“Tatterhelm took my kin hostage in Cheparok.” Fie sipped her water, a show of ease as deliberate as Draga’s choice of stolen offices. “I’m here because Rhusana allied herself with the Oleander Gentry.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Draga muttered into her wine.
“So I swore the prince to a Covenant oath,” Fie said.
Draga winced and took a swig of wine.
“We’d get him to his allies, and in exchange, the Crows will be guarded against Oleanders. By Hawks.”
Draga spat out her wine.
“What?” she demanded. “What kind of—never mind. Forget Taverin’s scheme, that is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard and will ever hear again, in this lifetime or the next.”
“The ludicrous thing is that it hasn’t happened sooner,” Jasimir said. “I’ve seen Oleander rides with my own eyes. And I’ve seen how the rest of the country thinks they can treat Crows because there are no repercussions. It’s going to end.”
Draga’s brow furrowed. “Let me be plain with you, Highness. You need the cooperation of the Hawks. You won’t get it, not when you’re asking them to roll shells with the Sinner’s Plague.”
“Is the plague the problem, or is it the Crows?” Jasimir met her gaze steady and hard.
“I won’t pretend that’s not part of it,” Draga returned.
“They need to get over it,” Jasimir replied. “I’m not asking the Hawks to take any risk Tavin and I didn’t take, and survive, ourselves. If you want to look at it as a general, we’re preventing a takeover of the throne. I have to look at it as a king. The Crows are my people. Our people. They’re part of Sabor. It’s long past time to act like it.”
Draga gave him a long, heavy look and poured herself more wine. “You’re right. But it’s not enough to just be right. I know my Hawks. You force this on them, and they’ll turn on you. The answer is no.”
Fie dropped her goblet with a clang of brass. Water spilled across the floor, flashing peach from the reflected sundown.
She hadn’t heard right. Tavin had said Draga was loyal, that she’d follow royal commands. And the prince—
“He swore an oath,” she said, furious. “And my end’s kept.”
Jasimir’s hands balled to fists. “Fie’s right. I made a vow to the Covenant.”
“That’s not how it works,” Draga interrupted, iron in her voice. “I could swear to the Covenant that I’ll leap mountains in a minute, but that won’t mean I can. Did you explicitly promise you’d assign Hawks to guard the Crows?”
Jasimir blinked. “I … I said I’d ensure the Crows’ protection as king.”
“And I asked for Hawks,” Fie added.
“That doesn’t sound like you’re sworn to give them anything of the sort, then.” Draga frowned at the desk, hunting for a place to set her goblet down, but found none. “Once the hostages are recovered, I’ll parade you back to Dumosa. While I’m there, I can personally encourage Rhusana to retire quietly to some country manor before I find a lawful way to send her to her choice of hells. After that, we can discuss more … reasonable measures to keep your oath.”
Fie laughed out loud this time, burying her face in her hands. Of course the Hawks would turn their backs, even on their own prince. They’d break every code they had to keep from helping Crows.
All she’d done, all she’d lost, all she’d borne to bring the prince down her road … it wasn’t enough. The next laugh came out a half sob. “You should have left me to Tatterhelm.”
A hand braced her shoulder—Jasimir. His voice hardened. “What if I’m not asking, master-general?”
Draga tossed aside her empty goblet. Then she drew herself up to her full height, steel feathers whispering a warning. “Your mother taught you the Hawk code, Highness. What comes first?”
Jasimir licked his lips. “‘I will serve my nation and the throne—’”
“Correct. ‘I will serve my nation.’” Draga folded her arms. “Before I serve the throne. I agree that the Oleanders pose a significant threat, but I don’t consider alienating allies good for my nation. And that is what I serve first.”
Every Phoenix tooth in Fie’s string wanted to burn Trikovoi to the ground. She knotted her hands to keep them still. If the Hawks thought her teeth a threat, they’d take them, too.
Jasimir sent Fie a look that said, This isn’t over.
Fie wished she could believe it. She might yet get her kin back, but without the master-general, the oath lay hollow as a skin-ghast.
“Tomorrow, we’ll work on rescuing the hostages.” A shadow crossed Draga’s face and vanished. “You two will be quartered in adjacent private rooms. I’ll arrange for baths and meals to be provided. Open the door only if you hear four knocks, understand?”
The last comment ought to have been aimed at the prince. Instead, the master-general’s steely gaze pointed at Fie.
Of course. Draga didn’t trust her own troops to guard Crows on the road. Why would a fortress be any different?
“Aye,” Fie said, matching her stare, steel for bitter steel. She’d get Tavin and her kin back. She’d stop the queen. But the fight for the oath—for Crows to walk more than a murderous road—was nowhere near over. “I understand.”
* * *
Fie was not sure what to make of the bed.
In her sixteen short years, Fie had slept indoors, outdoors, on sun-warmed dust, in shady tree boughs, on the tiles of shrine floors, through sweltering heat and relentless rains and sometimes creeping frost. She’d slept on mountain and plain and in city and marsh.
But she had never slept in a fortress. The room itself was peculiar enough: plain stone walls lined with heavy tapestry, more diamond-shaped windows barred against intruders and the moonless dark, a cold brazier, oil lamps dangling in the corners. Fie had been surprised to find both her swords left in a plain rack. Then she kenned why: the Hawks had decided they didn’t pose any true threat in the hands of a Crow.
A puddle glossed the floor where a copper tub had waited for her alongside a change of clothing and an array of soaps and ointments. Stone-faced cadets had borne the tub away after she’d scrubbed off the smoke and road dust, and they’d returned with a finer dinner than she could conquer. Even now, a lukewarm skin dried over leftover chunks of goat and squash swimming in a rich cream sauce. Draga had even sent them with a small bowl of salt, a thoughtful touch that Fie despised.
But she still wasn’t wholly sure of the bed.
The mattress seemed to be stuffed with down and straw, resting on a net of hempen rope. A soft sheepskin spread out over more woolen blankets, a luxury Fie found excessive until the temperature plunged after sundown.
It was all so soft. Too soft. And quiet.
She ought to be on watch. She ought to be counting her teeth. She ought to be eyeing what lurked in the dark, wrapped in a stolen pelt, trying not to think of Tavin or Pa or Wretch or her ma.
She ought to be doing something, anything to bring them back.
Instead she lay under a suffocating heap of blankets, weighty and near sick on lordling grub, leagues and leagues from sleep.