She didn’t know why she’d ever fooled herself into hoping for forgiveness.
He would live. That had to be enough.
When they drew within a few paces, Tatterhelm barked, “Hold up.” They stopped. “Prince goes the rest of the way himself.”
This was it. Fie licked her lips and let Jasimir go. He shook his head and tried to protest around the gag. It sounded something like “You can’t.”
“Trust me,” Fie said, “it’s too late for that, Highness.”
She shoved him to the Vultures.
“No!” Tavin shouted, wild-eyed.
Jasimir stumbled through the dust—one pace, two—and Tatterhelm seized the scruff of his neck.
Now. Fie licked her lips, drew breath to whistle—
And the ashes erupted at her feet.
Gray, flat hands slapped about her ankles. Another pair roped round her throat. She screamed, half fear, half fury, thrashing like an animal in a snare.
She’d forgotten the skin-ghasts, and now—it had all fouled up.
Fie choked out a furious scream before the clammy hands yanked tight.
Cinders rained from two skin-ghasts as they swelled from below, slick gray hides gorging like water skins. The one grasping her ankles yanked them up with him as he rose, until she hung by both her neck and feet.
And then the skin-ghasts’ faces filled in, hollow, dreadful. Known.
Hangdog’s eyeless face yawned at her, narrowing his hold on her throat.
The thing that had once been Swain began to drag at her ankles.
Panic shrieked through her veins. She flailed for—for aught, a rock, a scrap of bone, even a handful of hide. But the skin-ghasts simply folded out of the way, pulling like they meant to tear her apart.
Pain ripped along her jaw, up and down her spine, at her ankles. She heard screams that weren’t her own. Some sounded like they might be her name. One sounded like it might be Tavin.
The skin-ghasts said naught, for they had no tongue, no bones, no teeth to speak with. Only Hangdog’s slack face. Only Swain’s.
The queen had, in the end, turned even Fie’s dead to her ends.
How much more, Jasimir had asked, will you let them take?
She’d never expected to die quiet. Young, maybe. But not like this.
She’d not come here to die.
She’d come to look after her own.
Fie wet her lips and forced the last of her breath into an earsplitting whistle.
If Tavin were a Crow, he’d know that whistle signal. It meant drop.
If Tavin were the prince, he’d know what was coming.
And if Tavin were only a Hawk, he would have died when Fie loosed the Phoenix tooth that had burned, hidden, in Jasimir’s bound fists all along.
But Tavin wasn’t only a Hawk.
And so when the cyclone of Phoenix fire swallowed Tavin, his prince, and his captor in one starving snap of golden teeth, only the skinwitch burned.
The Crows flattened themselves to the earth in a chorus of iron bell-song. Phoenix fire swept over them, scattering the skinwitches like sparks.
Greggur Tatterhelm rolled from the fire, skin blistering over his valor marks, and leapt for her. The plain, brutal knife swept down—
And jolted away as Jasimir threw himself into Tatterhelm’s side. They toppled into the skin-ghast at her feet, knocking its grip loose.
Fie’s feet hit the dirt. Hangdog’s hollow hands dug into the flesh of her throat. Through watering eyes, she saw more skin-ghasts bursting from the ash, grasping for the Crows—she had to get free—she had to look after her own—
The Phoenix tooth burned yet in Jasimir’s fist. She called it once more.
Golden fire rushed round her, devouring empty skin with a horrid crackle. Swain crumpled like paper, shriveling in an instant. The other skin-ghast let her go.
Fie crashed to the cinders, gasping air stained with old grease.
Hangdog’s skin-ghast staggered, peeling and charring, until he collapsed. The dark sockets of his face warped as flames ate him whole.
Why? she wanted to ask. You sold us to them, and this is what they made of you. Why?
He crumbled away, into the ash.
“Fie—!”
She wrenched about on her knees. Jasimir crawled toward her. Fie yanked the prince’s cloak aside and freed Pa’s broken sword from where it dangled along Jasimir’s backbone. The weight of it steadied her as she reached for Jasimir’s bound hands.
The prince’s eyes snared behind her and flew wide. She couldn’t turn fast enough.
A fist like a hammer smashed into her jaw, knocking her back into the dust. Pain shot through her teeth. She heard another crack and cry paces away.
“Get up!” She’d know Tavin’s voice anywhere, even raw and hoarse.
A steel-toed boot thudded into her ribs. She tumbled through ash again, slipping and choking on a mouthful of grit. Pa’s sword slipped from her grip.
“Cute trick,” Tatterhelm grunted. “You oughta’ve run.”
Blistered fingers locked around her throat and hefted her to dangle before the skinwitch. The world reeled in Fie’s eyes, painting a streaking picture: the fire fading, the Vultures and their skin-ghasts circling the Crows, Jasimir slumping against a wall paces away, one ankle bent awful wrong. Tavin kneeling at his side.
Fie saw a fistful of dwindling flame in Jasimir’s palm, the remnants of Fie’s grand plan. Tavin’s mouth moved. Then he reached for Jasimir’s hand.
She squirmed, clawing at Tatterhelm’s fingers. He squeezed tighter, crueler even than the skin-ghasts.
“Coulda just walked away,” he said dully. “Had to go and cause a mess. You thought you could fight?” He shook her like a ragdoll, voice rising. “You thought you could take me?”
He slammed her into another wall. The stones shook, a few black chunks falling.
“You forgot what you are,” he snarled.
Fie’s sight fogged, her lungs howling like a skin-ghast for air. Tatterhelm hefted his knife.
Suddenly, Tavin’s arms whipped over Tatterhelm’s head, his bound wrists yanking tight against the Vulture’s windpipe. Fie dropped free.
She ducked under the swing of Tatterhelm’s arm and snatched up the chief’s sword, rolling to her knees in time to block the Vulture’s knife.
“Reckon I know what I am,” Fie answered.
Tatterhelm stumbled from Tavin’s weight. She sprang to her feet in his range, too fast to catch.
The skinwitch had never thought she would take this road.
Fie struck like the Covenant’s own judgment, blade crashing down on Tatterhelm’s forearm. His hand split free with a meaty thunk, still clutching his dagger, and landed in the ash.
Tatterhelm stared, stupefied, at the bleeding stump where his hand had been. And then he screamed. Tavin slipped off him and darted to Fie’s side.
“Tatterhelm’s down!” shouted another Vulture, and pointed his sword at Pa. “No prisoners but the prince!”
Tavin shoved teeth into her hand: First, the burning Phoenix tooth he’d taken from Jasimir.
Then—the two she’d yet to light.
Fie closed her eyes. Harmony. One tooth alight. Harmony. She struck a second, and the gold flame piped and howled. The Vultures slowed, fearful. Harmony.
She struck the third.
Phoenix fire blasted through the valley, greedy and ruthless, tearing over ash and ruin and long-cold bone and showing mercy only to the Crows. The golden blaze swelled like a flood, dwarfing the dawn, until the Fallow Vale burned end to blackened end. Tatterhelm stood no chance so close to her; he vanished in roaring flame. The skin-ghasts too crumpled in place, sloughing into smoke or dribbling into boiling puddles.