Hangdog’s eyeless face yawned at her, narrowing his hold on her throat.
The thing that had once been Swain began to drag at her ankles.
Panic shrieked through her veins. She flailed for—for aught, a rock, a scrap of bone, even a handful of hide. But the skin-ghasts simply folded out of the way, pulling like they meant to tear her apart.
Pain ripped along her jaw, up and down her spine, at her ankles. She heard screams that weren’t her own. Some sounded like they might be her name. One sounded like it might be Tavin.
The skin-ghasts said naught, for they had no tongue, no bones, no teeth to speak with. Only Hangdog’s slack face. Only Swain’s.
The queen had, in the end, turned even Fie’s dead to her ends.
How much more, Jasimir had asked,will you let them take?
She’d never expected to die quiet. Young, maybe. But not like this.
She’d not come here to die.
She’d come to look after her own.
Fie wet her lips and forced the last of her breath into an earsplitting whistle.
If Tavin were a Crow, he’d know that whistle signal. It meantdrop.
If Tavin were the prince, he’d know what was coming.
And if Tavin were only a Hawk, he would have died when Fie loosed the Phoenix tooth that had burned, hidden, in Jasimir’s bound fists all along.
But Tavin wasn’t only a Hawk.
And so when the cyclone of Phoenix fire swallowed Tavin, his prince, and his captor in one starving snap of golden teeth, only the skinwitch burned.
The Crows flattened themselves to the earth in a chorus of iron bell-song. Phoenix fire swept over them, scattering the skinwitches like sparks.
Greggur Tatterhelm rolled from the fire, skin blistering over his valor marks, and leapt for her. The plain, brutal knife swept down—
And jolted away as Jasimir threw himself into Tatterhelm’s side. They toppled into the skin-ghast at her feet, knocking its grip loose.
Fie’s feet hit the dirt. Hangdog’s hollow hands dug into the flesh of her throat. Through watering eyes, she saw more skin-ghasts bursting from the ash, grasping for the Crows—she had to get free—she had to look after her own—
The Phoenix tooth burned yet in Jasimir’s fist. She called it once more.
Golden fire rushed round her, devouring empty skin with a horrid crackle. Swain crumpled like paper, shriveling in an instant. The other skin-ghast let her go.
Fie crashed to the cinders, gasping air stained with old grease.
Hangdog’s skin-ghast staggered, peeling and charring, until hecollapsed. The dark sockets of his face warped as flames ate him whole.
Why?she wanted to ask.You sold us to them, and this is what they made of you. Why?
He crumbled away, into the ash.
“Fie—!”
She wrenched about on her knees. Jasimir crawled toward her. Fie yanked the prince’s cloak aside and freed Pa’s broken sword from where it dangled along Jasimir’s backbone. The weight of it steadied her as she reached for Jasimir’s bound hands.
The prince’s eyes snared behind her and flew wide. She couldn’t turn fast enough.
A fist like a hammer smashed into her jaw, knocking her back into the dust. Pain shot through her teeth. She heard another crack and cry paces away.
