“Not the first time, won’t be the last,” Fie muttered. “So what’d she pull off?”
Jasimir ran a hand through his ragged hair. “The Phoenix ceremony is supposed to be permanent. Even witches lose their Birthright, and it never comes back.”
Fie sorted it herself. “You think Rhusana did the Swan ceremony to herself, so her Birthright came back.”
“And I think she’s a Swan witch,” Jasimir finished.
At that, Fie put down her panbread and stared.
“She has no witch-sign,” Tavin added hastily. “And the odds of a Swan witch being born are—”
“I know what they are.” Fie’s voice had gone frigid. The Swan caste had only three dead gods. Three solitary witches in over a thousand-score people.
Any more than that, and they’d rule Sabor.
There was a hard reason why their witches weren’t allowed to leave the Swan island even after coming of age. A hard reason why their Sparrow servants were clothed crown to foot, finger to toe.
In a Swan witch’s hands, the desire Birthright became more than a way to command attention. When they caught hold of even a singlestrand of another’s hair, they could seize that person’s desire and twist it—and them—as that witch pleased.
All it would take was one stray hair from Fie’s head, delivered to Queen Rhusana, and one scrap of hate the queen could seize on. Then Fie could wake one night to slit the boys’ throats without a flinch.
“You knew,” Fie accused, stacking up every horrid piece. “That’s why you ran.”
Jasimir shook his head, adamant. “It didn’t sound possible until now. All three Swan witches are accounted for, she has no sign,andTavin and I witnessed the marriage ceremony ourselves. We didn’t know she could lose her Birthright for only a moon. I swear, I came to your band for help because Rhusana allied with the Oleanders, and for that reason alone.”
Fie scowled, baleful, at the dirt. “Aught else you want to tell me? Tatterhelm’s got a meaner cousin? The king’s really two asps in a fancy robe?”
“I still don’t know what Viimo meant about ghasts,” Tavin said.
“Me either.” Fie’s gut twisted. Pa had taught her how to call Swan teeth just on principle, for they had but a largely useless few. Still, in the handful of times she’d blinked through the life in a dead Swan’s spark, she’d heard no whisper of ghasts. And that, like so many things, bode ill.
Grim silence settled over them once more as Fie plaited a whole new set of troubles into the ones on her head.
Then Tavin’s voice broke in. “I really have to know: Which one of us is Pissabed?”
He didn’t want to be a Crow no more.
Fie had rolled Hangdog’s tooth between her thumb and forefinger since they’d made camp by the flatway at sundown, so long that it hadpressed trenches into both fingers. She didn’t stop as she stared into the campfire now, a half-eaten heap of dinner cooling in the bowl beside her.
Hangdog had been born to be a chief like Fie. But he’d been willing to give it all up to get what he wanted.
She couldn’t help but wonder what that was like.
“What if…” Jasimir’s voice rattled her from her thoughts. “What if we went to the Hawks? Before Trikovoi, I mean.”
Fie closed her eyes. She knew why the prince would ask; she knew the sense it made in his head. But ten hostage kin and one dead traitor had dragged on her heart all day, and all she wanted was to eat her dinner and not fight until dawn.
Then, to her surprise, Tavin spoke up. “We can’t trust the Hawks.”
Fie blinked at him.
So did Jasimir, his face darkening. “Then why are we even going to the Marovar?”
“Because the Hawks in the Marovar answer to the master-general.”
“Theyallanswer to Aunt Draga. If we find a league marker, I can just put my hand in the fire to show I’m a Phoenix, and—”
“We’ll never get that close,” Tavin said, terse. “We look like Crows. The best-case scenario is that they laugh us away. The worst case… You saw what they did in Cheparok.”
