The Merciful Crow

by Margaret Owen

  He held up his hand, showing a small, bloody gash. “Naught to it, see?”

  “Tav…” Jasimir’s voice had withered like a raisin. Fie knew that fear, the trap of a road that only went two bad ways.

  “Isn’t his word good enough?” Tavin slid between Pa and the prince. A line in his brow said the casual façade was like to split a seam.

  “No,” Fie answered, cold. Tavin’s diplomacy caved as he frowned at her. She scowled back. “What’s the matter? Afraid your king-to-be might have to keep his deal this time?”

  Prince Jasimir flinched and shook his head. “I … Fine. You’re right.”

  “Jas—” Tavin put a hand on the prince’s shoulder.

  “A king doesn’t get to make empty promises. This is just a formality.” Jasimir shrugged him off, walked over to Pa, and grasped the sword’s broken end. His fingers came away bloody.

  He and Pa clasped hands. The air round them fried with a cold heat, like the moments before a lightning strike. The ring of torches burned higher, washing the roadside in red light.

  “In flesh and blood do I make this oath,” Pa said. “Me and mine will see you safe to your allies, prince. To the Covenant I swear, may my soul not rest until it be done.”

  “In flesh and blood do I make this oath,” echoed Jasimir. “As king, I will ensure the Crow caste’s protection as payment for their service to me now. To the Covenant I swear it.”

  A breeze stirred Fie’s hair, dragging the torch-flames sideways. The very ground seemed to hum beneath her toes.

  Pa still held steady. “By the Covenant, we bind this oath. I swear to keep it in this life and, if I fail, the next.”

  The wind only grew stronger.

  “With the Covenant as witness, this oath shall be kept.” Jasimir’s voice was louder now. “In this life or the next.”

  Firelight seemed to catch round their joined hands a moment, flaring brighter as it wove through knuckle and skin.

  There was a brief, furious blaze of light, and then it was done.

  The Covenant had heard them, Pa and the prince and even Fie.

  The breeze died, the dim torchlight suddenly paltry in the wake of the oath. Fie swayed in place, trying to snatch whole thoughts from a whirlwind in her head.

  She’d sworn the prince to a Covenant oath. No more Oleanders; no more riders in the night; no more fingers in the road. So long as they kept their end of the deal.

  But if it went bad, Pa would pay the price.

  The notion coiled about her throat like a collar on a queen.

  If Pa or Jasimir failed in this life, they would still be sworn in the one after, and after, and after. Until their oath was kept, Pa would be bound to the prince.

  And a royal Phoenix would be sworn to protect the Crows.

  Hate the boys or no, Fie had to admit that extorting royalty had its sunny side.

  “Pleasure doing business with Your Highness,” Pa said, cheery. He let the prince go. “Now I believe we’ve got some bodies to burn.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TOOTH AND NAIL

  “Make yourself useful or make yourself scarce, Hawk.”

  If Tavin kenned the salt in Wretch’s tone, he didn’t show it, swaying by the cart as he tried to balance a split of kindling on his head.

  “I heard this is how Sparrow farmers carry their burdens,” he answered with a grin Fie was already sick of. “Don’t you want me to blend in?”

  “Wrong caste,” Fie snapped, pulling another armful of firewood from the cart and loading it into the sling she’d made of her cloak. At least Prince Jasimir had the sense to stay out of their way as the Crows built up the pyre. “The only way you’ll pass for a Crow is if you keep your fool mouth shut.”

  “That’s a lost cause,” Tavin admitted with a shrug. “I couldn’t even keep quiet as a corpse.” At Fie’s baffled look, he plucked the stick of kindling off his head and pointed it at her. “At the quarantine hut? You said something about the incense, and I laughed. And then your grumpy friend nearly broke my neck tossing me into the cart.”

  She’d thought the laugh was Hangdog. And she’d thought wrong. Again.

  The prince fidgeted, flexing the hand he’d cut. The Covenant had healed him with the sealing of the oath, but that didn’t seem to ease his nerves. “That incense has been the ceremonial—”

  “The damn patchouli, that’s what she called it.” Tavin laughed, balancing the kindling on a fingertip. “Three solid days of that mess. I told you it was foul, Jas.”

  Fie swiped the kindling from him, swung her bundle of firewood over a shoulder, and stomped away.

  “She agrees with me,” Tavin added in her wake, unperturbed.

  The Fan. She only had to put up with the lordlings’ nonsense until they made it to the Fan. Well, to the governor’s city of Cheparok. Then Pa’s end of the oath would be kept, and she could forget about them and the Oleander Gentry both.

  Hangdog was turning a band of earth for a firebreak round the growing stack of wood as Fie approached. At the sight of her, he stuck the spade into the ground and muttered, “His Highness giving you grief?”

  “Just his guard dog,” she grumbled back.

  “Seems they trained him a few tricks.” Hangdog jerked his chin behind her.

  Fie snuck a glance. Tavin had perched on a wobbling log by the cart, balancing more kindling on each palm and the crown of his skull. Half the Crows were rolling their eyes. The other half were laughing.

  Her lips pursed. “Thought Hunting Castes were born with a stick up the arse.”

  “Turns out the prince is a piss-baby and his guard is a clown.” Hangdog spat and resumed digging. “Waste of brains, the both of ’em.”

  Fie chucked her load of firewood onto the heap, itching with distrust. This was square why Pa called Hangdog two-second clever: Tavin had already gone to work winning Crows over for his prince. The Hawk was no clown. He was walking trouble.

  And trouble incarnate was rummaging through the bloody shrouds on the ground when she returned to the cart. He fished out first a dagger that he tossed to the waiting prince, then two short swords that he belted at his hips with a swift, practiced ease. The scabbards of every blade looked rich enough to feed the whole band for a year.

  Fie turned to the prince. “Do Phoenixes even burn?”

  Prince Jasimir blinked. “Are you speaking to me?”

  “Aye. Do you burn?” Fie waited, gathering up more firewood, but Jasimir seemed wholly confounded. She sighed. “Should we be faking a funeral pyre for a boy with the fire Birthright?”

  Fie had wondered more than she liked about the day the dead gods handed out Birthrights. She wondered what drove the Sparrows’ gods to bless their caste with the gift of refuge, letting them slip from notice when they pleased. What inspired the Cranes’ gods to give their children the Birthright of truth, so they could spot lies like stains.

  She wondered, too much, why the Crows’ gods had left them no Birthright at all.

  And she reckoned that when the Phoenix gods gave their children the Birthright of fire, they hadn’t had funeral pyres in mind.

  Tavin spoke for the prince. “It’s fine. Phoenixes burn when they’re dead.” He stood and dumped the bundled shrouds atop the firewood in her arms. “Here, this should go in the pyre, too.”

  Something slipped free of the linen. Fie caught it by habit.

  A jolt shot up her arm, stampeding into her brain before she could stave it off. For a moment, Fie’s vision went blank and the world was mud and sour slop, squeal and grunt, bristle and—

  “Pig bones.”

  The torch-lit night returned at the sound of Tavin’s voice. Firewood lay scattered about Fie’s feet, her hands still tangled in linen. Tavin was clearly fighting down a grin; likely he thought she was disgusted, not dizzy.

  “They’re pig bones,” he laughed, kneeling to gather up the spilled firewood as her mind scrambled back into a more human tongue. “We figured the pyre wouldn’t be complete with
out some bone fragments.”

  She hadn’t fouled up with animal bone in months. The power in human bones and teeth, that she could draw out or stuff down at will, but beasts … beasts had a nasty way of running wild.

  Fie’s hands shook now more with rage than shock. “You listen, Hawk boy, and you ken me.” She threw the linen bundle back at Tavin’s chest. “Don’t you ever, ever surprise a Crow with bones like that. Never.”

  “Especially not one like Fie,” Pa said from behind her with a brief pat on the shoulder.

  “She’s a bone thief?” Prince Jasimir asked, eyeing her sideways.

  Most every Crow in earshot flinched at the slur. So did Tavin. The prince didn’t seem to notice. Pa dug round in the cart’s lower cargo hold before answering, prompting a mew of protest from Barf the cat, who had holed up beside a sack of millet.

  “Every Crow chief is,” Pa said at last, stowing a jug of flashburn under his arm. He rolled his right sleeve back to show a black witch-sign swirling on the wrist, same as the one Fie bore. “Bands don’t last long without a witch. I’m chief for this band, and I’m training Fie and Hangdog to lead their own someday. But with Fie, the witch part’s not your trouble. It’s her temper that’ll leave a mark.”

  Pa winked at Fie, then twitched his fingers at the blades the boys had strapped at their sides. “You’ll wrap those scabbards and hilts in rags tonight, and you’ll keep them out of sight. Hunting Castes don’t abide Crows with whole blades.”

  “What do you mean?” Prince Jasimir clutched the jeweled hilt of his dagger. “Saborian law allows everyone to bear steel.”

  Pa shrugged. “And that’s well and fine, but the law doesn’t weep much for Crows. Most we’re allowed is a broken blade for the chief. Your blades stay hidden, or they go in the pyre.” He didn’t wait for a response before walking off.

  After that, Tavin’s stupid grin made itself scarce.

  Fie couldn’t help kicking about the memory of grieving servants in that reeking, gaudy palace. Perhaps they truly had mourned for the lordlings. But if the last hour was any measure, she couldn’t for the life of her see why.

  Once the pyre sat crowned in shrouds and bones, Pa uncorked the flashburn jug. Thick, clear ooze drizzled out as he turned back to the boys. “I’ll take your shirts, too, lads. Best leave some scraps in the coals. Fie, Hangdog, give ’em your robes and masks.”

  Prince Jasimir seemed to have resigned himself to preserving the fragile truce, for by the time Fie shook the wood scraps from her cloak, he and his guard were already pulling off their bloody tunics. She could read a history of training in their clean-healed scars, a map of every time they weren’t quick enough to beat the blade. Torchlight also snagged in the whorls of a burn crawling round Tavin’s left knuckles. It looked old, and not the work of any training Fie knew.

  “The old queen didn’t think much of royalty who were useless in a fight.”

  Tavin had caught her staring. Fie flushed. He just took her cloak and mask. “Jas and I won’t be a burden if we meet trouble.”

  The first queen had been born a Markahn, the oldest, proudest clan of Hawks in Sabor. It sounded like marrying into the Phoenix caste hadn’t changed her much.

  Hangdog seized Tavin’s unburnt wrist. “Hold—”

  In an instant, the fragile truce shattered.

  There was a breath, a tumble of mask and black rags, an adder-swift twist of flesh and torchlight and steel, a startled curse.

  And then there was Hangdog, standing stone-still as a sword point strummed the skin beneath his chin.

  Any hint of amity had vanished from the Hawk, one hand thrown in front of Prince Jasimir. Tavin’s eyes stayed on Hangdog, but when he spoke, it was to them all.

  “I’m tired. I haven’t eaten in three days. And I don’t take kindly to being dragged about. So let’s have another accord, yes? We will follow your bidding on passing for Crows, whether that be hiding blades, keeping quiet, or, Ambra help me, warning you about animal bones.” His scoff grated even more than his grin had. “And in turn you, all of you, will not lay one unbidden finger on myself or the prince. Not once.”

  The pulse jumped in Hangdog’s throat, perilous close to the point of the blade.

  “Do we have an understanding?” Tavin asked, cold.

  A muscle in Hangdog’s jaw twitched, like he aimed to spit in the Hawk’s face. It was clear as day how that would end.

  Fie stepped between the boys, pushing Hangdog back. “Understood,” she said, matching ice for ice in Tavin’s glare. The sword’s point hovered not a handspan from her eyes.

  “He’s a war-witch,” Hangdog muttered behind her. “I thought I saw the sign.”

  Sure enough, black lines adorned the Hawk guard’s unburnt wrist.

  “Hear that?” Fie spoke loud enough for Pa to catch, trying not to think how close, how sharp the sword’s tip loomed. “He was just looking at your witch-sign.”

  She counted one breath, then two, then three, never breaking Tavin’s stare.

  Then the blade vanished in a hiss of a sheath, as swift as it had appeared. Tavin nodded, curt. “Of course I can hear him now. He’s figured out how to use his words.”

  Fie dragged Hangdog over to Pa before he figured out words the prince or his guard dog found more offensive.

  Pa shook his head as the last few globs of flashburn oozed from the jug onto cold wood. “Near one,” he said under his breath. “Hawk fools are still Hawks. Let’s not forget the claws, aye?”

  “Aye, Pa.” Fie hated the shake of her hands, the old wrath curdling her veins. Oath or no, Hawk boys still liked to see Crows jump when they flashed steel. She wouldn’t forget twice.

  Pa pressed something small, hard, and familiar into Fie’s palm. His voice rose. “You two will stay back to mind the fire. No call to salt it without sinners. Meet us at the haven shrine once it’s burned low. Everyone else, we’re clearing out.”

  “Flint,” Hangdog called as the other Crows grabbed their cart-ropes. “It’s still in the cart.”

  Pa shook his head, pointing at Fie. “No need.”

  She uncurled her fist. A single milk tooth waited there, gleaming bright against her fingers. Startled, she looked to Pa.

  He just nodded. “Go on, girl.”

  Fie set her other hand over the Phoenix tooth, rolling it betwixt her palms like a gambler about to throw a shell. It only took a moment’s focus to find the spark of old life buried deep within, a ghost slumbering in bone. This was unlike any spark she’d dug up before—but Pa wouldn’t give her aught she couldn’t conquer.

  Closing her eyes, Fie pulled her hands apart. The spark broke free.

  She saw silk and gold, sandstone courtyards, a fist thrust into fire before a cheering, jewel-dusted crowd. No hunger, no fear, only the weight of terrible ambition. Then, like the beast before, it vanished—all but a flickering heat still in the palm of her hand.

  She opened her eyes. The tooth was burning.

  Fie felt no pain, even though the rag strips wrapped about her palm had begun to char. Fire wouldn’t harm a Phoenix, nor, it seemed, the witch who called royal ghosts. The small flame burned bright, pure gold, as if Fie held sunlight itself. She rolled her shirtsleeve from elbow to shoulder and focused on the spark once more. Fragments came to her: archery practice, a lover waiting in the amber-pod gardens, a ceremony committing the teeth of a dead uncle to the viatik stash … then, at last, what she’d sought. Candle-flame, winding round fingers like a purring kitten.

  Fie clung to the way the dead Phoenix had threaded the fire with his will, then sought the answering hum in her own bones. One rattled up her spine. She’d called out the spark, joined it to her own power. Now it was time to make it sing.

  With her head and her heart and all of her bones, Fie pulled.

  The tooth erupted in her outstretched hand. Heat blasted through the clearing, gasps turning to awed curses as too-bright flames clawed at the stars.

  The first time Pa had spoken to Fie of bei
ng a witch, he’d started with the gods.

  Eons ago, he’d told her, when the thousand gods had founded their castes and chosen their graves, they’d left one final blessing before they died: a Birthright for every caste.

  Every caste, that was, save the Crows.

  The gods who begat the Crows had a bad sense of humor. Crows came into the world with no blessings, but their witches had a gift all the same. It was why other castes called them bone thieves: their gift was stealing Birthrights.

  In the years after, she’d learned the ways of a Crow witch under Pa’s watchful eye. She could call any Birthright from the cast-off bones of the living or the dead, as long as its spark lasted for her.

  But why, she’d asked long ago, did the thousand gods have to die?

  And Pa had answered: Everything has a price, Fie. Especially change. Even Phoenixes need ash to rise from. Do you know how many witches there are in Sabor?

  She’d shaken her head.

  One thousand, Pa had told her. We had to rise from something.

  She’d never wholly believed it. She’d never once felt like a god.

  But with fire, the Birthright of royals, howling in the palm of her hand, Fie felt like one now.

  She took a breath and reeled the fire back to a respectable blaze, but a prickle on her neck said eyes still lingered on her. Sure enough, the Hawk’s thin squint was one she knew too well. It belonged to someone adjusting how they’d first sized her up.

  The prince, on the other hand, looked appalled. Fie reckoned he didn’t like the sight of divine Phoenix fire in her low-caste hands—then she saw that no witch-sign adorned either of his.

  The dead gods had left their graves as havens for their castes, sites where Birthrights were heightened to rival even a witch’s power. The royal palace squatted atop every single Phoenix god-grave in Sabor, less a haven and more a show of strength. Within its walls, any of Ambra’s line could call some measure of fire, witch or not. But outside Dumosa—perhaps for the first time—Prince Jasimir was powerless.