But Pa didn’t move, still fixed to the spot even as the rest of the band pulled the cart nearer. And then Fie saw why.
The queen at the gate meant to pay them, to be sure; the steward at her side held the viatik in plain view. A viatik’s worth fit the family’s means, that was the rule. A Sparrow farmer might pay them in a sack of salt or dried panbread; a Crane magistrate might offer panes of glassblack. Viatik for royalty, though… Fie didn’t even know what would be proper.
She did know, however, that it wouldn’t be the dirty tabby squirming in the steward’s arms.
The night blistered with sudden, furious tears. A stray cat. Fair pay for a beggar at most. Not for two gold-sucking palace boys they’d marched seven leagues to burn.
Every frayed wisp of Fie’s patience twisted into a taut, angry wire.
The palace had leered at them, drawn steel on them, all but spat on them, and now they’d made a mockery of payment. Queen Rhusana didn’t care about sending her family into the next life with the barest scrap of dignity. All she cared for was flaunting the brutal truth: as queen, she could give Crows naught but contempt, and every time, Crows would have to take it.
No chief would abide this, not even one in training. Not even one facing a queen. Something had to be done.
The Crows were merciful, but they weren’t cheap.
The cart had near caught up to Pa. Fie leaned forward, blinking sweat and tears from her eyes. “Pa,” she whispered. The beak of his mask dipped. “Money Dance?”
For a long moment, he didn’t move. Then the beak dipped again.
For the first time that night, Fie grinned.
She jammed her nail-studded sole into the ground and stuffed every grain of spite into a long, satisfying scratch, the marble screaming for mercy. And then she screamed back.
Around her, the dozen Crows wailed in answer to the call, jolting to a halt. Thirteen torches clattered to the ground.
For the second time that night, the galleries above went silent.
The Crows shrieked again, Fie loudest of all, her pitch climbing at the end. The others took her signal and waited, stock-still. She counted out the quiet in her head:Four. Three. Two. One.
Another bloodcurdling cry tore through the hall from thirteenthroats, its unmistakable anger echoing off distant archways. Another silence crashed in its wake.
On the third round of screams, the noble sneers were gone. All eyes hung on the motionless cart.
On the fifth round, half the gallery looked ready to cry.
Most fine lords and ladies had never been this close to Crows or plague-dead. To them, the plague was a poor man’s problem.
They didn’t understand that there were rules. That the plague cared naught for silks or jewels. That it left when the Crows said it could.
But by the thousand dead gods of Sabor, Fie wagered they were starting to catch on now.
She decided they’d stewed enough, and trilled the marching order.
Stamp.The thirteen Crows stepped forward as one, but the cart stayed in its place, its drag-ropes coiling on the marble like asps.Stamp.Hunting Castes, Splendid Castes, Common Castes—it didn’t matter. The Crows would teach every Saborian in this hall to remember.Stamp.Before, their threadbare black rags and long-beaked masks had made them look a superstitious joke.Stamp.Now she saw nightmares in the eyes trailing the corpse-cart.Thiswas the fear they’d learned at their father’s knee.
Fie trilled again.
The footfalls picked up pace, ending in a sweep that carved hellish curls into the tiles. Another stamp. Another guttural scream. Another two paces away from the cart. The gallery recoiled.
Stamp-scrape-scream.Fie huffed under her mask. That was for their ugly palace.
Stamp-scrape-stamp.That was for drawing steel on them.
She trilled again, and the Crows stopped just shy of the threshold. A sick tension clung to the gallery, knuckles whitening on gemstones and silk.
The Crows snapped about and spun into a weaving, vicious patternback to the cart. Nervous relief wound through the galleries, then wavered when the Crows didn’t immediately take up their ropes and torches again. Fie took her place at the cart’s front-right corner and waited until the nearest Peacock looked likely to piss himself.
Fie let out a murderous whistle. The Crows snatched up torch and rope, exploding down the hall and into the last courtyard like a hurricane, howling with the gods’ own wrath.
