Part of Fie wanted to hit him again. Part of her wanted to run clear from Sabor.
Every Crow carried scars from the Gentry. They were the reason Crows didn’t stop near many a village after sundown. That was when the Gentry would ride, bearing white oleanders on their breasts, faces hidden in pale paints and undyed cloth so they couldn’t be traced to kin or caste.
Most of Sabor believed Crows to be dead sinners reborn, sentenced to repent through a hard life of containing the plague. Oleanders believed the part they liked—that the Covenant meant to punish Crows for their misdeeds—and claimed the Crows spread the plague themselves. Then they took it upon themselves to dole out that punishment. The Covenant was one more mask for them, and Fie kenned too well the monsters that rode beneath it.
They were rich and poor, nameless and infamous, many and merciless. Their hunts were only called murder when they were caught. And since they only hunted Crows, the regional governors were in no great hurry to catch them.
When the Gentry took Crows, only the lucky few walked away.
Fie’s mother hadn’t been lucky.
Fie thought of a road in the dark, one that stretched over a dozen years behind her, when she’d scarce reached Pa’s knee. Yet she still remembered the trail of fingers the Oleander Gentry had left to point the way.
She caught up her robe’s loose thread again and twisted it hard.
“I won’t demand your obedience in this.” Torchlight danced over Prince Jasimir’s bloody face. “But with Rhusana on the throne…”
“… the Oleander Gentry will ride where they please, when they please,” Fie finished. Hangdog was gripping the cart so tight, his knuckles looked near to burst through the skin. She could only guess what he saw in his own terrible memory.
Tavin nodded. “And they’ll get an armed Hawk escort to help.”
Fie didn’t have to guess at her own memories: far away and long ago, a little girl picked up a crooked, fleshy caterpillar in the cold and dusty road, then found nine more in a red-tipped trail.
Ma had hooked that finger through Fie’s small hands enough times for her to know every scrape, every callus, every bump of the scar down one joint. And when Fie had fumbled, and the broken stump of finger-bone scraped against her palm, she’d known the spark singing to her from that bone. She’d know Ma’s song anywhere.
The road had caught Fie back then, in the peculiar way that only roads could. Chief—not Pa to her, not yet—had strode that bloody path, blade in a shaking fist, knowing he had mercy to deliver to one of his own. And Fie—not a chief-in-training, not yet—had stayed frozen in place, wanting to see her ma but knowing that every time that blade came out, Ma had covered Fie’s eyes.
That cold road had trapped her there until Wretch bore her away, for even then, Fie had known her choices were to either walk down the chief’s way, or to run from it.
And on this road now, in the torch-lit dark, Fie still could not say which way was worse.
But if the queen gave Oleanders command of her Hawks—if not even daylight gave Crows refuge—Fie knew sore how all their roads would end.
The lines in Wretch’s face seemed to carve a little deeper than they had a moment before. “If you boys are fixing to have us Crows storm the palace and fight off Her Majesty, I got hard news for you about how that will turn out.”
“The Oleanders only have sway.” Prince Jasimir seemed steadier on political ground. “And the people still call Rhusana the Swan Queen for a reason. She can rule through her son’s claim to the throne, but she still needs support from the regional governors to keep the kingdom united. My cousin Kuvimir is the lord-governor of the Fan region. He’s sworn to take us in and rally the others behind me, which should force Rhusana to back down. If we move fast, we can reach his fortress in Cheparok before she deposes Father.”
“So we smuggle you to your kin in Cheparok, they make a big, ugly show of liking you over the queen, and you remember us rosy on your throne someday.” Fie nodded to the wagon’s load of firewood. “Reckon you forgot how most of Sabor thinks you and your Hawk here are charcoal in a pyre right now.”
The prince hesitated to answer; the Hawk pounced. Tavin’s teeth flashed wolfish as a