Somewhere in the hall, a muffled hum of a watch-hymn threaded the quiet. Fie knew that, wander as she might, she’d never outrun it. There was no way out of Trikovoi for her until the Hawks let her go.
“Thank you for saving my cat,” Fie said, stiff. “I should try to sleep.”
* * *
Four knocks came at noon, ringing through the prince’s room.
Fie set down her practice slate as Jasimir answered the door. Corporal Lakima stood outside, stony-faced and tight-lipped, gaze shifting from the prince to Fie and her wobbling letters. “The master-general calls for you.” Jasimir and Fie traded looks. Lakima coughed. “There’s a message.”
Lakima scarce had time to clear the way before Jasimir and Fie flew out, half running down the hall.
When they burst into the commander’s study, Draga didn’t even glance up from the sole parchment on the now-cleared desk, her face gray and hard as Fie’s slate.
“Close the door.”
Lakima pushed it shut.
“They’re in the Fallow Vale, an hour’s ride north from here,” Draga said. “Tatterhelm walked out to meet my scouts himself.”
“Did they attack?” Jasimir asked.
“No. He … he brought Taverin with him. With a knife to his throat. And then he handed the scouts this.” Draga began to read aloud. “‘To Master-General Draga Vastali szo Markahn: I, Greggur Tatterhelm, acting in the name of Her Majesty the queen, order you to surrender the traitor Jasimir Surimas sza Lahadar.’” She licked her lips. “‘Should you fail to comply, you will share his charges of high treason, conspiracy, fraud, and criminal blasphemy. Moreover…’”
Draga trailed off. The parchment rattled beneath her fingers, and suddenly Fie saw red-brown flecks on the sheet. Something cold hooked into her belly and dragged down.
The master-general cleared her throat and continued. “‘Moreover, we have custody of the prince’s accomplices, including ten Crows and the Hawk Taverin sza Markahn. If you wish to recover them alive, you will send the prince and no more than one escort, unarmed and on foot, to the Fallow Vale at dawn. Any sign of additional reinforcements or attempts to free the hostages will result in their immediate execution.’”
The cold hook dragged harder.
Draga sucked in a breath. “‘Finally, for every day you delay, we will consider it an insult to the justice of Her Majesty and will submit an accomplice to the appropriate punishment. You will find the queen’s justice’”—Draga leaned back and twitched the parchment—“‘attached.’ I … I don’t know who…”
A crooked, brown-gray worm rolled onto the desk, trailing a smear of red.
For a moment, Fie saw not a desk in a stone room but a dusty dawn road of years ago. That time, she’d been too young to know the bloody-tipped twigs for aught but a curiosity.
Now, near a dozen years later, she knew a little finger when she saw one.
Sometimes the drag of horror hit a low so deep in Fie that she couldn’t even begin to reckon with it, only wait for the rest of her head to catch up.
She blinked. Inhaled. Took stock of the buzzing in her ears, the words of the letter, the gray of Draga’s face, the silence of the prince, the sluggish thunder of her own heart.
There wasn’t much time before the sickness would hit. Before wrath choked every drop of reason from her thoughts.
Before Tatterhelm sent another finger to point at her.
She hadn’t much time.
Fie forced herself to step forward, reach out, and touch the spur of bone jutting from the flesh.
The spark stung when she called it out.
“Pa,” she gasped.
And then the sickness caught up.
Jasimir hurried her to a wash basin just in time. When she finished retching, he handed her a goblet of water, looking back to Draga. “We can ambush them. I’ll go in with one Hawk—”
“It’s a trap.”
“I can try to hide your riders,” Fie coughed, then spat into the basin.
Draga shook her head. “Did I stutter? This is a trap.” Her eyes had gone cold and dark. “They’re going to kill all the hostages, no matter what.”
“The letter says—” Jasimir started.
“The letter is bait. All he wants is for you to walk into the Fallow Vale unprotected, thinking you can save them.”
“I have to try.”
Draga gripped the desk chair. “No. Rhusana wins the moment you walk into his camp. If you care for the Crows, all of them, you can’t give yourself up. Not without forsaking the whole caste. You have to cut your losses.”
Fie’s belly-sick passed, wrath flaring in its wake. “Easier said when it’s not your loss to cut.”
“Don’t tell me about my losses,” Draga snapped.
“Don’t pretend you give a damn about my caste,” Fie hissed back. “If Tatterhelm had a dozen Hawks—”
“Tatterhelm has—” Draga cut herself off, running a hand over her hair. “This is why he takes hostages: he wants us shaken, he wants us making mistakes. If we give him the prince, it’s all over. I could follow him all the way back to the royal palace with a mammoth army, but as long as he keeps that knife on—on Jasimir, there won’t be a single damned thing any of us can do.”
“Your song’ll change when he starts sending pieces of a Hawk,” Fie spat.
Draga stared at her. Jasimir inhaled sharp at Fie’s side but said naught.
“It will not,” said the master-general in a voice that sliced high and razor-thin.
“Aye? Maybe the first day it won’t, when it’s just Tavin’s little finger.” Fie’s own voice rattled with fury. “If Tatterhelm gets impatient, maybe he’ll just send the whole hand.”
“Tavin’s your blood,” Jasimir added, voice rising. “What about the Hawk code? What about ‘I will not forsake—’”
“I know the code!”
Draga’s shout shattered over the stone walls. In the stunned quiet, she strode to the window, staring out through the crossed iron bars. Steel shuddered and clinked in her hair.
“Taverin has always known his duty. We serve the nation first.” A crack in her voice filled in with granite. “When you act in anger, you’ve already lost. Jasimir, being a king means sometimes you choose who to sacrifice. Today the choice is ten Crows and a Hawk, or the Crow caste and Sabor. Do you understand?”
Jasimir didn’t answer.
Draga didn’t turn from the window, but her spine pulled stiff as Pa’s little finger on the desk. “Do you understand?” she repeated, harder than before.
Silence stretched thin as spider silk, then snapped when the prince whispered, “Yes.”
Fie felt the sucker punch in her bones. He wouldn’t look at her.
“Consider yourself lucky, because today I’m going to make this choice for you,” Draga said, facing them once more. “Corporal Lakima, return these two to their own rooms. I want a watch posted to make sure they stay there.”
As before, Draga should have looked to the prince. Instead her eyes burned on Fie.
“Yes, master-general.” An iron grip settled on Fie’s shoulder.