between her and the Hawk. She wanted to flash her own steel the next time a guardsman tried to make her jump. She wanted to tell off the next village that tried shorting them on viatik, and punch herself a new tooth string if anyone pushed back. She wanted to light every Oleander ablaze until fire turned the night to sunrise.
But the cost of all that wouldn’t come out of her hide alone.
Look after your own.
Crows had one rule. And she had to be a Crow chief.
He won the next five rounds, played in silence but for the countdown. Fie didn’t care. The sooner this damned game was over, the better. She’d learned her lesson for digging into ugly truths with pretty boys.
“Round twelve.”
The shells caught the firelight, studding the sand. Tavin was winning. On “three,” she made a halfhearted grab for his side.
He caught her, of course. Fingers landed on her wrist, then let go—but not wholly, the tips trailing across the back of her hand, following ridges of vein and bone.
“What do you want, Fie?” he asked.
She’d been asked what she wanted before: her price from the prince, which branch of a crossroad she favored, what to leave in a shrine’s viatik stash. Matters for a chief, matters of business, matters of surviving another day.
Tavin didn’t mean survival. He meant the way she wanted steel, and fire, and games with pretty boys. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had.
And she had no good answer, only a bitter true one. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?”
Heat crept up her neck again, and a little anger—but not at him, at herself, for not wanting to pull away.
She did anyhow, swiping all of his shells in one fell swoop. Then she stood and dusted herself off. “I win.”
“Beginner’s luck,” he said with a shrug and a smile.
A thousand thoughts clamored for attention as Fie strode across the camp, tossing the bag of shells back to Madcap and ignoring their surprised yelp.
“Where you headed, Fie?” Pa asked as she passed.
“Washing up,” she said, short, and stopped at the wagon for a fistful of soap-shells. “I’m on watch tonight, aye? It’ll wake me up some.”
“Aye.” A lilt said he knew that was only half the reason. True, she did need to keep sharp tonight.
She also sore needed to cool her head. The burn of Hangdog’s glower did naught to help as she marched out of camp.
They’d used this site a few times before, enough that she could pick her way down to the nearby creek easy by the light of the dwindling moon. Sandy earth yielded to hard, sticky mud by the water, mosquitos whining in her ear as they skirted the tongues of yellow-eyed skinks.
Fie rolled up her leggings and waded to where the stream ran fast and clean, sucking a breath at the chill.
What do you want?
She splashed cold water on her face and bare arms, then paused. Sometimes she caught her reflection in panes of glassblack or polished brass, and sometimes in streams like this. She’d seen her own face well enough to know it now even as a silver-edged shadow in the water: a rounded nose, broad mouth weighed in a frown, wide black eyes. Hair near as black, pin-straight only after she washed it, the ends always bristling up where the mask strap left a crease. Sometimes a smudge of road dust on the point of her middling-brown chin. She couldn’t say if anyone called her pretty; outside the Crows, most everyone only looked her way when she wore a mask.
Now her eyes threaded her silhouette in the brook, searching for a hint of whether she’d been pretty playing shells by firelight.
Then she kenned her own folly and ground the soap-shells betwixt her palms until their hulls split, ears burning. The sharp-smelling sap foamed into suds once she worked it into her face, arms, and hair, wishing she could go deep enough for a proper wash. Maybe once this was all over the prince’s cousin would spare a bit of hospitality.
The thought of over made her pause.
Over meant a Covenant oath kept. It meant no more fear of the Oleanders, not with an armed guard of the Crows’ own. Over also meant no more lordlings.
Fie’s stomach gave a mutinous twist.
Enough.
Gritting her teeth, she splashed deeper until the water reached her waist, shuddering at the chill. Then she sat and plunged her head below the water.
The cold shocked her skull mercifully empty, even if she could only take it a