She clung to their trail like an ancient grudge, never too far from reach. Every time Tavin’s guards looked back, their gazes passed right through her as they hustled their makeshift prince down a walkway that hummed under Fie’s soles with the bones of dead gods. They’d chosen to leave through the other half of the Divine Gallery, where Fie had not yet tread.
The eyes of the statues seemed to burn on her, as if the Phoenix gods took issue with her mummery of fire. Fie refused to be sorry.
Tavin’s guards did not slow as they cleared the crowds. If anything, they quickened their pace, striding down the mostly empty lantern-lit colonnades and shoving aside the few servants who didn’t duck off the path in time. As Fie passed one fallen woman, she was tempted to begin snuffing out the lanterns ahead of Tavin’s guard, row by row, just to see them run.
But she’d learned long ago the hard difference between what she wanted and what must be done. If they ran, she would lose them in the dark long before the blade at her side could be returned.
“What do you think—” She heard one Hawk begin.
Another Hawk cut her off. “It was a threat, that’s all we need to know.”
At the rear of the squad, two guards traded looks. One cast an uncertain glance behind them, scouring every shadow for signs of an intruder. Fie knew they’d only find an empty walkway.
She gave in and blew out a lantern—just the one. The guards’ eyes widened. They hesitated a moment, then whipped back around to keep their eyes on Tavin.
The escort wound into the royal gardens, cutting through tunnels cleverly hidden between hedges and behind falls of vines. Fie kept at their heels with an Owl tooth burning in her bones, committing every step, every shadow, every mutter to memory.
Every drop of sweat or oil running down the back of Tavin’s neck.
The farther they went, the further a strange, dreadful feeling welled up in Fie’s bones. It wasn’t a sickness, no, nor a weakness she knew; it didn’t feel wrong in the way that skin-ghasts set her on edge.
It felt … it felt like she’d felt at Little Witness’s tower, standing at the edge of a measureless sea, one that meant to swallow her with barely a ruff of foam to mark her drowning.
She clung tight to her teeth until it passed. Not too long after, they emerged into a wide, open courtyard, its intricate tiles little better than an unruffled lake in the dim moonlight. From its center rose an island of a structure, bedecked with domes, fringes of gold, tiled roofs that flared like skirts, intricate friezes, and balustrade-laced verandas that looked high enough to see most of Dumosa sprawled below.
The royal quarters. Where Rhusana slept. And her son. And Tavin. Fie didn’t know if a Crow had ever set foot inside.
She supposed she’d best leave an impression, then.
The guards led them into a grand foyer clearly meant to impress people far more important than Fie. It was like a vision of paradise from The Thousand Conquests with its elegant marble fountain, lacy golden lanterns casting constellations onto an ebony ceiling, and floor inlaid with brass and tile of deepest blue.
Fie’s band hadn’t had to scrape for meals in a while now, but she still couldn’t help measuring every ounce of gilt and finery against every night she’d slept with a hot coal of hunger in her belly.
She did not have long to weigh it, as Tavin’s guard divided, half taking posts at the foot of one of two matching stairways, the other half continuing up the steps. She followed them up one, two flights of stairs, passing more guards whose heads bowed but whose eyes narrowed in Tavin’s wake. Any servants in the halls flattened themselves to the walls, then knelt, staring at the ground.
Fie’s skin crawled.
It wasn’t just the guards and the servants putting her on edge, but it took three dark hallways sweeping by to ken why: they were the only people she saw in this grand jewel box. The royal quarters weren’t a home; they were a Money Dance unto themselves, a show of strength, shoving fingers of gold into visitors’ eyes and saying See, this is what Saborian royalty is worth.
But they were also, in a haunting way, empty. When Fie had called memories from Phoenix teeth, the royal quarters were always filled with chatter, light, life, heated debates and petty triumphs, a minor uproar every time the current monarch walked from one wing to another.
These weren’t the same royal quarters. The hushed, still shadows in nigh every corner made Fie feel like a beetle crawling about the guts of a gaudy corpse.
She nearly ran into the back of a guard and caught herself just in time. They’d stopped outside a chamber with two guards already positioned by the doorway.
“Sweep the halls again,” the leader of the guard ordered. “We need to be certain nothing and no one followed us.”
The guards posted at the door traded looks at “nothing.” The rest saluted and turned on their heels. Fie scrambled back, but they were walking down the hall three abreast, leaving no room for her. At their pace, they’d catch up before she could get to the end of the corridor—
Something in her spine gave a tug, and when she blinked, she saw it: the threads and currents of fortune as a Pigeon witch saw them. They were drawing her toward a shallow alcove.
Wretch had a saying: When the Covenant grants you a favor, don’t waste it asking why. Fie scuttled back toward the arch, which was identical to one on the opposite side of the corridor—but when she pushed against the back wall, it gave so suddenly that she near fell on her rear.
The back panel had split down the middle like veranda doors, opening to a still, quiet dark. The tide of luck nudged Fie, and she did not need another prompting. She bolted in and eased the panel halves shut again, holding her breath until the footfalls of the Hawks had faded.
The luck current led on into the unbroken dark. Fie swallowed. Then she registered the faint hum in her own bones and the simmer of a tooth on her string.
The Pigeon witch-tooth she’d burned out this morning had, somehow, sparked back to life.
Fie swallowed. The tooth had been cold, empty bone, she’d swear it on any of the two dozen dead gods’ graves she had to choose from here. She’d only left it on the string because she hadn’t found a good place to throw burned-out teeth yet.
Her Sparrow witch-tooth, too, seemed to have recovered enough of its spark to buy Fie more time, but she let it go cold. Part of her wanted to get out of the royal quarters as swift as possible, go find Khoda and Jas, and sort out their next move from the safety of the Sparrow quarters.
The rest of her had made it this far, and still burned with the wrath she’d kindled in the Hall of the Dawn. Besides, whatever hidey-hole the currents of fortune had led her into, it seemed the only way out would be to keep following them. She didn’t have time to waste asking why.
She made her way along the trail of luck, hands stretched before her. It wasn’t too long before they brushed up against startlingly rough canvas. When she pushed it aside, milk-pale moonlight bloomed before her, carving out a strange and lifeless chamber.
The fortune trails coiled inside, smug and gleeful like a hound who had led its master to a kill. Fie stepped into the room, staring about. Only dim moonlight gave her any reprieve from the dark, peering in from a glass dome overhead like a half-lidded eye. Cloth-covered furniture jutted from the flat sea of the cool tile floor like shoals.
In the far corner, Fie saw something that picked at her memory a moment until she placed it: a spear rack identical to the one in Draga’s tent.
No wonder it felt so cold and still—still as death. Instead of Tavin’s or Rhusana’s rooms, fortune had brought her to the chamber of the late Queen Jasindra.
Now she just needed to find out why.
Fie paced about, frowning. Khoda had said the king sealed the room years ago, yet she saw no dust on the furniture covers, nor on the windowsill, nor the floor. It all looked clean as the day the old queen died.
She reached for the dustcloth over the bed. Something brushed across the back of her hand like a cobweb. When she went to pluck it off, she saw … naught.
Fie went still. Then she looked up again at the glass dome. A half moon stared back.
Solstice always fell on the middle of Phoenix Moon, when the moon had swollen to its fullest.
Someone had cast a glamour over the entire room.
No wonder luck had led her here. Fie closed her eyes, trying to think. She didn’t know if a Peacock tooth could undo a glamour the way Tavin’s tooth let her snuff out fires. Maybe the truth Birthright—but she’d only used it to draw the truth from people, not clear away an illusion.
Then again, she’d sorted out how to balance Peacock and Owl. Lips pursing, she found one tooth each of Peacock and Crane and kindled them both.
They clashed horribly, like a flute and a lyre in a tavern brawl, but she knew the trick of it now. It took a few tries to get them to settle into cooperation, but then—then she saw it, the glamour over the room, glowing too vivid to be real.
Show me the truth, she told the teeth.
It was as if they had pulled the cords on a curtain, sweeping the glamour aside in uncanny folds of another world. The true room unrolled before her, lit by the glare of a full, unblinking moon.
Fie couldn’t help a sharp breath. Her hands curled to her chest, nausea crawling up her throat.
Everywhere she looked, she saw hair.
Long, silvery strands strung about the room like sick garlands, knotted with other, darker hairs. Shelves and shelves of shorter hairs, all fastened to neat squares of parchment with names scrawled out in a neat square hand. More of those parchment squares broken out over the bed and the windowsills, even tacked to the walls like a papery rash. Bundles of hair like skeins of yarn, each bearing a single label: Livabai. Chalbora. Teisanar.
One bundle had been left unwound on a desk, its label next to it: Karostei. Beside it were strange, gray, papery curls. Fie made herself squint closer, only to stumble back, trying not to vomit.
Skin. They were strips of dried skin.
It took a moment for Fie to conquer her mutinous belly. When she saw a nearby shelf of tidy jars packed with more bits of skin, she had to fight that battle all over again.
But Fie had work to do and an oath to keep and time that was running short. She glanced about to take in the whole of the room.
There were two doorways she could see besides the passage she’d taken. One had been boarded shut for good, but the other stood agape, planks sitting nearby with the nails still protruding. If that was Rhusana’s way out, then likely it would work best for Fie, too—or at least it was better than popping out into the hallway with no way to check for patrols first.
A thick mantle of dust had accumulated on the higher shelves of the room, but mostly everything was where it had been in the glamour. One low dresser had been revealed as a tidy stack of crates holding envelopes, inks, parchment; a station had been set up nearby with parchment squares, a glue pot, and a quill.
That was the worst part, Fie reckoned: the order of it all. She’d expected a monster. She had not expected one so organized.
More squares sat on the desk. Fie picked out names she recognized: Draga, Jasimir, Burzo, Kuvimir. She made herself get close enough to riffle through them all, telling herself it was just to make sure her own name was not among them. Then she checked the shelves and their rows of squares lined up like toy soldiers, ducking the long strands of what she presumed to be Rhusana’s hair.
She did not find a square with her name.
Nor did she find what she’d been looking for true. She checked every square, every name. None of them were Tavin.
She hadn’t expected it, she told herself, but the sinking twist in her chest called her a liar.
Expected, no. Hoped for, yes.
As she passed the shelf of jars, something caught her eye: a second row of jars tucked behind the row full of skin. Their contents looked more solid, weighty—
She drew one out, and her heart leapt into her throat. The jars were full of teeth, and not just any teeth. Fie dug out a handful and let them sift through her hands like grain, near choking down a laugh of pure relief.
Finally, finally, a boon.
They were Phoenix teeth. They were hers. It must have been Rhusana’s own killers who took them from Drudge and bore them here to make sure nothing so precious, so dangerous, ever fell into the hands of a Crow again.
“Ha,” Fie muttered to herself. “Guess again, you dog-faced hag.”
She stole one of the pillows from the bed, cut it open, pulled out the stuffing, and poured the Phoenix teeth in, jar after jar, until she’d emptied them all. Just the weight of it alone made her want to sing. She’d soft-footed her way around this miserable palace for fear of the terrible price of getting caught. Now, if it truly came down to it, she could burn her way free.
Fie hefted her teeth, about to swing the bag over her shoulder, and paused. Her eyes traced the web of gossamer hairs spun about the room.
Fortune had brought her this far. And it wasn’t just so she could take what was hers.
In the end, she left one thing: a single tooth, sitting on the bed in the middle of a heap of parchment squares cleared from every shelf. Fie had even made herself empty the skin jars into the pile.
As she padded quickly to the open doorway, gold fire spilled out from the molar. By the time she reached the end of the hall, the moonlight at her back had blushed rosy.
There was no canvas drape over this exit, but the faint orange glow showed a sliding screen. Fie called on her Sparrow witch-tooth again to wipe her from sight. No lantern-light filtered through the screen, but that didn’t mean the room was empty.
She eased the screen aside, and moonlight lit her way again, this time from a whorl of skylights that cut the shape of the sun into the domed golden ceiling. The chamber itself was practically a wheel of gold, sprays of carved and gilded plumage coiling from every arch, every bedpost, every column and only interrupted by graceful blades of carved golden fire. It didn’t feel like a bedroom. It felt like a shrine. And if it adjoined the dead queen’s chambers, Fie had a strong notion who that shrine was for.
But unlike the queen’s room, this one was occupied. A figure lay in an achingly familiar sprawl on the gold-draped bed.
The king had slept just fine in this temple to his own divinity, and now it seemed Tavin would too.
There was something awful about his sleeping face, something that froze her feet to the cool, moon-washed tiles. She’d loved it once, waking up first so she could see the heart of him beneath all his flash and charm, perfect peace without guile.
Somewhere in Sabor, Oleander Gentry were riding down Crows this very night. Somewhere, another child was dying of plague as their village argued over beacons. And in Pa’s shrine, their rations were dwindling, and they were one more day closer to starvation.
Fie hated the peace in Tavin’s face now, near as much as she hated the part of her that didn’t. The part of her that still lit up at his touch and his smile and his laugh, the part that yet starved for him—the part of her that had mercy for a bastard boy.
She hated it, hated him, hated herself so much, the dreadful garish room swam with tears. She could remind herself of how he’d betrayed her, the death he’d signed her people to, and still part of her would do anything to lie in that foul golden bed with him.
She wanted to cut that part of her out, let it burn with the dead queen’s room, just to end the agony she craved.
And since she couldn’t cut herself free, she would cut out the next best thing.
Fie drew the Hawk sword.
Her slippers skimmed the tiles without a sound. She took care not to let her shadow fall over his face as she ghosted closer to the bed, moonlight dripping along the glistening steel.
Return it.
Was Lakima even still alive? Or had he signed her death warrant, too? Tears spilled down her face, hot and furious and horrified with the weight of the blade in her hand.
Stop, that soft, broken part of her wept as she raised the Hawk sword, don’t—you can still love him, you can leave him be—
And the coldest part of her whispered back: Not if I want to live.
Once, she’d thought she could be like the girls she saw in the sparks of teeth. Fie wanted to be like them, beaming at the attention of a lover, laughing at their follies, making space in even the hardest of hearts for ballads and sweet poetry and the unspoken oath in the touch of a hand.
Now she knew the bitter truth: that softness came at a price she would not pay. And she would not forgive Tavin for trying to make her pay it.
He’d made her feel safe; he’d made only her feel safe. He’d been willing to give up all the Crows for it.
And that was not enough.
He didn’t stir as the shadow of the blade fell under his chin.
Fie supposed she ought to say something clever and vicious, but there was nothing clever about cutting a boy’s throat in his sleep, and her viciousness had no words. His Peacock glamour had been called off for the night, so it wasn’t even Jasimir’s face below her but Tavin’s own, every scar and bump and mark that she knew by heart, no Owl tooth required.
Pa would tell her not to drag it out.
She couldn’t make herself lay the edge to skin. The blade hovered less than a finger over his throat. The sight horrified her.
Fie whipped fury through her veins, but grief answered instead. She’d wanted to walk the rest of her roads with him. She’d wanted more. And Little Witness had told her she was right for wanting it, but how could she be, when this was where it led?
End it, her frost-cold self said. He dies now, or he dies by Rhusana’s hand. What you want is already dead.
It was never going to get easier to deal mercy. She didn’t know why she’d hoped it would. All she could do was make it swift.
Fie lifted the sword, braced herself over Tavin, let the point of the blade hang over his throat. All she had to do was fall, by every dead god she could fall—
Too late, she felt a tear roll off her nose. It landed on Tavin’s throat.
His eyes flew open.
Fie yanked the sword away as he bolted upright. She slapped a hand over her mouth before she could gasp aloud. The Sparrow witch-tooth kept her out of his sight. It would not keep her out of his earshot.
Tavin touched a hand to his collarbone, where her teardrop had slid to rest. His gaze swept the room, passing right through her.
His breath tangled in her hair. She didn’t dare stir, heart thundering in her ears like an alarm.
So close she could taste him.
So close she could feed him his own blade.
Tavin scoured the shadows of the king’s room again, wide-eyed, his own chest heaving.
Then he whispered into the night: “Fie?”
Just then, a storm of footfalls boiled up from just beyond a doorway Fie hadn’t noticed, the trill of chimes like rainfall in its wake. “Get out,” a familiar voice spat behind the closed doors.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The stamp of Hawk boots was impossible to miss. Once it faded, the doors were thrown open with a bang, lantern-light spilling into the bedroom. Tavin flinched back, blinking, and opened his mouth.
Rhusana didn’t wait, little better than a knife of a silhouette in the doorway. “Jasimir’s gone.”
“What?” Tavin squinted at her.
“Don’t play the fool with me.” The queen swiped a lamp from the wall and stalked in, slamming the doors shut behind her. She had changed from the linen shift of the coronation ceremony into a simple, sleeveless silk gown, her pale hair in three heavy braids that swayed like asps. In a swift motion, she’d seized Tavin by the neck, her jeweled claws digging into skin. “What do you know?”
Fie decided she could take a step back now. She did so slowly, keeping her Hawk sword close.
“N-nothing,” Tavin ground out. Then he fouled up: he glanced at the wavering flame of her lamp.
Rhusana jammed it closer, the oil sloshing in its reservoir, and Tavin couldn’t help a wince. “Surimir made certain you weren’t fond of fire, didn’t he?”
“I don’t have to like it,” Tavin said coldly. “It still won’t harm me.”
“How sure are you?” Rhusana gave the lamp another swirl, and oil splashed up near to the brim. “What if it’s not just the flame? What if it’s oil boiling on your skin? Will you burn then?”
Without the Peacock glamour to hide behind, the burn scars of Tavin’s hand caught the lamplight all too clear.
“I told you I don’t know anything,” Tavin growled. “What do you mean, Jas is gone?”
Rhusana glowered down at him. Slowly, she let him go, leaving five dark divots on his neck. “The servant who was supposed to bring him dinner was found unconscious in a storeroom. The Divine Gallery guards swear they saw him enter on time anyway, but don’t remember him leaving. The coronation fiasco was just a diversion. The cell is empty.”
Tavin glared back up at the queen for a long moment. Then he asked, “Where is Fie?”
That took the queen by surprise. She frowned, setting the lamp on a bedside table, and folded her arms. Chimes on her bangles gave a fidgety tinkle. “Geramir was careless,” Rhusana said carefully. “She escaped after we left. Doubtless she’s long gone now.”
Tavin narrowed his eyes. Fie knew that face. He was summing up figures in his head. This time the numbers were plain enough: How Rhusana had stormed into his room, rabid with paranoia over the chance Tavin might have betrayed her. How casually the queen dismissed Fie’s absence now, like she was little more than a runaway pet. Like something she wanted him to forget.
“What did you do to her?” he snarled. “My one condition was that no harm—”
Rhusana burst into melodious laughter. “And what does it matter? What will you do now, tell everyone you’ve committed an act of treason? Are you so thirsty for execution?”
Tavin’s whole face seemed to fracture before Fie’s eyes. You damned fool, she thought wretchedly. You thought she wouldn’t drag you down with her.
“You should work on finding a suitable consort,” Rhusana told him. “Something a little less embarrassing, perhaps.”
He didn’t answer.
Fie couldn’t stand to watch anymore. She hated them both so much, she didn’t know if she could do as Khoda wanted and let them tear each other apart. But it was easy to cut a boy’s throat while he slept. She might die trying to take them both on now, alone.
Instead Fie fed her wrath to the tooth still burning in the dead queen’s bed. It didn’t need to balance against the Sparrow witch-tooth, instead snapping up her fury like meat thrown to a tiger.
The blaze had already crept across the floors and crawled up the walls, but now it roared with new hunger. Fie would leave naught there for Rhusana, not one strand of hair, not one scrap of skin, naught but a message unwritten and still crystal clear:
When she came for them, there would be nothing left but ash.
“Do you smell—” Tavin started.
Rhusana had already straightened up, staring at the ripe golden glow now pushing through the screen. Then she let out a scream and charged for the hall in a swirl of silk, near crashing into Fie. A breath later, two Hawk soldiers burst into the room. “Your Majesty, what—”
Rhusana had torn the screen aside. The fire didn’t need Fie’s help anymore, slinking down the hall toward the queen’s silhouette.
“PUT IT OUT!” she roared.
The Hawks ran out, mumbling something about water, as Tavin got to his feet. He stared at the blaze, at the undeniably Phoenix-gold tongues of flame. What Fie could see of the chamber was burning like the sun. There was no chance that any of Rhusana’s collection would survive.
“I said put it out!” Rhusana howled, and Fie realized she meant for Tavin to bring the fire to heel.
But he only eyed the inferno, grim, and shook his head. “It’s too much,” he said. “I can’t stop it now.”
Fie couldn’t say if he glanced around the room behind him once more, or if it was only a trick of the dancing firelight.
Fie backed through the door with her steel and her teeth and a soft part of her heart that refused to die. The queen’s screams of rage followed her all the way down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the night.