“They’re called the Black Swans.” Master-General Draga’s voice was calm enough, but she paced about the tent like a tiger pestered by a persistent bloodfly. “Always thought the name was a touch melodramatic. They’re spies.”
Fie would not put good odds on that bloodfly; nor did she put good odds on Khoda or Steward Burzo, both bound hand and foot. They knelt on plain, sturdy woven mats in the master-general’s tent before Tavin, Fie, Jasimir, and Draga herself. They’d offered surprisingly little resistance to being hustled straight to Draga; Khoda had just seemed resigned, and the steward utterly baffled.
Khoda straightened up now, looking almost indignant as he jerked his chin at the steward. “He’s not one of ours. And we prefer to be called specialists.”
“Specialists in infiltrating other castes, gathering key intelligence, and reporting back to their spymaster, the monarch, and myself.” Draga folded her arms, coming to a halt beside a rack of spears. “Spies. I understand you’re trained in identifying potential threats. What do you call a Swan agent embedded with one of Rhusana’s prime targets?”
“An asset,” Khoda said shortly. “I can assure you, the Black Swans have absolutely no desire to see Rhusana on the throne. If I were on her side, she’d already have Fie’s hair.”
“That’s a fair point,” Jasimir allowed.
Fie wasn’t sure any of it was a fair point. A whole moon, a whole moon Khoda had been spying on her and her band. The notion made her skin crawl. Aye, he’d run off Oleanders, he’d kept watch, he’d played the part of a Hawk all too well. None of it meant a damn if he’d done it to buy his way into her graces.
Tavin shook his head as he moved about the tent, lighting lamps with a fingertip against the waning daylight. “We can’t trust anything he says until it’s verified by a Crane witch.”
“No need to wait.” Fie pushed a witch-tooth free from her string with perhaps more enthusiasm than was appropriate. Any Crane tooth could spot lies from him; a witch-tooth could force him to speak plain truth.
Fie rolled the molar between her palms and looked to the master-general. “Who first?”
As Khoda opened his mouth to protest, Draga tapped the crown of his head. He slumped over in a healer’s sleep. “Steward Burzo.”
The tooth-spark snapped to attention at Fie’s call, a stringent old magistrate with little patience for criminals and even less for liars. “How long have you been working for the queen?”
Burzo blinked up at her, and the truth slipped out of him far more easily than she expected: “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know how long or you didn’t know you were working for her?” Jasimir asked.
“I didn’t know I was working for her,” Burzo answered.
Tavin seized his shirt and yanked him close. “You tried to take Fie’s hair. You tried to kill her guard. Who do you think you were working for?”
“I don’t know,” Burzo sputtered.
Fie set a hand on Tavin’s arm and shook her head. “He’s telling the truth.”
The master-general waited until her son let the steward go. “Burzo. Why did you do all that?”
“I…” The tooth-spark gave a hitch, like a net tugging on a bewildered fish. Burzo’s open face said as much, his mouth pursing as he searched for words. “I … wanted to.”
Fie and Draga traded glances, and the master-general tapped Burzo on the back of the skull. He wilted into a healer’s sleep as well.
“First the skin monsters, now this.” Draga rubbed a thumb between her brows, scowling at the ground. “The Swans have always been cagey about the extent of their witches’ powers, but … Rhusana knew when to push Burzo into taking Fie’s hair. There’s a chance that she can see what he sees or hear what he hears. We’ll keep him under watch until Rhusana’s dealt with.”
Fie rolled the tooth a little too hard against her thumb. Spies in her band, spies in Jas’s camp, and no knowing what secrets they’d stolen. If one more spy popped out of the woodwork, she was going to skip the questions and go straight to cutting throats.
When Khoda was dragged out of his sleep, he took in the unconscious huddle of Steward Burzo, then smirked at the rest of the tent. “I bet that was frustrating.”
Tavin looked ready to haul him about by the collar, too, but Draga held up a hand, face impassive as she stared down at Khoda. “What makes you say that?”
Khoda’s smile didn’t waver as he cocked his head. “I’m going to make a few guesses here, and you’ll tell me if I’m off the mark. Burzo didn’t know how long he was under Rhusana’s control. He didn’t know he was under her control, period. He also didn’t know what he wanted Fie’s hair for, only that he wanted to take it.” His gaze swept across all their faces. “Save your breath. I can tell I’m three for three.”
“This is why I hate spies,” Draga muttered into her hands. She turned to the rest of the tent, eyes lingering on Fie. “Before we go any further, you all need to understand that whatever you hear does not leave this tent. The Black Swans don’t deal in gossip; they deal in the kind of secrets that hold nations together. If you can’t keep those secrets, leave.”
“Unless you’re her.” Khoda nodded at Fie. “You definitely need her.”
Draga looked sore tempted to knock him out again. “Let’s get on with it. What do you know about Rhusana?”
“Not as much as I’d like,” Khoda answered, eyes on Fie and her Crane witch-tooth. For some, the truth was a knot to unwind; for others, a thorn to ease out. Fie hadn’t drawn truth from someone like Khoda before: what ought to have been stone-solid was instead slippery as an eel and thrice as hard to pin down. That made it all the harder to believe she was getting the whole truth.
“What does that mean?” Fie prodded.
“We haven’t been able to get anyone embedded close enough to her to provide hard information. If we could, the king would still be alive.”
Fie heard Jasimir suck in a breath behind her.
“The Black Swans believe in keeping the nation stable and whole,” Khoda continued, “and in preserving the rightful order. Only Phoenixes are trained to rule the kingdom, and the kingdom will only accept Ambra’s blood for a ruler. By birth and by competence, Rhusana is unfit for the throne, and we will do everything we can to keep her off it.”
Draga resumed pacing, arms folded. “At least we agree there.”
“Why were you following Fie?” Tavin asked, stony.
Khoda shrugged. His truth shifted and slid about, impossible for Fie to force to direct words. “I was already at Trikovoi, and we thought Rhusana might strike at her to distract the prince. Clearly we were right.”
“What do you know of the queen’s powers?” Jasimir asked, rubbing his chin.
“We know nothing,” Khoda answered. “We think she’s a witch. According to Swan records, her father was a Vulture, but the Swan rituals should have guaranteed she’d be born a Swan. A similar ritual should have guaranteed she’d lose her Birthright when she married into the Phoenix caste. We suspect she learned how to thwart those rituals from her mother. And if she was born a witch, with a dual Birthright like Prince Tavin”—it was Tavin’s turn to make a noise, albeit one of disgust at the word prince—“then she’d have a Swan’s ability to manipulate people and a Vulture’s command over skin.”
“So you get the skin-ghasts,” Fie concluded. They’d known for nigh two moons that the ghasts were Rhusana’s work, yet there was something dreadful in knowing how. “And no one notices her because you already have all three Swan witches. Not the most outlandish theory.”
Khoda nodded. “By our count, there should be seventy-eight Vulture witches at all times, one for each of their dead gods. According to our sources, only seventy-seven are accounted for.”
“Is it even possible?” Jasimir asked. “The dead gods founded their own castes. Can they be reborn into a different one?”
The Black Swan’s glance flicked for the briefest moment to Fie before darting away again. He said evenly, “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Fie caught her breath. It didn’t have to mean aught; maybe he’d just looked her way to gauge her focus on the tooth.
Still, Little Witness’s words echoed back to her: You are not what you were.
Whatever Khoda knew about that, she could pry out of him later, without Draga and the lordlings for an audience.
“Doesn’t matter how she got her powers, just that she’ll keep using them,” Fie said. “So where does she foul up? What are her weaknesses?”
Khoda gave an impatient sigh. “Again, we don’t have anyone close to her, so it’s hard to say. From what we’ve observed … she jumps to easy answers, and she’s prone to underestimating people she thinks beneath her. King Surimir never would have handed you Phoenix teeth.”
“Do you think she murdered my father?” Jasimir’s voice frayed at the very edges.
This time, the truth cut straight from Khoda, unflinching. “I absolutely do. But as with your mother, there’s no proof.”
Draga straightened at the mention of her sister. “You believe she assassinated Jasindra?”
Khoda hesitated. For the first time, he seemed uncertain how to answer. “Not … directly. Only one of our agents saw the queen close-up before the king sealed her chambers and ordered her body burned. They found finger-shaped bruises on her throat. Rhusana wouldn’t have been able to overpower a former Hawk like Queen Jasindra. But…”
“Surimir could.” Tavin’s voice rang hollow.
Khoda nodded, grim. “We have no proof. However, it was no secret the king had been visiting Rhusana’s pavilion for moons—”
Khoda cut himself off as Prince Jasimir turned on a heel and walked out of the tent.
“I’ll go after him.” Fie let the Crane tooth fizzle out and tossed it aside, then caught Tavin’s hand a moment. “Can you make sure the band’s squared away?”
He brushed a quick kiss against her cheek. “Yes, chief.”
She sent a warning glare to Khoda and strode out.
Lakima was waiting outside with her three remaining Hawks, looking uneasy as they held a human barrier between the Crows and the rest of the camp, which looked even uneasier for the Crows’ presence. Wretch saw Fie and waved a thumb at the river. “His Highness went that way.”
“Thanks,” Fie called. “Tavin’s going to help you get settled. I’ll be there in a bit.”
A moment later she realized skipping through the Hawk camp by herself was not the greatest notion she’d had all moon. When she turned to Lakima, the corporal was already falling into step behind her as the other guards split off with the band. Fie raised her brows at her.
“You’re being targeted by the queen,” Lakima said blandly, even as she sized up the nearby Hawks. “Anyone could be a threat.”
“Aye,” Fie said, and knew she and Lakima both understood it didn’t take a queen’s influence for that.
They found Jasimir standing by the makeshift mammoth pen, snapping carrots in half and dumping them into a pail as one of the beasts lumbered over. Barf the tabby sat by his side, tail flicking in the grass.She’d had a shine for Jasimir since he’d saved her from a burning cart. Two Hawk guards maintained a respectful distance and a watchful eye; one held up a hand as they approached.
“It’s fine,” Jasimir said wearily. “Give us some room, please.”
Fie had found mimicking the Hawk salute only annoyed them, and so she did just that, and pretended not to relish the guards’ sour looks as she passed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked once she was close enough to keep her voice low. The Hawks had stepped a few more paces away, but she wouldn’t risk one of them running their mouth.
“What’s there to talk about?” Jasimir threw a fistful of carrottops to the mammoth. Sunset had dyed the clouds above lily orange, turning his gold circlet to a band of clean fire cutting through his dark hair. “Everyone else knew he was a monster. I’m the only fool in the kingdom who ever thought otherwise.”
Fie watched the mammoth gleefully cram carrots into its mouth. “You thought Rhusana killed your mother. You’re probably right. What’s it matter if she made your pa do it instead of soiling her own hands?”
“Because it means some part of him wanted Mother dead,” Jasimir said, bleak. That much was true; a Swan witch could only twist desires, not create them. “And that’s—that’s my father. He’s half of me. He’s the only king I’ve ever known. How am I supposed to believe I’ll be any better on the throne?”
“You can’t,” Fie said immediately. “‘Better’ isn’t what you think you are. Better is what you do.” The mammoth huffed their way, and she threw it another carrottop. “Your father was a monster, aye. But I’d rather either of his sons sit on the throne than anyone else. And Tavin’s spoken for, so that leaves you to take the crown.”
They didn’t speak for a moment, though true silence was thwarted by the rush of the Vine and the clamor of soldiers sparring, mending armor, and throwing gambling shells in the camp at their backs. The mammoth finished its supply of carrottops and pressed closer to the fence, snuffling about the grass for any it might have missed.
“I really thought—” Jas cut himself off as his voice cracked, then cleared his throat and tried again. “I told you I wanted to save him.”
“Aye,” Fie said cautiously.
Jas’s knuckles paled as he gripped the fence. “I thought I could change him. I thought—I thought I could save him—”
Fury and despair shattered over his face. His foot crashed into the pail. It sailed into the mammoth pen, scattering carrot bits into the grass. The mammoth jerked its head back with a whuff, steel charms tinkling on its tusks as the Hawk guards glanced briefly over their shoulders to make sure the only victims were the vegetables. Barf, for her part, simply stopped washing a paw and leapt up on the fence to rub her face on Jasimir’s arm.
“I couldn’t even save my own mother from him!” Jasimir hissed. “I knew I’d been living with a murderer for the last six years. I didn’t know I’d been living with two.”
Fie had the terrible suspicion that the hazy rules of friendship dictated she ought to hug the prince. She also had the absolute certainty that doing so would only further upset them both.
Instead she stiffly patted him on the back. “Rhusana’s got a baby, aye?”
Jasimir nodded, eyes glittering. “Rhusomir. She barely lets anyone see him.”
“Do you blame him at all for any of this?”
The prince blinked. “He’s two. I was eleven.”
“But you were still a child, aye?” Fie pushed. “And your ma was a warrior and a queen. What were you supposed to do?”
“Anything.” Jasimir looked like he wanted to kick something else. Instead he absently scratched Barf’s ears. “I can’t even say I didn’t see it.”
Fie pursed her lips. “Sometimes … when I call a Peacock tooth or a Hawk tooth, or even sometimes another Phoenix tooth, I get this feeling from it. Depends on the person. Tells me to be quiet, to not make trouble, to look away and move along. It’s always these … these scummers who knew how bad it could be with a bad person under the crown, but they didn’t care as long as the bad royal wasn’t hurting them.” She shrugged. “Sometimes the bad royal would give them aught like a bauble or a sweet talk, keep them addicted to it like poppy-sniffers, and so long as they kept their fine ways and got a chance for another whiff, they’d pretend all was right.”
She flicked a bit of carrot into the mammoth pen. “You were eleven, and all the adults around you were telling you naught was wrong. That’s no fault of yours.”
He nodded, face painfully taut. “There’s … there’s so much to undo.”
“Aye” was all Fie had to say.
He pushed off from the fence. “We should get you back to your band.”
The Hawks peeled from their posts to trail them as they headed back toward Draga’s tent, Barf trotting behind them. “We’re only a day and a half’s march from Dumosa,” he told her. “But of course you and yours are welcome to stay with us as long as you need.”
Fie caught looks from the camp’s soldiers as they passed: curious, befuddled, a few souring as they lingered on her. “Likely we’ll stick with you until you’re seated proper on the throne, but unless you hurry, you’ll want us back on the roads soon as possible. People are trying to burn their own plague-dead.”
He winced. “How bad is it?”
“We had to burn Karostei to ash. Nigh a quarter of the people burned with it.” She shuddered. “And Rhusana made ghasts of the dead, so she won’t be setting the record straight anytime soon.”
Jasimir turned uphill as they passed the master-general’s tent. Not far ahead, she saw Tavin laughing with her Crows as they maneuvered the supply wagon around the tents. Lakima’s Hawks maintained their wall between them and the rest of the camp, and Fie doubted their grim faces were due solely to Khoda’s absence.
Jasimir didn’t miss it, either. “I’ll tell Aunt Draga about Karostei, but she may want to hear it from you. And I’ll tell her your guards could use some reinforcements.”
The prince did them one better: once Fie’s Crows were settled to her satisfaction, he personally escorted them to the nearest mess tent and joined them for supper. Fie couldn’t help but remember moons earlier, when he and Tavin had scrambled to wash up before her band could foul the water; she suspected they both were glad those days were behind them.
Tavin excused himself halfway through their meal, and she didn’t see him again until after the sun had gone down. Jasimir had awkwardly pointed out his brother’s tent on their way back to where the Crows had made camp. The warm orange glow of an oil lamp soaked through the canvas walls, Tavin’s shadow a soft, distinct blur against the light. Fie made a mental note to douse the lamp before doing anything she didn’t want to hear crudely recounted by Madcap the next morning.
She glanced back for one more look at her band, who were unrolling their sleeping mats beside the fire. Corporal Lakima stood guard, no more relaxed in a camp full of soldiers than she’d been on the open road. She caught Fie’s eye and gave her a slight nod: all would be well under her watch.
Fie returned the nod and slipped into Tavin’s tent.
It wasn’t much more than canvas pitched high enough to stand in, not even bothering to lay a dropcloth over the grass, but Fie saw bits of him in every corner: his sword belts looped through a support to keep them off the ground, a wooden crate with leather armor stacked neat inside, a modest collection of scrolls.
Tavin himself had stretched out on his belly on a tight-woven woolen blanket in the far corner, and by Fie’s guess, it looked cushy enough to be hiding a straw pallet underneath. The oil lamp nearby caught on a scroll unfurled in his hands, one he was frowning at until Fie walked in.
“It’s worse than I remember,” he grumbled, tossing the parchment aside.
She glanced at it and found square what she expected: The Thousand Conquests. “Told you it was awful.”
“It’s all awful.” Tavin propped himself up on his elbows as Fie sat nearby and began to unwind her sandal straps.
Halfway through one foot, a slice of gold caught her eye. She blinked and spotted a circlet like Jasimir’s, only this one was buried—spitefully, she suspected—under a heap of dirty laundry. She let out a cackle and swiped it free. “What is this?”
“Auugh.” He hid his face in the blanket. “Mother said I wasn’t allowed to throw it away.” He emerged again. “I’m probably supposed to wear it again tomorrow … Speaking of awful, the lord of the manor’s coming to have dinner with Mother and Jas tomorrow, and we have to go.”
Fie twisted about to look at him, still holding the circlet. “‘We’?”
“I told her I wouldn’t go if you couldn’t.”
“And that was supposed to get you out of it.” She dropped the circlet on his head. It landed askew, slipping over one ear.
Tavin gave a rueful grin and pulled the circlet off. “Guilty. Mother called my bluff. I shouldn’t have said we have to go; I don’t know if you need to stay with your band. Would you like to join me for dinner with the lord of the manor tomorrow?” He dropped the circlet on Fie’s head, where it sat even worse, sliding to rest just over her brows. Still, he pulled a polished-brass mirror from a nearby crate and handed it to her. “There. Much better.”
Fie tried not to stare at her reflection, at the bar of bright gold striping her forehead.
She tried not to admit how some ancient ache in her bones stirred at the sight. How somewhere deep down, eons away, lives and lives and lives past … some part of her felt whole for wearing a crown.
She tossed her head swift and hard, and the circlet popped off with a mellow ring, rolling to lay in the grass like a snake eating its own tail.
“Too big for me,” Fie said, and she didn’t know that for a truth or a lie. “But likely I can manage dinner.”
Tavin reached up to twist a lock of her hair in his fingers. Then his smile splintered a bit. He ducked his head, patting down the blankets of his bed as he searched for something, and a moment later he surfaced with a pair of sewing shears. “I … have another favor to ask.”
Fie continued unwinding her sandal straps. “If it’s to cut the lawn, you’ll need bigger shears.”
He shook his head. “Will you cut my hair?”
She stopped, letting the leather sandal strap fall to the grass, and cocked her head. “I like your hair.” That was the truth: it had grown out a bit since she’d left Trikovoi, curling about his ears long enough to bury her hands in when she felt like it.
Tavin gave a half shrug, staring at the shears. “Fie … Burzo has been in my mother’s service before I was born. If all it took was a hair for Rhusana to turn him, I don’t want to—I can’t take any chances.”
He’d held up a steady front all evening, teasing Lakima and jesting with Varlet, but the scratch in his voice said this wasn’t just about Burzo.
Fie reached out, turned his chin until he met her eyes. “You’re not the king.”
He swallowed. “That’s not enough.”
And in her bones, Fie knew he was right. She took up the shears. “I’ll need rags and water.”
Once Tavin’s hair lay in damp waves against his skull, she got to work. She’d watched Wretch trim hair short often enough, and usually with no more than the chief’s blade or a shard of broken pottery. Shears made for much quicker work, and it wasn’t long before the rags covering Tavin’s shoulders had darkened with shorn hair.
Something about the silence felt too grim for Fie to abide. “How did you know Khoda for a Swan?”
“When he pushed me aside, I … felt it,” Tavin explained. “The Hawk witch-finders trained me to read caste in the blood, in case any assassins tried disguising themselves.” He blew out a breath. “Not that it was good for much. He’s been spying on you since before I arrived, and I didn’t notice a thing until today.”
Fie raised an eyebrow he couldn’t see. There was something both tiresome and delicious about what sounded like jealousy from Tavin. “Reckon that’s all that bothered you?” she prodded, tugging another lock between her fingers.
To her surprise, he answered swift and blunt: “The guard on the road. I don’t care that he was a … How did you put it?”
“Dung-sucking dog-lover?”
He gave an exaggerated dreamy sigh. “You have such a way with words. I’m used to people like him. But I can’t stop wondering, how many of them are Hawks?”
“Plenty. But you saw it yourself—he backed down when Jas showed up. They care about the lad at the top, and if he fancies Crows, they’ll learn to do it, too.”
Whatever Tavin had to say to that, he kept to himself, and Fie was more than willing to distract herself with running her fingers through his hair. She’d cut near all of it down no higher than a knuckle-width when he asked, “Do you feel safe here?”
Fie fumbled the shears.
She had the protection of a prince and a master-general, two swords, a bag of teeth. Yet not a dozen paces away, even in the middle of scores of the kingdom’s finest warriors, Corporal Lakima still kept watch over Fie’s band.
“Safe enough,” she lied.
The last curl fell to Tavin’s shoulder with a decisive snip. She bundled the rags off his shoulders, taking care not to let any hair fall loose. “There. Done. We’ll throw this in the river tomorrow.”
Tavin twisted about on his knees, and when she looked up, she wasn’t quite sure who she saw. It wasn’t just that his hair no longer softened the harsher lines of his jaw; it was his face. Even when things had been at their most dire on the road, even when she’d nigh killed herself burning too many teeth or he’d good as killed himself letting the Vultures take him, he’d kept the faintest embers of a grin or a jest, like letting them go cold meant some kind of surrender.
She couldn’t see any ghost of laughter in him now.
“Fie.” He cradled her face in his hands. “I—I will never let anything happen to you. No matter what. You know that, don’t you?”
Fie didn’t know why the notion made her eyes burn, why it stole the words from her burning throat. Then she thought of Pa, tears streaming down his face as he said in wonder, I’m … home.
She reached to douse the lamp, voice cracking. “I know.”
As he drew her to him, she whispered the most terrible truth she knew against the pulse of his neck: “I feel safe with you.”
It wasn’t that he watched her back, put her at ease, or made her soft in ways she both reveled in and despised. Fuss as she might, she loved him for those and more.
The terrible part was one they both knew and neither could say into the dark: he made her feel safe, and that was not enough.
A quarter hour into the dinner with Lord Geramir, Fie had learned three facts about the man.
First, he was wholly, predictably insufferable, shoveling praise onto the prince and the master-general like dung into flower beds, yet curling his lips at Fie and Tavin as if they were the ones who reeked.
Second, he was deeply insecure, boasting of his expensive Dovecraft robes, his unmatched vineyards, how often the regional governor invited him to dine in his grand fortress in Zarodei.
And third: judging from the way he couldn’t stop staring at Fie, he was terrified of her.
Not that she was doing much to soothe his nerves, staring right back at him, jaw clenched, as he dithered, “We’ll all just be so relieved when this … unpleasantness blows over.”
Fie was weighing how much longer she could abide the company of the Peacock lord. Draga had promised she wouldn’t even need to say aught, just enjoy a fine dinner with Tavin, and like a fool, Fie had believed her. Instead she’d had to leave her swords and teeth in Tavin’s tent, don a laughably large tunic of Draga’s, and pretend she didn’t want to drown Geramir in the soup course.
“I’m sure His Highness will remember your hospitality,” Draga said crisply, not even blinking as a serving boy set a plate of fine greens and plum-drenched beef before her. The master-general had apparently insisted Lord Geramir come to them if he wanted the prince’s ear, and he had not arrived empty-handed, bringing a host of his own Sparrow servants and platter after gleaming platter of Hassuran delicacies.
Now those same servants swarmed thick as bees about the tent, which had been set up just for this dinner as far as Fie could tell. It wasn’t near big enough for all the attendants darting about with trays, bowls, platters, pitchers, and more; it was made all the worse as they tried to give Fie a wide berth, turning her corner of the table into an oasis in a storm. Fie had been sure to scrub herself even cleaner than the prince, but the servants had apparently caught word that a Crow would be in attendance.
“Lord Geramir,” Jas said, “are you aware some towns are attempting to burn their own plague-dead?”
The Peacock lord coughed into his wine goblet. A plate landed before Fie with a thud. The server scuttled away near as abrupt as they’d appeared.
Lord Geramir dabbed at his mouth with a fine silk hand towel, then flicked it away for a server to pluck from the ground. “I’m sure they’re just following the queen’s example.”
Fie snuck a look at Draga to see how she’d gone about managing the slab of beef. It seemed to involve the delicate forked tongs beside her plate. She didn’t miss Geramir’s uneasy glance when she picked up a silver knife.
“I would appreciate it if you made it clear to your arbiters that the Crows must handle any outbreaks.” Jasimir’s own knife scraped against the plate as he sliced through the beef. “It’s not safe for anyone else to dispose of the bodies.”
Lord Geramir bobbed his head. “This will all pass soon enough.”
“Geramir.” Draga set her forked tongs down. “The words you’re looking for are ‘Yes, Your Highness.’”
He squirmed, tugging at his collar. “It would be unseemly to directly contradict Her Majesty … There are those who would think I am showing favoritism to, er, to the…” Geramir’s gaze skimmed over Fie and Tavin a moment before darting back to his plate. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I?” Tavin asked, artificially pleasant. The lamplight gleamed off the circlet sitting in his short-cropped hair as he tilted his head.
Draga cleared her throat, but Prince Jasimir blinked at the governor, slow and deliberate. “I’m afraid we don’t know what you mean, Lord Geramir.” He let the Peacock fidget a moment. “If you’re saying your only two options are to let the Crows continue to keep the Sinner’s Plague in check as they’ve done for centuries, or to let your land rot because this week’s queen told you to, the choice seems fairly obvious to me.”
“No, of course…” Geramir looked about for another hand towel, then settled for dabbing his brow with a sleeve. “I’m just saying, you can issue your own orders after you’re crowned a week from now, and it makes no sense for me to burn bridges when we could just wait it out—”
“‘Wait it out’?”
The tent fell silent as everyone looked at Fie. She was staring at the Peacock lord, cheeks burning.
“I’m not particularly concerned,” Geramir said, waving a hand. “The arbiters know what’s best for their towns, and—”
“The arbiter of Karostei was the one turning away Crows,” Fie snapped, anger spiking up her gut. “He died wearing the Sinner’s Brand, along with a quarter of Karostei. We left that town in ashes. Can a quarter of your population wait it out?”
Lord Geramir’s face darkened. “This is absurd,” he said. “Did you ever consider you might be biased because it’s your job to take the dead? You’re wading around in it all day, but—”
“You aren’t concerned that the plague will reach your home.” This time, it was Jasimir who cut him off. Lord Geramir shrank a bit but gave a noncommittal shrug. “Do you think my father died of the plague?”
“Her … Her Majesty says so,” Geramir stammered.
Fie made herself put her knife down. “But you don’t think you could catch it. You think the gentry are above the plague.”
“It’s called the Sinner’s Plague for a reason,” he returned. He picked up his goblet, found it empty, and set it back down with a scowl. “Forgive my indelicacy, Your Highness, but your father was not … known for his temperance. Besides, surely the Covenant would not have sent someone unfit to the Peacock caste—”
“Last week I cut the throat of the Sakar girl,” Fie said. “You know the family? Nice estate up north. Beautiful cedars. No more children. Their only heir showed the Brand at sunrise, and I burned her corpse by sundown. Not four days ago I watched the plague take the Karostei arbiter where he stood for damning a hundred souls rather than call for Crows. You can tell yourself what you please about the Covenant, and you can tell yourself the plague’s no concern of yours. One way or another, you’ll still feed me and mine.”
For the first time, fear flashed through the Peacock lord’s eyes. But something about it struck her as wrong—and then she placed it.
Peacocks got a certain look when the plague took one of their own: rattled, as they could no longer deny that, for all their fine ways and sturdy walls, their house was vulnerable as any other.
But Geramir didn’t look like a man invaded by doubt. His fear was that of the gambler who’d wagered the whole of his fortune only to realize that the bones had landed bad.
The hush over the table stretched unnaturally long.
It took Fie a moment to ken why: the only people in the tent were seated at the table.
“Where are the servants?” she asked, and the weight of the quiet seemed to push back. The camp ought to have been ringing with noise as they prepared to march at dawn. Her stool tipped as she bolted to her feet, heart pounding.
No—not just her heart. A rumble shook the earth, then another and another, turning the table into a clattering mess. Strange, low cries echoed through the walls of the tent.
For all its soldiers, the camp was no safer than any other house. And from the flicker in Master-General Draga’s eyes, that realization was dawning.
Fie started for the tent flap. Tavin caught her shoulder. “Wait, we don’t know what’s—”
“No—” She twisted free and stumbled out of his reach. “My band—I need to—”
Fie yanked the tent flap aside and found—nothing.
Twilight had drenched the camp in dark, dusty shades of blue, but not so much as a breeze stirred the canvas, stillness lying like a fog over the rows and rows of tents. Then Fie picked out darker, stunted shapes along the lanes: Hawk soldiers staring into the oncoming night, faces blank.
Every single one was on their knees.
Something monstrous and impossible swelled near the banks of the river, then a second, then a score. Fie heard Tavin’s sharp breath at her back but couldn’t tear her eyes away; her head couldn’t quite process what she saw until it was too clear to deny.
Not a hundred paces off, bleeding, empty mammoth skins swayed in an unyielding march toward them, trampling an unswerving path through tent and frozen Hawk alike.
And above the muffled screams and the crunch of tentpoles, clear, musical chimes pierced the air, needle-sharp.
More empty-faced Hawks stamped up the path in inhumanly even time, bearing a glittering covered sedan on their shoulders. Gauzy white silk curtains fluttered demurely with each step, dusk catching on the silver and pearl wrought into its supports.
“Fie,” Tavin said, “please, get behind me.”
Jasimir’s voice rose behind them before she could argue. “Tav—”
Fie’s belly dropped further. She knew that tone. She finally tore her eyes away to look back.
Lord Geramir had drawn a dagger on Jasimir. That wasn’t what had stopped the prince in his tracks, though, one hand frozen halfway to a knife up a sleeve.
What had stopped Jasimir was the blade Draga now held at his throat.
There was no way out.
There was no way out for any of them.
The footsteps of the sedan-bearers stopped with a flourish of chimes; the thunder of mammoth footfalls persisted like a dwindling pulse.
In a whisper of satin and a cascade of silvery-white hair, Queen Rhusana glided out from the curtains of the sedan, drawing herself up to her full height. The shadows of mammoths rose behind her like a tide.
A shallow smile sliced across her face like the birth of a waxing moon.
“I’m here to make a deal,” she said.