“Maybe. Maybe I think you want to tell me.”
Viimo opened her other eye.
“Stuck under a mountain, split off from your kin, and you just brought your own leader down,” Fie continued, leaning into the bars. “I wager you want to tell someone,anyone, why, before they hang you for treason.”
Viimo didn’t speak for a moment. Then she sat up and folded her arms, tracing the valor marks there. “I found tots,” she said. For the first time a bleak note sawed in her voice. “When I was younger. Lost ones, stolen ones. Could track them halfway ’cross Sabor if I wanted. And I’d bring ’em back. Got too good at it, and the queen heard what I can do, and next thing I know… Well, you don’t say nay to a queen. But I liked bringin’ the tots back. I liked who I was. Not someone who hunts brats and roughs up grannies.”
Wretch.Fie remembered how the old Crow had spoken to Viimo, even with a knife at her throat.
“It don’t take a master scholar to read the Oleanders’ horseshit for what it is,” Viimo sighed. “So nobody promised me nothin’, chiefling. I didn’t want to be that person no more.”
Fie didn’t know why the notion made her so angry.
No, she did.
The words flew out before she could stem the tide: “So you didn’t do a thing until you decided you didn’tlike yourself? You didn’t draw that line when your lot cut off Pa’s finger? When you tried to burn me alive? When you tricked a boy into turning on his own kin by telling him you’d treat him like a person? Wasn’t any of it enough for you to stop Tatterhelm?”
“It all was,” Viimo said, exhausted. “I didn’t.”
“I hope you aren’t waiting on my forgiveness,” Fie hissed.
Viimo sighed and dropped back onto the pallet. “I ain’t waitin’ on aught from you. You asked me what makes a traitor, chiefling, and the only thing I got that crosses with your dead boy is this: we both didn’t want who we were. That’s all.”
She closed her eyes and did not say another word.
Fie mulled over throwing pebbles at Viimo until she sat up again, but decided the Vulture had naught more worth hearing.
She’d come to settle her heart. Instead the ghosts lingered yet, and still she had to face Pa.
And Tavin, another voice nagged.
The thought of looking Tavin in the eye tonight made Fie burn like a sinner. It also made her want to run out of Trikovoi and not stop until she hit the sea.
She all but bolted for the barracks.
She found the Crows hustling in and out of the courtyard, sorting through heaps of gear and goods. Draga had conferred the entirety of the Vultures’ supply caravans upon the Crows, a bounty that could very well last them until the end of summer.
As long as they met no Oleanders.
Fie let out a breath. She doubted duping the master-general into a rescue would make Draga reconsider her stance on the oath.
“I count six water skins here, Highness,” Madcap called.
Fie blinked. Jasimir peered around a cart, marking a note on a length of parchment. “That makes a dozen even. Could you please add them to the others?” He pointed inside.
Fie walked over as Madcap bustled past. “What are you doing?”
Jasimir flashed a list at her. “Someone has to write all this down.”
Swain had always scratched out their inventory. Fie supposed that would fall to her now. “I can take over.”
Jasimir shook his head. “We’re catching up. Did you know Tavin poisoned the Vultures?”
“Snuck some plant into their stew down by Gerbanyar,” Wretch added, swinging a sack of rice over her shoulder. “Gave them the runs for three days.”
He’d found a way to make the moss useful after all. Fie couldn’t help a grin. “Did the prince tell you he barfed on a corpse?”
The Crows’ laughter rose, then died when a Chief voice called. “Fie.”
