When Pa was chief, he’d never had a call to take the band to a dormant shrine, and in her short time as chief, neither had Fie. Every shrine she’d been to had buzzed and sang in her bones the moment she drew near, but all of them had had a keeper living on the grounds, keeping the teeth awake.
It wasn’t halfway to noon when Pa slowed, caught at Fie’s shoulder, and squinted up at a hill. From the flatway, all Fie could see were the crests of trees all but sagging with heavy deep-green leaves.
“There ought to be a roughway around here,” he said. Something had shifted in his weathered face, as if he weren’t wholly in this world. It reminded her too much of Little Witness.
Fie whistled a halt order. She didn’tseethe entrance to a roughway, but that didn’t mean one wasn’t there. Like the watchtower, Gen-Mara’s shrine was too dear to risk just any old scummer stumbling in. “Bawd, Madcap, help us look.”
She could have saved them the trouble of poking about; Pa was the one to find it a few minutes later. He’d paused at a dense thicket of parasol ferns, brow furrowed, then set a hand on a gnarled magnolia tree. A moment later Fie felt the sparks of Peacock teeth shiftand shiver. Enough of the parasol ferns vanished to expose a smooth, worn dirt road. Another magnolia tree marked the other side of the path, and now Fie saw a clay jar clinging to each, held tight against the trunk by knots of vines. Both hummed with the song of Peacock glamours.
Corporal Lakima motioned for her soldiers and said, “If anyone asks, we’re taking a… How long will you be?”
Pa shrugged. “I’ve been here once, years ago. I’d say an hour, two to be generous.”
“… A late breakfast, then.” Lakima started toward the road. She stopped to look back at Pa. “This is the last I’ll see you, isn’t it?”
“Most likely,” he said, and tapped his right fist to his mouth and held it out. It was a gesture for greeting colleagues, but also for the parting of friends.
When Lakima’s Hawks had first fallen in with Fie’s band, it took a full week for them to share the same supply wagon with the Crows. She’d kenned why; on its face, it was fear of the plague only Crows survived, but deeper still, it was fear of something else. She’d seen this dance before, in all the ways Tavin and Jasimir had blundered two moons ago, but still, it had stung.
Now, on the fourth day of Phoenix moon, Corporal Lakima kissed her knuckles and clasped Pa’s hand without hesitation.
“Fortune’s favor to you, Cur,” Lakima said. “Enjoy your rest.”
“I’ll try.” Pa let go. “Keep my girl safe, aye?”
Lakima gave him a nod weighted with meaning. “Yes, chief.”
Pa led them down the roughway for, as Fie tried not to dwell on, the final time. The road wound deeper into the forest, sloping just so slightly upward. Fie felt no hum other than the jars of teeth they’d left behind, but the farther they went, the thicker the tree trunks grew and the broader the leaves, until nearly all she saw was green. A faint,clean, lemony perfume began threading the air—and soon she felt a peculiar sort of shudder with every one of Pa’s footfalls, like a note struck on a distant bell. She knew the simmer of a haven shrine, but this—this was different.
Then, finally, they reached the groves.
Towering magnolias spread as far as Fie could see, near tall as the watchtower, waxy white blossoms strung like pearls in their branches. Darts of pale sunlight broke through only with significant effort, and even then a faint mist seemed to weigh them down. Thick vines ran over the ground and tangled about the trunks like a drunkard’s plait, weaving about strange, almost wartlike knots clustered against the bark. No, not knots—clay urns the same dusty dun as the vines. Some were big as barrels, some no bigger than fists, like the jars of teeth at the head of the road; great masses of Peacock teeth, Pigeon, Sparrow, even a few stashes of gem-precious teeth from Sparrow and Pigeon witches. All sat silent. Waiting.
Pa took one step into the grove, then another. The answering echo didn’t sound like a bell to Fie now so much as a song, a chorus, a sigh of pure joy, one that reverberated in the jars, catching like sparks on tinder. Every step forward sent another pulse through the trees, through the vines, through the roots, through the teeth, until Fie’s very bones felt as if they’d shake loose.
Pa came to a halt, and the roar swelled and burst like a dam, like a drowning man breaking the surface. Whispers seemed to well up from the vines, then settle, seeping back into the moss below. And then, finally, Fie felt it: the familiar, welcome hum of a haven shrine beneath her feet. The one that said so long as she stayed on this ground, she and hers were safe.
Pa was staring up at the rustling magnolias. Twin lines of tears cut clean tracks down his face. He looked at Fie, wide-eyed.
“I—” His voice broke, bewildered. “I’m… home.”
Her own eyes burned and spilled over. She stumbled to him, all her fear and fury crashing down as she threw her arms around him, holding on for dear life, for as long as she could.
The groves knew Pa, even in this life. They welcomed him.
He was home, and terribly, he was home without her.
They found the remains of the last keeper curled on a sleeping pallet in the temple proper.
The old Crow had died in his sleep, and it seemed no chiefs had sought out the shrine for a week or so. Or perhaps they’d simply not been able to find the shrine without a keeper to make the dead god’s grave buzz in their bones.
There was more than enough firewood in the temple’s viatik stash, and Fie set the rest of the band about stacking the pyre while she and Pa surveyed the temple itself. Like most Crow shrines, it was simple; unlike most Crow shrines, it was big. It seemed to be a relic of the days before Crows were run off the roads, its stone walls simple and many, its statue of Gen-Mara near as tall as the great magnolias. The temple roofs themselves had been formed by vines woven with more deliberation than those around the trees, forming broad, tight-knit mats that would funnel rain into wash barrels. More investigation turned up a meticulously tended vegetable patch, a spring of clean water, and even a penned-up goat that seemed to resent Pa’s presence on principle.
The groves seemed to have teeth aplenty, even if most were hidden away in knots of vines. Pa made Fie pull a few handfuls from the temple’s supply anyway, and in return she left handfuls of Phoenixteeth. Pa had carried them before; she trusted him to ration them out properly. The viatik stash itself was far from overflowing, but it would last Pa alone a fortnight or so, and other bands were now sure to pass through and give more. Nonetheless, Fie hadn’t gone to the trouble of dragging their supply wagon this far just to leave Pa scraping by.
Pa helped her unload water skins, sacks of millet and dried beans, strips of dried bison. Then he stood by, brows raised, as she went back for extra cloaks, sandal nails, and spare sleeping mats.
And when Fie spent five minutes digging through the cart for another bundle of dried fruit, he walked over and leaned against its side, giving her a rueful smile. “Fie.”
