“I … I suppose I’m wondering why the Crows are still here if it’s all that bad.” Jasimir unfurled the words slow and careful. “You have no home. I don’t know why you would stay in a place that doesn’t want you.”
Fie’s fist closed around the teeth a little too tight, thoughts skittering around her head like water off hot iron.
It was the same as Jasimir calling her bone thief, as leaving his dagger hilt unwrapped. He didn’t know better. He didn’t mean hurt by it. To a prince, this was all a week’s mummery before he paraded, glorified, back to Dumosa.
But that did naught to lessen the damage.
Fie’s hand shook as she pointed to the road. “That is my home, cousin.” She pointed, again, this time to the rolling hills due north. “That is my home.” The thin blue rag-edge of sea to the southern horizon. “That is my home.” And last, she pointed to the Crows scattered around the wagon as Swain’s walking song wound down. “This is my home.”
Wooden wheels ground against the sand-grit road, scraping at the silence that stretched betwixt Fie and the prince. Finally she trusted her voice enough to continue.
“We stay in Sabor because it’s our home. Aye, the villages don’t want us, but the sinners always do. Every plague-fearing soul sleeps easier knowing we’ll come when they call. So you ask why we stay? Because the plague stays. Because someone out there needs mercy. And because this is our damned home.”
“I didn’t mean to offend—” the prince began.
“You’ve been good as dead for two days and no one cares,” Fie interrupted. “Why don’t you leave? Ask a village with a live plague beacon if they want Crows or kings more, and you’ll know which of us the country can do without.”
The wagon rocked as Tavin swung himself up to peer at them over a railing. “Do we need a healer in here?”
“What?” Fie asked, startled but not surprised. The Hawk seemed to have a sense for when the prince’s pride risked a puncture. Barf chirped at Tavin until he scratched her chin.
“Do we need a healer?” he repeated, giving an exaggerated wave of his witch-sign. “Because it sounds like someone’s getting skewered.”
Jasimir’s cheeks darkened. “We were … having a discussion.”
“Of course.” Tavin rested his own chin on a forearm. “You know, you two are almost making the exact same face right now.”
Fie hadn’t known what to expect when his Peacock glamour ebbed away, but pretty-boy blood ran plain strong in the Markahns. By daylight, he still looked the prince’s kinsman but more the Hawk, one the world had gnawed at like a mutt gnawed a bone. He tilted his head at Fie. “I’d pay good Saborian coin to watch you have that discussion back at the palace. You’d tear half the court to shreds.”
Hangdog sent a foul look their way.
“Only half?” Wretch asked from the road.
For once, Fie caught no whiff of schemes in Tavin’s grin. “I’m hoping the other half would figure out to run for their lives. If they don’t, that’s entirely their fault.”
Fie couldn’t stopper up a laugh. This time, Hangdog wasn’t the only one to shoot her a look.
She ducked her head, ears burning.
Pa cleared his throat from the driver’s bench. “How’s that practice, Fie?”
“Coming along,” she snapped, and unfurled her fist. The teeth had bit two hollows into her palm. Beyond the wagon, Wretch set on a new walking song, a marching hymn to the dead god Crossroads-Eyes.
“Lord Hawk.” Pa patted the bench. “A word.”
Tavin clambered over to Pa. Jasimir hunched into a sulk disguised as a nap, but Fie paid it no heed, glowering at her Pigeon teeth. Wasn’t her fault if nobody else had cut him a slice of hard truth before.
“How may I be of service?” Tavin asked, settling beside Pa.
When Pa spoke, Fie had to strain to hear over the cart’s rattle. “Tell me about the queen’s Vultures.”
Fie caught her breath.
The bench creaked as Tavin shifted. “Are they on our trail?”
“Something is.” Pa flicked the reins. “They won’t catch up unless they’re riding devils themselves, but…”
When, not if. No wonder Pa had stared at the road so.
Fie stole a glance at Prince Jasimir. He’d traded the fake nap for a true one, eyes shut against the noon sun, head lolling against the railing.
“Rhusana keeps five skinwitches in her pay,” Tavin muttered low. “Four are just trackers. Damned good trackers, but you, me, or Fie could easily drop them in a fight.”