Fie had the terrible suspicion that the hazy rules of friendship dictated she ought to hug the prince. She also had the absolute certainty that doing so would only further upset them both.
Instead she stiffly patted him on the back. “Rhusana’s got a baby, aye?”
Jasimir nodded, eyes glittering. “Rhusomir. She barely lets anyone see him.”
“Do you blame him at all for any of this?”
The prince blinked. “He’stwo.I was eleven.”
“But you were still a child, aye?” Fie pushed. “And your ma was a warrior and a queen. What wereyousupposed to do?”
“Anything.” Jasimir looked like he wanted to kick something else. Instead he absently scratched Barf’s ears. “I can’t even say I didn’t see it.”
Fie pursed her lips. “Sometimes… when I call a Peacock tooth or a Hawk tooth, or even sometimes another Phoenix tooth, I get thisfeelingfrom it. Depends on the person. Tells me to be quiet, to not make trouble, to look away and move along. It’s always these… these scummers who knew how bad it could be with a bad person under the crown, but they didn’t care as long as the bad royal wasn’t hurtingthem.” She shrugged. “Sometimes the bad royal would give them aught like a bauble or a sweet talk, keep them addicted to it like poppy-sniffers, andso long as they kept their fine ways and got a chance for another whiff, they’d pretend all was right.”
She flicked a bit of carrot into the mammoth pen. “You were eleven, and all the adults around you were telling you naught was wrong. That’s no fault of yours.”
He nodded, face painfully taut. “There’s… there’s so much to undo.”
“Aye” was all Fie had to say.
He pushed off from the fence. “We should get you back to your band.”
The Hawks peeled from their posts to trail them as they headed back toward Draga’s tent, Barf trotting behind them. “We’re only a day and a half’s march from Dumosa,” he told her. “But of course you and yours are welcome to stay with us as long as you need.”
Fie caught looks from the camp’s soldiers as they passed: curious, befuddled, a few souring as they lingered on her. “Likely we’ll stick with you until you’re seated proper on the throne, but unless you hurry, you’ll want us back on the roads soon as possible. People are trying to burn their own plague-dead.”
He winced. “How bad is it?”
“We had to burn Karostei to ash. Nigh a quarter of the people burned with it.” She shuddered. “And Rhusana made ghasts of the dead, so she won’t be setting the record straight anytime soon.”
Jasimir turned uphill as they passed the master-general’s tent. Not far ahead, she saw Tavin laughing with her Crows as they maneuvered the supply wagon around the tents. Lakima’s Hawks maintained their wall between them and the rest of the camp, and Fie doubted their grim faces were due solely to Khoda’s absence.
Jasimir didn’t miss it, either. “I’ll tell Aunt Draga about Karostei, but she may want to hear it from you. And I’ll tell her your guards could use some reinforcements.”
The prince did them one better: once Fie’s Crows were settled to her satisfaction, he personally escorted them to the nearest mess tent and joined them for supper. Fie couldn’t help but remember moons earlier, when he and Tavin had scrambled to wash up before her band could foul the water; she suspected they both were glad those days were behind them.
Tavin excused himself halfway through their meal, and she didn’t see him again until after the sun had gone down. Jasimir had awkwardly pointed out his brother’s tent on their way back to where the Crows had made camp. The warm orange glow of an oil lamp soaked through the canvas walls, Tavin’s shadow a soft, distinct blur against the light. Fie made a mental note to douse the lamp before doing anything she didn’t want to hear crudely recounted by Madcap the next morning.
She glanced back for one more look at her band, who were unrolling their sleeping mats beside the fire. Corporal Lakima stood guard, no more relaxed in a camp full of soldiers than she’d been on the open road. She caught Fie’s eye and gave her a slight nod: all would be well under her watch.
Fie returned the nod and slipped into Tavin’s tent.
It wasn’t much more than canvas pitched high enough to stand in, not even bothering to lay a dropcloth over the grass, but Fie saw bits of him in every corner: his sword belts looped through a support to keep them off the ground, a wooden crate with leather armor stacked neat inside, a modest collection of scrolls.
Tavin himself had stretched out on his belly on a tight-woven woolen blanket in the far corner, and by Fie’s guess, it looked cushy enough to be hiding a straw pallet underneath. The oil lamp nearbycaught on a scroll unfurled in his hands, one he was frowning at until Fie walked in.
“It’s worse than I remember,” he grumbled, tossing the parchment aside.
She glanced at it and found square what she expected:The Thousand Conquests.“Told you it was awful.”
“It’s all awful.” Tavin propped himself up on his elbows as Fie sat nearby and began to unwind her sandal straps.
Halfway through one foot, a slice of gold caught her eye. She blinked and spotted a circlet like Jasimir’s, only this one was buried—spitefully, she suspected—under a heap of dirty laundry. She let out a cackle and swiped it free. “What isthis?”
“Auugh.” He hid his face in the blanket. “Mother said I wasn’t allowed to throw it away.” He emerged again. “I’m probably supposed to wear it again tomorrow… Speaking of awful, the lord of the manor’s coming to have dinner with Mother and Jas tomorrow, and we have to go.”
Fie twisted about to look at him, still holding the circlet. “‘We’?”
