She shivered. Tears streaked down her chin, landing in Jasimir’s dusty hair. She told herself she would not grieve.
Part of her knew she didn’t. Grief scarred over wounds. This, now—all this meant was she still couldn’t stop the bleeding.
A horn shrieked the marching order to a chorus of victory whoops. Slow and unstoppable, the hoofbeats and horns drained from the ravine, until only the howling wind remained.
Tavin was gone.
Fie rolled off the prince and, for a long moment, stared at the sky purpling like a bruise above.
She wanted Tavin’s smile. She wanted his arms around her, the warmth of him at her back, the moment not three days past where she believed, really believed, that perhaps they two could put things to rights.
But it didn’t matter what she wanted when it was far, far from her grasp.
In the long, fearful months after she’d found the ruins of her ma, night after night, she’d kept watch with Pa. Madcap, newer to the band than Fie, had called her Little Witness: the dead Crow god, a beggar girl who saw all misdeeds and recorded them for the Covenant’s judgment. Likely Fie looked the part, staring out into the dark from under Pa’s cloak with her wide, solemn, black eyes, her hair in ragged tufts that she wouldn’t yet let Wretch tidy.
It wasn’t long before someone told Madcap what had happened to Fie’s ma, and they never called her Little Witness again. But Pa told no one the truth of it: Fie only kept watch because she couldn’t bear to dream.
Instead, Pa told her stories.
He told her tales of tricksters and queens as they sat and watched the roads for strangers in the night. He told her of heroes who fought monsters from beyond the mountains and seas. He told her of Ambra and the tigers she rode, the villains she conquered, the fires she burned through Sabor. He told her how every witch of a caste was one of their dead gods reborn, even him. Even her.
And when Fie at last fell asleep, she did not see her mother. She saw adventures grander than her world of dusty roads and shrouded dead. And she wanted to believe Pa: once upon a time, she could have been a god.
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—”