you know it, he was a big, scary lad…” She pretended to rub the back of her neck in her best daft yokel impression. “On a big, scary horse…” Her fingers caught at two teeth on her string, waking the spark and calling the Birthrights from where they slumbered. “… and I felt, oh, threatened.”
The song of the Phoenix Birthright rang down her bones, almost too swift. Golden fire sparked and spread in a flash to wall off the camp and the Crows whole. The Oleanders’ horses danced and shied away, and the Hawk rider swore as his horse gave a fearful buck before shimmying sideways.
It wasn’t easy to balance two Phoenix teeth, as Fie found the sparks of their dead owners usually too opinionated to get along, but she kept them in ruthless harmony now as she stared down the Hawk.
She took a step forward, and the flames surged with her.
“Look at all these horses, all these big, scary people,” she sighed as flames of brassy Phoenix gold coiled about her hands. “Reckon I still feel awful threatened. And you know, the funny thing is, I asked those lads to ride along and leave us be and they didn’t, and now here we are.” The blaze bowed up and out, closer still to the Oleanders, who shrank down the road another few paces. “So you want my answer? I’ll say it once more before anyone else has to burn: Ride. Along.”
The Hawk sergeant did his best to stare her down, twitching his spear. She near laughed. That was a game Pa had warned her of long before she’d grown to his elbow: scummers like the sergeant would try to startle a jumpy Crow into aught that could be called an attack, then take the excuse to cut them down.
Hawks won the game when it came to steel, mostly. But when it came to fire …
“By moon’s end, you’ll be only a stain on our history,” the Hawk swore, wheeling his horse round. “The White Phoenix will wash her hands of you!”
“The White Phoenix could stand to be more creative with her nicknames,” Fie grumbled as the Oleanders beat a sullen retreat. “She’s had what, five years? And that’s the best she comes up with?”
“We should try to move out before dawn,” Lakima said behind her. “They know you by your Phoenix teeth. If word hasn’t already gotten back to the queen about your location from this afternoon, it certainly will after tonight.”
Fie called off the fire once the Oleanders faded from sight, vexed more than ever. “Aye, and what would you have done? They weren’t going to leave us be without a push.”
Lakima didn’t take the jab. “I agree, but we still have to account for the risk of them reporting to the queen.”
A rush of ire sloshed about Fie’s skull before she tamped it down. She couldn’t help but notice Drudge’s Crows remained in the trees.
She didn’t know why she so badly craved the faith of a band of stranger Crows. Or why that faith from her kin felt more like a stone about her neck.
She did know, at least, that Lakima had no business taking the brunt of her vexation. “Sorry,” Fie mumbled, pocketing the two Phoenix teeth. Not enough spark was left to go back on her string, but there was enough to store for lighting stubborn campfires and the like. “You’re right.”
“Will wonders never cease,” Varlet breathed in jest. “We must be in sore terrible peril.”
Fie shook her fist at him with an exaggerated scowl. “And that’s enough out of you, or I’ll have you fed to Barf.”
The rest of the band chuckled at that, and one of the myriad knots in Fie’s gut loosened. It was a little thing she’d noted, as they’d crossed paths more and more with Oleanders and skin-ghasts in the last moon and her band had still looked to Pa to lead out of habit. Once the danger had passed, he’d crack a joke or fool about and snap the uneasy frost that gripped the band. So long as they could laugh, the fear stayed beyond the reach of their campfire.
“I think we’d better keep a standing watch tonight,” Lakima said. “We can continue your healing lessons tomorrow, if that suits you.”
“Aye.” Fie returned to her circle of Crows as Drudge’s band slowly began to trickle out of the trees. Most gave her the same wide berth they’d given the Hawks. Fie found that bothered her even more than their