For the second time that afternoon, she had no answer, no matter how she scoured the table for one.
“Excuse me.” Jasimir’s voice carried from a few paces away as he walked over to the table. “We found … this.”
He held out Swain’s scroll.
Fie took it in a shaking hand and spread the crackling parchment. For the first time, the letters ordered themselves for her: lines of a walking song, of lore, of lives here and gone.
“I was thinking…” Jasimir rubbed the back of his neck. “There are scribes in the fort. I could arrange for one to sit with the Crows and keep recording as long as you’re in Trikovoi. And if you’ll allow it, we could make a copy of this scroll … for the royal library.”
Fie looked up at him and found her smile to be well-watered. “Aye. Swain would have liked that.”
Jasimir returned her smile. “That wasn’t the only thing we found.”
Fie followed his gaze to the door, where Wretch had just walked in.
In her arms squirmed a very dirty, very grumpy gray tabby.
“Little beast trailed the caravan all the way from Cheparok,” Wretch groused. “You’ve Madcap and your Hawk lad to thank for sneaking her scraps and keeping her out of sight.”
Barf squirmed free and trotted over to Fie, sniffing at her sandals. After a moment the cat rolled on Fie’s feet, squalling a reprimand. She only yowled louder when Fie picked her up and buried her face in Barf’s dusty fur.
“Reckon she missed the cat most,” Wretch said.
“Reckon she missed her pretty Hawk boy most,” Madcap called from across the room.
Barf mewled in indignation when tears dampened her fur, and wriggled loose once more. Fie tried her best to scowl through leaky eyes.
“I miss silence,” she declared, then relented, scrubbing at her face. “And I suppose I missed you lot, too.”
* * *
Fie slipped away after dinner while her kin sang a rowdy camp song and danced about a fire burning in the courtyard’s great brazier. A few of the morning’s mammoth riders hung about, comparing scars and trading tales.
She just needed a fresh breath, that was all. She’d go back to the barrack and sleep with her kin, as she had every night of her life until Peacock Moon.
Or she could go back to her room. Her own room, quiet and private, where no one would ask aught of her, where she could wash off the ashes, curl up in a bed, and work at the knots in her head and her heart over the road that stretched before her now.
A treacherous part of her had loved the silence of the mornings, keeping watch over her tiny band of false Crows, the solitude and peace.
Perhaps Pa had understood that when he said no chief wanted their duty.
Perhaps she wouldn’t have that kind of peace much longer.
Fie went looking for her room.
That turned out to be a feat easier intended than accomplished. Trikovoi’s winding corridors swallowed her whole, sending her up stairways and down them again, round and round training yards and mess halls, circling like a hound settling to bed. At last a doorway spat her out onto a walkway between towers just as the last edge of sunlight sank into the mountains.
And there she found Draga and Tavin, leaning against the wall, heads bowed to speak quick and quiet. Tavin looked up when the door swung shut behind Fie. A raw shadow darted through his expression before he screened it off again.
Now she knew where he’d learned that from.
Draga saw what caught her son’s eye and muttered something, then pushed off the wall and headed toward the other door.
Fie reckoned she hadn’t really ever been looking for her room.
She steeled herself and walked nearer to Tavin, trying to ignore the rattle of her heart shaking its cage. “What did she say?”
“That she didn’t raise a coward.” Tavin’s voice rang hollow to Fie’s ear; his face stayed blank.
“What does that mean?” she asked, half to drive him to speak again. She wanted to hear his voice. She wanted to know he’d not suffered too much with Tatterhelm.
She wanted to know if he’d forgiven her.
Tavin levered himself onto his feet proper, still not looking her way. “It means we should talk somewhere better than here.”
Fie followed him up a set of stairs that curled about a tower, lead dragging in her gut. At the top waited a cold brazier and a handful of benches.
Tavin held a hand over the brazier, then jerked it back, gaze flicking to Fie. His shoulders dropped.
He trailed fingers over the coals, and golden fire sprang up in their wake.
“When—” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat but did not pull his hand from the brazier. Flames curled and danced along the lines of his burn scar. “When I was seven, the king came to Dragovoi. Mother told me to stay out of sight, but … he saw me. I looked exactly like Jas. And Surimir knew that about eight years earlier, on his own wedding night, he’d been drunk enough to command Mother to his bed while Aunt Jasindra was still at the reception.”
Fie’s belly churned. Tavin had told her of Hawk loyalty to the crown, of Surimir’s fondness for abusing it. Yet she couldn’t fathom how one of the gods’ favored Phoenixes could sink to that terrible depth.
Tavin wasn’t done. “Mother never formally acknowledged me as her son and heir. It’d raise too many questions about my father. I don’t know how many half castes there are, but … when you’re half a Phoenix, you can’t just play with fire, you have to deliberately try to not get burned. Mother could teach me only the blood Birthright. So. You asked where this”—he turned his burnt wrist—“came from. When Surimir saw me, he had a strong notion of what I was. And he held my hand in a fire until I figured out how to prove him right.”
More than ever, Fie wanted her hand in his. She wanted to stay by his side, plant herself betwixt him and the king if they ever saw that monster again. She wanted to burn down Surimir’s ugly palace and teach him the price of treating his people like toys.
Instead, she sat on the bench and watched the fire. “That was how you fooled the Vultures. They tried to burn you.”
He nodded. “The rest of the Hawks just saw me as a bastard and a healer close to Jas’s age, perfect for a bodyguard. Surimir knew I was … his. And perfect for Jas’s double.”
“What else did I miss?”
He let out a breath, thinking. “I … started the fire in the cave. The man in Gerbanyar—half of that was blood, half of that was fire. The campfire, back with the Oleanders.”
“You put it out.” No wonder Fie’s Phoenix teeth hadn’t stopped the flashburn fires outside Trikovoi. Phoenixes knew how to start fires; their bastards had to learn how to stop them.
A chill wind whistled over the tower, knocking sparks from the brazier. They blazed orange against the darkening sky, then winked out. Fie couldn’t stave off her question any longer.
“Are you angry with me?”
Tavin gave her an unreadable look. “With you?”
“You’ve been hiding all this most your life. It’s not like I asked before airing it out far and wide.”
He pulled his hand from the fire and turned to her, brow furrowing. “You saved me from a slow, agonizing death, Fie. Twelve hells, you made it look easy. Anger is the opposite of how I feel. If anything, I’m lucky you’re still voluntarily in the same fortress as I am.” Fie cocked her head, puzzled. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Everything that—that happened with us … happened while I was keeping this from you. That’s not right. You have every right to hate me.”
“Why?” Fie asked.
“I pretended I was someone I’m not,” Tavin said, the words falling almost too swift and heavy to catch. “I know what the king has done to you and yours, what he’s allowed to happen. I know what my father is.”
“And I know who you are.” Fie met his gaze, steady and unwavering. It felt just like the night they’d met, when she’d stared down his steel. This time, he held the point to his own throat
.
“That doesn’t change anything for you?” He’d gone stock-still. “Anything at all?”
Fie pursed her lips, thinking. The fire crackled in the brazier, casting a rosier light over both of them as the sky steeped into indigo.
At last she said, “If I’d known I’d rutted a half prince, probably I would’ve bragged about it more.”
Tavin stared at her in disbelief. Then his shoulders began to shake. He threw his head back and let his laughter spill into the night. Fie grinned up at him from her bench, feeling tension slip from her spine like a straggling thread pulled free.
They’d both been afraid. They’d both been wrong. She supposed that meant they both were fools, at least this once.
Tavin closed the distance, knelt before her, and pulled her to him, still shaking with laughter and relief.
“I missed you,” he whispered into her hair. “Gods, Fie, I’ve known you a moon and a half, and I swear I didn’t know I could miss anyone that much.”
The hollowness in his voice had filled in.
Fie tried to answer through the lump in her throat. A sniffle gave her away before the tears did; Tavin only held her tighter as she buried her face in his shoulder. The weight of the last two weeks crashed in—every league she’d walked knowing it carried her farther from him, every hour she’d spent wondering if he yet lived while she kept watch in the dark, every time she’d waited for his laugh and nonsense only to remember where they’d gone.
She didn’t wait to stop crying before she kissed him. Salt stung her tongue, then faded as he kissed her back, careful at first, then spiraling into dizzy, feverish glee that somehow, someway they had managed to find each other once more. She’d forgotten how much she liked the way his chin brushed hers, the feel of his back shifting beneath her palms, the sharp, quick breath when she pressed her mouth along his jawline. She’d forgotten how he could light her up like her veins ran with flashburn, even with something as simple as fingertips tracing her hips.
Pulling back took more effort than she’d reckoned for; every time she caught her breath, he stole it from her again, and the worst part was that she didn’t want him to stop. Eventually she found a moment to gasp, “My room.”
She felt Tavin’s too-pretty grin. “How do you like having a room to yourself?”
“I’m about to like it a lot more,” she answered. “Once you help me figure out where it is.”
He laughed again and scooped her up in his arms as he stood. “Yes, chief.”
* * *
Fie woke in the soft half shadows before dawn, still curled against Tavin, still marveling that he was there.
And, by the creeping morning light, she allowed herself to untie the most painful knot in her head and heart, made all the worse by the boy at her back.
He shifted, mumbling her name in his sleep, and that undid her entirely. She eased herself from the bed, pulled a robe over the shirt she’d stolen from him, and glided into the hall. The Hawks at guard just nodded as she passed.
This time she caught the familiar watch-hymn sooner and followed it up to the wall that Draga seemed to favor. The master-general stood there wrapped in a thick snow lion pelt, eyes on the west.
“Tavin hummed that at watch,” Fie said. Draga’s gaze flicked to her, then returned to the horizon. “That’s how I figured out you were his ma.”
Draga barked a quiet laugh. “He’s right. It’s truly impossible to slip anything past you. Here.”
She drew a dagger from her sash and handed it to Fie hilt-first. The moonlight drew out waving bands across the blade.
“That’s tiger steel,” Draga said. “It’s stronger than any other metal we know. This blade outlived my mother and her mother, and it will outlive me. But it takes a master blacksmith to forge.”
“Aye.” Fie passed it back. “I saw it once in a Hawk tooth. Rush, and it shatters.” She leaned against the wall. “But leave the blade too long, and it’s rutted all the same.”
“I thought it would be like tiger steel,” Draga said. “The oath. Because you’re right, no Saborian should live as the Crows do. And if we forge something better, the nation will be stronger for it. But if we move too fast…” She sighed. “The fact is, we’re already shattering. How we treat Crows is a liability. The queen’s using it to net herself a throne. And you, a teenage girl, used it to fool the master-general of the kingdom’s armies.”
“No hard feelings,” Fie said with a shrug.
Draga shot her a sharp look. “It’s been a long day and night, Lady Crow. Don’t try me. Especially while wearing my beloved son’s shirt.” Fie coughed, ears burning, and Draga continued. “I’ve had war scholars digging through our libraries for anything on skin-ghasts. We’ve found nothing. There’s no knowing how great a threat we’re facing, but we know the queen means to wipe out people the Hawks are honor-bound to protect.”
Fie took a gamble. “Because no one’s protected us.”
“Because we failed.” Draga nodded, jaw set.
“Pa says change always has a price.” Fie stared at dawn’s edge in the eastern sky. “That even Phoenixes need ashes to rise.”
A moment passed before Draga spoke. “A few hours ago, Corporal Lakima came to my office with five other Hawks. They’ve volunteered to accompany you when you leave.”
Fie blinked.
“Other command posts have sent in reports of the skin-ghasts. I’m going to order them to increase patrols by night. I’m also going to relay that the Crows are being targeted and require them to report any Crow casualties immediately.” Draga turned about to face the east, same as Fie. “It’s not perfect. There are a thousand ways it’ll be fouled up. But it’s a way to flush out the Hawks who are part of the problem, so that once Rhusana is handled … we can keep the oath.”
Fie’s fingers dug into stone. “You’ll—you’ll give us Hawks?”
“Save your victory dance,” drawled Draga. “First I have to parade that boy all the way back to the royal palace with enough bells, flags, and armed soldiers to really say, ‘Auntie Draga loves you.’ Then we have to win over the king and sort out a gods-awful horror of logistics and recruit volunteers and then…” Draga rubbed a hand over her face. “Then, yes. You will have Hawks.”
Fie couldn’t breathe.
You will have Hawks.
She’d done it. She’d made the oath. She’d kept it.
For her ma, for Pa, for Wretch, even for Hangdog—she’d kept the oath.
“I … apologize,” Draga said stiffly. “You should have had us sooner.” She slid Fie another look. “You’ve already figured out the catch, haven’t you?”
Fie nodded, throat tightening once more.
“Then I’m sorry for that, too.” Draga’s face softened. “He’ll be waking up any moment now. I believe you have a better use for your time.”
Fie mimicked the Hawk salute, much to Draga’s ire, and returned to her room. Tavin rolled onto his back when the door shut, drowsy and smiling as he reached out a hand. She wound her fingers in his and climbed into bed beside him.
“Were you outside?” he mumbled against the side of her neck. “You’re cold.”
“Aye.” She closed her eyes, letting herself enjoy his lips on her skin a moment more, but the longer she waited, the more bitter the words would be. She forced them out. “I know you can’t leave with us.”
He went still, fingertips pressing against her ribs.
“No,” he admitted, “I can’t.”
It was one thing for the bastard of an unknown father to roam Sabor at her side.
It was wholly different for the king’s bastard to do it.
“It’s only while Rhusana is still in power.” He pushed himself up to look her in the eye. “She’d use me against Jas the first chance she got. Mother would murder me if I set foot outside Trikovoi with anything less than a company of mammoth riders, and she’d be right to do it.” His hand slid along her cheek. “Once the queen is gone, I … I’ll find you. I don�
�t care how far you are or how long it takes, I swear I’ll find you again.”
Fie closed her eyes. “Aye, and that could be one moon from now. Or it could be the rest of your life.”
Tavin wove his fingers through hers once more and kissed them. “The girl I love said they’re all short lives. So I won’t make her wait long either way.”
Fie wanted to fight, even with naught to win. She wanted to hear him call her the girl he loved again. She wanted to burn every Sparrow tooth she had to keep him with her, hidden at her side as they roamed from beacon to beacon, season after season.
But long ago he’d said he would not live as a ghost.
And she’d known this would never be easy.
They were all short lives. She’d just wanted to spend more of hers with him.
She’d just wanted more time. And for now, they only had until the dead gods’ mercy called her onward.
The dead gods hadn’t called her to the roads yet. Until they did, she would have that much of what she wanted.
Fie drew her Hawk to her once more.
* * *
On the seventh dawn of Crow Moon, a trail of crimson smoke scratched the horizon, and Fie knew her time had come.
The Crows gathered at the fortress’s main gate, adjusting the straps of new sandals and checking the hold of the new cart while their new chief said her goodbyes.
Jasimir moved first, shuffling over with a thick scroll of parchment and charcoal sticks. “Here. Practice your letters. And write to me.”
“Is that a royal command?” she asked, unable to stuff down a grin.
“Write to me, please,” he amended. “And to Tav. He’s already started pining and you haven’t even left yet.”
“I don’t think ‘Dear Jas and Tavin, today we only had to avoid twenty Oleanders trying to murder us’ will cheer him up.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not going alone.” He nodded to the supply wagon waiting beside the Crow’s new cart, where Corporal Lakima and her five Hawks waited.
The Merciful Crow Page 32