“Are you an idiot? They said you weren’t.” The raven clucked and tilted its head. “I won’t talk before fish.”
“I promise that blackmailing me isn’t the way to get it.” I crossed my arms, trying to look serious, but loneliness hit me like an avalanche. It had been so long since I’d dared use animal speak, and it was a painful reminder of home.
It was also a risk. One I was doing for a bird. Not even a good bird. Araven.
“It is,” the raven said. “Now, are you going to give me fish?”
Five
“No.” I turned away, finding a chair near my bed.
The room was too awkward for the bird to comfortably fly, but it managed to coast from my dresser to the bed frame before dropping to the ground and hopping up to me where I sat.
I considered the bird. It was a typical raven: dark feathers that moved between black and iridescent blue. Its eyes were intelligent, but it had the same greedy glint as the rest of its kind. A long, hooked beak was half threat, half indication of how far it would go for food.
In the wild, ravens even ate the young of seabirds, consuming eggs or chicks. They were opportunistic, greedy creatures, and I missed all of the ones I’d left at home with an ache like an icicle in my heart.
“Do you have a name?” I had slipped back into Northern automatically. I didn’t even know if Icouldanimal speak in the Imperial tongue.
Some animals did have names, although many refused to tell humans what theirs was. The bird looked at me, its head cocked to the side.
“We are very far from the north,” it said finally.
“We are.” I nodded, watching the bird. “Have you met other animal speakers here?”
“Why did you come?” The bird’s question was incisive, but I wasn’t about to admit the true reason for my being in the middle of the Imperium, even to a bird, even in a language the servants didn’t understand.
“Loyalty to the Northern Kingdom and the Silver City.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees to bring me closer to the bird. The bowl of sliced meats was cradled in my hands. “Because my mother promised my sister to the emperor.”
The bird opened its mouth, but instead of screeching, it made a soft clucking noise. “You may call me Terror.”
“Terror,” I said slowly.
“That is what you may call me.” The bird hopped, flapped its wings once, and landed on my shoulder. “Now. I want my payment.”
“I have no fish,” I said.
“Pah. They said all northerners have fish. Fish everywhere. In your pockets. In your furs.” Terror tilted its head, eyeing me suspiciously as though I was hiding random fish in silken imperial finery. I couldn’t even fit a handkerchief or a garrote in these pockets. How was I supposed to fit afish?
“What did you mean that you would tell them my secret?” I asked.
“I heard you and your sister,” Terror said. “I listen.”
“You do.” I picked up a piece of cooked meat with my fingers and offered it over to the bird. It ate it with one snap of its beak. “What else do you hear?”
“I hear lots of things,” the bird said. “What do you want to know?”
The weight of Terror on my shoulder settled unfamiliarly. It wasn’t uncommon in the north to let a raven perch on your shoulder as it told you castle gossip, but that was usually whenyou were wearing thick furs or leathers. The silk of imperial clothes was too thin, and I felt his claws digging into my muscles.
“I need to know every secret in the palace. I am new here, and there is much I don’t understand. Knowing who to trust would be a great help.” I shifted, trying not to disrupt the bird. “And I want to know who else here animal speaks.”
“Feed me some more, and I will tell you everything you want to know. We could be great allies.” He nuzzled close, and to an outsider, it might have looked affectionate, but as a northerner, I was all too aware of how sharp his beak was and how close it was to my ear.
With a sigh, I stood, returning to the table in the other room. Nohe raised both eyebrows but was too well trained to say anything. As I settled in my chair, Terror grumbled at the breakfast spread.
I tried all the food on the table, offering Terror some morsels when he asked. Everything was delicious, flavors I had never experienced before, only seen described in Lord Fuyii’s books.
The array of salty and sweet meats, along with a spongy plant that soaked up the tart sauce it had been cooked in, was filling. The only thing that tasted like home was a bowl of seaweed mixed with cooked barley. As I ate, my mind remembered crispy seaweed, dried and salted during the summer months and eaten when the winter had frosted over most of the bay.
