clothing and an array of soaps and ointments. Stone-faced cadets had borne the tub away after she’d scrubbed off the smoke and road dust, and they’d returned with a finer dinner than she could conquer. Even now, a lukewarm skin dried over leftover chunks of goat and squash swimming in a rich cream sauce. Draga had even sent them with a small bowl of salt, a thoughtful touch that Fie despised.
But she still wasn’t wholly sure of the bed.
The mattress seemed to be stuffed with down and straw, resting on a net of hempen rope. A soft sheepskin spread out over more woolen blankets, a luxury Fie found excessive until the temperature plunged after sundown.
It was all so soft. Too soft. And quiet.
She ought to be on watch. She ought to be counting her teeth. She ought to be eyeing what lurked in the dark, wrapped in a stolen pelt, trying not to think of Tavin or Pa or Wretch or her ma.
She ought to be doing something, anything to bring them back.
Instead she lay under a suffocating heap of blankets, weighty and near sick on lordling grub, leagues and leagues from sleep.
Her gut ached with more than a heavy dinner. Aye, she’d done it. She’d brought the prince to safety. She’d kept her end of the oath. And she’d be able to save them—Tavin, her kin, the king. Draga would see to that.
But her caste …
She knew in her bones that when Pa had sent her over the bridge, when Tavin had cast himself into the ravine, neither of them had done it to settle for Oleanders riding only by night.
Maybe in a year, or two, or five, Jasimir would sit on the throne, and he’d craft some law to banish the Oleanders, and the Hunting Castes and the Splendid Castes could call it good enough. And the Oleanders would carry on like always, the Crows would die like always, and like always, the law would not weep for Crows.
Somewhere beyond the window, in the chill of Marovar night, a Hawk at watch began to hum.
Enough.
She could make use of her time finding a way out of this damn stone maze for when the Hawks’ charity inevitably ran dry. She rolled from her bed, reached for her sandals, then thought of the nail scratches she’d left in the stone floor and pulled on sheepskin slippers instead.
Fie kept one blanket wrapped about her shoulders as she slipped into the hallway, away from the nagging hymn. Oil lamps marked the turns in the corridor, and more windows let in whispers of the first night of Crow Moon.
For a moment she stilled. Crow Moon. The final moon of the Saborian year.
All across Sabor, Crows would be gathered at one of their greater shrines—in Little Witness’s watchtower, the groves of Gen-Mara, the ruined temple of Dena Wrathful. If not there, then any haven shrine. If they couldn’t find a shrine, they would find a crossroads. There would be ceremonies: new witches hailed, new chiefs declared, an empty pyre for faces newly missing. Wedding vows for those who wanted to swear them. Bands cobbled together from stragglers and survivors.
A proper Crow would be with her people tonight. A proper chief-to-be would line up with the other trainees, wearing wreaths of magnolias, and wait. One by one, the old chiefs would cut their own strings of teeth, tie them round the throats of the new, and hand off their broken blades. Magnolia crowns would be cast to the pyre, and then …
Then, if Fie were a proper Crow still, she would have been a true chief.
A watch-hymn drifted through the window. Fie fled.
A Sparrow tooth slipped her past the guards tossing shells at hall’s end. The farther she went, the more she lost herself in the craft of Trikovoi, mammoth ivory rails wrought in angular pattern-knots, a fine-carved snow lion grasping a bundle of lit juniper incense in its marble jaws, mahogany columns and rafters carved for purpose, not pomp.
Tavin had only said his mother rode mammoths in the Marovar, not which fortress she rode for. Was that why he’d been so adamant to come to Trikovoi—he’d hoped to find her here? Had she been watching, waiting when Fie and the prince staggered into the road, only to find no sign of her son?
Or was she asleep in some other cold stone fortress, unaware that Tavin lived only as long as Tatterhelm allowed?
Fie’s gut knotted. She ought to be claiming her own from the skinwitches. She ought to be burning her magnolia crown on a pyre. She ought to be able to stop thinking of Tavin, even for a moment.
Instead, she hunted for her way out.
Then, as she passed the entrance of another grand hall, something snagged her eye: a figure that belonged behind ranks of soldiers.
She let the Sparrow tooth go and slid into the hall. Jasimir glanced up and raised his eyebrows at her, unsurprised.
“How did you get past the guards?” Fie whispered as she walked over.
“Practice.” Jasimir shrugged. “Sometimes I’d need to attend a state dinner or the like, but we’d get wind of some potential threat. Tav took my place, but I usually snuck out anyway. Mother only caught me the first few times.”
He gave a strained smile, and with a start, Fie saw what had drawn him into this hall: a fine painting over his shoulder. Two women, nigh identical in their armor, their flinty stares, even the hands resting on their saber hilts. Twin Talons.
Fie stepped closer, studying the portrait. After a moment she pointed to the figure on the right. “That’s your mother?”
He nodded.
She could see it, now that she’d met Draga. Jasindra’s dark eyes sparked nearer to gray than gold, like Jasimir’s; Draga’s nose arched in a way neither her sister’s nor her nephew’s did; all three shared a narrow jaw and lanky build. But Jasimir’s sharp-cut mouth and broad cheekbones had come from the king to be sure.
Something curled in the back of Fie’s skull, like she hunted a word she’d forgot. She frowned.
“I think Mother would have liked you,” Jasimir said.
Fie’s frown went taut. “Cousin, I don’t think her road and mine ever could have crossed unless she caught the plague.”
His face fell a little. “I … I suppose that’s true.”
Fie stepped back, looking about the hall. More portraits hung on the walls: simple, familiar, lavish, stern. Dynasties of Hawks. Most, oddly, had a cat somewhere in the painting—a ball of striped fur on a background balcony, a shadow on a wall, a pair of eyes in the grass. A small tabby sat betwixt Draga and Jasindra, the picture of fluffy disdain. “Why the cats?”
“Legend says a Markahn helped Ambra tame the first tiger she rode to war. Cats are something like a patron of the clan.” Jasimir grimaced. “There’s a reason Rhusana wanted to pay you with a stray tabby for taking two dead Markahns.”
“Let me guess,” Fie drawled. “Same reason she drags that tiger pelt by the tail.” Jasimir nodded. “Is that why you saved Barf?”
“I saved her because I could.” Jasimir pursed his lips. “I keep thinking about that Crane arbiter, the one who almost let Barf out. How do you get squeamish over burning a cat to death when you’re there to do worse to people?”
“You know how.”
Jasimir sighed. “You think the people are less than animals.” Silence waxed, then waned. “I swore an oath. I don’t care if I have to personally beg every Hawk in the Marovar. The Crows will have guards.”
Pretty words, pretty words. She didn’t doubt Jasimir, not after the last week, but she had precious little faith in the mercy of Hawks.
“Aye,” she lied.
“Something’s bothering Aunt Draga. She’s not … like this.” Jasimir picked at the sleeve of his sleeping robe. “I’ll make my case again after we’ve got your family back.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” Fie couldn’t help but ask. Somewhere out in the night, Crows were supposed to be celebrating their moon. And that meant that somewhere out there, Oleanders were preparing to ride.
“Then I’ll make it again, to as many Hawks as it takes, as many times as it takes,” Jasimir said. “I swore an oath.”
How long would the Crows have to wait?
The prince’s own words echoed from the ravine, more than a week past. How much more will you let them take from you?
She’d get her kin back. She’d get Tavin back. She’d stop the queen. And someday—someday she might fall asleep feeling safe again.
For tonight, it had to be enough.
Twin Hawks stared down at her from their portraits, imperious. Fie wished someone had bothered to paint her mother before the Oleanders tore her to pieces. The peculiar itch wormed about the back of her head once more.
Somewhere in the hall, a muffled hum of a watch-hymn threaded the quiet. Fie knew that, wander as she might, she’d never outrun it. There was no way out of Trikovoi for her until the Hawks let her go.
“Thank you for saving my cat,” Fie said, stiff. “I should try to sleep.”
Four knocks came at noon, ringing through the prince’s room.
Fie set down her practice slate as Jasimir answered the door. Corporal Lakima stood outside, stony-faced and tight-lipped, gaze shifting from the prince to Fie and her wobbling letters. “The master-general calls for you.” Jasimir and Fie traded looks. Lakima coughed. “There’s a message.”
Lakima scarce had time to clear the way before Jasimir and Fie flew out, half running down the hall.
When they burst into the commander’s study, Draga didn’t even glance up from the sole parchment on the now-cleared desk, her face gray and hard as Fie’s slate.
“Close the door.”
Lakima pushed it shut.
“They’re in the Fallow Vale, an hour’s ride north from here,” Draga said. “Tatterhelm walked out to meet my scouts himself.”
“Did they attack?” Jasimir asked.
“No. He … he brought Taverin with him. With a knife to his throat. And then he handed the scouts this.” Draga began to read aloud. “‘To Master-General Draga Vastali szo Markahn: I, Greggur Tatterhelm, acting in the name of Her Majesty the queen, order you to surrender the traitor Jasimir Surimas sza Lahadar.’” She licked her lips. “‘Should you fail to comply, you will share his charges of high treason, conspiracy, fraud, and criminal blasphemy. Moreover…’”
Draga trailed off. The parchment rattled beneath her fingers, and suddenly Fie saw red-brown flecks on the sheet. Something cold hooked into her belly and dragged down.
The master-general cleared her throat and continued. “‘Moreover, we have custody of the prince’s accomplices, including ten Crows and the Hawk Taverin sza Markahn. If you wish to recover them alive, you will send the prince and no more than one escort, unarmed and on foot, to the Fallow Vale at dawn. Any sign of additional reinforcements or attempts to free the hostages will result in their immediate execution.’”
The cold hook dragged harder.
Draga sucked in a breath. “‘Finally, for every day you delay, we will consider it an insult to the justice of Her Majesty and will submit an accomplice to the appropriate punishment. You will find the queen’s justice’”—Draga leaned back and twitched the parchment—“‘attached.’ I … I don’t know who…”
A crooked, brown-gray worm rolled onto the desk, trailing a smear of red.
For a moment, Fie saw not a desk in a stone room but a dusty dawn road of years ago. That time, she’d been too young to know the bloody-tipped twigs for aught but a curiosity.
Now, near a dozen years later, she knew a little finger when she saw one.
Sometimes the drag of horror hit a low so deep in Fie that she couldn’t even begin to reckon with it, only wait for the rest of her head to catch up.
She blinked. Inhaled. Took stock of the buzzing in her ears, the words of the letter, the gray of Draga’s face, the silence of the prince, the sluggish thunder of her own heart.
There wasn’t much time before the sickness would hit. Before wrath choked every drop of reason from her thoughts.
Before Tatterhelm sent another finger to point at her.
She hadn’t much time.
Fie forced herself to step forward, reach out, and touch the spur of bone jutting from the flesh.
The spark stung when she called it out.
“Pa,” she gasped.
And then the sickness caught up.
Jasimir hurried her to a wash basin just in time. When she finished retching, he handed her a goblet of water, looking back to Draga. “We can ambush them. I’ll go in with one Hawk—”
“It’s a trap.”
“I can try to hide your riders,” Fie coughed, then spat into the basin.
Draga shook her head. “Did I stutter? This is a trap.” Her eyes had gone cold and dark. “They’re going to kill all the hostages, no matter what.”
“The letter says—” Jasimir started.
“The letter is bait. All he wants is for you to walk into the Fallow Vale unprotected, thinking you can save them.”
“I have to try.”
Draga gripped the desk chair. “No. Rhusana wins the moment you walk into his camp. If you care for the Crows, all of them, you can’t give yourself up. Not without forsaking the whole caste. You have to cut your losses.”
Fie’s belly-sick passed, wrath flaring in its wake. “Easier said when it’s not your loss to cut.”
“Don’t tell me about my losses,” Draga snapped.
“Don’t pretend you give a damn about my caste,” Fie hissed back. “If Tatterhelm had a dozen Hawks—”
“Tatterhelm has—” Draga cut herself off, running a hand over her hair. “This is why he takes hostages: he wants us shaken, he wants us making mistakes. If we give him the prince, it’s all over. I could follow him all the way back to the royal palace with a mammoth army, but as long as he keeps that knife on—on Jasimir, there won’t be a single damned thing any of us can do.”
“Your song’ll change when he starts sending pieces of a Hawk,” Fie spat.
Draga stared at her. Jasimir inhaled sharp at Fie’s side but said naught.
“It will not,” said the master-general in a voice that sliced high and razor-thin.
“Aye? Maybe the first day it won’t, when it’s just Tavin’s little finger.” Fie’s own voice rattled with fury. “If Tatterhelm gets impatient, maybe he’ll just send the whole hand.”
“Tavin’s your blood,” Jasimir added, voice rising. “What about the Hawk code? What about ‘I will not forsake—’”
“I know the code!”
Draga’s shout shattered over the stone walls. In the stunned quiet, she strode to the window, staring out through the crossed iron bars. Steel shuddered and clinked in her hair.
“Taverin has always known his duty. We serve the nation first.” A crack in her voice filled in with granite. “When you act in anger, you’ve already lost. Jasimir, being a king means sometimes you choose who to sacrifice. Today the choice is ten Crows and a Hawk, or the Crow caste and Sabor. Do you understand?”
Jasimir didn’t answer.
Draga didn’t turn from the window, but her spine pulled stiff as Pa’s little finger on the desk. “Do you understand?” she repeated, harder than before.
Silence stretched thin as spider silk, then snapped when the prince whispered, “Yes.”
Fie felt the sucker punch in her bones. He wouldn’t look at her.
“Consider yourself lucky, because today I’m going to make this choice for you,” Draga said, facing them once more. “Corporal Lakima, return these two to their own rooms. I want a watch posted to make sure they stay there.”
As before, Draga should have looked to the prince. Instead her eyes burned on Fie.
“Yes, master-general.” An iron grip settled on Fie’s shoulder.
“You can’t—” Fie protested.
“Shut the door,” Draga muttered, dropping into the commander’s chair. “And tell someone to bring me some gods-damned wine.”
At first, Fie screamed.
She cried out with fury: fury with Draga for sentencing her family to a wretched death, fury with Jasimir for letting her, fury with Pa for sending her to safety in Cheparok, fury with Tavin for stealing into her heart and tearing it asunder, and, most of all, fury with Sabor, with the Covenant, with the dead gods.
Then she crumpled with shame: shame for giving up her own, shame for failing to keep her one rule as a chief, shame for not scratching and clawing her way out of Trikovoi.
Then, at last, she wept with grief, and when she did, she grieved for more things than she could count, than she could name, but most of all, she grieved for the brief thread of hope that had sparked when she saw Tavin’s beacon burning in the gate of Trikovoi.
When she was done weeping, she slept without dreams.
And when she woke, it was by the light of the Crow Moon.
For a while, she lay in the dark on her foul, soft bed in her foul, safe room, her thoughts winding up and spinning out like a spindle. Would Tatterhelm send a piece of someone else in the morning? Or would he cut off more of Pa?
Would she let him?
Every heartbeat in her ears was an accusation.
Draga was right: the whole Crow caste hung on Jasimir reaching the throne.
Jasimir was right: he understood what was at stake.
Tavin was right: he could have done something better with his life than die.
Fie searched the dark for answers and found none.
But that made sense. She had no right to expect answers here in this safe, quiet, too-damned-soft room, not with her people caught in Tatterhelm’s hell.
If she wanted a way out, she had to hunt it down herself.
Slipping out was easy enough: a Peacock-tooth illusion crafted a second Fie to stumble from her room, startling the guards long enough to let the true Fie sidle behind them. Once she’d rounded a corner, she sent the illusion back to her room, then traded the Peacock tooth for a Sparrow’s.
And then she hunted.
Fie wound through hall after darkened hall, some narrow, some yawning, some guarded by grim-faced Hawks, others empty as a gambler’s oath. Her slippers left no mark on the stone as she passed.
All she needed was a way out, she told herself. Then she’d take up her teeth and her steel and bring down as many Vultures as she could before—
Before they killed her. Or worse, kept her alive. Tatterhelm had more skinwitches than she had Crows, and he had grunts, and he had skin-ghasts. All he would do was start sending pieces of her to Jasimir.
It was always going to come to this.
Tavin had always known. So had she. Ever since she’d crawled out of Cheparok. No—ever since she’d fallen from the bridge of the Floating Fortress.
No—ever since Pa had thrust the chief’s sword into her hands.
What do you want, Fie?
Her caste, or her kin. Thousands of Crows, ridden down by day and night. Or ten of her own, dying by pieces.
That’s the game, get it?
The road had trapped her, and she couldn’t see which way was right. Every hope, every oath, every scrap of faith she’d had in Hangdog, in Tavin, in Jasimir, one way or another, they’d turned to arrow after arrow in her eye.
She stumbled. Smacked into a wall. Sagged against it.
One way or another, she would lose everything.
Fury howled in her heart. This was all wrong. She’d learned to fight like a Hawk. She’d learned to read and write like a Phoenix. She’d kept her head steady, burned her teeth, broken the only Crow rule. She’d near killed herself day after day, road after road, mountain after mountain, to keep the damned oath.
And she would still lose.
There was no way for her to win. There never had been.
How much more will you let them take?
She slid down the wall and curled there, shaking. This was the game. This was the true Money Dance: the rest of the castes could spin and whirl and scream at the Crows, take what they wanted, as long as they wanted, knowing that the Crows couldn’t do a gods-damned thing to stop it. Sabor had never once intended for her to win.
They didn’t believe a Crow could.
Far away, a watch-hymn eased into the silence. Fie ignored it.
Then the hymn wandered into a lonely trickle of notes. One she’d heard nigh every morning.
Fie scrambled to her feet, heart pounding. It couldn’t be Tavin—yet her unsteady legs pushed her forward, following the sound. He’d said his mother sang it—maybe Fie would never see Pa again, but at least she could make this much right—
She shadowed a Hawk through a door and stepped into the frigid Marovar night. Stars sprayed over the brutally clear sky above, crowned in the circlet of Crow Moon rising.
Dead ahead of Fie, a Hawk woman leaned on a watch post, staring into the mountains, humming a watch-hymn that sometimes splintered around a choked breath.
Dark as it was, Fie could still mark the razor flash of steel feathers in her hair.
She’s a mammoth rider in the Marovar, Tavin had whispered by a campfire a moon ago.
The question in Fie’s skull unwound.
Twin Talons. But how—
She knew what it meant.
For a moment she swayed in place, still cloaked in the Sparrow tooth, her head a-riot with a thousand threads that suddenly knotted and pulled tight.
Stitch by stitch, the tapestry unfurled, stretching on and on until she saw not a weaving but a wrathful way out.
How much more, the prince had asked, will you let them take?
This was the dance. This was the game. The one she wasn’t meant to win.
But now—she had fire. She had steel.
She knew her road.
The prince had sworn to protect her caste. He had sworn to make the Oleanders pay.
She was a chief; he was a prince. And one of them was a liar.
Fie waited for another guard to crack the door, then flitted back into the halls of Trikovoi, bound for her room, her swords, her teeth.
Bound for the prince.
Bound for the Fallow Vale.
Whether or not she burned her crown on a pyre, she was a chief. It was time she looked after her own.