on their way back to where the Crows had made camp. The warm orange glow of an oil lamp soaked through the canvas walls, Tavin’s shadow a soft, distinct blur against the light. Fie made a mental note to douse the lamp before doing anything she didn’t want to hear crudely recounted by Madcap the next morning.
She glanced back for one more look at her band, who were unrolling their sleeping mats beside the fire. Corporal Lakima stood guard, no more relaxed in a camp full of soldiers than she’d been on the open road. She caught Fie’s eye and gave her a slight nod: all would be well under her watch.
Fie returned the nod and slipped into Tavin’s tent.
It wasn’t much more than canvas pitched high enough to stand in, not even bothering to lay a dropcloth over the grass, but Fie saw bits of him in every corner: his sword belts looped through a support to keep them off the ground, a wooden crate with leather armor stacked neat inside, a modest collection of scrolls.
Tavin himself had stretched out on his belly on a tight-woven woolen blanket in the far corner, and by Fie’s guess, it looked cushy enough to be hiding a straw pallet underneath. The oil lamp nearby caught on a scroll unfurled in his hands, one he was frowning at until Fie walked in.
“It’s worse than I remember,” he grumbled, tossing the parchment aside.
She glanced at it and found square what she expected: The Thousand Conquests. “Told you it was awful.”
“It’s all awful.” Tavin propped himself up on his elbows as Fie sat nearby and began to unwind her sandal straps.
Halfway through one foot, a slice of gold caught her eye. She blinked and spotted a circlet like Jasimir’s, only this one was buried—spitefully, she suspected—under a heap of dirty laundry. She let out a cackle and swiped it free. “What is this?”
“Auugh.” He hid his face in the blanket. “Mother said I wasn’t allowed to throw it away.” He emerged again. “I’m probably supposed to wear it again tomorrow … Speaking of awful, the lord of the manor’s coming to have dinner with Mother and Jas tomorrow, and we have to go.”
Fie twisted about to look at him, still holding the circlet. “‘We’?”
“I told her I wouldn’t go if you couldn’t.”
“And that was supposed to get you out of it.” She dropped the circlet on his head. It landed askew, slipping over one ear.
Tavin gave a rueful grin and pulled the circlet off. “Guilty. Mother called my bluff. I shouldn’t have said we have to go; I don’t know if you need to stay with your band. Would you like to join me for dinner with the lord of the manor tomorrow?” He dropped the circlet on Fie’s head, where it sat even worse, sliding to rest just over her brows. Still, he pulled a polished-brass mirror from a nearby crate and handed it to her. “There. Much better.”
Fie tried not to stare at her reflection, at the bar of bright gold striping her forehead.
She tried not to admit how some ancient ache in her bones stirred at the sight. How somewhere deep down, eons away, lives and lives and lives past … some part of her felt whole for wearing a crown.
She tossed her head swift and hard, and the circlet popped off with a mellow ring, rolling to lay in the grass like a snake eating its own tail.
“Too big for me,” Fie said, and she didn’t know that for a truth or a lie. “But likely I can manage dinner.”
Tavin reached up to twist a lock of her hair in his fingers. Then his smile splintered a bit. He ducked his head, patting down the blankets of his bed as he searched for something, and a moment later he surfaced with a pair of sewing shears. “I … have another favor to ask.”
Fie continued unwinding her sandal straps. “If it’s to cut the lawn, you’ll need bigger shears.”
He shook his head. “Will you cut my hair?”
She stopped, letting the leather sandal strap fall to the grass, and cocked her head. “I like your hair.” That was the truth: it had grown out a bit since she’d left Trikovoi, curling about his ears long enough to bury her hands in when she felt like it.
Tavin gave a half shrug, staring at the shears. “Fie … Burzo has been in my mother’s service before I was born. If all it took was a