“It’s to be speeches, then.” Viimo flopped back down on the pallet and closed her eyes. “Go on, get it over with. I got sleep to catch up on.”
“What were you promised?”
No answer came.
Fie gripped the bars hard enough for cold iron to grate against bone. “Why did you turn on Tatterhelm?”
Viimo opened one eye. “And if I don’t say, you’ll use another Crane tooth, aye?”
“Maybe. Maybe I think you want to tell me.”
Viimo opened her other eye.
“Stuck under a mountain, split off from your kin, and you just brought your own leader down,” Fie continued, leaning into the bars. “I wager you want to tell someone, anyone, why, before they hang you for treason.”
Viimo didn’t speak for a moment. Then she sat up and folded her arms, tracing the valor marks there. “I found tots,” she said. For the first time a bleak note sawed in her voice. “When I was younger. Lost ones, stolen ones. Could track them halfway ’cross Sabor if I wanted. And I’d bring ’em back. Got too good at it, and the queen heard what I can do, and next thing I know … Well, you don’t say nay to a queen. But I liked bringin’ the tots back. I liked who I was. Not someone who hunts brats and roughs up grannies.”
Wretch. Fie remembered how the old Crow had spoken to Viimo, even with a knife at her throat.
“It don’t take a master scholar to read the Oleanders’ horseshit for what it is,” Viimo sighed. “So nobody promised me nothin’, chiefling. I didn’t want to be that person no more.”
Fie didn’t know why the notion made her so angry.
No, she did.
The words flew out before she could stem the tide: “So you didn’t do a thing until you decided you didn’t like yourself? You didn’t draw that line when your lot cut off Pa’s finger? When you tried to burn me alive? When you tricked a boy into turning on his own kin by telling him you’d treat him like a person? Wasn’t any of it enough for you to stop Tatterhelm?”
“It all was,” Viimo said, exhausted. “I didn’t.”
“I hope you aren’t waiting on my forgiveness,” Fie hissed.
Viimo sighed and dropped back onto the pallet. “I ain’t waitin’ on aught from you. You asked me what makes a traitor, chiefling, and the only thing I got that crosses with your dead boy is this: we both didn’t want who we were. That’s all.”
She closed her eyes and did not say another word.
Fie mulled over throwing pebbles at Viimo until she sat up again, but decided the Vulture had naught more worth hearing.
She’d come to settle her heart. Instead the ghosts lingered yet, and still she had to face Pa.
And Tavin, another voice nagged.
The thought of looking Tavin in the eye tonight made Fie burn like a sinner. It also made her want to run out of Trikovoi and not stop until she hit the sea.
She all but bolted for the barracks.
She found the Crows hustling in and out of the courtyard, sorting through heaps of gear and goods. Draga had conferred the entirety of the Vultures’ supply caravans upon the Crows, a bounty that could very well last them until the end of summer.
As long as they met no Oleanders.
Fie let out a breath. She doubted duping the master-general into a rescue would make Draga reconsider her stance on the oath.
“I count six water skins here, Highness,” Madcap called.
Fie blinked. Jasimir peered around a cart, marking a note on a length of parchment. “That makes a dozen even. Could you please add them to the others?” He pointed inside.
Fie walked over as Madcap bustled past. “What are you doing?”
Jasimir flashed a list at her. “Someone has to write all this down.”
Swain had always scratched out their inventory. Fie supposed that would fall to her now. “I can take over.”
Jasimir shook his head. “We’re catching up. Did you know Tavin poisoned the Vultures?”
“Snuck some plant into their stew down by Gerbanyar,” Wretch added, swinging a sack of rice over her shoulder. “Gave them the runs for three days.”
He’d found a way to make the moss useful after all. Fie couldn’t help a grin. “Did the prince tell you he barfed on a corpse?”
The Crows’ laughter rose, then died when a Chief voice called. “Fie.”
Jasimir pointed his charcoal stick over her shoulder. She turned. Pa sat at a table inside the barrack, gesturing to the seat across from him.
Fie unbuckled the chief’s blade as she walked over and set it down on the lacquered red table before she sat.
Pa did not take it.
“The prince told me the Hawks are balking at the oath,” he said. Fie’s gut twisted, half-relieved she didn’t have to break the news, half-miserable for failing him so. “Don’t fret, Fie. It’ll come. Maybe it takes longer than we hoped, but it’ll come.”
“Your end’s kept, at least,” she whispered, ragged.
“Aye. Remember what I told you about earning your string?” Pa hefted a cooking pot by the handle. Without a little finger to grip tight, it wobbled bad. “I can’t deal mercy proper now. Could try with my left hand, but I won’t be fast or sure.”
“And that’s no mercy at all.” Fie swallowed, eyes on the broken sword. We both didn’t want who we were. “Pa, I’m too young to be chief.”
“You’re too young for near all you did the last moon and a half.”
I don’t want to be chief.
Fie stared at the table’s thick red lacquer.
“I didn’t want it, either,” Pa said, too quiet for the others to hear.
She looked up, startled. The confession burst free. “Pa, I—I carried steel, I learned to read, I left the roads. I liked it. I don’t want to be chief. I don’t know if I want to be a Crow.”
He reached over and took her hand. “No chief I’ve ever met looked down the road and wanted what they saw waiting for them. Hangdog never saw a way out for Crows. He gave up on us. But you, Fie … you changed that road. You made it one you could want. Learning your letters, carrying steel … Those don’t make you less of a Crow. They open ways for the rest of us. And when any of us look at your road, we see you’re bound to be one of the greatest chiefs the Crows will ever witness.”
“Tell that to Swain.” Fie’s voice cracked.
“He said it himself the night we cut the oath.” Pa gingerly tested his scarred, Hawk-healed knuckle. “Your ma said you were born vexed with the world, aye. And Swain said you were born vexed enough to turn it on its head.”
She had no answer, only eyes that burned wet. Pa gripped her hand tighter.
“The Oleanders, they say we bring our troubles on ourselves, aye?” He leaned in. “Spend enough time biting your tongue instead of spitting back and you start to believe them. But there’s good in your road. Aye, we walk a harder, longer way to get it, but it’s ours. It’s yours. You deserve it and more. Don’t let them take that from you, too.” He leaned back and sighed. “Where’s your string? Don’t need ten fingers to tie that, at least.”
Fie pulled her tooth string from a pocket and brushed off the ash, then handed it over. Pa circled round to her back and looped it about her neck once more. A moment later, he let it fall, knotted tight.