She did not feel like that god now.
She felt like Little Witness. She’d done nothing but watch.
The sky above swam and marbled with tears.
This was all her doing. She’d chosen this road. She’d brokered the oath herself. And if she’d been stronger, if she’d been a better witch, if she’d kenned what Tavin meant to do—
No. A stronger witch still wouldn’t have made it all the way to Trikovoi. Tavin had known this day would come; he’d planned it for near ten years.
That’s the game, get it? They’ve naught to lose by playing with us.
Her own words echoed back, cold and hard.
And there’s no way for us to win.
It was always going to come to this.
She wasn’t a god or a hero on a grand quest to slay some beast from beyond the seas.
She was a chief. And her monster sat on a throne.
So you cut your losses, Tavin had said.
It was harder to believe when every loss had a name. Tavin. Pa. Wretch. Madcap. Swain. All her kin.
Even Hangdog.
The oath, the oath, that damned oath had eaten them all whole.
That damned oath was all she had left.
By every dead god, she was going to keep it. There was one way off this road, and that was to walk it to its end.
Fie took a deep breath and closed her eyes. If she didn’t think of him, think of any of them, she could do this.
She sat up, aching from crown to toe, then crawled over to Tavin’s pack. Jasimir didn’t stir from the ground, eyes clenched shut, mouth moving in something like a prayer. She only caught snatches of words:
“… not dishonor my blood … a Hawk who … not forsake…”
Her hands shook as she worked at the knots cinching the pack shut.
The words came clearer now. “… follow until I must lead. I will shield until I must strike.”
She cut through the ties with Pa’s sword.
“By my blood, I swear, I will serve my nation and the throne above all.”
She did not look at Tavin’s sheathed blade still lying in the dirt.
The prince’s mumble cut off. Jasimir pushed himself up to glower at her. Clean tracks ran down his face from red-rimmed eyes. “That—that isn’t yours.”
“Aye,” Fie said dully. “You’ll have to carry some of it, too.”
“It belongs to Tavin,” Jasimir said. “It’s his.”
Fie’s mouth twisted. She turned back to the pack and pulled out the cooking pot. “He knew what he was doing.”
“We have to go after him. Hawks don’t forsake their blood.”
“He wanted us to keep the oath.”
“Stop that. Stop saying he knew and he wanted. He’s not dead.”
The pot fell. She didn’t answer.
Even if they didn’t catch the fading Peacock glamour, sooner or later, one of the skinwitches would spot the scar tangling about Tavin’s wrist, a burn that a fireproof Phoenix prince would never have. Fie just prayed they caught on while they still had use for hostages.
“He’s not dead,” Jasimir repeated, angry.
Fie just pulled a spare cloak out of the pack, winding it around her shaking fist. Her silence only seemed to stoke his anger.
“He only gave himself up so you could get away,” Jasimir railed on. “He did this for you. And you didn’t even—you won’t even go after him. You don’t care.”
Fie bit her tongue hard, hard enough to taste blood. Then she looked at the modest heap of Tavin’s supplies and decided she’d carry them on her own after all. Anything to leave this damned canyon faster.
“You could have saved him. You have every Phoenix tooth in Sabor. Why didn’t you do anything? You just let them—”
Finally Fie picked up Tavin’s sword and stood.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Jasimir demanded, scrambling to his feet.
“We have to leave,” she croaked.
“Twelve hells we do!” Jasimir’s voice cracked. “We’re getting him back.”
“Shut your mouth.” She needed him to stop talking about Tavin. She needed to cut her losses and move on, move out before anything else fouled up.
“You did nothing, it’s your fault—”
She spun around. “Aye, to be sure it’s all my fault, it’s not like you kept harping on Hawks and duty and how he had to keep you alive—”
“You didn’t stop him, you let him go—” Jasimir sputtered back.
“—and it’s my fault your rat-heart cousin turned on us in Cheparok, and I’m sure it’s my fault your rotten pappy let the Oleanders grow strong enough to sway a queen, aye—”
“Don’t talk about politics you don’t understand—”
“—and of course, when this all goes guts-up because no one in their right mind will buy that you have a drop of Ambra in you, that’ll be my fault, too, aye?”
“How much more will you let them take from you?” The prince’s hands balled into fists. “They have your father, they have your family, and now they have Tavin. What else are you going to give up?”
Fie turned, half to get moving, half because her lip quivered. “We have to keep the oa—”
“Fuck the oath!” Jasimir shoved her from behind. The sword tumbled from her grip and clattered to the earth.
Fie stood a moment, breathing hard. Then she collected the sword and turned, slow, to face Jasimir. His chin jutted out, eyes burning in the bloody dusk.
“Say that again,” she rasped.
He glared dead at her, tears cutting fresh lines down his face. “Fuck. The. Oath.”
The iron in her spine yielded to murderous fire.
A curious thing happened then: the crown prince of Sabor looked at Fie, and for the first time, fear crept into his eyes.
Perhaps it was the sword that she had and he didn’t. Perhaps it was the memory of what she’d done to Viimo and the knowledge that more Hawk teeth waited in the bag at Fie’s side.
Perhaps it was the fact that to most of the nation, he was good as dead.
For the first time, both of them kenned he was wholly at her mercy.
Fie cocked her head, eyes glittering sharp. Some part of her had been ready for this from the moment he tried to duck cutting the oath. He could spout his high-minded hogwash all he wanted, but she’d waited for what happened when it stopped being easy to keep his word. And here they were.
What’s your word worth, Hangdog asked on a night too far away, when you’re good as dead?
Nothing, it turned out. It was worth nothing.
It’d be so easy. She could march the prince into Tatterhelm’s camp at sword point. She’d barter all the hostages back. She’d buy them time.
She’d look after her own.
You’re the girl with all the teeth, Viimo said on a faraway dune. Maybe we can deal with you, too.
Just like they’d dealt with Hangdog.
A dull despair smothered that merciless fire. Aye, she could hand Tatterhelm the prince. Then he’d fill her kin with arrows because he could.
And even if she could get them all away, she’d still have one moon at most before Oleanders turned the roads red with Crow blood.
All the fire and steel in the world, and she’d still always be a Crow. Aught else was one of Pa’s stories, a child’s game of pretend, a little girl riding a goat, hoisting a stick, and calling herself Ambra.
“That oath,” Fie forced through a choked sob, “is all I have left. And it’s cost me everything. Everything. So spare me your noise about what I’ve given up. You didn’t care when I lost all my kin, as long as you were safe. As long as I kept the oath. You know why I made you swear before the Covenant? Because I knew the second that oath started to pinch, you’d run.”
Jasimir’s eyes flashed in the gloom. “It turns out you’re better at abandoning your family than I am. Leave if you want. I won’t forsake my blood.”
Fie regarded him for a long moment. The frost reclaimed
her voice. “Aye. I’m going to Trikovoi. I don’t have a choice. And neither do you. You’re coming with.”
Jasimir stared at her, fists clenched. Then he sat in the dirt, back to her. “Go ahead and try.”
The last of the sunset bled out, and a chill settled on the mountainside like a fog.
Fie scrubbed at her face with a rough sleeve until the tears smeared away.
She marched over to the prince, wrapped both hands around the straps of the pack on his back, and began to walk.
“Hey—hey—” Jasimir squawked in protest as she yanked him along. “Stop—!”
“No.” Fie sought the horizon for the lingering stain of sunset past. Trikovoi lay to the northeast; the sun and moon would have to be her compass.
Then she staggered and fell on her rear. Jasimir had slipped his arms from the straps.
Fie shot to her feet before he did. In one savage lunge, she snatched a handful of his collar. And she began to walk again. The dull nails in her soles crunched against the rocky earth.
Jasimir half stumbled, half dragged behind her. “Let—me—go,” he wheezed. “You faithless—I order you to—I order you—”
Fie let go, then gave him a spiteful push to the ground.
“Ken me,” she grated out. “You will keep your oath. That’s what Pa and Tavin gave themselves up for and you know it. So you and I can walk to Trikovoi nice and quiet, just like they asked. Don’t even have to pretend to like each other. Or, by every dead god, I will drag you to Trikovoi myself.”
She turned to the northeast and pointed to the crescent winking above. “One week left in Peacock Moon. Choose quick.”
She began to walk.
For a moment, she heard the scrape of her own footfalls, alone.
Then she caught a scuffle. The prince’s footsteps gritted behind her.
Not another word passed between them as they marched in silence, stiff and hollow, into the swelling dark.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SKIN DEEP
They stumbled over ridge and plain, through the night and the dark, stopping only as dawn pushed a questioning thumb of light along the eastern ridge. For a short half hour they rested, gnawing dried grapes and long-stale panbread that lumped up in Fie’s gut, hard as the silence between her and the prince.
He did not pray to the dawn this time.
As they chewed, Fie called up two Vulture teeth, one hand on the hilt of Tavin’s sword. She told herself she just needed to know the skinwitches hadn’t resumed their hunt.
They hadn’t. Tavin’s trail led into the forests they’d left behind, farther from her than ever.
A knot in her throat tightened. Suddenly Fie couldn’t abide sitting quiet anymore. She stood, checked her pack, checked her map, checked the dawn. Once the prince was on his feet, they set off again.
She couldn’t stop herself from tracing Tavin’s path near every hour as they carried on beneath the stare of a cold sun. The fifth time, his trail stretched beyond the crest of Misgova Pass.
She let the Vulture tooth go and did not call on it again.
Early in the afternoon, they passed within eyeshot of a handful of scattered huts nestled in the crook of a steep valley. Herds of goats and cattle wreathed the village. If Fie squinted, she could spy children picking snow figs. A narrow roughway road trickled out of sight, rolling down to what had to be a flatway.
“We should go back on the roads.”
Fie jumped at the prince’s voice. “What?”
“The Vultures aren’t following us anymore,” Jasimir said. “So we can afford to take the roads. They’ll be faster.”
She bristled. The notion was solid enough, aye. But the way he said it … he made it sound as if she ought to have thought of it hours ago. “No,” she said. “If we hit a plague beacon, we’re rutted.”
Jasimir scowled. “Don’t play naïve. You’re passing them anyway.”
If Tavin were here, he’d spout some nonsense to settle both their hackles. Instead, they only had empty air for a buffer, and it did not measure up. For a moment Fie wondered if Tatterhelm would accept the prince’s corpse for trade. She might have tested it if she weren’t so tired.
But the prince was right, and they had but a week of Peacock Moon left.
“Fine,” she sighed. “Skirt the village. No going to the Hawks. Don’t look other travelers in the eye.”
“Yes, chief.” He said the title like a curse, just like he’d done with Pa. Fie took that as an endorsement and set off down the hill.
An ugly thought crossed her mind as she plowed over hassocks of wiry grass. They had planned on Tavin signaling Draga for them. Now they would be approaching Trikovoi unannounced and uninvited, a pair of battered, road-worn Crows. And she had a keen notion of how they’d be received.
Perhaps she ought to burn Pigeon teeth for luck before they arrived. And she’d surely need to pray the Hawks at guard had open minds.
Returning to the roads should have felt like a homecoming. Part of her did steady once her worn sandals touched ground on the roughway. But the rest of her felt the stares from Hawks as they passed league markers, the lingering glances from Sparrows in the pastures. Three Crows had made a small band. Two made an oddity.
The roads were her home. That didn’t make them less of a trap.
They staggered on through the twilight until they at last reached the flatway. A road marker stood at the crossroads, brandishing signs for every direction. Crow marks had been scratched into each, but naught told her which way led to Trikovoi, and Fie had forgotten her letters by now.
Jasimir said nothing.
Fie didn’t know if he meant to be difficult or if he truly didn’t remember. She didn’t want to find out which. Instead she just cleared her throat and said, “Which one’s Trikovoi?”
“Oh.” He leaned forward to peer at the letters, face rigid and blank, then pointed to the right. “This way.”
They carried on past another league marker. Jasimir eyed the Hawks pacing about the brazier at the top but kept his mouth shut.
Eventually he broke the silence as they trudged into a twisting forest. “We should stop.”
Fie stuffed down a protest. A distant part of her knew she couldn’t walk straight to Trikovoi, but by every dead god, she wanted to.
“Fine,” she said dully, and sat at the roadside. “Here’s as good as anywhere.”
That was a lie: she’d in fact sat on an uncomfortably angular rock that she remained on out of sheer belligerence. But Jasimir only nodded and joined her.
She fished out her bag of laceroot and counted out a few seeds, blinking away the stinging in her eyes. No sense in stopping now, with or without Tavin there—not with Trikovoi still so far off.
“Don’t tell me you’re worried I’ll get you with child,” Jasimir scoffed.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she shot back. “And learn how bleeding works. I don’t need any more pains in the ass.”
The tyrant silence reigned cold betwixt them. Jasimir started rummaging in his pack. “I still say we should go to the Hawks. They’re honor bound to—”
She couldn’t hide her irritation. “I still say no.”
“Because I said it and not Tavin.”
That hit closer than she’d own to. “Because it’s a fool notion. They’ll never believe us.” Jasimir rolled his eyes. Her temper flared. “And if we’re going for the cheap hits, when Tavin told you no, you listened.”
“This is different.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Fie said.
“Tavin was trying to protect us. You’re just—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “Never mind.”
“I’m. What.”
The prince would not look at her. “You’re no Tavin,” he mumbled.
“Neither are you,” Fie said, prying a few pelts from her pack. Jasimir flinched. She heaved one in his general direction. “Enough. Sleep in that. I’m taking watch.”
He wrinkled his nose as if the pelt w
as still attached to a rotting doe. “You’re joking. I know what you two did in these.”
“Oh aye?” Fie asked with nasty, sugar-bright cheer. “You sorted out what rutting is? You’re such a grown-up little man!”
His lip curled. “Don’t be vulgar.”
“And you grow the hell up.” She didn’t feel like pulling punches anymore. “Stop whipping me because your Hawk did square what you wanted him to.”
Jasimir recoiled like she’d struck him. “Don’t you dare. I didn’t want him to—to—I just wanted him to do his duty—”
“Which is to die for you—”
“It’s to put me first!” Jasimir slammed a palm over his heart. “He’s the closest thing to a brother I have! He had his pick of the court, did he tell you? Every week he brought back a different Hawk sword-maid, a different Peacock lord-in-waiting, a new Swan apprentice, and he still put me first. He was never going to parade around a little Crow half chief for a wife.”
“Did he tell you he never meant to go back to court?” Fie snarled. Jasimir’s jaw dropped. “Aye. Never. He said it’d blow your story if both of you survived the plague. He said when I left Trikovoi, it’d be with him at my side. And he said the only reason he never stayed with a lover before was because he thought he’d have to die for you someday. So I hope you feel real damn kingly about every time you’ve thrown that in his face.”
Jasimir stared at her, aghast. She wasn’t done.
“I knew I wasn’t the first,” she hissed. “And I know who I am. Now you tell me. Is your problem that you came second to me? Or is it that you came second to a Crow?”
Jasimir froze.
“Which is it, palace boy?” she demanded.
The answer came out in a ragged rush. “Both.”
Fie caught her breath. To her astonishment, her eyes pricked with tears. She hadn’t expected the prince to own to it. To fight her, to whine, to dodge, to deny—all likely. She didn’t know why hearing him admit it shook her so.
Jasimir ran his hands over his face. Then he got to his feet and stalked off into the trees without another word.
When he came back, it was with an armful of fallen branches. Some had dried out enough to hold a flame, but others still showed green at the heart of their splinters, the leaves barely wilted. “I need the cooking pot and a fire.”
The Merciful Crow Page 24