Tatterhelm’s meaning cut all too clear. But this was the way of one who’d been a hunter all his life; he wanted her rattled and scattered.
Instead, Fie spat in the ashes. Her anger was a curious thing, sometimes jagged and broken as Pa’s sword, sometimes heavy and storied as the bag of teeth. She’d left them both behind to reckon with Tatterhelm. He would not shake anger from her here.
She counted each Crow’s face, every one her home. Madcap, their chin stuck out. Pa, rag bound about the knuckles of his right hand. Wretch, her lips moving frantic as Viimo kept a dagger at her throat.
She did not see Swain.
Tears boiled into her vision before she could wrest them away. Swain, with his scrolls and figures, his dry jests, the trench that dug in his brow when he pored over maps or coin. No matter where they were in Sabor, he’d managed to find posies for his wife’s birthday, year after year, even after the roads had claimed her.
Tatterhelm had taken him from Fie in Cheparok.
He would take no one else. Not one Crow more. She was a chief. She would look after her own.
“Fie,get out—” Pa started. His Vulture captor seized Pa’s right hand and squeezed. Pa choked off a sharp cry. New bright red stained the bandage.
Give them fire, whispered the Phoenix teeth on Fie’s string.
Fie fouled up when she looked Tavin’s way. He didn’t speak, eyes burning through her. Of course he’d known she would take the deal. Maybe, for a moment, he’d believed that she’d choose another road. But they both knew better; Fie only hoped he hadn’t fooled himself for too long.
Once more, his face said a thousand things, full of fury and desperation and guilt and, worst of all, betrayal.
Maybe one day he would forgive her for this. But she’d always known it wouldn’t be easy.
Tatterhelm shoved Tavin to his knees, knife still at his throat, one hand digging into Tavin’s scalp. The northman hadn’t even bothered to don his favored helm to reckon with a little Crow half chief; he wore just a chestplate and heavy boots over his grubby yellow tunic and wool leggings. His pork-pink arms bulged bare and stark with valor mark tattoos in the gloom, his wild straw hair coiling about his shoulders. A beaked Crow mask swung from his belt like a prize scalp.
“You’ve been a pain in my ass,” he rumbled. “Making me hound you across the damned nation all on some fool’s notion.”
Fie spat in the cinders again. “You here to deal or not?”
“Y’know what the problem is with you people?” He pulled the mask free of his belt and tossed it into the dust at Fie’s feet. “You forget what you are. Queen’s comin’ for your kind, won’t be stopped by some bone thief brat.”
Long-dead mint sprigs spilled from the beak.
We have something that belongs to you.
The Vultures had trailedherthe whole time. Not the prince, not Tavin. They’d known to followher.
“Maybe the prince learns his lesson about trusting Crows,” Tatterhelm grunted, “but I’d say that lesson’ll be… eh, short-lived.”
He wanted her rattled. Fie knew a Money Dance when she heard one.
“Enough,” she snapped. “I did what you wanted. Now let them go.”
“Settle down.” Tatterhelm’s knifepoint scratched at Tavin’s throat. “Viimo.”
“Aye, boss?” Viimo answered from Wretch’s side, one fist holding fast to the older woman’s bonds. Wretch’s mouth moved, too quiet for aught but Viimo to hear. The skinwitch ignored her.
“These two bring any company?”
Viimo closed her eyes a long moment. Her brow knotted, then untied. Her free fist curled. “I see nothin’, boss.”
Draga hadn’t yet noticed their absence, then. Or she had cut her losses like Fie couldn’t. Either way, Fie was on her own.
On her own and in too deep to get out now.
Tatterhelm narrowed his eyes at her. “Drop the cloak.”
She let go of Jasimir. “Move and I’ll gut you,” she warned him, and pulled her ragged robe over her head.
