This felt like a game, a back-and-forth like Twelve Shells. She’d spent so long playing games like this from the other side of the board—for every viatik, every Hawk bribe, every Money Dance—but it was always just to keep from losing too much.
For the first time, she was meant to have the upper hand. Fie tried not to panic. She’d already told the man she would go, hadn’t she?
But a Sparrow servant wouldn’t give a Peacock orders. He was waiting on her approval.
It was a very strange feeling.
“It pleases me,” Fie echoed. “Lead on.”
The Sparrow man bowed once more and guided her through the crowds as seamlessly as a needle through gauze, evading trains of satin that spilled like rivers across the marble, unsteady crystal goblets swung for emphasis in silver-crusted hands, fellow servants darting to and fro on business of the Splendid Castes. Finally he deposited her at the edge of the front row of onlookers with another bow and a sweep of his arm. “Does Your Ladyship desire anything else?”
She could barely hear him over the musicians nearby, who had begun a jig that rang too cheery in this grand sprawling hall. About to ask for a different spot, she changed her mind. Other nobles were sneaking glances at her behind palm fans and elaborate collars. Surely they wondered about her and what it meant that a prince would want her to see him become a king.
But this close to the music, no one would try to make conversation with her, which meant she could leave Niemi’s voice out of her head that much longer. She’d also have no need to fear someone bumping against her and finding a sword where there was only supposed to be silk.
She shook her head and then, as an added touch, flicked her hand in dismissal. The servant melted into the crowd almost too swift, and Fie realized most of the Sparrows had to be calling on their Birthright. Even though they couldn’t vanish outright like their witches, anytime Fie tried to look straight at a servant, she found her attention skidding off to land on a sparkling jewel or a pounding drum.
Whether that was the Sparrows’ choice she couldn’t say, but she remembered Niemi’s blithe derision that morning. It was equally likely the gentry only wanted to be offered trays of delicacies without having to think too hard about who held them.
The pounding drum swelled in Fie’s ears as the sunlight began to dim. Solstice had kept the sun long in the sky, but finally it touched the edge of the cliffs looming over the royal quarters at the west end of the palace. The drum fell silent. A hush flooded the hall as two lines of gold-cloaked priests filed in, one from either side of the thrones.
Khoda had told Fie of the ceremony details, and she’d committed it to her memory with one more Owl tooth to be safe. All the priests before her now had been born royal Phoenixes, but either they’d been too far from the line of succession to hope for a crown, or they’d assessed—correctly, Fie would say—the average life expectancy of a monarch and decided it not worth the risk. Instead, they’d sworn a Covenant oath forsaking any claim to the throne and bound themselves to the service of a dead Phoenix god instead.
Once they were in place, the Phoenix Priesthood regarded the room with an odd kind of sobriety, Fie thought. There was a peculiar charge to the silence in the Hall of the Dawn, glances flicking between painted nobles like little shocks of static, as if to ask, Is this really happening?
Khoda had warned Fie of this, too; Rhusana was not universally beloved, and with so many of the most powerful families in the nation present, there was a chance they might take matters into their own hands.
But no one stirred, save the sun that sank a little lower, and save the priests who, after a long moment of unease, raised their arms and cried in one voice, “Now begins the night before the dawn!”
Music burst forth from the galleries, forcefully joyful and triumphant, as the Phoenix Priesthood began to sing. The first hymn praised the rulers of the past, the next Mother of the Dawn, and then the rest of the dead Phoenix gods got their due, and so on, until Fie was certain the only thing keeping her from falling asleep on her feet was