The Faithless Hawk

by Margaret Owen

  More importantly, everything was fine enough to blend in, but not so fine as to draw attention. She could barely manage speaking like a servant on her own; talking to any of these gentry would mean consulting another of Niemi’s teeth for aid, and Fie reckoned she’d rather let someone spit crab on her.

  Fie slipped out from the tapestry and drifted onward, careful to look purposeful enough that no one interrupted her. Wherever she ended up, she needed to have a clear view of the ceremony. But the highest of nobility had already packed the front of the hall, and she doubted they’d move for her. She squinted, trying to spy a way to squeeze in—

  And the crowd shifted briefly, just long enough for her to catch sight of Tavin in the heart of the throng.

  Her heart seized. From a distance, it didn’t matter that he wore a glamour of Jasimir’s face; it was close enough to his own to hurt. He was laughing. He looked happy. He looked—

  Straight at her.

  She tried not to flinch away as they locked eyes. Niemi wasn’t there to tell her to be charming, but Khoda’s reminder still was: Let’s see what else you can catch.

  Academically speaking, the expression Fie gave Tavin could have been called a smile. It also could have been called a death threat.

  She hurried off before she made good on it, only to run into a Sparrow servant who’d slid into her path.

  Fie stiffened. Not even a minute and she’d already been found out. She didn’t even have her Phoenix teeth to burn a way out anymore, just the one from Tavin—

  The servant gave a deep bow, and Fie tried not to let her relief show. Even after he straightened, his head stayed bent, his eyes cast to the ground. “Lady Sakar, a thousand apologies for the interruption of this unworthy one.”

  He paused, waiting for her. Fie gulped. It was a good day when a Sparrow didn’t spit in her wake, normally. She’d at least find that less disconcerting. “Go on,” she said, trying to sound aloof instead of unsteady.

  Only then did she spot the crest sewn into his golden sash: two hands cradling a sun. The royal emblem. That meant he was a personal attendant, either of the prince or of the queen. “His Highness wishes to offer Your Ladyship a more favorable place to observe the coronation, should you so desire it.”

  She’d certainly caught something of Tavin’s, then, and it was sore useful and sore repulsive. Fie hated it the way she hated viatik sometimes, when the goods were dear but the givers dreadful. And she knew better than to trust anything given freely.

  “Very well,” Fie said in her best highborn snob voice. “Where … is it?”

  A flicker of curiosity darted through his face. “I will escort Your Ladyship there, if it pleases.”

  This felt like a game, a back-and-forth like Twelve Shells. She’d spent so long playing games like this from the other side of the board—for every viatik, every Hawk bribe, every Money Dance—but it was always just to keep from losing too much.

  For the first time, she was meant to have the upper hand. Fie tried not to panic. She’d already told the man she would go, hadn’t she?

  But a Sparrow servant wouldn’t give a Peacock orders. He was waiting on her approval.

  It was a very strange feeling.

  “It pleases me,” Fie echoed. “Lead on.”

  The Sparrow man bowed once more and guided her through the crowds as seamlessly as a needle through gauze, evading trains of satin that spilled like rivers across the marble, unsteady crystal goblets swung for emphasis in silver-crusted hands, fellow servants darting to and fro on business of the Splendid Castes. Finally he deposited her at the edge of the front row of onlookers with another bow and a sweep of his arm. “Does Your Ladyship desire anything else?”

  She could barely hear him over the musicians nearby, who had begun a jig that rang too cheery in this grand sprawling hall. About to ask for a different spot, she changed her mind. Other nobles were sneaking glances at her behind palm fans and elaborate collars. Surely they wondered about her and what it meant that a prince would want her to see him become a king.

  But this close to the music, no one would try to make conversation with her, which meant she could leave Niemi’s voice out of her head that much longer. She’d also have no need to fear someone bumping against her and finding a sword where there was only supposed to be silk.

  She shook her head and then, as an added touch, flicked her hand in dismissal. The servant melted into the crowd almost too swift, and Fie realized most of the Sparrows had to be calling on their Birthright. Even though they couldn’t vanish outright like their witches, anytime Fie tried to look straight at a servant, she found her attention skidding off to land on a sparkling jewel or a pounding drum.

  Whether that was the Sparrows’ choice she couldn’t say, but she remembered Niemi’s blithe derision that morning. It was equally likely the gentry only wanted to be offered trays of delicacies without having to think too hard about who held them.

  The pounding drum swelled in Fie’s ears as the sunlight began to dim. Solstice had kept the sun long in the sky, but finally it touched the edge of the cliffs looming over the royal quarters at the west end of the palace. The drum fell silent. A hush flooded the hall as two lines of gold-cloaked priests filed in, one from either side of the thrones.

  Khoda had told Fie of the ceremony details, and she’d committed it to her memory with one more Owl tooth to be safe. All the priests before her now had been born royal Phoenixes, but either they’d been too far from the line of succession to hope for a crown, or they’d assessed—correctly, Fie would say—the average life expectancy of a monarch and decided it not worth the risk. Instead, they’d sworn a Covenant oath forsaking any claim to the throne and bound themselves to the service of a dead Phoenix god instead.

  Once they were in place, the Phoenix Priesthood regarded the room with an odd kind of sobriety, Fie thought. There was a peculiar charge to the silence in the Hall of the Dawn, glances flicking between painted nobles like little shocks of static, as if to ask, Is this really happening?

  Khoda had warned Fie of this, too; Rhusana was not universally beloved, and with so many of the most powerful families in the nation present, there was a chance they might take matters into their own hands.

  But no one stirred, save the sun that sank a little lower, and save the priests who, after a long moment of unease, raised their arms and cried in one voice, “Now begins the night before the dawn!”

  Music burst forth from the galleries, forcefully joyful and triumphant, as the Phoenix Priesthood began to sing. The first hymn praised the rulers of the past, the next Mother of the Dawn, and then the rest of the dead Phoenix gods got their due, and so on, until Fie was certain the only thing keeping her from falling asleep on her feet was the musical accompaniment blaring in her ears. Finally, the last of the sunlight drained away and the priests fell silent. All but two filed away, then returned, bearing two basins of sharp-smelling oil and two long, narrow strips of plain, undyed silk.

  The two priests who had stayed positioned themselves before each of the empty thrones. They both picked up silk strips, then submerged them in the golden oil. “Warriors, have you chosen who rules you?” the priests asked as one.

  With a pang, Fie saw they were addressing Draga, who stood near the center of the room. The master-general’s face glistened with sweat, like she wanted to vomit. Whether that meant she was still straining against Rhusana’s will, Fie couldn’t say. Draga gritted out, “We have chosen.”

  A ripple went through the crowd, almost like a sigh. The priests called, “Noble houses, have you chosen who rules you?”

  There was a pause. For a moment, Fie thought perhaps no one might answer and she wouldn’t have to do aught to foul up the ceremony at all.

  Then a man called from behind Fie in a cold, decisive voice, “We have chosen.”

  Heads turned, and Fie couldn’t help it; she turned, too. The man stood only a few paces behind her, and he wore a fine robe in deep Peacock green, but she was close enough
to read the elegant pattern of pearl, jade, and gold embroidered in petals and leaves over his shoulders. It formed a mantle of oleanders.

  Her breath caught even as her own sense made her whip back around. Oleanders were no threat to a Peacock girl. Even though her hair stood on end, she couldn’t let it show.

  More mutters of “we have chosen” pattered through the hall like reluctant rain, rising to a hum, until the priests were satisfied. “People of Sabor,” the priests cried, “have you chosen who rules you?”

  This time the answer came like thunder, rolling about the room from soldier and noble alike: “WE HAVE CHOSEN.”

  Fie couldn’t help but notice the lines of Sparrow servants banished to wait at the walls until the ceremony was over. Not a one had so much as mouthed the words.

  “Let them come forward.” The priests nodded to either side of the dais.

  Fie caught a shuffle nearby. Tavin was being led from beneath the shadows of the nearby gallery in a simple, well-made tunic and trousers of undyed, unadorned linen. Once again, his eyes found her. The corner of his mouth lifted.

  Then, as he passed by, he gave her a slow, deliberate wink.

  Some small, miserable worm of hope in her had clung to the notion that earlier had been a fluke; that she didn’t understand the ways of princes and palaces; that, at the very least, since Jasimir didn’t shine to girls like that, Tavin would have the sense to refrain.

  She had been granted one small boon, though: any who saw her cheeks darken now would take it for the blush of a flattered young noblewoman, and not the rising bitter-burnt fury of a girl whose last scrap of faith had shriveled.

  Khoda had told her not to kill either Tavin or Rhusana, not yet. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t get creative.

  She’d nearly missed Rhusana’s own entrance from the opposite side of the dais. Tavin and the queen passed the great mammoth-tusk horns that bracketed the dais; they would be sounded to announce the new monarchs once the ceremony was complete.

  As Tavin and Rhusana knelt on velvet cushions before the thrones, Fie swore to herself that those tusks would stay silent a long, long time.

  The two priests lifted the silk from the basin, dripping ribbons of golden oil onto the marble.

  “The first crown,” the priests announced in unison as the sky behind them cooled to a grim blue-gray through the glassblack panes.

  “Wear it,” the priest standing over Rhusana said, winding the silk around her brow, “and think on what it means to rule.”

  “Wear it,” echoed Tavin’s priest as she cinched the strip on him, “and think on what it means to burn.”

  “Wear your first crown,” they said together, “and think on what it means to rise.”

  Fie slowly reached for a tooth she’d knotted into the string at her wrist just for this occasion.

  Tavin and Rhusana stayed kneeling as the priests began another back-and-forth chant, some nonsense about the glory of the Phoenix gods and signs of their favor. In Fie’s experience, talk like that was naught more than a garland to drape around a misdeed or a knife at the throat of someone you wanted to rob.

  Instead, she kept an eye on the growing dark, and on those silk crowns.

  The rest of the ceremony was meant to be straightforward. The priests would ask for Ambra’s blessing upon the new rulers-to-be. Then, Khoda had told her, would come what the priests called “the Miracle of the Burning Crown”: the silk would burst into flame as a sign of Ambra’s favor.

  “And by Ambra’s favor,” Fie had pointed out as they ran through the plan in Ebrim’s office that afternoon, “you mean the fact that even a royal toddler could light those crowns, since they’re practically kneeling on dead Phoenix gods.”

  Khoda had tilted his head with a lazy grin. “I guess the presence of the Phoenixes makes it a miracle?”

  “Shitty miracle,” Fie had observed.

  But now she watched a bead of oil slide down the side of Tavin’s face as the priests droned on, and she thought of what it meant to burn.

  Doubtless he would light the crowns for himself and Rhusana. Or maybe he would light his own, and a Peacock illusion would serve for hers. The point was to show the crowd they were Phoenixes true and could not be harmed by fire. Then they would meditate until dawn, and when the final ashes of their silk crowns were swept away, they would be given crowns of gold and rise with the sun.

  Fie’s eyes stayed on that twist of silk.

  He’d called her the girl he loved. He’d enjoyed her in his bed. He’d sworn she would never be gone to him. But all it took was a palace and the promise of a golden crown to burn it all to ash.

  Fie made sure the tooth at her wrist was still securely wrapped in a bit of rag, for if it touched her skin, it would sing double, no, triple as loud as any other she carried. For one thing, the Phoenix god-graves rumbled beneath her toes, calling to the scrap of bone she held now.

  For another, the teeth of the living always sang louder than those of the dead. And Tavin lived yet, though how long she would abide it, Fie no longer knew.

  The priests wound down their chant, the sky well and truly black with night now. Torches and lamps had been lit about the hall, but the great lantern-columns cast the brightest light.

  “And now, O Ambra of the Sunrise, Queen of Day and Night, Tiger-Rider, Fire-Drinker, God-Sent, Conqueror of the Highest Lands, we beseech your memory and your name,” Rhusana’s priest proclaimed, holding his arms aloft.

  Tavin’s priest raised hers as well. “Grant your favor to these new rulers, that they may follow in your ways. Show us that your flame burns on in them.”

  Fie took a deep breath and called first an Owl tooth. The spark of the scholar within jumped with curiosity, eager to unravel a new mystery, but Fie offered a plea instead: I need to find a memory, she told it.

  And swiftly, she slipped Tavin’s tooth from her wrist into her palm, rolling it to call out the spark.

  His thoughts, his memories, surges of blood and fire, they all threatened to drown her as she tried and tried and tried to shut them out. She didn’t want to see him, she didn’t want to feel—

  This, the scholar said, picking a memory out of the maelstrom in her bones. Fie lunged for it and fell into a dark night moons ago, one she knew well—but this skewed different, this was through Tavin’s eyes—

  He crouched on a branch in the dark, the Crow girl and Jas beside him. Until a moment ago, they’d been utterly invisible; Fie had called the Birthright of a Sparrow witch as easily as slipping on a sandal, and they had only appeared now so she could call on a Phoenix tooth.

  She was too good at her work, he thought, and a rebellious part of him wondered what would happen if the Crows ever decided they’d had enough of carting around plague-dead. Perhaps that was why the Oleander Gentry were so hell-bent on keeping them unarmed and starving.

  Though since they’d acquired Phoenix teeth, perhaps that would all change. Even now, Fie seemed about to put out a hearty campfire, a trick he hadn’t mastered until he’d practiced his firecraft for a few years.

  “It’s not working,” Jas whispered, and Tavin swore silently, knowing that had to have shattered the girl’s focus.

  Sure enough, the fire roared with glee as Fie hissed. She drew a sharp breath, no doubt trying once more. Tavin debated a moment; she was too clever by far, and if she noticed someone else’s hand in putting the fire out—

  Hoofbeats said they’d both be distracted soon. He didn’t have a choice.

  The fire called to an ugly part of him, one that knew what it wanted and wasn’t afraid to take it. He breathed it in a moment, that need to ignite and devour, then exhaled, just as a Phoenix priest had secretly taught him, banishing the hunger and the flame.

  The campfire went out.

  He glanced sidelong at Fie. She didn’t seem to have noticed a thing, fumbling for that Sparrow witch-tooth again.

  There was something in the way her brow furrowed that called to that hunger in him, hooked in his
ribs like the point of a spear—

  Fie dropped the memory like a hot coal, yanking her thoughts from the teeth before they could show her anything worse.

  She had what she needed.

  Just then, the silk crowns began to smoke.

  Both the fires were real, little tongues of flame licking up the outside of the silks. Rhusana was sweating. Fie inhaled swift, feeling the fires call to the ugly part of her, the one that wanted to burn this hall down with them all inside, burn Sabor from mountain to coast, just to make them all reckon with a Crow for a conqueror.

  And then—she cast it from her, breath and fire and rage.

  The silk crowns snuffed out.

  A gasp swept the crowd.

  From where Fie stood, she had a truly perfect view of Rhusana’s face as it shifted through first bewilderment, then anger, then accusation. The faintest of snarls bared her teeth as she shot Tavin a furious glare. He shook his head ever so slightly, as if to say, This isn’t me.

  Rhusana kept staring at him. Tavin swallowed and closed his eyes, and a moment later, the silk crowns ignited again.

  There were many, many things Fie could not forgive Tavin for. Something about that, though, something about him still trying to light the damn crowns, still trying to make that work when he’d been so ready to give up on her and Jasimir—

  That was something no chief would abide.

  Initially, Fie had thought to just blow out the crowns, again and again, until the ceremony was called off. But Tavin’s own tooth had barely been tapped of its power, especially here on the Phoenix graves. It practically begged for her to put it to use.

  And she’d made her plan back before Tavin himself had shown her the truth: in the end, she was one more thing to burn for a crown of gold.

  Khoda had said the difference between a thief and a conqueror was an army. Tonight, it would be just a tooth.