She tilts her head thoughtfully. ‘If my father trusts anyone, it would be you. But if you can’t persuade him?’
They shake their head. ‘Then bloodshed.’
‘And neither of us want that,’ her lips say, while her eyes sing out her hunger for it.
Skinpainter’s disappointed. As if they hadn’t heard the storiesof the villages who resisted and clung to their names, of the gallowswatchers raised in their ruins.
Crowkisser shrugs diffidently. ‘I’ll consider it.’
Another lie, cheap and shallow. They let it wash over them, offering a grateful smile. Perhaps not quite convincing enough to earn her trust, but time will tell. Skinpainter has a moment to try and read her in the flickering light, before she shifts and the spell is broken. As she starts to stand they catch her arm, noticing again that slight, satisfying flinch. ‘Thank you. For coming.’ And their lie is smooth, and easy, and honest-looking.
Crowkisser pulls away slowly. Her fingers linger on their side for a moment. Skinpainter’s too focused on her touch, her face, her words. Misses a slight cut, as a leather strap gives way and a pouch slips into Crowkisser’s waiting hand.
The barest weight, a single bone. The last piece of the Emperor of the Dead. As promised.
She fixes on Skinpainter’s gaze to hide her hammering heart. ‘I had to,’ she says. ‘I know what happens otherwise.’
The theft hangs unnoticed. Crowkisser holding Skinpainter’s gaze steady, even as her hand tucks the bone tight against her skin.
Oblivious, Skinpainter nods sadly. ‘High power. The highest prices.’
Something in their voice catches her, and for a moment, the mask slips. Catching the look in her eyes, Skinpainter sighs, and pushes their hood back.
Crowkisser takes them in. The minutes pass; ice melting in the heart of the mountain, sweet smoke, walnuts.
By the time Skinpainter wraps the soft cloth around themselves again, they are both wet with tears.
She leaves soon after. Feathers, burnt sugar, spidering into blackness.
Once she’s gone, Skinpainter slowly lets the shells fall into the flames, chaff burnt and consumed. A moment, two. Collecting their breath before they turn again to the shadows. ‘What do you make of that then?’
Icecaller steps forwards from the darkness, grim-faced. ‘That bitch needs to die.’
Skinpainter puts their arm around her, pulls her close. ‘I’ve taught you well.’
52
every hill is a king
crowned with elder and chestnut
and the birds
the birds sing like jesters
—The Blue Beyond the Halls, Hallowfeather
The nest sits fairly high in the tree, cradled in the crook of its branches. A little precarious, a little ragged, a mishmash of twigs and lichen that sways gently in the freshening breeze.
The mother bird dotes on her chicks, swooping down, worm-beaked, her dun wings flicking the leaves aside.
Shroudweaver watches her from the grass, as the tiny orange mouths of the hatchlings pop up in unison. They are almost formless still, little bundles of need and urgency.
Absently, he picks loose blades with one hand, letting his nails work into the warm soil beneath.
It’s good to be off the ship. It had been an uneventful voyage for the most part. Four weeks of a jagged coast opening up on their starboard bow in white chalk cliffs, scoured with wiry grass and small, thorny bushes which threw up defiantly pink flowers into the salt spray.
The entire western coastline stretches ragged as a ripped seam. Juts of headland, white as gull shit, slicked in green, struck with the ruins of watchtowers, the furze of low bushes, the gnarled planes of trees bent back upon themselves by the sea.
