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