The Merciful Crow

by Margaret Owen

  Fie filled in the blanks herself. With all of their dead gods buried under the palace, any Phoenix stood near as good as a witch on its grounds. But outside of their palace, and outside of their witches, there was only one way to call down that terrible fire.

  The bag of Phoenix teeth that now dangled at Pa’s belt.

  “Round five,” Tavin said.

  He won that round, stealing a shell faster than she could stop him. Her mind was only half there, scrubbing at notions of teeth and royals. A question chipped loose. “That why the prince’s so fussed to save the king?”

  “I don’t even know that the thought’s occurred to him.” Tavin rolled the shell in his fingers. “Jas cares about the welfare of his country, and he looks up to his father. And generally, he frowns on coldblooded murder, which is something I look for in a monarch.”

  Fie didn’t decide to ask the question; it just seemed to fly out on its own: “Do you really think he’ll be a good king?”

  “You don’t?” Tavin looked up, brows raised. She let her silence answer. That same taut-wire edge crept back into his voice. “It’s been my job to die for Jas since we were seven. I’m not about to die for a bad king.”

  “Must be nice to have a say in dying on a bad king’s account,” Fie muttered.

  Tavin didn’t seem to hear her, rolling the shell around scar-dappled fingers. “Dumosa loves him. The Peacocks are practically catapulting their sons at him for suitors. The king’s council thinks he’s the sharpest heir in generations. And his aunt is master-general, so the Hawks won’t be a problem.”

  “For him.”

  “For anyone.” Tavin had slipped wholly off-balance now. “We’re bound to protect every Saborian. You know, if we’d camped nearer a league marker last night, the Hawks on duty could have run the Oleanders off.”

  Fie tensed, wondering if this was a road she could go down with a Hawk witch, even one trying to make it to her good side. “You didn’t see it?”

  “See what?”

  “At least one Oleander carried a Hawk spear last night,” Fie said. “Bronze-tipped, for the village outposts. They aren’t running off the Oleander Gentry, Hawk boy. They’re riding with them.”

  Tavin stared, silent, at the void in his rows where the gambling shell in his fist belonged. Fie waited for the inevitable denial. Of course he hadn’t seen it; of course he believed no Hawk could do such a thing.

  “Jas … Jas can fix it once he’s king,” he said instead. “You swore him to that.”

  Fie sat back, startled. But if they were digging into ugly truths, she carried more than her share. “This morning, hours after an Oleander raid, your king-to-be didn’t ask me how he can better protect the Crows. He asked me why we don’t just make it easy for him and leave. So I ask you again: You think he’ll be a good king?”

  “Fair enough.” Tavin sighed and at last dropped the shell in place. “If it helps, you two are more alike than you’d think.”

  “I’m—” Fie’s voice came out louder than she wanted. She tamped it down to a hiss. “He and I are nothing alike.”

  “Oh? Round six.”

  “He’s spent his life having everything handed to him, with a roof over his head, all the food he wants, and the best guards in the nation.” She seized a shell from his side, scarce caring as he swiped one of hers. “Reckon it slipped your ken that I haven’t.”

  “No, but he’ll fight to the death for what he believes in, like you. And he lost his mother, too, just a few years ago—”

  “Who told you about my ma?” Fie demanded.

  Tavin looked pointedly at the campfire, where Pa knotted new teeth into his string.

  Pa? When did Pa trust outsiders so?

  Fie bit the inside of her cheek. “I’ve no duty to like him because both our mas are dead.”

  “You don’t have to like him at all,” Tavin said. “I just suspect it’ll be easier to carry out that oath if you two find common ground. Both of you have been raised to lead your people since birth, for example.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “And neither of you are looking forward to it.”

  Any scorching reply died in Fie’s throat, gutted on that notion.

  Half of her wanted to slap him. She didn’t know why.

  The other half of her could only think of the moment Pa had handed her his broken sword and told her to cut the Sparrow man’s throat.

  “I want to be chief,” she said.

  Another half-truth.

  “Round seven,” said Tavin.

  She wanted to be chief.

  When, not if.

  She had to be chief. She wanted—

  There was a line there, as clear as the one drawn between her and the Hawk. She wanted to flash her own steel the next time a guardsman tried to make her jump. She wanted to tell off the next village that tried shorting them on viatik, and punch herself a new tooth string if anyone pushed back. She wanted to light every Oleander ablaze until fire turned the night to sunrise.

  But the cost of all that wouldn’t come out of her hide alone.

  Look after your own.

  Crows had one rule. And she had to be a Crow chief.

  He won the next five rounds, played in silence but for the countdown. Fie didn’t care. The sooner this damned game was over, the better. She’d learned her lesson for digging into ugly truths with pretty boys.

  “Round twelve.”

  The shells caught the firelight, studding the sand. Tavin was winning. On “three,” she made a halfhearted grab for his side.

  He caught her, of course. Fingers landed on her wrist, then let go—but not wholly, the tips trailing across the back of her hand, following ridges of vein and bone.

  “What do you want, Fie?” he asked.

  She’d been asked what she wanted before: her price from the prince, which branch of a crossroad she favored, what to leave in a shrine’s viatik stash. Matters for a chief, matters of business, matters of surviving another day.

  Tavin didn’t mean survival. He meant the way she wanted steel, and fire, and games with pretty boys. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had.

  And she had no good answer, only a bitter true one. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  Heat crept up her neck again, and a little anger—but not at him, at herself, for not wanting to pull away.

  She did anyhow, swiping all of his shells in one fell swoop. Then she stood and dusted herself off. “I win.”

  “Beginner’s luck,” he said with a shrug and a smile.

  A thousand thoughts clamored for attention as Fie strode across the camp, tossing the bag of shells back to Madcap and ignoring their surprised yelp.

  “Where you headed, Fie?” Pa asked as she passed.

  “Washing up,” she said, short, and stopped at the wagon for a fistful of soap-shells. “I’m on watch tonight, aye? It’ll wake me up some.”

  “Aye.” A lilt said he knew that was only half the reason. True, she did need to keep sharp tonight.

  She also sore needed to cool her head. The burn of Hangdog’s glower did naught to help as she marched out of camp.

  They’d used this site a few times before, enough that she could pick her way down to the nearby creek easy by the light of the dwindling moon. Sandy earth yielded to hard, sticky mud by the water, mosquitos whining in her ear as they skirted the tongues of yellow-eyed skinks.

  Fie rolled up her leggings and waded to where the stream ran fast and clean, sucking a breath at the chill.

  What do you want?

  She splashed cold water on her face and bare arms, then paused. Sometimes she caught her reflection in panes of glassblack or polished brass, and sometimes in streams like this. She’d seen her own face well enough to know it now even as a silver-edged shadow in the water: a rounded nose, broad mouth weighed in a frown, wide black eyes. Hair near as black, pin-straight only after she washed it, the ends always bristling up where the mask strap left a crease. So
metimes a smudge of road dust on the point of her middling-brown chin. She couldn’t say if anyone called her pretty; outside the Crows, most everyone only looked her way when she wore a mask.

  Now her eyes threaded her silhouette in the brook, searching for a hint of whether she’d been pretty playing shells by firelight.

  Then she kenned her own folly and ground the soap-shells betwixt her palms until their hulls split, ears burning. The sharp-smelling sap foamed into suds once she worked it into her face, arms, and hair, wishing she could go deep enough for a proper wash. Maybe once this was all over the prince’s cousin would spare a bit of hospitality.

  The thought of over made her pause.

  Over meant a Covenant oath kept. It meant no more fear of the Oleanders, not with an armed guard of the Crows’ own. Over also meant no more lordlings.

  Fie’s stomach gave a mutinous twist.

  Enough.

  Gritting her teeth, she splashed deeper until the water reached her waist, shuddering at the chill. Then she sat and plunged her head below the water.

  The cold shocked her skull mercifully empty, even if she could only take it a scant moment before bolting to her feet. Annoyance set in a moment later. She ought to have stripped out of her clothes first, even if she’d dry off quick enough keeping watch by the campfire. But her head was in a twisted way tonight, and it didn’t seem she could think straight for the life of her. She turned to slog back.

  A shadow waited on the bank.

  “You reckon that bastard’s shining to you?” Hangdog’s sneer slid across the water.

  Something in his voice said she was better off staying in the creek. Fie didn’t answer. When Hangdog got himself in a temper like this, she knew better than to try aught but look for a way out.

  “You reckon he’ll take you away and polish you up so much that the gentry forget what you came from?” he continued. “Don’t fool yourself. That oath’s trash. You’re only good to his kind on your knees.”

  The angry simmer flared fierce. “Oh aye, and I was never that to you? Us fooling about moons ago doesn’t give you a spit-weight of say in who I talk to.”

  “I didn’t know you were just practicing until you found a lordling to lie with,” Hangdog shot back. “You think he wants aught more from you than an easy—”

  Footsteps crunched toward them. Most of Fie prayed it was a Crow. A treacherous part of her wanted someone else.

  Wretch stepped into a patch of moonlight, hefting an armful of empty water skins. “You fall in that creek, girl?”

  Relief tumbled down Fie’s spine. She wrung out her shirt’s hem. “Something like that.”

  “Help me fill these, will you?” Wretch tossed a water skin to her.

  Hangdog looked from her to Fie, then stomped back toward the camp.

  Wretch didn’t speak until his footfalls faded. “He corners you again, you call for me, all right?”

  “I can handle him on my own,” Fie mumbled, surprised when her eyes burned. The anger had boiled down to mortified spite. “I just … All I did was play a damn game.”

  Wretch dropped the water skins on the bank and waded out to Fie, shaking her gray-streaked head. “Aye, all you did was play a game. And with a pretty boy. And if it were fair, that’s all there’d be to it.”

  Wretch wasn’t much for sentiment, but she gripped Fie’s shoulder anyhow. “I would have left you to handle Hangdog. We all know you could trounce him twice with your eyes shut. But when he followed you? The only reason that pretty boy didn’t come haring after was because I beat him to it. And we both know where that road would have led.”

  Fie did. And she hated it. All this mess over a stupid game.

  “We’re two more days off Cheparok. Then you’re clear of all this nonsense, and we’ll have a Covenant oath to cash out and no more fretting over Oleander rides. That’s a mighty thing, Fie.”

  “Aye,” Fie said softly. Two days and it would all be over.

  “They’ll come up with a fancy name for you,” Wretch teased. “Tell stories for centuries. Fie Oath-cutter. Fie the Cunning. Fie, the Crow Who Feared No Crown.”

  “I’ll settle for Fie, Who Never Saw an Oleander Again.” Fie rubbed her eyes.

  There was less jest than truth when Wretch said, “So would we all.”

  * * *

  That night passed, and two more, without Fie looking at Hangdog or the lordlings if she didn’t have to. Instead she huddled in the wagon, practicing her toothcraft as the road turned from sand to rocky clay, and bristling pines shifted to copses of stout palms. Each field they passed seemed lusher than the last, a distant thin ribbon of green broadening into the Fan River, which gave the region its name. That ribbon pointed straight to a hard, jagged line against the coin-bright sea: Cheparok.

  And that river marked their way, flashing coy as Fie fought to strike harmony with pair after pair of teeth. As Cheparok neared, Pa looked over his shoulder less, but a telltale creak of the wagon seat still gave him away each time. At least the Pigeon witch-tooth had kept any plague beacons at bay until after they’d passed.

  By the time they drew within half a league of the city’s western gates, Fie’s shirt clung horribly to her skin, half from the choking air and half from the murderous sun overhead. Cheparok’s towering walls didn’t even have the decency to cast a long enough noontime shadow to offer respite.

  Pa whistled a stop and guided the oxen to the side of the road, then twisted in his seat to face her and the prince. Tavin climbed up into the wagon bed a moment later, prompting a disgruntled mew from Barf as she peered out from behind a sack of rice. The other Crows gathered round.

  “Hold up a moment.” Pa cast his gaze about and waited until a band of Owl sojourn-scholars had passed down the flatway. “All right, here’s the pinch: they’ll have Vulture witches at the gate.”

  “Why?” Prince Jasimir frowned.

  “Checking for witches, mostly unregistered ones from the countryside. That’d be no trouble, but…”

  “They’ll spot me for a Hawk witch,” Tavin finished. “One who’s supposed to be dead. So how do we get past?”

  “Can’t hide you in the wagon. Odds are we’ll be searched.” Pa continued even as Prince Jasimir tilted his head at that. “We burned our only Sparrow witch-tooth on the Oleanders. We can sneak you through with two plain Sparrow teeth … but the Vultures will pick up on any spell I’m casting when they test my witch-sign. So that leaves Fie.”

  Fie’s stomach dropped. “What?”

  When, not if.

  “It’s time.” Pa held out a fistful of Sparrow teeth. “How’s that practice?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WHEN

  “Step in the footprints.”

  “What?” the prince whispered to Fie’s left.

  “Don’t make new footprints. Step in Hangdog’s prints. Or Swain’s.”

  “Good thinking.” Tavin’s voice drifted too close behind her.

  Hair stood on the back of Fie’s neck. She ignored it, focusing on the Sparrow tooth in each fist. One burned already, humming steady with her bones. The other waited yet for her call.

  Fie picked her way through Wretch’s tracks behind the wagon as they headed for where the flatway split five ways. Each path led to a gate in Cheparok’s sturdy walls, just like those on the eastern side of the Fan River. Blue-green roof tiles flashed just behind the city walls, crowning towers that flew the banner of the Floating Fortress. The lord-governor’s palace had earned its name by squatting direct over the Fan and the reservoir it filled.

  At least, that’s what she’d been told. From this side of the walls, all she got was fancy roofs and bright flags. She’d have her chance to see it up close soon enough.

  A trio of Hawk guards sat at the root of the branching roads, rolling gambling shells and sweating in the brutal sun. The one with a corporal’s copper armband eyed the Crows, spat, and jerked his thumb over a shoulder. “Fifth gate.”

  He didn’t look up from the shells
even once as Fie and the lordlings passed.

  Each gate before them sat lower than the last, dropping from east to west like a stair. The first gate was meant for Phoenixes, and it stood empty save for its guards. The polish on their armor glittered nigh as bright as the green tassels on their spears, and just as eye-catching even from hundreds of paces off. Less flashy Hawks milled in and out of the second gate, stepping around Splendid Caste palanquins festooned in fringe and bead. That gate yawned the largest, its arch stretched high for visiting mammoth riders, though the heat made no such accommodation for the beasts. The third gate bustled with Hunting Castes, from melon-orange open carriages of Crane magistrates to the tiered lavender wagons of proud Owl scholars.

  The fourth gate rambled even more chaotic, strewn with Common Castes. Sparrow farmers waited with strings of goats and cattle; Pigeons had set up shop at the roadside with their goods spread about the ground, peddling anything from clay luck charms to meat that Fie judged extremely untrustworthy. A few Gull sailors wandered from vendor to vendor, some haggling with Sparrows for livestock.

  The line for the fourth gate was long, but it crept along with a slow, steady order. The same could not be said for the fifth gate. The muddy road sloped down, down, down, to the lowest point in Cheparok’s walls. There the fifth gate gapped, teeming with beggars, bloodflies, and the brands of Common-Caste convicts. It hadn’t a line so much as a mass that slid down the hill and pooled at the gate, some trickling through, others turned away to plead sanctuary elsewhere. The mud itself gave off a damp reek, one part ox dung, one part plant decay, and one part a musk Fie didn’t care to speculate on.

  Her Sparrow tooth held as they waited their turn, humming patient in her mind. The second one stayed buried in her sweating fist until, bit by bit, they trudged down to the bottom of the hill.

  Two Vulture skinwitches hunched together by the gate on rickety wood stools, the yellow of their thin cotton robes clashing against their fish-flesh-pink hides. Meager boastings of valor marks were scattered over their arms. One eyed the creeping shadow of the city wall and scooted his stool a little farther into its shade as a Hawk behind him laughed. The other Vulture rattled off a halfhearted oath and beckoned the Crows’ cart forward.