the moment he’d cut the ropes of the bridge, stone cold and irreparable. But this time, only Tavin stood on solid ground. This time, she and Jasimir were falling into the jaws of their foes.
“You can’t!” she shrieked as Jasimir thundered, “She will damn Sabor!”
“That’s quite enough of that.” Rhusana snapped her fingers. The butt of a spear slammed into the side of Jasimir’s jaw. He dropped, eyes shuttering.
“She’ll get us all killed,” Fie screamed. “Me, Wretch, Madcap, Pa. You can’t—you can’t—”
“I’m saving what I can.” Tavin stared at the ground. “And putting a better king on the throne.”
“Twelve hells you are—”
“I’m doing this for you,” he whispered.
“Remove her,” Rhusana ordered.
At that Tavin looked up. “No harm comes to Fie. Swear it.”
“I swear,” Rhusana said. “She’ll be kept in Lord Geramir’s mansion for her own safety, and you can”—her lip curled—“visit her as you please once things settle down.”
Arms stiff as iron yanked Fie to her feet, though she thrashed and clawed and howled like a furious cat.
“You come to me again and I’ll tear you apart,” she hissed, humiliated to feel hot tracks of tears burning down her cheeks. “You’ve killed us all, you bastard, you’ve killed us all. I’ll cut your throat before you lay so much as one of your traitor hands on me.”
He wouldn’t look at her.
It took two Hawks to drag her to the tent flap, screaming and twisting and looking for any flash of flesh she could dig her teeth into. Rhusana accompanied them, saying loudly, “Take her to Geramir’s estate, with my orders to keep her confined and in good health.”
Cold blue night slammed down on Fie’s sight as she was hauled outside, only a sliver of golden lantern-light cutting through the sudden muffling dark. It vanished behind Rhusana as she let the tent flap fall, stepping in close to the Hawks.
“Drown her,” the queen breathed, then slipped back inside. Her voice rose. “We’ll be leaving for Dumosa within the hour…”
The last Fie saw of the tent, Tavin still knelt, head bowed, with Prince Jasimir fallen at his side.
She screamed her fury, for all the good it did her, as the two Hawks bore her through the wreckage of a camp she only saw in blurred, convulsing glimpses. She wept and fought and cried out for her teeth, for her swords, for her pa, for anything or anyone, as they passed Hawk after motionless Hawk still on their knees.
Naught came but the clammy damp rising from the river as they drew nearer.
Hysterical laughter gasped through Fie’s sobs. She didn’t know why, for even a second, she believed the Covenant would answer a Crow.
Maybe Little Witness was wrong. She’d never been destined for aught more than drowning like a rat in a barrel.
Or maybe, in yet another life, Fie had failed.
Her feet slipped and slid on the suddenly slick ground, and for a moment, she thought she’d missed the rush of the river under her own screams. Then the air soured with something heavy and metallic and almost sickly sweet. Fie had cut too many throats to not know the smell of blood.
The Hawks bore her past great mounds of meat and tripe, baskets of carrot tops spilled amidst the gore. Black spots speckled every one she saw, and the mammoth handler nearby shared the same glazed look as the rest of the camp.
That was when Fie gave in to pure, rotten laughter. They’d never even once had a chance. Seizing control of Draga, manipulating Geramir—it was all just flash, just Rhusana making it worse because she could. She’d won the moment she had a mammoth handler’s hair and given him enough poison to slay all the beasts for their skins.
No wonder the Covenant didn’t think her oath was kept. Jasimir had never once been safe.
The moon flashed with a red edge off the river as the Hawks towed Fie in. Mammoth blood had turned the waters flat scarlet.
She was laughing yet when they thrust her beneath the surface.
Blood and muddy river water caught in her nose, in her mouth. She tried to cough them out only for more water to rush in, coppery and gritty and foul.
All Fie could think was that if Tavin had refused, at least she would have died swift.
She gagged, wheezed, inhaled more blood and mud and river. Hands like iron weights kept her under, even as she clawed at them, at elbows and shoulders, trying to find purchase, trying to find a tooth she could rip free, anything—
Tavin