The Merciful Crow

by Margaret Owen

  Fie laughed.

  It was not a happy laugh.

  But nor was it an angry one this time.

  “Now you’re catching on,” she said wearily.

  Iron bells clanked soft across the pasture. A thin cloud smeared the moonlight across the sky. A rider passed down the distant road, and both of them held their breath, listening for the whistle of skin-ghasts, until the hoofbeats faded.

  “I’m sorry,” Jasimir said. “I thought … I thought I knew who I had to be, to deserve the crown. But all that’s done is brought you pain.”

  Before Fie could answer, a flicker of torchlight kindled in the woods at pasture’s edge. She and Jasimir both went still, then shrank into the hay. A Sparrow tooth sparked to life.

  A woman strode out of the trees, flanked by two hollow-eyed skin-ghasts. Her linen cloak flapped like the skin-ghasts’ lank arms as she swept her torch about; the skin-ghasts’ empty faces followed that flame.

  The Oleander woman’s gaze passed over the hay heaps. She took a few steps closer.

  Please, Fie begged the Sparrow tooth, the dead gods, the Covenant, aught that was listening. She was so, so tired of monsters at her door. Please, just let her pass.

  A goat grazing nearby raised its head and bleated, the slaughter bell clanking at its throat. Another goat joined in.

  The woman hesitated, then turned back to the woods. Soon enough the shadows swallowed her and the skin-ghasts both.

  Fie let the Sparrow tooth go, eyes blearing. A long, long watch lay ahead. But at least she wasn’t keeping it alone.

  “I … owe you another apology,” Jasimir said, twisting straw round his fingers. “You were right. I thought all Tavin saw in you was company in his bed. I thought that was all he could possibly want with … with a Crow. But you were more.”

  The stars above blurred and burned with tears. Fie squeezed her eyes shut again.

  “He looked at you the same way you look at roads.” Jasimir’s voice cracked. “Like where they go frightens you, and you love them for it.”

  “Tavin told me you’d be a good king.” Fie’s voice stayed rough and low. “He believed it enough to give himself up. So maybe you earned the crown after all.”

  Jasimir attempted a wan smile. “You can’t start being nice to me. It’s terrifying.”

  Maybe they could make it like this. Fie didn’t want to let herself hope, but she hadn’t wanted to get attached to a mouthy Hawk, and that hadn’t square worked out, either.

  Maybe they could make it to Trikovoi and get her kin back, get her Hawk back, save the Crows.

  Maybe they could change Sabor.

  “You get Nice Fie until sunrise,” she told the prince. “Then I am never letting you forget that you barfed on a corpse.”

  * * *

  The moon hung at an hour past midnight.

  “Was your ma like the master-general?” Fie scraped the question from the exhausted fog in her skull.

  Jasimir hesitated. “She … she was and she wasn’t. The army called her and Aunt Draga the Twin Talons for a reason, but in private, they were very different. Mother had more of a mind for diplomacy and court games. She could ruin anyone in one breath if they crossed her. Most of court quickly figured out not to.” His voice hitched. “Fie, I think—I think Rhusana murdered my mother.”

  Fie straightened. “What? How?”

  “Father uses Swan pavilions to host smaller events of state. He started going to Rhusana’s more and more one summer, then bringing her to the palace itself, and then by winter solstice…”

  Fie remembered that day in cold Hawk Moon, when every beacon in Sabor lit up in black smoke. “What happened?”

  “The doctor said Mother was ill, but they wouldn’t let anyone see her until … until the pyre. There were marks all over her throat, I saw them. And two moons after they burned her, we had a new queen.”

  “So Rhusana poisoned her?”

  “I don’t know.” Jasimir stared into the cold night. “No. I do. I just don’t know how she did it. I … I haven’t told anyone. Not even Tavin.” Jasimir shivered. “Maybe I should have sooner, but … he would have thought I was … weak for doing nothing.”

  “Tavin or your father?”

  His mouth twisted, bitter. “Both.”

  * * *

  Almost daybreak. Fie wasn’t awake, not truly, just staring into the hazy dark.

  Jasimir’s mouth moved, forming words scarce above a whisper. He’d muttered the chant to himself enough times that Fie had lost count. “… I will not run from my fear,” he mumbled. “I will not forsake my blood. I will not dishonor my dead. By my steel, I swear.”

  It wasn’t a watch-hymn, but Fie supposed the pretty words of the Hawk code worked near as good.

  “I will follow until I must lead. I will shield until I must strike. I will fight until I must heal. By my nation, I swear.”

  Another pinprick of torchlight pierced the night. Jasimir jostled her elbow.

  They watched it bob and weave through the woods, finally fading from sight.

  Jasimir started up again: “I will serve my nation and the throne above all,” he recited. “I will not dishonor my blood, my nation, or my steel. And I will not abide a Hawk who does. By my blood, I swear.”

  Pretty words. Words of a prince.

  At the eastern horizon, the weight of the night began to ease.

  * * *

  The dawn broke.

  When Jasimir told Fie to sleep, she didn’t fight, curling in the hay. She woke with the sun square in her eyes a few hours later. Not near enough rest, but it’d tide her over.

  They split more dried fruit, shook off the straw, and staggered to their feet.

  “Here.” Jasimir held out Tavin’s sword.

  She sheathed it, then bit her lip.

  “Where…” Fie’s voice came out a squeak. She cleared her throat. “Where did we leave off with reading?”

  * * *

  “Ta … Trilo…?” Fie scowled at the flatway signpost. “Is it Trikovoi?”

  Jasimir moved his finger along the symbols. “Ta, then ri, becomes tri. Ka, then o, becomes ko. Va—”

  “With oi is voi. Trikovoi. Aye. I know.” The prince had shoved letter after letter before her nose for the past four days, even carrying about a scrap of slate and a soft, pale rock to write with. This far northeast, the flatways wound quiet round the mountains, their dry dust only stirred by wandering Owl scholars and Sparrow farmers carting vegetables and livestock to the markets of the Marovar. By day, there were precious few distractions from Jasimir’s academic zeal.

  It hadn’t been easy. The first evening, they’d tussled when she told him to be stingy with their dwindling dried meat. He’d stormed off into the firs again, carrying a length of rope and his dagger. Dinner had been thin and their words short, and after sundown the whistles of skin-ghasts had driven them into the trees once more.

  Then she’d woken to grouse roasting on an improvised spit, a dead pheasant lying in a rope snare nearby, and the prince kneeling to the dawn.

  Jasimir had straightened and held up a scrap of slate. A few plain letters were scrawled across it. “Let’s try this again.”

  And from there they’d slowly jostled each other into a routine. She still felt it, the hard ache of silence where Tavin’s laugh ought to have been, the cold absence of fingers that had brushed against hers, the longing to catch him watching her again. The prince didn’t hum any watch-hymns; she didn’t wake to find that someone had covered her with a spare pelt. In all the small things that ought to have been there and weren’t, she missed Tavin the most.

  But she had an oath to keep. So did the prince.

  And so they did. They shared the quiet as Oleander torches lit the woods, as skin-ghasts prowled beneath the trees they’d climbed. And when the danger passed, silence filled in with letters on slate, stories of the court and of the road, memories traded and admired and mourned.

  He said foolish things sometimes, asked question
s only someone who’d grown in a palace would have. And when Fie told him as much, sometimes he frosted over again and kept quiet awhile. But more and more often, he simply nodded and listened to why.

  “Next challenge,” Jasimir said. “How many leagues to go?”

  Numbers. Those were even worse than the alphabet. Fie squinted at the end of the sign. “Two tens and … five?”

  “Four. But you were close.”

  “So are we.” Fie added up the distance. “Three days’ walk.”

  “That’s the end of Peacock Moon.” He rubbed the back of his neck, mouth twisting.

  Fie pointed to the nearest league marker. “You know what happened when they lit the plague beacons for you? They sent up colors like ordinary round the palace, all the way out to red. Then every other league marker in Sabor burned black. Last time they did that…” She faltered. “… was nigh on a half-dozen years ago. For your mother. So if aught happens to the king, we’ll know.”

  “I didn’t know about that,” he said, quiet.

  “Aye. Madcap told me it was a thousand-thousand royal ghosts.” Fie scowled. “Scared the piss out of me.”

  Jasimir laughed at that. Then he sobered. “Any change with … with the Vultures?”

  Like Tavin, he had a shine for questions beneath questions. She rested a hand on the unbroken sword and called on a Vulture tooth. “The trail’s too far off to read all the way out,” she answered, then reached for a different tooth on her string. Pa’s spark burned there. “Could be past Gerbanyar by now. And Pa’s still alive. That’s all I know.”

  No telling how Tavin was keeping. Dead or alive, the skinwitches had stolen him farther than she could see.

  “Three days,” Jasimir said after a beat. Then he produced the scrap of slate. “We have a lot of reading practice to do.”

  * * *

  They made it another day and a half before the Covenant caught up.

  Seven days since they’d lost Tavin and returned to the roads. It was a generous stretch, but one Fie had always known would end.

  The sun was hanging low at their backs, and the prince blushing through the third verse of “The Lad from Across the Sea,” when she saw it waiting down the road.

  The dead gods’ mercy called them onward: a string of bloodred smoke needled the sky.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ROYAL GHOSTS

  “How far off?” Jasimir asked, squinting at the plague beacon. It near blended into the sundown-soaked sky.

  “Seven leagues. A day.” Fie squinted at the angle of the sun, the lines of the mountains. “Due east, so could be close to Trikovoi. Could also be another trap.”

  “We would know if the Vultures passed us, right?” Jasimir rubbed his chin. “Do you suppose the Oleander Gentry have gotten clever?”

  “Maybe.” A curl of unease twined in her gut. If she didn’t answer, the Covenant would stack every one of the plague-dead on her head alone.

  If she did … Tatterhelm could be waiting.

  “Let’s keep going,” Jasimir said. “Either we reach the beacon first and can look for signs of a trap, or we reach Trikovoi first and I’ll ask Aunt Draga to loan us an escort.”

  “‘Us’?”

  “My caste hasn’t caught the plague since Ambra,” he said firmly. “I’ll just wash up after to be safe. Didn’t I tell you? A leader should be skilled as any of their followers.”

  “Aye. And then you said you were too good to live as a Crow.”

  Jasimir cringed. “Right. Well. Let’s say my perspective has shifted.”

  Fie allowed herself a strained laugh as they started walking, but her heart wouldn’t settle. Always watch the crowd. She hooked a finger around a Vulture tooth on her string, then reached for Tavin’s sword.

  His trail rolled south, on and on down the flatway, just as it ought. Fie let out a breath.

  Then the trail stopped. She stopped as well.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The Vultures have come north,” Fie answered, brow furrowed. Tavin’s glamour had to have burned out days ago, yet only now did they move north. “Can you get the map?” Jasimir freed it from her pack, then unfurled it on the thin roadside grass. Spring had ended dry and hot in the Marovar, turning green shoots yellow even before the solstice.

  Fie knelt and tried to reckon Tavin’s trail against the line of the flatway burnt into the goat-hide. One fingertip traced the road until just north of Gerbanyar. That yielded no good answers. “They’re riding toward the crossroads.”

  Jasimir tapped the map. “They could be aiming for the flatway west. That’s the fastest route back to the capital.” He grimaced. “Or they could be coming after us.”

  She pinched at Pa’s tooth. His spark hadn’t gone out. He lived yet, but who else? She knew Tatterhelm had taken one of her own on the bridge; she knew he’d shot down Hangdog the moment he could. The skinwitch had ten hostages when he’d left Cheparok. How many had he bothered to keep alive?

  Fretting wouldn’t keep her oaths, though.

  “We’re a day from Trikovoi. They’re too far to catch up before we make it.” Jasimir leaned back on his heels. “Let’s follow the beacons until they split from the road and see how close the Vultures are by then.”

  Uncertainty coiled around his words. Part of Fie felt better for hearing it there. “That’s sound enough. We can cover at least another league before we stop tonight.”

  * * *

  They camped in the ruins of an old watchtower that night, one they’d found thanks to Crow marks on a signpost. It held a bounty: a clean well, a long-feral vegetable garden, and, best of all, a hearth. For the first time in days, they could light a fire and not betray their camp.

  Jasimir watched Fie scrawling out Ta-ri-ka-o-va-oi in the ashes. “And then Tavin passed the governor the platter of Hassuran steak and said, ‘I didn’t think your son could make it.’”

  Fie collapsed into giggles, the weary sort that came of late nights.

  So did Jasimir. When the laughter died down, he said, “Gods, I miss him.”

  A knot blistered in Fie’s throat. “Aye,” she whispered. “So do I.” Ta. Ri. The letters blurred. She needed a distraction, anything to leave that wound alone. “He said the king has a shine for Hawks.”

  “Hawks and women. At least he and I have the Hawks in common. Hopefully for different reasons.” Jasimir’s voice scraped with something almost like hunger. “But that’s why he married one of the Twin Talons. I don’t think Aunt Draga ever forgave him for it.” He reached for the fire, letting it harmlessly thread his knuckles. “All he wanted was a son like a Hawk. When Tavin arrived…”

  Fie knotted it all up herself: How the prince had demanded Tavin’s duty, not understanding what it would mean to be fulfilled. How he’d rankled as Tavin’s loyalty slipped to her. The tremor in his voice when he’d claimed his Hawk had one job alone.

  “The king put Tavin first,” Fie said.

  Jasimir closed his eyes and nodded like it hurt. “My mother spent so much time training him, right until she died, and Father would always … light up when he watched. I’ve barely seen him since he married Rhusana.” He let out a bitter laugh. “He couldn’t even be bothered to watch my funeral march.”

  Beyond the ruined watchtower walls, a reedy howl coasted on the wind. They both knew the whistle of skin-ghasts by now; they both fell silent until it faded.

  Then Jasimir glanced at the ashes and brightened a little. “Your vois are getting better. Keep it up and when you see Swain again, you can help him with his scroll.” Jasimir stared into the fire. “I can’t believe everything Crows carry in your heads. It’s incredible. All that history, all your traditions…”

  “That’s what walking songs are for. We hear them nigh as soon as we’re born.” Fie pondered a moment. “The teeth feel like that, too. Like each one has a song, and when I call them, the dead sing through me.”

  “Were either of your parents a witch?”

  Fie shook her head. “No
. Wretch said Ma met my blood-pa when both their bands stayed in the same shrine. She fancied him, and then I happened nine moons later. Pa’s my real one. He took me for his own daughter when Ma died.”

  “Do you still miss her?”

  The slate slipped a little. Fie licked her lips and smudged her name off the surface. “I was four,” she said, frowning as she began writing anew. “I don’t remember much before … Oleanders got her.” She closed her eyes a moment, plucking the dim memories like crowsilk from branches almost too high to reach. “Ma kept her hair long for a Crow. She liked to pick dandelions and blow all the fluff off, and we’d see who could do it faster. Pa said she was so dead-set to give me my name herself that she sent off anyone who couldn’t keep their mouth shut while she birthed me.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Crows name their babes for the first cross word sent their way. It’s luck. That word can’t hurt you any if it’s already your name. She said I howled like a devil when I came out, like I was born vexed with the world. Ma couldn’t abide the noise. That’s how I came to be Fie.” She swallowed. “So aye. I suppose I still miss my ma, too.”

  Jasimir stared through the decrepit roof, up to the stars. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry Father didn’t stop the Oleanders sooner. I’m sorry I haven’t done anything about them, either.”

  Fie turned the scrap of slate over. “They’re the same, in the end. Different heads on the same monster. The Oleanders. Rhusana.”

  “My father.”

  Fie threw a sharp glance at the prince. His eyes were fixed on the stars, his face hard as iron.

  “You wanted to save him,” she said.

  “I still do.” His mouth quirked, too alike Tavin. “If he’s someone I can save.”