knew what had made the queen, and she had no need to roll in it.
She saw unseen strings like hair, and each one conjured a face, a name, a desire: Her attendants, who wanted to feel special among the Sparrows. Her personal guards, who wanted to prove themselves. Her Peacocks, who wanted to believe their fortunes could rise with hers.
Fie snapped each string, one by one.
“No,” Rhusana said when the Peacocks were cut free. “Stop,” she said when the attendants’ tie to her broke.
Fie found one that led to Rhusomir. He wanted her to love him, and she kept it that way.
“Please,” Rhusana said.
But through the Swan’s own Birthright, Fie could tell: all she wanted was to avoid paying for what she’d done.
She severed the queen’s hold on her son.
Then she found what she’d been looking for, as the white tiger picked its way down the rubble toward them. Rhusana’s tether held it better than any leash. She could feel the hunger in its belly.
It was a beast; it wanted blood. And the queen no longer commanded its teeth.
Fie yanked out a strand of Rhusana’s hair and took a step back, then another, the queen’s own tooth still simmering in her fist. “I think you want to stay down,” she told her.
And then she cut the tiger free.
A hand brushed her back, unsteady. She turned and found Tavin swaying on his feet.
“Let’s go,” she said, and slung his arm around her once more.
The queen’s screams followed them down the rubble and ended perhaps sooner than they ought. Tavin only looked back once, winced, and shook his head.
“That’s over” was all he said.
They half slid, half stumbled out of the wreckage and onto the solid ground of the gardens, and Fie discovered her knees had chosen that moment to give out. She toppled to the ground, taking Tavin with her, and the grass was green and cool beneath her cheek, the palace was burning around them, she could hear shouts of confusion and joy beyond the scorched hedges, and they were alive, and it was enough.
Tavin touched a stinging gash on her face. “Let’s take care of that,” he mumbled, then frowned when nothing happened. “What … why…?”
Fie grinned at him and hoped this would be the last time the night found tears in her eyes.
She found a Hawk tooth and pressed it into his palm, closing her hand over his as the spark stirred—not at her touch, but his.
Then Fie pulled him close and whispered, “Welcome to our roads.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
ASH TO RISE
The sun rose, and set, and rose, this time on a palace’s ashes.
When it did, it found Fie with the lantern-lilies. It had been a grueling day and a half; after the collapse of the Well of Grace, she and Tavin had been carried to the gardens with the rest of the new-made Crows. When they’d woken in the new day, there was little time to do aught but find the dead, tend to the living, and burn what needed to burn.
In the evening, she and Tavin had made time for themselves, retreating to the waterfall and the pool where the lantern-lilies still spilled, untouched by plague. They told each other what needed to be told, and spoke without words when they could find no more.
But when the sunrise came, they rose with it, for Crows went where they were called.
Jasimir had summoned them to the remains of the Sunrise Pavilion. It had once been a lovely thing, pale blue enamel, lavender tiles, gold trim; now it was a ring of charred, stumpy columns and scorched marble benches. He was waiting for them there, Patpat perched regally on the bench beside him.
So were ten others. Fie saw Viimo cackling as Barf tried to lure her into petting her belly; Khoda was absently petting Mango (or Jasifur—Fie wasn’t sure of the outcome of that debate). Draga was not petting cats but instead comparing her eye patch and arm brace to the carved-ebony hand of the new Lady Dengor, who had inherited her brother’s title but thankfully not his attitude. Yula was speaking with an elderly Pigeon man in a gray-striped robe, and though Fie did not recognize the Dove in fine-wrought silver, the Gull sea captain, the Crane magistrate, or the Owl scholar, she knew Jasimir would have chosen them with care.
Jasimir’s tired face brightened when she and Tavin arrived. A gold circlet shone against his hair, no doubt at Draga’s insistence, for without it he could have been another