“We decline.” Lakima planted her own spear in the ground before her, point-up in her own kind of threat: an iron fist wrapped in formality.
“They abandoned a beacon,” another Oleander shouted.
“That little bitch burned my arm!”
“They turned their backs when called,” the Hawk rider thundered. “Karostei is dying by the dozen. Andshe”—he pointed to Fie—“assaulted citizens we’re sworn to guard. We need to make an example.”
“Ah yes,” Khoda said dryly, “that will certainly convince Crows to answer your beacons in the future.”
The stranger Hawk did not look pleased. “As a sergeant in Her Majesty’s army, Iorder you to stand down.”
Fie’s Hawks traded looks at “Her Majesty’s.”
“Again,” Lakima said, icy calm, “we decline.”
The Oleander’s Hawk drew himself up, nostrils flaring. “On what grounds do you decline a direct order, officer?”
“We have orders to protect every citizen, including Crows,” Lakima answered stonily. “And those orders…” Her brief pause was the most dramatic flair Fie had ever seen the corporal display. “…outrankyou.”
“I doubt it,” the rider sneered. “The only one who outranked the queen is dead.”
“The queen can’t give orders to the military until after her official coronation as the ruler of Sabor.” Lakima glanced up at the waxing moon. “Until then, our highest authority is Master-General Draga. Besides, the first line of the Hawk code isI will serve my nation and the throne above all.The nation comes first.Surelya man who’s risen to sergeant in the master-general’s army knows the code.”
Silence stretched tight as a sunburn over the road.
Madcap chose that moment to take a hearty bite out of their apple. The juicy crunch echoed across the road like a thunderclap, their messy chewing the monsoon in its wake. They stared direct at the Oleander’s Hawk the whole time.
He just pointed to Fie. “Sheneeds to answer for wounding good people.”
“Those ‘good people’ were attacking unarmed citizens,” Lakima said.
“It doesn’t matter—”
“Not to your like, aye.” That old anger was climbing back up Fie’s spine. She got to her feet. “Pray, where were you when your louts were going after Crows?”
“You attacked those menunprovoked—”
“Unprovoked?” Fie squeezed between Khoda and Lakima to stand before them, not so far that the Oleander Hawk could snatch her up without risking their spears but close enough to look him dead in the eye. “I asked them to stop hounding the other Crows. Then one of them decided to get in my face, and wouldn’t you know it, he was a big,scary lad…” She pretended to rub the back of her neck in her best daft yokel impression. “On a big, scary horse…” Her fingers caught at two teeth on her string, waking the spark and calling the Birthrights from where they slumbered. “… and I felt, oh,threatened.”
The song of the Phoenix Birthright rang down her bones, almost too swift. Golden fire sparked and spread in a flash to wall off the camp and the Crows whole. The Oleanders’ horses danced and shied away, and the Hawk rider swore as his horse gave a fearful buck before shimmying sideways.
It wasn’t easy to balance two Phoenix teeth, as Fie found the sparks of their dead owners usually too opinionated to get along, but she kept them in ruthless harmony now as she stared down the Hawk.
She took a step forward, and the flames surged with her.
“Look at all these horses, all these big, scary people,” she sighed as flames of brassy Phoenix gold coiled about her hands. “Reckon I still feelawfulthreatened. And you know, the funny thing is, I asked those lads to ride along and leave us be and they didn’t, and now here we are.” The blaze bowed up and out, closer still to the Oleanders, who shrank down the road another few paces. “So you want my answer? I’ll say it once more before anyone else has to burn:Ride. Along.”
The Hawk sergeant did his best to stare her down, twitching his spear. She near laughed.Thatwas a game Pa had warned her of long before she’d grown to his elbow: scummers like the sergeant would try to startle a jumpy Crow into aught that could be called an attack, then take the excuse to cut them down.
Hawks won the game when it came to steel, mostly. But when it came to fire…
“By moon’s end, you’ll be only a stain on our history,” the Hawk swore, wheeling his horse round. “The White Phoenix will wash her hands of you!”
“TheWhite Phoenixcould stand to be more creative with her nicknames,” Fie grumbled as the Oleanders beat a sullen retreat. “She’s had what, five years? And that’s the best she comes up with?”
“We should try to move out before dawn,” Lakima said behind her. “They know you by your Phoenix teeth. If word hasn’t already gotten back to the queen about your location from this afternoon, it certainly will after tonight.”
Fie called off the fire once the Oleanders faded from sight, vexed more than ever. “Aye, and what would you have done? They weren’t going to leave us be without a push.”
