nor as loud. “I have to disappear. After … the Marovar. It’s a divine mandate when a Phoenix prince survives the plague. It’s a cheap hoax when his guard conveniently lives, too. Taverin sza Markahn died a quarter moon ago; I’ll be trapped in the palace’s shadows if I go back. And I will not live as a ghost.”
The words spilled before Fie could catch them: “Not anymore.”
Something sudden and starving flashed through Tavin’s face then, flames tearing through silk. “Not anymore.”
He sounded too alike Pa, only a week ago: We need this deal. Only Tavin didn’t need to cut any oath; he needed to cut himself free.
Fie refused to feel sorry for a Hawk, even a pretty one mopping up her face. Instead she said, “Well, we’ll have to live through this mess first.”
“They’re all short lives.” He bent a shallow smile. “The cleverest girl I’ve ever known told me that, so it must be true.”
“The cleverest girl you’ve ever known got her family captured by a monster.” Her voice hitched. Tavin shook his head and caught another tear, then another, a slow thumb trailing down the side of her cheek.
“The queen did that,” he said. “And the governor. And Tatterhelm.” Then, quiet: “Jas and I did that. I’ll do everything I can to make it right.” His hand dropped to graze her knuckles, still battered from when she’d split them on Viimo. “I can fix that, if you’d like.”
She nodded, her voice failing her.
Tavin gathered her hands in his, brow furrowing. The same needling heat flared about her fingers as new skin swallowed the scabs. She couldn’t help a sharp breath.
His gaze flicked up to her. “Sorry. I’m not all that good at healing.”
Fie saw it, then, the flaw in his façade: the campfire lit his dark eyes closer to gold than Jasimir’s flickers of gray.
How did she know that?
She couldn’t ken why she couldn’t bear to change it. She hated him for trying to give her hope. She hated herself for hoping at all.
And then, with horror and fury, she found she hated her traitor heart, for burning quiet with something that was not hate at all.
A sick frost rolled down her veins. Hawks didn’t fancy Crows, they used them. Tavin had wooed her kin well enough when he needed their help. This was naught more than another round of that dance.
And even if it was more—no. That road wasn’t meant for either of them, not a Hawk, not a Crow—
Didn’t want to be a Crow no more, the memory of a skinwitch hissed.
Hangdog hadn’t wanted it.
Did Fie?
Enough. None of it mattered anyhow, not with the oath still at all their throats. She yanked her hands free and turned away. “You want to help me? Fix your head on your own job.”
“What do you mean?” Tavin asked, but his tone betrayed him: He kenned her clear. And he wanted to be wrong.
All more of his mummery, she told herself. It was a mercy she couldn’t see his face.
“You know what I mean.” Fie unfurled her sleeping mat and lay down, waiting for an answer.
None came. “Wake me for second watch,” she muttered, and closed her eyes.
* * *
When Fie took up second watch, the prince waited until Tavin’s breath had evened out and only then eased himself up on an elbow.
She’d expected it: he’d gone to bed far too prickly to stay there. Her voice stayed low, skimming through the campfire sparks. “Aye?”
To her surprise, Jasimir scooted closer, one eye yet on Tavin. “Why can’t you read?”
“Why can’t you keep your own business?” Fie snapped back, ears burning. “You really got up to rub that in my face?”
“No—I—I apologize.” Jasimir grimaced. “That came out wrong. I just don’t understand—couldn’t you have asked Swain to teach you, if it bothers you this much?”
Fie scowled into the dark; she knew square why she hadn’t asked. “Crows use our own marks. We don’t need to read.”
And she hadn’t minded the difference right up until a day ago, when a pretty Hawk boy accidentally carved that line between them.
Jasimir picked up a stick of kindling and wrung it in his hands. “I thought … if you wanted to learn, I could help.” When Fie stared at him, wordless, he stumbled on. “I have to do something to be useful or I’m going to go mad. And you’re going to be a full chief someday, and my mother always said a leader needs to be as skilled as anyone they lead, and…”