them. With the Birthright of luck, Pigeon teeth could bend fortune in the smallest ways: a timely look to catch a pickpocket, a spare three-naka coin in the gutter, a solid guess on six out of twelve gambling shells.
Pigeon witches, though, could play fortune like a flute. They wrought havoc or blessings as they willed, inviting a flush harvest as easy as a citywide scourge of rats. Lucky for Sabor, witches of the Common Castes were among the rarest, and their wayward teeth even rarer.
And at dawn, Pa hoisted the only Pigeon witch-tooth he had into the clammy air, knotted his fist around it, and closed his eyes.
Fie saw no change, but after a moment Pa lowered his arm. “Done.”
Hangdog just shook his head and began walking down the road. He’d called it a waste; he’d been the only one. The rest of the band knew that with half their supplies burned up in the ruined wagon, they were sore overdue for good fortune.
“What comes now?” Tavin asked, standing behind Jasimir.
The prince knelt in the packed dirt of the flatway, face turned to the east and the rising sun, lips moving in a silent prayer. Barf sat beside him, tail flicking in the dust. Fie had heard the Phoenix caste kept rituals to honor the dawn. At the moment, she would have rather honored some breakfast.
“No telling,” Pa answered, rubbing a hand over his beard. “But we’ll know when it finds us.”
His eyes locked on the empty road behind them, where naught lurked but dirt washed in dawn-gray shadow. Then he slung a weighty sack from his back and fished inside, emerging with two teeth.
“Fie.” His hand twitched toward her.
She took the teeth. Twin Pigeon sparks burned inside—not witch sparks but the plain kind.
“It’s time you learned to use two at once. That was too close last night.” That should have been his Pa voice. Instead it was his Chief voice, quiet, immovable—unsettling. It rose as he turned to the rest of the band. “Swain. How far left to go?”
The lanky Crow tweaked a rolled-up map jutting from his pack. “We’re near the coast. One day until we walk the Fan region proper. From there, two days to the Cheparok fortress.”
“I sent a message-hawk to our contact in Cheparok before we were quarantined.” Tavin helped Prince Jasimir to his feet. “He’s a Markahn stationed in the markets. His commanding officer will alert the governor to light the fortress’s plague beacon once I give them the signal. That gives us an excuse to walk right up to Governor Kuvimir’s front gate.”
Pa nodded and whistled the marching call, casting one final look behind him. “Then let’s hope our good luck holds out awhile.”
* * *
Good luck came swift, wearing the face of ill fortune: a black finger of smoke beckoning over the treetops an hour later. Hangdog sulked the entire short walk to answer the beacon, and Fie couldn’t help chewing over her own doubts.
When they returned to the flatway with a flush viatik of two river oxen, a new wagon, and all else they fancied from the dead sinner’s abundant property, Fie’s doubt was naught but dust in their trail. She hadn’t even had to cut the sinner’s throat.
“How many villages are like that?”
Fie looked up from the twin teeth in her salt-lined palm. She was allowed to ride in the wagon with the prince as long as she practiced her toothcraft, but thus far the two Pigeon canines only squabbled in her grasp like fussy toddlers.
“Like what?” she asked.
The prince leaned on the wagon’s railing, watching the vine-laced cypress reel past as he rubbed Barf’s ears. The tabby hadn’t strayed from his side all morning, save to beg attention from Tavin. “Friendly. Generous. Was that just the tooth at work?”
“No.” She leaned back against a sack of rice, then hissed as a splinter from the wagon’s rough planks slipped into her thumb. “The Covenant marked that sinner long before we used the tooth. Likely the village wanted him gone. That skinflint sucked up all their wealth and squatted on it. Luck didn’t do any of that. Luck just made them wait to light a beacon until we were the nearest band of Crows.”
“I see.” Jasimir pursed his lips, tugging on the hood that hid his topknot. A walking song from Swain seeped in over the rumble of the wagon.
Fie picked out the splinter and sucked on her thumb, grimacing at the whisper of salt beneath her nail. “What’s Your Highness