Fie’s voice came out kinder than it had when dealing with the Crane arbiter. “It’s not like spotty apples, cousin. The plague rots it whole. Can’t just cut parts away when the whole thing’s gone bad.” The headwoman nodded, eyes glistening. “I’d start rebuilding on the other side of your fields, if not farther. It won’t be safe here until it grows green, and that won’t come for years.”
The headwoman bowed her head. Then she did the unexpected: she raised the first two fingers of her right hand and touched them to her brow.
The fields went still as, citizen by citizen, the people of Karostei followed suit: heads bent, two fingertips pressed to the middle of their foreheads.
The hair on Fie’s arms stood straight up, prickling against her stiffening rags.
She’d seen this in old tooth ghosts, in fleeting memories of war heroes riding by, of healers who wrought the impossible to heal scores of wounded in a breath, of Pigeon witches tilting fortune to avert floods or save harvests. It was an old gesture, living now mostly in corners of Sabor that kept those old ways, and it was meant as a blessing. An acknowledgment of great deeds. A sign of gratitude.
One she’d never seen made for Crows.
Two fingers, pressed dead center above two eyes. It meant “The Covenant sees,” that it would remember what they had done today, when it weighed their deeds at the end of their lives. It would remember the choices Fie had made. Every last one.
It was supposed to be an honor.
The Covenant sees.
Fie didn’t realize her fists were clenched until she felt her nails biting into her palm. She shook out her hands and turned from the headwoman, muttering, “We should go.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
SAFE AND SOUND
They pushed south for a few hours after leaving Karostei, and though Fie saw the sense in it, she felt all too keenly every fleck of dried blood under her short-gnawed fingernails, every bruise, every smudge of what was optimistically mud, but more likely to be some skin-ghast slime.
But there was no use stopping until they found a proper place for all of them to wash up, as every ghast had been pulled off a dead sinner, and every Crow who had tangled with them needed to scrub that sin off. By the time the road wandered close enough to a broad riverbed, the sun was rolling lazily near the horizon.
“The Vine?” one of Tavin’s guards asked, tipping his spear at the waters. Master-General Draga hadn’t let her only son go haring off with only a turncoat Vulture for protection, which was probably wiseconsidering Tavin was also the dead king’s bastard son. Instead, he’d been flanked by three soldiers so stone-faced, they made Lakima look like she had a flair for the dramatic.
“The Sprout,” Madcap answered. “It’s an offshoot of the Vine, trickles out a score league from here or so.”
The soldier’s stone face faltered for a moment. Fie reckoned he’d only ever barked orders at Crows and had yet to sort out how he felt when one answered him without bowing, scraping, and tossing in a “m’lord” or five.
“We’ll make camp here,” Fie announced, catching Lakima’s eye. “Best to get everyone cleaned up soon as we can.”
“Yes, chief,” the corporal said smoothly, and pulled the oxen’s harnesses to lead the supply cart to the side of the road. They’d divvied up rations with Jade’s band just out of Karostei and sent them off with the cart the Crows usually hauled bodies on, but there was still enough in their supplies to tide Fie’s band until they reached the procession.
The newer Hawks traded looks Fie didn’t miss but dismounted after a moment.
“Little assistance, if you please,” drawled a voice Fie wished shecouldmiss. Viimo the skinwitch had been granted a horse, where she sat with her hands bound in front of her, reins wrapped round her wrists, knees lashed to the saddle, and a broad grin on her pale-pink face. “Seein’ as all theseprecautions”—she flapped the reins—“wasyourlot’s idea.” She nudged her horse closer to Fie. “Help a lass out, aye?”
“No,” Fie said flatly, and walked away. Wretch laughed and went to untie the Vulture.
“Not even a ‘thank you kindly’ for all my troubles,” she heard Viimo call after her. “I could’ve let your half-prince lout here wander all about the countryside while the queen made a dress outta your hide!”
Fie ignored her. The skinwitch had been one of the hunters whohad hounded her, Tavin, and Jasimir across Sabor; Viimo had helped their leader, Tatterhelm, take Fie’s kin hostage; and worst of all, at the last possible moment she’d turned on Tatterhelm, buying Fie time to save her Crows. Fie didn’t know if they would have made it out without Viimo’s help, and that, to her, was an unforgivable debt she’d never asked to owe.
“Can someone get the salt and soap-shells?” Fie asked Lakima’s Hawks, then pointed to the river. “Crows, we all need to wash up, even if you don’t think you touched a sinner today.”
Khoda rummaged through the cart. “Should we do the same?”
She shook her head, then paused. “You all stayed outside the walls, you’re fine. But Tavin…”
“You could take him upstream,” Varlet said, “to be safe. Can’t pick up aught from sharing our water that way.”
Bawd fired off a wink with all the subtlety of a rock to the head. “Aye.Muchsafer.”
Fie shot her a dirty look, but there was no denying that the last few hours had ground by so slow partially because she’d spent most of it trying not to leer at her Hawk. The easy chatter they’d fallen into had stiffened back into unease on the road, where she had to be a chief and he had to be a king’s bastard and neither quite knew how to manage those with an electric storm brewing between them.
