“They’re Hawks, they have a code—”
“I said no.” Tavin’s voice flattened from amiable to unmovable. “It’s my job to keep you in one piece. Let me do it.”
Fie knew an order when she heard one. Even if it was aimed at a prince.
A faint howl silenced them, rising and falling with the breeze. Wind on rocks, that was all, yet Fie waited to be sure before she took up her dinner again.
She chewed her maize, glancing between Tavin, who stirred the fire, and the prince, who stared at the coals. “You can have my watch, cousin,” she offered, half-jesting.
Tavin wasn’t taking any chances. “No he can’t.”
Jasimir’s fists tightened to knots on his knees. He picked up his empty bowl and the cooking pot and stalked off to wash them at the far side of the pond.
“Fie, when you’re done…” Tavin tossed a burned-out Peacock tooth into the grass. “The glamour’s nearly gone.”
She picked out a Peacock witch-tooth from the bag, then scooted over. Tavin took the kindled tooth from her with a ghost of a flinch.
“How are you doing?” he asked. At Fie’s puzzled look, he ducked his head. “The first time I took a life, I threw up. On the corpse, in fact.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t you Hawks have some high-minded rule about respecting the dead?”
“This may shock you, but it turns out Hawks don’t always follow our own rules,” Tavin said, dry. His eyes followed her as she swept the glamour over his face. “But I was trained to kill people and I still felt awful. Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, cursing in her head. She knew it was best to finish the glamour and be done with it, but her wretched tongue kept wagging anyway. “My job’s to cut throats, so what does it matter? I’ll get all right by it. Someday.”
He started to answer, just as her fingers trailed to that wretched distracting freckle by the corner of his mouth. They both froze a breath too long.
“I think I should teach you to use a sword,” Tavin blurted.
Fie jerked her hand away before it made a fool of her. “What?”
“Everyone needs a hobby.” He rubbed the back of his neck, as if trying to scrape together another jest. “And an appalling number of Saborians seem to have picked ‘murdering Crows’ for theirs.” Tavin pointed to Pa’s broken sword. “I guarantee fewer people would try to stiff you on viatik if they thought you could use that for more than mercy.”
“You’ve seen how your kind feel about Crows carrying swords. How do you reckon the Hawks’ll like Crows knowing how to use them?”
“I’m not teaching all the Crows, I’m teaching you. And if we get Jas on the throne, the Hawks will be so busy escorting your people around that they might see the wisdom of teaching them, too.”
She pursed her lips. He could have offered this anytime in the last fortnight. Anytime before now. He hadn’t. This had naught to do with hobbies. “You don’t think we can outrun the Vultures?”
Tavin looked to the prince, guilt flashing through his face. Jasimir was still on the far side of the pond. “I should know better than to try slipping anything past you. I don’t know when we’ll cross them again. But it’s still a long way to the Marovar, with or without roads. And after today…” He faltered. “I just—I want you to be able to protect yourself.”
And the pieces fell together for Fie. This wasn’t wholly about the Vultures either. It was also about the Sparrow crooning death threats, and it was about the crowd who’d cheered him on. “I’m carrying enough Phoenix teeth to burn us a road clear to the Marovar and back. You know why I let that scummer yell as he pleased?” she asked. Tavin shook his head. “Because he wanted an excuse to do worse. That’s the game, get it? They’ve naught to lose by playing with us. And there’s no way for us to win.”
“So you let them talk and cut your losses.” He shook his head again. “That’s … You shouldn’t have to live like that.”
“Aye. And that’s why I asked for Hawks.” She staggered to her feet, ignoring the ache of weary muscles and the warning clamor of her own head. “But until I get them, I suppose it’s worth knowing how to use a sword.”
What was she playing at? Pa’s tooth rolled in her fingers. Crows weren’t allowed steel.
Nor were they allowed fire teeth and abandoned roads. She’d taken on both to keep the Covenant oath, and if it helped get them to Trikovoi in one piece, she’d take up a sword, too.
Tavin stood, then looked about. Alarm shot through his face. “Where’s Jas?”
Fie twisted. The prince’s shadow had vanished from the pond.
“Right here.” Jasimir emerged at the other side of the fire, pot and bowl in hand. “What’s the matter?”
Tavin ran a hand over his face. “Nothing. It’s fine. I’m teaching Fie to use a sword, if you want to help.”
The prince looked from Tavin to her then, tallying up a sore kind of sum. He sat, slow. “I’ll … keep a lookout.” He glanced up. “Since we are being hunted by Vultures. In case anyone forgot.”
Tavin forced out an uneasy laugh. “If only.” He gestured to a patch of level ground a few paces away. “Let’s be clear of the fire.”
They were also clear of the prince’s earshot. Fie didn’t think that to be chance.
It would be naught but practice. Plain and easy as a game of Twelve Shells, and no more to it.
Fie knew a lie when she heard one. Even one she aimed at herself.
Tavin unsheathed his swords but set them in the grass near his feet, much to Fie’s relief. Instead he passed her an empty scabbard, then used the remaining scabbard to draw two marks in the dirt, dim by firelight. “Keep your feet on those. Now look at me.” She did. “Keep looking at me.” He circled to her right side, so her chin near lined up to her shoulder. “Hold up your, er, sword. Elbow loose. There. If you remember anything, let it be this.”
“Standing like a dolt?” Fie asked. Everything about it felt unnatural and foolish. The Vultures couldn’t possibly be watching, or she’d have heard their laughter.
“I know it doesn’t feel right.” A shade of Tavin’s normal grin flashed as he turned square to her and tapped one of his shoulders. “Here, try to hit me.” She took an awkward step forward and jabbed the scabbard into his shoulder easy enough, then retreated to her footmarks.
Tavin shifted, mirroring the stance he’d set her into: scabbard held out between them, the rest of him angled to the side. He tapped the same shoulder. “Again.”
She tried, but he all but brushed the strike aside. Now she saw: even if she got past his own weapon, she had to travel within his arm’s reach and then hit a shoulder still tilted askew from her.
“That’s why,” he said. “If anything will keep you alive, it’s this: be as small a target as you can. And always keep your weapon between you and your foe.” His mouth twisted. “All things considered, that will probably come naturally to you.”
She gave him a dark look. “Aye, and I bet hitting you will, too.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” The grin that followed flashed more than a shade of his usual humor. “Short swords don’t have much range, but you have the element of surprise. Your best shot will be knocking a hit off course and using that opening to go for their hands, eyes, anything you can. Try to hit me, slowly.” She did. He brushed her strike off again, but then in a blink, he was closer, his scabbard tapping her forearm.
Fie narrowed her eyes. “What just happened?”
Tavin shifted back. “Watch. Block.” He pushed her scabbard away slow, firelight slipping along the lines of his scarred wrist. “Step in.” He stepped into the void. “Strike.” His scabbard completed an arc it had begun in the block, landing at her forearm again. “Now you—”
She moved before he finished. He automatically sprang out of her range, then sighed. “I knew I should have put off teaching you how to hit me.”
“You said to use the element of surprise.”
“Yes,
on people who are trying to kill you!” He gave an exasperated laugh, a little too loud, then glanced to the prince.
Jasimir was listing sideways, chin propped on a palm. A snore betrayed him.
Relief flickered through Tavin’s expression.
Fie lowered her scabbard. “Why are you dragging it out?”
“I’m not,” he said, setting himself back into the sword stance. “I am fully prepared for you to hit me. Have at it.”
She scowled. Block. “You know what I mean.” Her scabbard pushed his aside. Her voice lowered. “You’re not going back to the palace.” Step in. “And he thinks you are.” Strike. She went for the throat. “You’ll die for him, but you won’t tell him the truth?”
Tavin’s face was unreadable; he did not move away. “What does it matter to you?”
“It’s a pain in my ass,” she hissed. Yet another half-lie. “And yours. He keeps harping on the Hawks because he needs to believe you’re all squeaky-clean and selfless, married to your duty.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
Fie stepped back. “What’s your duty to the prince?”
“To keep him alive.” Tavin nodded slowly. “To … to die for him.”
“Aye.” Fie shrugged. “So he needs to believe you’ll do it, and he’ll keep up that nonsense the whole way to the Marovar, just to prove it. Unless you tell him the truth.”
“It’s not that easy.” Tavin stepped back. “Again.”
Annoyance made her hasty. Block. “Twelve hells it isn’t.”
Step in. “It’s not about me,” Tavin said, “it’s the king.” Strike. “Again.”
“What’s the king to do with it?” Fie returned to her footmarks.
“King Surimir has a … a shine for Hawks.” Tavin frowned. By dark, Fie could pretend she hadn’t polished away his scars. “He’s the sort of king who travels with half an army just to remind people he commands their blades. He wants people to think he’s dangerous. To treat him like he is.”
Fie remembered the first time she’d held Phoenix fire. She hadn’t wanted to burn the world down; she’d wanted the world to know she could.
“He’s a Phoenix witch,” she mumbled. “He’s a king. Isn’t that enough?”
Tavin shook his head. “Again.” Block. “He married Queen Jasindra mostly to add her to his armory. I was given to Jas so he could start his own Hawk collection.” Step in. “But Surimir wants an imitator, not a son. Jas has no interest in throwing himself parades or yanking half the Splendid Castes into his bed. The queen raised him to be a good ruler. I was raised to be a good Hawk. You can guess which of us the king thinks is useful.”
Strike.
She knew what he meant, yet she couldn’t help another jab. “And how does you tumbling all those palace waifs help the prince, then?”
Fie hid her delight when he actually slipped. Then she tripped on her own snare: he righted himself, all fluster and fumble, and Fie discovered she found that disturbingly close to charming. Damn him. Of course he’d find a way to make stumbling about attractive.
“It—it would have been cruel to ask for more,” he said, blunt. “To try to make anything last.” She lowered her scabbard, feeling as though she’d waded into waters deeper than she’d thought. “I’m a bastard, an heir to nothing. For ten years, I’ve been told my only purpose is to keep Jas alive. That the best thing I can do is die for him. Of course I met people I wanted, but how could I ask them to stay mine when I couldn’t truly be theirs?”
Any sneer or jest had long withered on Fie’s tongue. “You’re still going to disappear once we’re out of this. What are you going to tell him then?”
“The truth. Fie, I promised I’d do everything I can to help you. I brought this on your family. I owe you a debt. And my life will be my own to give, as long as you would have it.” He raised his scabbard, and something frighteningly near hope rose in his voice. “Again.”
Fie tried to order her whirlwind thoughts and couldn’t even see where to start. Tavin’s arm moved through the dark.
He truly meant to vanish.
Block.
He meant to help her. To do everything he could. But she’d thought—
Step in.
She’d told herself he only had a tourist’s interest in her. That he found her at best a useful ally to woo, at worst the makings of a lurid boast to scandalize the other Hawks.
Not someone worth everything he had to give.
Some distant side of her unspooled Jasimir’s words short hours ago: He saved your life.
Strike.
Tavin did not step back. Neither did she, lingering too close, far too close, locked in their makeshift duel.
“When you said you don’t do what you want…” She trailed off, knowing stark what she asked, too unsteady to say the words aloud.
He bent his head to her, near enough that his hair dusted her brow. Fie didn’t mean to turn her face up, but her chin had a mind of its own.
“You know what I mean,” he whispered.
Fie’s traitor heart thundered its assent, even as her mind rattled through its protests. She ought to run, to cool her head, if only her feet would cooperate—she had to run, she couldn’t have what she wanted—not the way she wanted him—
Yet Tavin moved first. His breath caught; she felt its absence on her cheeks.
And then he stepped back.
Something old and familiar slid across his features easy as a paper screen, hiding any sign of the unpolished, unpracticed boy of a moment ago.
“It’s late,” he said, voice fraying at the very edges. “You should rest. I’ll take watch.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WOLF COUNTRY
The humming woke Fie, as it had near every morning since Cheparok.
Tavin sat with his back to her, humming quiet into the dark. She couldn’t tell if he meant to rouse her by it, or if he’d been at the song awhile. He never seemed to be at the same place when her eyes opened.
Gray-blue gnawed at the eastern horizon. Her watch had come.
Fie rolled up onto her knees, yawning. Tavin glanced back at her, nodded, and folded himself to the ground near the prince.
She stretched and fished the laceroot seeds from her pack, letting their bitter pulp prick her awake. The pot went on the coals with a fistful of wild mint for tea. She settled beside it, running a hand through her dusty hair, and tried not to dwell on how she welcomed the quiet in the mornings now, with her two false Crows fast asleep.
Instead Fie’s mind circled round the moment, not long enough past, when she’d near done the unthinkable.
But this time, Tavin was the one who’d run.
Her face warmed, whether with humiliation or something else, she couldn’t say. Perhaps he’d thought twice on distraction with Tatterhelm on their trail. Perhaps she’d pushed his mummer’s bluff too far.
Perhaps he’d remembered she was a Crow.
She didn’t know what she’d hoped for. Oh, there were tales to be sure, songs of Sparrows and Hawks struck apart by caste law, beggars and queens, lords who gave up their caste for love of a Swan … but her faith in songs had long run dry. Only the gentry found happy endings in those songs. Only a fool would believe them true.
Only a fool would believe, for even the scarcest moment, that she’d walk a happier road with a Hawk.
She didn’t realize her stare had snagged on his sleeping face until a crackle from the embers drew it away.
Fie lost track of time as silvery light seeped into the dark overhead. Cricket-song trickled up through the grass. She sipped her mint tea and watched a lone wolf trail a cluster of shaggy goats, threading through a distant hillside of stone and brush and yellowing bramble. She’d no call to fear wolves in summer, not with fresh kill in their belly. The wolves of winter, though …
Pa’d taught her to watch the starving wolf. When beasts go hungry too long, he’d said, they forget what they ought to fear.
Now, in the dry chill of a gr
ay dawn, Fie thought of the wolf, and then she thought of Hangdog’s tooth hanging cold on her string, and an arrow shot through an eye as the Peacock lord watched.
A twig snapped behind her.
Fie went still, every nerve flaring. When no sound followed, she let out a sigh, put down her tea, and picked up the pot.
Then in one swift twist, she flung its boiling water into the tree-barred dark at her back.
A man’s scream shattered the quiet.
A shadow broke from the trees, only to stumble straight into Fie swinging the scalding pot. He dropped. Six more shades erupted from the dark, flashing blades and teeth, but they struck too late: they’d already woken the prince and the Hawk.
The rest was a frenzy of noise, steel, and blood. One body fell, then another—and then, curiously, the last four assailants whipped back into the thinning dark.
A chorus of sick whistles trailed in their wake.
Fie stared after them, belly churning. In the fray, they’d looked the same as any other Vulture, yet—
“Eyes,” Prince Jasimir croaked. “They had no—no eyes—” He doubled over, retching.
Tavin braced Jasimir’s shoulders. “They saw us fine, Jas. It was just the dark.”
A laugh gurgled through the camp. Fie wrenched about and found one of the Vultures clutching his spilling tripe.
“Aye, Highness,” he giggled. “Just the dark.”
Fie stalked over and knelt. The Vulture was fading. She snatched up a Crane tooth and called it to life. It wasn’t enough to force truth, but enough to smell a lie. “How did you find us?”
A bloody grin split his face. “We have something that belongs to you.”
Fie felt as if someone had unraveled her with one sharp yank.
So that was how the Vultures had caught their trail. Whatever they had—a loose hair, an old shirt, a worn ragdoll—it meant any Vulture would see a path to them as long as it sat in their bare hands, witch or no.
By rights, the Vultures should have shown up hours ago. Something had to have broken the trail.
Three teeth. She’d burned the trio of Sparrow teeth.
So three could shake even the best of the Vultures. Pa would be proud—
The Merciful Crow Page 20