“I heard this is how Sparrow farmers carry their burdens,” he answered with a grin Fie was already sick of. “Don’t you want me to blend in?”
“Wrong caste,” Fie snapped, pulling another armful of firewood from the cart and loading it into the sling she’d made of her cloak. At least Prince Jasimir had the sense to stay out of their way as the Crows built up the pyre. “The only way you’ll pass for a Crow is if you keep your fool mouth shut.”
“That’s a lost cause,” Tavin admitted with a shrug. “I couldn’t even keep quiet as a corpse.” At Fie’s baffled look, he plucked the stick ofkindling off his head and pointed it at her. “At the quarantine hut? You said something about the incense, and I laughed. And then your grumpy friend nearly broke my neck tossing me into the cart.”
She’d thought the laugh was Hangdog. And she’d thought wrong. Again.
The prince fidgeted, flexing the hand he’d cut. The Covenant had healed him with the sealing of the oath, but that didn’t seem to ease his nerves. “That incense has been the ceremonial—”
“The damn patchouli, that’s what she called it.” Tavin laughed, balancing the kindling on a fingertip. “Three solid days of that mess. I told you it was foul, Jas.”
Fie swiped the kindling from him, swung her bundle of firewood over a shoulder, and stomped away.
“Sheagrees with me,” Tavin added in her wake, unperturbed.
The Fan. She only had to put up with the lordlings’ nonsense until they made it to the Fan. Well, to the governor’s city of Cheparok. Then Pa’s end of the oath would be kept, and she could forget about them and the Oleander Gentry both.
Hangdog was turning a band of earth for a firebreak round the growing stack of wood as Fie approached. At the sight of her, he stuck the spade into the ground and muttered, “His Highness giving you grief?”
“Just his guard dog,” she grumbled back.
“Seems they trained him a few tricks.” Hangdog jerked his chin behind her.
Fie snuck a glance. Tavin had perched on a wobbling log by the cart, balancing more kindling on each palm and the crown of his skull. Half the Crows were rolling their eyes. The other half were laughing.
Her lips pursed. “Thought Hunting Castes were born with a stick up the arse.”
“Turns out the prince is a piss-baby and his guard is a clown.” Hangdog spat and resumed digging. “Waste of brains, the both of ’em.”
Fie chucked her load of firewood onto the heap, itching with distrust. This was square why Pa called Hangdog two-second clever: Tavin had already gone to work winning Crows over for his prince. The Hawk was no clown. He was walking trouble.
And trouble incarnate was rummaging through the bloody shrouds on the ground when she returned to the cart. He fished out first a dagger that he tossed to the waiting prince, then two short swords that he belted at his hips with a swift, practiced ease. The scabbards of every blade looked rich enough to feed the whole band for a year.
Fie turned to the prince. “Do Phoenixes even burn?”
Prince Jasimir blinked. “Are you speaking to me?”
“Aye. Do you burn?” Fie waited, gathering up more firewood, but Jasimir seemed wholly confounded. She sighed. “Should we be faking a funeral pyre for a boy with the fire Birthright?”
Fie had wondered more than she liked about the day the dead gods handed out Birthrights. She wondered what drove the Sparrows’ gods to bless their caste with the gift of refuge, letting them slip from notice when they pleased. What inspired the Cranes’ gods to give their children the Birthright of truth, so they could spot lies like stains.
She wondered, too much, why the Crows’ gods had left them no Birthright at all.
And she reckoned that when the Phoenix gods gave their children the Birthright of fire, they hadn’t had funeral pyres in mind.
Tavin spoke for the prince. “It’s fine. Phoenixes burn when they’re dead.” He stood and dumped the bundled shrouds atop the firewood in her arms. “Here, this should go in the pyre, too.”
Something slipped free of the linen. Fie caught it by habit.
A jolt shot up her arm, stampeding into her brain before she couldstave it off. For a moment, Fie’s vision went blank and the world was mud and sour slop, squeal and grunt, bristle and—
“Pig bones.”
The torch-lit night returned at the sound of Tavin’s voice. Firewood lay scattered about Fie’s feet, her hands still tangled in linen. Tavin was clearly fighting down a grin; likely he thought she was disgusted, not dizzy.
“They’re pig bones,” he laughed, kneeling to gather up the spilled firewood as her mind scrambled back into a more human tongue. “We figured the pyre wouldn’t be complete without some bone fragments.”
She hadn’t fouled up with animal bone in months. The power in human bones and teeth,thatshe could draw out or stuff down at will, but beasts… beasts had a nasty way of running wild.
