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.
Her gut ached with more than a heavy dinner. Aye, she’d done it. She’d brought the prince to safety. She’d kept her end of the oath. And she’d be able to save them—Tavin, her kin, the king. Draga would see to that.
But her caste …
She knew in her bones that when Pa had sent her over the bridge, when Tavin had cast himself into the ravine, neither of them had done it to settle for Oleanders riding only by night.
Maybe in a year, or two, or five, Jasimir would sit on the throne, and he’d craft some law to banish the Oleanders, and the Hunting Castes and the Splendid Castes could call it good enough. And the Oleanders would carry on like always, the Crows would die like always, and like always, the law would not weep for Crows.
Somewhere beyond the window, in the chill of Marovar night, a Hawk at watch began to hum.
Enough.
She could make use of her time finding a way out of this damn stone maze for when the Hawks’ charity inevitably ran dry. She rolled from her bed, reached for her sandals, then thought of the nail scratches she’d left in the stone floor and pulled on sheepskin slippers instead.
Fie kept one blanket wrapped about her shoulders as she slipped into the hallway, away from the nagging hymn. Oil lamps marked the turns in the corridor, and more windows let in whispers of the first night of Crow Moon.
For a moment she stilled. Crow Moon. The final moon of the Saborian year.
All across Sabor, Crows would be gathered at one of their greater shrines—in Little Witness’s watchtower, the groves of Gen-Mara, the ruined temple of Dena Wrathful. If not there, then any haven shrine. If they couldn’t find a shrine, they would find a crossroads. There would be ceremonies: new witches hailed, new chiefs declared, an empty pyre for faces newly missing. Wedding vows for those who wanted to swear them. Bands cobbled together from stragglers and survivors.
A proper Crow would be with her people tonight. A proper chief-to-be would line up with the other trainees, wearing wreaths of magnolias, and wait. One by one, the old chiefs would cut their own strings of teeth, tie them round the throats of the new, and hand off their broken blades. Magnolia crowns would be cast to the