He had to be fine.
The skinwitch rode into sight, below ragged curtains of needled boughs: Tatterhelm.
For a heartbeat Fie was back in another tree a week before, watching an Oleander lord try to smoke them out. Where the lord had shouted and cursed and threatened, though, Tatterhelm spoke not a single word. Instead he paced, studying the forest about them with the patience of a man certain of victory. And with good reason: she could see his gaze alight upon one track after another, drawing closer to their tree.
One of Tatterhelm’s fists stayed clenched tight around a strange fistful of dried leaves.
The string of teeth twitched at her throat. Fie started. Her own fingers had already plucked at a Phoenix molar.
Give him fire.
That voice didn’t even sound like a Phoenix’s anymore.
Tatterhelm dragged on the reins. His mount grunted and stopped, pawing at the needle-strewn ground. Sharp pine resin wafted up the warm air.
Now, her own damned head urged.Give him fire. Teach them you’re not to be crossed.
Give him fire and you bring the whole rutted lot of them down on you, her Chief voice snapped back.Pick that fight when your Hawk isn’t in pieces.
And a dreadful mutinous part of her yet wondered when she’d started calling TavinherHawk.
The Sparrow teeth squawked and slid out of tune.
Harmony, Pa’s voice chided as she scrambled to push the teeth back into order, fingers digging into the uneven bark.
The skinwitch’s searchlight crept up toward her.
She ground her teeth, holding the harmony as steady as she could. It wavered as the Vulture picked and peeled at the slippery edges of the Sparrow teeth’s refuge. Panic simmered in her gut and clawed finger by finger up her spine. They’d already been caught, Tatterhelm only meant to toy with her, hiding was no use—
Bitter fury boiled up with the fear.
She was so, so sick of hiding. Just once—
Teach them how you look after your own.
Her Phoenix teeth warmed on their string.
No.Fie swallowed, fighting for a steady head. Tatterhelm wasn’t the best, but he was good enough to break through her teeth, and that was aught that mattered. Two weren’t enough to hold off his gaze.
Pa sometimes used three teeth.
But Pa hadn’t taught her how.
Pain shot through Fie’s index finger as a sliver of bark burrowed beneath the nail, yet her hold on the branch only tightened. Forget three, she’d need a lone Phoenix tooth and then she’d have vengeance for Pa, for her kin—
It could be so easy. The Sparrow-tooth harmony began to fray.
Tatterhelm reached for a hunting horn at his belt.
Their branch shuddered—Tavin had tipped off-balance—
She seized his hand, rough with dried blood and slate dust.
And a third Sparrow tooth sparked awake on her string.
Fie’s bones didn’t just hum, theysang, an awful drone that felt like it might shake her straight into the next life. It took all her focus to pin the tooth into harmony, into balance, and to keep it there—but then there it stayed, each tooth steadying the other two in turn like the legs of a stool. Tatterhelm’s gaze sloughed away like an old scab.
And after a long moment, he rode on.
