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“My son…” Senna cawed, something closer to a low moan than any bird’s cry. “I’m a crow, Mollandra Plight. I can’t cry. I can’t smile. I already died once. And so did you from what I can tell. Don’t ask me how to feel. This is an evil dream that bitch goddess of yours has trapped us in. And if it’s all the same to you I’m just going to follow it along until I’m allowed to leave and try not to think about it too hard.”
Rue eyed the crow. She’d not expected Senna to be able to frame such thoughts when she was a gossipy, mean-spirited old woman. To have them spoken through a beak had her wonder what contribution the bird had made. Crows were uncommon clever after all.
“Scout the roads—”
“I’ve already looked.”
“Do it again,” Rue barked. “Everything coming and going from this spot. If there’s a lone donkey heading our way, I want to know about it.”
“I’ve alread—”
Rue took a quick, threatening step towards the crow, sending it cawing into the smoke-scarred sky. Rue nodded at the bird’s dwindling dot. Bitch or not, Senna shouldn’t be here for what had to follow.
With Senna gone, Rue returned to Tamaster’s hall, the only house not yet fully ablaze. She held her breath against the wafting smoke and narrowed her eyes against the sting. It took longer than she wanted to locate the finger bone. She picked it up still in its smouldering leather wrap, not ready to touch it. Sebrin’s soot-stained head she found in a corner where it must have rolled after being kicked. She carried it out into the day’s grey light, checking first that Senna had not returned.
“You’re still in there. Don’t hide.”
Sebrin’s eyes angled sharply towards her. “Enjoy your last hours, old woman. Someone is already coming for you.”
“You should have paid with gold when you had a chance, Baron. Now you pay the hard price.”
Baron Mancer’s sneer appeared once more on Sebrin’s lips.
“Why are you trying to start a war?” Rue asked. “It seems a big thing for a little baron to want.”
Mancer just stared at her. Rue shrugged and drove a thumb into one glaring eye. Sebrin’s face spasmed.
“Perhaps it wasn’t your idea?” Rue said. “Is there someone else I need to talk to?”
“You won’t last till dawn.” The baron’s voice sounded strained. He’d felt the eye, but not as much as Rue had hoped. “There’s only one more person you’ll ever talk—”
Rue pitched the head into the burning ruin of Carter James’s shack. Senna’s dark form was arrowing towards her from on high, not yet close enough to have recognized her son.
The crow landed on a nearby wall.
“So, what else did you see up there?” Rue’s gaze flickered to the heavens. “How many mercenaries?”
“I’d already looked.” Senna cawed bad-temperedly. “Hundreds. A dozen bands. Spread out over twenty miles and more to the Wiseman’s Wood.” She leaned to scrape some scrap of carrion from her beak. “But just now—”
“Just now what?”
“Why should I help you?” The crow fluttered to a fence post out of Rue’s reach. “You’re part of this. The reason for it. You did this to me. To them.” She flapped a wing towards the burning village—the roof of Debban’s ale hut chose that moment to collapse, sending a tornado of swirling embers climbing towards the vault of heaven.
“You said you had to follow me,” Rue pointed out.
“Maybe she just wanted me to watch you die. I ain’t forced to help you.”
“I killed the people who killed everyone, you know.” Rue gestured to the bodies smoking in the main street.
“I know what you are!” Senna cawed. “I know what you are!”
“And what am I?”
“You told them. I am she the gods fear. My sisters walk ever by my side. Well, I don’t see any sisters but I’m old enough to know that the Kindnesses didn’t just walk through stories. They were real. The nightmares were real. You started this! You started it! I knew you were trouble the day you came. I told them. I told them all, but would they listen? I said you weren’t right—”
“I’m not right.” Rue nodded. “Never was. Not once. Broken from the beginning. But Kindnesses don’t start things. They end them.”
Senna watched the fires, another roof collapsing, the blaze reflected in her eyes.
