none of her teeth had burned out, or even come halfway. They should have been nigh used up by now.
It wasn’t just the teeth, though. It was the feel of Tavin’s mouth on her skin, even for an instant.
She was too sick to cry, too furious not to. She buried her face in her hands, still curled over, and let the sobs shudder from her. Not ten days ago he’d sworn she would never be gone to him. One chance for a crown and he’d tossed that oath aside. She should have known better to trust anything promised between her legs.
She should have never believed him to be better.
But now for all he knew, she was being kept caged up in the countryside like his pet, to visit for his pleasure when it suited him, and he was free to woo a proper consort from a worthy caste. Her people would starve, Sabor would rot, and that was an acceptable price for a throne.
Even if we ourselves must burn.
Her belly roiled; her knuckles yet seared where his lips had been.
“I’m going to kill him,” she breathed into the silence of the perfumed air. The amber-pod blossoms only shivered on their branches in reply. Fie didn’t care. She’d sworn as much when she was dragged screaming from Draga’s tent. And she had come to the royal palace to keep her oaths.
Something fluttered as she sat up. Fie’s head whipped about just in time to see a crow take off from its perch on the shoulder of one more Phoenix statue, and rise into the sky.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A PRISON FIT FOR A KING
Fie had just enough time to dry her face and contemplate burning the palace down before the hour-bell rang. When it did, she closed her eyes and made herself call on a Vulture witch-tooth, focusing on the clay charm-bead Viimo had given her.
The Vulture Birthright sparked and flared, lighting up Viimo’s trail in Fie’s senses. The end of it shifted, moving north, south, north, south. Then it stopped in the north for a long moment, only to resume moving north, south, north, south. After a minute or so it stopped in the north once more.
This was the message system they’d set up: Viimo had a tooth from Fie, a trinket from Khoda, and the Birthright to find where they stood at every hour-bell. If either Fie or Khoda sought out a particular place in the gardens at the chime of the hour-bell, it was to send a message. Waiting east, in the amber-pod grove, meant Fie had news.
Viimo could pass that message along to Khoda through his own spies in the prison, but Fie had no such network. Instead, Viimo paced north to south in her jail cell, a signal Fie would sense through a Vulture tooth. That pacing meant Viimo had a message from Khoda. Pausing a while in the north was a signal to meet at the next bell.
Their meeting spot was the statue behind the Hall of the Dawn, and the hall itself sat between the wings of the Divine Galleries. Now that she’d memorized the way from the gallery, Fie knew she could make it there several times over before the hour-bell chimed again. If she hurried, she could look over Jas’s prison before she and Khoda met up; if luck was still with her, Tavin wouldn’t have gone back.
She blotted her burning cheeks one more time, then took a deep breath and ducked through the pavilion’s archway. Thanks to the Owl tooth, she picked out landmark after landmark to guide her way.
No one looked twice at a Sparrow servant hurrying through the palace gardens, especially with more Sparrows up and hurrying about the walkways with armfuls of garlands, silk, perfume oils, fineries, and decorations of every kind. Fie didn’t have a repair order for the Divine Galleries, but the vestiges of the Pigeon witch-tooth’s luck seemed to have kept the guards at bay. She darted in before that luck could fade, Barf at her heels.
She couldn’t quite remember which of the towering statues had concealed the passage, but the cat had no such issue, scuttling behind a golden figure pouring out a pitcher of flame. Fie followed and found her licking a patch of marble where the spilled fish stew must have been hastily mopped up. Even better, Fie’s slipper had tumbled behind a column. The calluses on Fie’s feet were thick enough that it hadn’t made much of a difference to her, but she yanked