Her lips pursed. “Thought Hunting Castes were born with a stick up the arse.”
“Turns out the prince is a piss-baby and his guard is a clown.” Hangdog spat and resumed digging. “Waste of brains, the both of ’em.”
Fie chucked her load of firewood onto the heap, itching with distrust. This was square why Pa called Hangdog two-second clever: Tavin had already gone to work winning Crows over for his prince. The Hawk was no clown. He was walking trouble.
And trouble incarnate was rummaging through the bloody shrouds on the ground when she returned to the cart. He fished out first a dagger that he tossed to the waiting prince, then two short swords that he belted at his hips with a swift, practiced ease. The scabbards of every blade looked rich enough to feed the whole band for a year.
Fie turned to the prince. “Do Phoenixes even burn?”
Prince Jasimir blinked. “Are you speaking to me?”
“Aye. Do you burn?” Fie waited, gathering up more firewood, but Jasimir seemed wholly confounded. She sighed. “Should we be faking a funeral pyre for a boy with the fire Birthright?”
Fie had wondered more than she liked about the day the dead gods handed out Birthrights. She wondered what drove the Sparrows’ gods to bless their caste with the gift of refuge, letting them slip from notice when they pleased. What inspired the Cranes’ gods to give their children the Birthright of truth, so they could spot lies like stains.
She wondered, too much, why the Crows’ gods had left them no Birthright at all.
And she reckoned that when the Phoenix gods gave their children the Birthright of fire, they hadn’t had funeral pyres in mind.
Tavin spoke for the prince. “It’s fine. Phoenixes burn when they’re dead.” He stood and dumped the bundled shrouds atop the firewood in her arms. “Here, this should go in the pyre, too.”
Something slipped free of the linen. Fie caught it by habit.
A jolt shot up her arm, stampeding into her brain before she could stave it off. For a moment, Fie’s vision went blank and the world was mud and sour slop, squeal and grunt, bristle and—
“Pig bones.”
The torch-lit night returned at the sound of Tavin’s voice. Firewood lay scattered about Fie’s feet, her hands still tangled in linen. Tavin was clearly fighting down a grin; likely he thought she was disgusted, not dizzy.
“They’re pig bones,” he laughed, kneeling to gather up the spilled firewood as her mind scrambled back into a more human tongue. “We figured the pyre wouldn’t be complete without some bone fragments.”
She hadn’t fouled up with animal bone in months. The power in human bones and teeth, that she could draw out or stuff down at will, but beasts … beasts had a nasty way of running wild.
Fie’s hands shook now more with rage than shock. “You listen, Hawk boy, and you ken me.” She threw the linen bundle back at Tavin’s chest. “Don’t you ever, ever surprise a Crow with bones like that. Never.”
“Especially not one like Fie,” Pa said from behind her with a brief pat on the shoulder.
“She’s a bone thief?” Prince Jasimir asked, eyeing her sideways.
Most every Crow in earshot flinched at the slur. So did Tavin. The prince didn’t seem to notice. Pa dug round in the cart’s lower cargo hold before answering, prompting a mew of protest from Barf the cat, who had holed up beside a sack of millet.
“Every Crow chief is,” Pa said at last, stowing a jug of flashburn under his arm. He rolled his right sleeve back to show a black witch-sign swirling on the wrist, same as the one Fie bore. “Bands don’t last long without a witch. I’m chief for this band, and I’m training Fie and Hangdog to lead their own someday. But with Fie, the witch part’s not your trouble. It’s her temper that’ll leave a mark.”
Pa winked at Fie, then twitched his fingers at the blades the boys had strapped at their sides. “You’ll wrap those scabbards and hilts in rags tonight, and you’ll keep them out of sight. Hunting Castes don’t abide Crows with whole blades.”
“What do you mean?” Prince Jasimir clutched the jeweled hilt of his dagger. “Saborian law allows everyone to bear steel.”
Pa shrugged. “And that’s well and fine, but the law doesn’t weep much for Crows. Most we’re allowed is a broken blade for the chief. Your blades stay hidden, or they go in the pyre.” He didn’t wait for a response before walking off.
After that, Tavin’s stupid grin made itself scarce.
Fie couldn’t help kicking about the memory of grieving servants in that reeking, gaudy palace. Perhaps they truly had mourned for the lordlings. But if the last hour was any measure, she couldn’t for the life of her see why.
Once the pyre sat crowned in shrouds and bones, Pa uncorked the flashburn jug. Thick, clear ooze drizzled out as he turned back to the boys. “I’ll take your shirts, too, lads. Best leave some scraps in the coals. Fie, Hangdog, give ’em your robes and masks.”
Prince Jasimir seemed to have resigned himself to preserving the fragile truce, for by the time Fie shook the wood scraps from her cloak, he and his guard were already pulling off their bloody tunics. She could read a history of training in their clean-healed scars, a map of every time they weren’t quick enough to beat the blade. Torchlight also snagged in the whorls of a burn crawling round Tavin’s left knuckles. It looked old, and not the work of any training Fie knew.
“The old queen didn’t think much of royalty who were useless in a fight.”
Tavin had caught her staring. Fie flushed. He just took her cloak and mask. “Jas and I won’t be a burden if we meet trouble.”
The first queen had been born a Markahn, the oldest, proudest clan of Hawks in Sabor. It sounded like marrying into the Phoenix caste hadn’t changed her much.
Hangdog seized Tavin’s unburnt wrist. “Hold—”
In an instant, the fragile truce shattered.
There was a breath, a tumble of mask and black rags, an adder-swift twist of flesh and torchlight and steel, a startled curse.
And then there was Hangdog, standing stone-still as a sword point strummed the skin beneath his chin.
Any hint of amity had vanished from the Hawk, one hand thrown in front of Prince Jasimir. Tavin’s eyes stayed on Hangdog, but when he spoke, it was to them all.
“I’m tired. I haven’t eaten in three days. And I don’t take kindly to being dragged about. So let’s have another accord, yes? We will follow your bidding on passing for Crows, whether that be hiding blades, keeping quiet, or, Ambra help me, warning you about animal bones.” His scoff grated even more than his grin had. “And in turn you, all of you, will not lay one unbidden finger on myself or the prince. Not once.”
The pulse jumped in Hangdog’s throat, perilous close to the point of the blade.
“Do we have an understanding?” Tavin asked, cold.
A muscle in Hangdog’s jaw twitched, like he aimed to spit in the Hawk’s face. It was clear as day how that would end.
Fie stepped between the boys, pushing Hangdog back. “Understood,” she said, matching ice for ice in Tavin’s glare. The sword’s point hovered not a handspan from her eyes.
“He’s a war-witch,” Hangdog muttered behind her. “I thought I saw the sign.”