Sophia felt as though she were walking to her execution as she made her way down the beach toward the Master of Crows. Sienne stalked beside her, but even that protection didn’t seem like enough right then.
She put a hand over her belly protectively, thinking of what might happen to the child inside her if he chose to cut her down, but it wasn’t just him she was afraid of. The boats out on the fjord still had their cannons turned in toward the shore, and could still fire at any moment.
Shall I make things more comfortable? he sent over to her. The battles in the Dowager’s kingdom have given me power to spare.
He gestured, and the crows around him rose. He opened his coat, and more poured from it, joining with the others, until the space around him was black with them. They beat their wings, and the sand around Sophia rose up in answer to it, the dust forming a cloud that turned the rest of the world into shadows.
“I got the idea from something your sister did to my men,” he said, as Sophia got close to him. His tone was oddly formal, while his accent sounded like something that had been preserved from an earlier time. “Of course, when she summoned mist, she killed them in it.”
The fear within Sophia spiked at the threat contained in that, and she fought to push it back down. She put a restraining hand on Sienne’s head as the forest cat growled.
“If you’d wanted to kill me, you would just have attacked,” Sophia said, hoping it was true.
The Master of Crows regarded her the way one of his creatures might have looked at something, his head shifting slightly from side to side as if to get a better look.
“Perhaps I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t run,” he said. “Perhaps I’m more interested in letting the crows feast on you than in this little dukedom.”
“And are you?” Sophia asked. She looked around for a way to get clear if all this went wrong, but around her, all she could see was the swirling dust from the beach. It wasn’t even possible to see which way led back to the others.
That was bad, because she doubted that she could fight a man like this one. He was taller, stronger, and not weighed down with months of pregnancy, even without taking into account the part where he was well armed and Sophia had no more than an eating knife. Sienne might make a difference, but Sophia didn’t want to sacrifice the forest cat’s life just so she could save herself.
“Not yet,” he said, with a smile so brief it was barely there. “The crows will be fed better by you being alive. You will give them so many deaths, Sophia Danse, and each one will make me stronger.”
Did he think that the use of her name would intimidate her? Sophia stood up tall, facing him down the way she’d faced down everyone from rude noblewomen to bandits.
“You don’t get to decide what I do,” she said.
“Don’t I?”
She shook her head. “You’re making the mistake that some of the nobles here are making. That even my cousins are making. You think I have an interest in going back to the Dowager’s kingdom. You think I’m going to bring death and destruction to it for the sake of a throne I have never sought. I won’t do it. I’m going to find my parents instead. I’d say I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not.”
The Master of Crows didn’t seem perturbed by that. He stood there with a faint, knowing smile.
“You say that, and yet I can see the path ahead of you as clearly as if you have already walked it,” he said. “The crows let me see a long way.”
“Not far enough,” Sophia said. Briefly, she wondered what it must be like to be something like that, so powerful that it turned him into something that wasn’t even close to being human. She looked across to Sienne and wondered if she was on the start of the same path, and where it might lead if she were.
Then she realized that she didn’t care. All she cared about were the people who were meant to be under her protection. “Tell me what I have to do to secure the release of my men, or I will walk away.”
“Your men are already being released,” the Master of Crows said. “I do not need their deaths, when you will provide so many more.”
“I’ve just told you that I won’t do what you want,” Sophia said. She meant it. That this thing wanted her to invade the Dowager’s kingdom was only one more reason not to do it.
The Master of Crows shrugged. “In battle, a commander’s intentions do not matter if they cannot see the whole situation. They find themselves reacting as it changes, and he who controls those changes can make them dance like puppets.”
“Is that why you go to war?” Sophia asked. “To watch people perform for you?”
“There is a certain joy in it,” the Master of Crows admitted, sounding pleased by it. “But mostly I do it because I realized the truth a long time ago.”
“What truth?” Sophia asked.
The New Army’s leader smiled. “That if it comes to a choice between my life and the world, I will see the world in ashes. My creatures must be fed to sustain me. They will be fed. There is little point in fighting against it.”
Sophia shook her head. “You’re trying to make it sound as if it’s inevitable. As if it’s my destiny. Well, I still get to choose, and I’m choosing to walk up that beach and go back to the castle. Try to stop me, and I’ll have Sienne rip out your throat.”
“You think I am without protection?” the Master of Crows asked, with a gesture to his still circling birds.
“I think that cats eat birds,” Sophia pointed out. She turned to leave.
To her surprise, she heard the Master of Crows laughing behind her. Sophia spun back toward him.
“What’s so funny?”
“Simply that you truly believe you will do this thing, when I can stop you with a word. With four words, to be more precise.”
Did he mean some spell, or some trick? Should Sophia be trying to protect herself?
“Are you ready?” the Master of Crows asked. He held up one gloved hand, ready to count off the words as he said them. “Would you like to hear my four words? Here they are: Sebastian is in danger.”
Sophia froze, unable to help herself. Sebastian couldn’t be in danger, could he? This man, this thing, was lying to her. Even so, she couldn’t bring herself to walk away.
“Would you like to see?” The Master of Crows held out a hand like a falconer, and a bird plunged down from the circling mass to land on it. This one was larger than the others, a raven rather than a crow, and it stared at Sophia with the same bleak black eyes as its owner. Sienne hissed at it as it landed. The Master of Crows held it out to her, and Sophia realized that he was expecting her to hold her own arm out to take it.
Sophia felt certain that this had to be some kind of trick, but she didn’t dare to walk away. If Sebastian was truly in danger, and she ignored it, then she would feel as guilty as if she’d hurt him herself. Hesitantly, not knowing if it was the right thing, Sophia lifted her arm. The bird was heavier than Sophia had thought it might be, weighing down her arm as it hopped across. It dug in with its claws, and Sophia saw…
She watched from a bird’s-eye view as Sebastian stood at docks she recognized as Ashton’s. She saw men surrounding him, grabbing him, dragging him away. She saw a figure she recognized as Rupert…
“When was this?” Sophia demanded. “What am I seeing?”
“Watch,” the Master of Crows said, with a smile that said he knew he had her now, and that she wouldn’t be able to look away.
Sebastian being bundled into a cart, driven through the streets of the city to a house that was large and forbidding from the outside. Being dragged inside. The bird moving lower, prompted by an unseen hand, looking through the windows of a basement kitchen so that it could see Sebastian being dragged through it toward a basement door…
“There were no windows beyond that,” the Master of Crows said. “No way for one of my pets to get close. But I think it’s enough to show you what is happening. I have heard more, of course. They forget to shoot at crows there. Prince Sebastian walked out of his wedding, then disappeared. The Dowager is most angry with Prince Rupert, and tried to send him away, although my pets say that he has not gone. Sebastian languishes in Rupert’s home. Tell me, what do you think is happening to him there?”
“Rupert wouldn’t hurt Sebastian,” Sophia said, but the truth was that she could imagine the possibilities all too easily. She knew what Rupert was capable of. She’d seen it firsthand, when he’d tried to force himself on her. “Or maybe this isn’t real. Maybe you’re lying to me.”
“If you truly believe that,” the Master of Crows said. “Simply do nothing. I don’t think you will.”
Sophia glared at him. She hated being manipulated like this, made to dance in his game, yet the truth was that she didn’t have a choice.
“I will withdraw to my ships,” the Master of Crows said. “Ishjemme will not be attacked, for now. Instead, I will wait for the outcome of your war with the Dowager.”
“And attack whoever is weakened by it,” Sophia guessed.
The Master of Crows didn’t even try to deny it. “Crows follow in the aftermath of battle.”
“We’ll be ready for you,” Sophia promised. She reached out to hand the tall man his raven back, but the creature dug into her arm, snapping at her with its beak. Sophia jerked back only just in time to keep from losing an ear to the thing, shaking it loose from her arm and striking at it. It hopped from her to the Master of Crows, settling on his shoulder easily.
“It seems that my pets will not be satisfied without at least a taste of you,” he said. He turned to the creature, and it seemed for a moment as if he were listening to it. “An ear. They will have one lovely ear, as a promise of things to come.”
Sophia stepped back, behind the strength of Sienne. The forest cat was crouched now, ready to spring.
“Stay away from me,” Sophia commanded. “I’m not going to let your creatures near me. I’m certainly not going to let that thing eat my ear.”
The Master of Crows laughed at that. He drew a slender blade, holding it with the kind of ease that came from long practice.
“Oh, you still don’t understand how this all works, do you? You still think that you’re in control. You still think that you get to let me do anything.”
Sophia drew her eating knife. It seemed so pitiful against the blade her opponent held, yet, as he advanced, the circling cloud of sand keeping all help out, it was all Sophia had.