* * *
Good luck came swift, wearing the face of ill fortune: a black finger of smoke beckoning over the treetops an hour later. Hangdog sulked the entire short walk to answer the beacon, and Fie couldn’t help chewing over her own doubts.
When they returned to the flatway with a flush viatik of two river oxen, a new wagon, and all else they fancied from the dead sinner’s abundant property, Fie’s doubt was naught but dust in their trail. She hadn’t even had to cut the sinner’s throat.
“How many villages are like that?”
Fie looked up from the twin teeth in her salt-lined palm. She was allowed to ride in the wagon with the prince as long as she practiced her toothcraft, but thus far the two Pigeon canines only squabbled in her grasp like fussy toddlers.
“Like what?” she asked.
The prince leaned on the wagon’s railing, watching the vine-laced cypress reel past as he rubbed Barf’s ears. The tabby hadn’t strayed from his side all morning, save to beg attention from Tavin. “Friendly. Generous. Was that just the tooth at work?”
“No.” She leaned back against a sack of rice, then hissed as a splinter from the wagon’s rough planks slipped into her thumb. “The Covenant marked that sinner long before we used the tooth. Likely the village wanted him gone. That skinflint sucked up all their wealth and squatted on it. Luck didn’t do any of that. Luck just made them wait to light a beacon until we were the nearest band of Crows.”
“I see.” Jasimir pursed his lips, tugging on the hood that hid his topknot. A walking song from Swain seeped in over the rumble of the wagon.
Fie picked out the splinter and sucked on her thumb, grimacing at the whisper of salt beneath her nail. “What’s Your Highness really after?”
“I … I suppose I’m wondering why the Crows are still here if it’s all that bad.” Jasimir unfurled the words slow and careful. “You have no home. I don’t know why you would stay in a place that doesn’t want you.”
Fie’s fist closed around the teeth a little too tight, thoughts skittering around her head like water off hot iron.
It was the same as Jasimir calling her bone thief, as leaving his dagger hilt unwrapped. He didn’t know better. He didn’t mean hurt by it. To a prince, this was all a week’s mummery before he paraded, glorified, back to Dumosa.
But that did naught to lessen the damage.
Fie’s hand shook as she pointed to the road. “That is my home, cousin.” She pointed, again, this time to the rolling hills due north. “That is my home.” The thin blue rag-edge of sea to the southern horizon. “That is my home.” And last, she pointed to the Crows scattered around the wagon as Swain’s walking song wound down. “This is my home.”
Wooden wheels ground against the sand-grit road, scraping at the silence that stretched betwixt Fie and the prince. Finally she trusted her voice enough to continue.
“We stay in Sabor because it’s our home. Aye, the villages don’t want us, but the sinners always do. Every plague-fearing soul sleeps easier knowing we’ll come when they call. So you ask why we stay? Because the plague stays. Because someone out there needs mercy. And because this is our damned home.”
“I didn’t mean to offend—” the prince began.
“You’ve been good as dead for two days and no one cares,” Fie interrupted. “Why don’t you leave? Ask a village with a live plague beacon if they want Crows or kings more, and you’ll know which of us the country can do without.”
The wagon rocked as Tavin swung himself up to peer at them over a railing. “Do we need a healer in here?”
“What?” Fie asked, startled but not surprised. The Hawk seemed to have a sense for when the prince’s pride risked a puncture. Barf chirped at Tavin until he scratched her chin.
“Do we need a healer?” he repeated, giving an exaggerated wave of his witch-sign. “Because it sounds like someone’s getting skewered.”
Jasimir’s cheeks darkened. “We were … having a discussion.”
“Of course.” Tavin rested his own chin on a forearm. “You know, you two are almost making the exact same face right now.”
Fie hadn’t known what to expect when his Peacock glamour ebbed away, but pretty-boy blood ran plain strong in the Markahns. By daylight, he still looked the prince’s kinsman but more the Hawk, one the world had gnawed at like a mutt gnawed a bone. He tilted his head at Fie. “I’d pay good Saborian coin to watch you have that discussion back at the palace. You’d tear half the court to shreds.”
Hangdog sent a foul look their way.
“Only half?” Wretch asked from the road.
For once, Fie caught no whiff of schemes in Tavin’s grin. “I’m hoping the other half would figure out to run for their lives. If they don’t, that’s entirely their fault.”
Fie couldn’t stopper up a laugh. This time, Hangdog wasn’t the only one to shoot her a look.
She ducked her head, ears burning.
Pa cleared his throat from the driver’s bench. “How’s that practice, Fie?”
“Coming along,” she snapped, and unfurled her fist. The teeth had bit two hollows into her palm. Beyond the wagon, Wretch set on a new walking song, a marching hymn to the dead god Crossroads-Eyes.
“Lord Hawk.” Pa patted the bench. “A word.”
Tavin clambered over to Pa. Jasimir hunched into a sulk disguised as a nap, but Fie paid it no heed, glowering at her Pigeon teeth. Wasn’t her fault if nobody else had cut him a slice of hard truth before.
“How may I be of service?” Tavin asked, settling beside Pa.
When Pa spoke, Fie had to strain to hear over the cart’s rattle. “Tell me about the queen’s Vultures.”
Fie caught her breath.
The bench creaked as Tavin shifted. “Are they on our trail?”
“Something is.” Pa flicked the reins. “They won’t catch up unless they’re riding devils themselves, but…”
When, not if. No wonder Pa had stared at the road so.
Fie stole a glance at Prince Jasimir. He’d traded the fake nap for a true one, eyes shut against the noon sun, head lolling against the railing.
“Rhusana keeps five skinwitches in her pay,” Tavin muttered low. “Four are just trackers. Damned good trackers, but you, me, or Fie could easily drop them in a fight.”
“And the fifth?”
Tavin paused. “Greggur Tatterhelm,” he said at last. “The queen’s favorite. Biggest northman I’ve ever seen. You’d swear his father had a deviant shine for mammoths. He cuts a notch in his helmet for every mark he brings in, one if they’re alive, two if they’re dead.”
“Tatter-helm,” Pa drawled. “Quaint.”
“He’s not the best skinwitch, nor the fastest. But he’s all twelve hells to cross.”
“Hm.” The bench creaked again under Pa’s weight. “And this lord in Cheparok, he’s sound and true, aye?”
“What?”
“You boys trust him to hold to your plan?”
“Of course,” Tavin said a little too loud. Pa let the unanswered silence speak for itself. Tavin lowered his voice. “The governors of the Fan have been the crown’s strongest allies for centuries. Besides, Cheparok sits on the biggest trading bay in the south. No country will do business with a nation on the brink of civil war. Kuvimir’s been very clear who he stands with.”