Fie took another breath, letting memory and bone guide her, and this time she tasted it: every fire in the room, from lamp and torch and blazing column, simmering on her tongue. When she exhaled, it was a decree of exile.
Out, she told the lamps, and all along the walls, they obeyed.
Quiet, she told the crowns, and they fell silent, bleeding smoke.
Go, she commanded to every last towering column, to the fires within that carved dead Phoenix monarchs from the black iron.
One by one they went dark, plunging the Hall of the Dawn into unbroken night.
Fie caught muffled yelps of alarm, the rustle of fabric and clanging of jewelry, and allowed herself a vicious grin. Then she stuffed it below a mask of dismay and called on the Phoenix Birthright once more.
The Hall of the Dawn fell silent as fire bloomed into uneven letters over the dais, each nigh tall as Tavin.
MURDERER
BASTARD
TRAITORS
She let the words hang over their heads a long, terrible moment, then spun that flame into the shape of a bird whose fiery wingtips spanned near as wide as the hall itself, burnishing the iron columns to either side.
Awestruck gasps swept through the hall as it hovered well above the thrones. Rhusana’s face had twisted with fury and astonishment; Tavin only stared, wide-eyed. Apparently even this wasn’t enough to rattle him.
Then again, Fie thought, what good was conjuring up a phoenix if she wasn’t going to use it?
The fiery specter beat its massive wings once, twice—then dove for the crowd.
There were real screams then. Fie was sure to keep the phoenix well above them, if for no other reason than that she didn’t want fire catching a wayward headdress and spreading to the rest of the Hall of the Dawn while she was still inside. Someone crashed into her and she stumbled, only to get knocked aside as another noble shoved past.
Hawk soldiers shouted orders, trying to calm the pandemonium, but even if they could be heard over the cacophony of shouts, cries, and tearing fabric, Fie doubted any Peacock would listen. Hysterical babble burst from the crowd—“The gods are angry!” “Ambra has turned her face—” “—false?”
Khoda had wanted a distraction. She reckoned this would do it … but it never hurt to make sure.
Fie ducked behind a now-cold column that broke the throng like a boulder in a river, trying not to laugh, then swung her phoenix about for one more swoop at the crowd. A fresh tide of screaming nobility fled for the exits as soldiers hustled Tavin and Rhusana off the dais. The monstrous phoenix soared so near to their heads, Rhusana flinched away.
The bird crashed into the wall of glassblack, and with a flash of inspiration, Fie smeared the fire over it like butter on panbread. The great gold disc, the bejeweled rays, they all sagged and wilted, bleeding scorched gemstones. Even the gilded edges of the thrones themselves seemed to dull.
Fie muffled a cold laugh in her sleeve and let the fire go, and darkness swallowed the Hall of the Dawn once again. But not perfect dark this time—a fading glow spread over the chaos, cast from the ruin of molten gold behind the dais.
And through it, Fie saw Hawk guards surrounding Tavin, hurrying him through the tumult of fleeing gentry and toward the nearest door.
She needed to get to Khoda and Jasimir, she needed to go back into hiding, she needed to get out—
Her Sparrow witch-tooth had barely been spent. Tavin’s tooth dug into her palm; his sword hung heavy at her side.
Return it, Lakima’s memory urged.
The embers of fire-song in Fie’s own bones did not argue. All through the dark she heard the shrieks of nobility crashing into one another, not caring who they trampled in their desperation to escape. The finest, stiffest, most high-bred Peacock families in Sabor had turned to little better than beasts trying to claw their way out.
She felt dangerous, she felt raw and undeniable, like vengeance made flesh, like a walking curse. And she was not done with any of them yet.
The Sparrow witch’s Birthright stole Fie from sight once more as she wove through the masses like an asp, her eyes fixed on Tavin’s charred silk crown.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A SHOW OF STRENGTH
She clung to their trail like an ancient grudge, never too far from reach. Every time Tavin’s guards looked back, their gazes passed right through her as they hustled their makeshift prince down a walkway that hummed under Fie’s soles with the bones of dead gods. They’d chosen to leave through the other half of the Divine Gallery, where Fie had not yet tread.
The eyes of the statues seemed to burn on her, as if the Phoenix gods took issue with her mummery of fire. Fie refused to be sorry.
Tavin’s guards did not slow as they cleared the crowds. If anything, they quickened their pace, striding down the mostly empty lantern-lit colonnades and shoving aside the few servants who didn’t duck off the path in time. As Fie passed one fallen woman, she was tempted to begin snuffing out the lanterns ahead of Tavin’s guard, row by row, just to see them run.
But she’d learned long ago the hard difference between what she wanted and what must be done. If they ran, she would lose them in the dark long before the blade at her side could be returned.
“What do you think—” She heard one Hawk begin.
Another Hawk cut her off. “It was a threat, that’s all we need to know.”
At the rear of the squad, two guards traded looks. One cast an uncertain glance behind them, scouring every shadow for signs of an intruder. Fie knew they’d only find an empty walkway.
She gave in and blew out a lantern—just the one. The guards’ eyes widened. They hesitated a moment, then whipped back around to keep their eyes on Tavin.
The escort wound into the royal gardens, cutting through tunnels cleverly hidden between hedges and behind falls of vines. Fie kept at their heels with an Owl tooth burning in her bones, committing every step, every shadow, every mutter to memory.
Every drop of sweat or oil running down the back of Tavin’s neck.
The farther they went, the further a strange, dreadful feeling welled up in Fie’s bones. It wasn’t a sickness, no, nor a weakness she knew; it didn’t feel wrong in the way that skin-ghasts set her on edge.
It felt … it felt like she’d felt at Little Witness’s tower, standing at the edge of a measureless sea, one that meant to swallow her with barely a ruff of foam to mark her drowning.
She clung tight to her teeth until it passed. Not too long after, they emerged into a wide, open courtyard, its intricate tiles little better than an unruffled lake in the dim moonlight. From its center rose an island of a structure, bedecked with domes, fringes of gold, tiled roofs that flared like skirts, intricate friezes, and balustrade-laced verandas that looked high enough to see most of Dumosa sprawled below.
The royal quarters. Where Rhusana slept. And her son. And Tavin. Fie didn’t know if a Crow had ever set foot inside.
She supposed she’d best leave an impression, then.
The guards led them into a grand foyer clearly meant to impress people far more important than Fie. It was like a vision of paradise from The Thousand Conquests with its elegant marble fountain, lacy golden lanterns casting constellations onto an ebony ceiling, and floor inlaid with brass and tile of deepest blue.
Fie’s band hadn’t had to scrape for meals in a while now, but she still couldn’t help measuring every ounce of gilt and finery against every night she’d slept with a hot coal of hunger in her belly.
She did not have long to weigh it, as Tavin’s guard divided, half taking posts at the foot of one of two matching stairways, the other half continuing up the steps. She followed them up one, two flights of stairs, passing more guards whose heads bowed but whose eyes narrowed in Tavin’s wake. Any servants in the halls flattened themselves to the walls, then knelt, staring at the ground.
Fie’s skin crawled.
It wasn’t just the guards and the servants putting her on edge, but it took three dark hall
ways sweeping by to ken why: they were the only people she saw in this grand jewel box. The royal quarters weren’t a home; they were a Money Dance unto themselves, a show of strength, shoving fingers of gold into visitors’ eyes and saying See, this is what Saborian royalty is worth.
But they were also, in a haunting way, empty. When Fie had called memories from Phoenix teeth, the royal quarters were always filled with chatter, light, life, heated debates and petty triumphs, a minor uproar every time the current monarch walked from one wing to another.
These weren’t the same royal quarters. The hushed, still shadows in nigh every corner made Fie feel like a beetle crawling about the guts of a gaudy corpse.
She nearly ran into the back of a guard and caught herself just in time. They’d stopped outside a chamber with two guards already positioned by the doorway.
“Sweep the halls again,” the leader of the guard ordered. “We need to be certain nothing and no one followed us.”
The guards posted at the door traded looks at “nothing.” The rest saluted and turned on their heels. Fie scrambled back, but they were walking down the hall three abreast, leaving no room for her. At their pace, they’d catch up before she could get to the end of the corridor—
Something in her spine gave a tug, and when she blinked, she saw it: the threads and currents of fortune as a Pigeon witch saw them. They were drawing her toward a shallow alcove.
Wretch had a saying: When the Covenant grants you a favor, don’t waste it asking why. Fie scuttled back toward the arch, which was identical to one on the opposite side of the corridor—but when she pushed against the back wall, it gave so suddenly that she near fell on her rear.
The back panel had split down the middle like veranda doors, opening to a still, quiet dark. The tide of luck nudged Fie, and she did not need another prompting. She bolted in and eased the panel halves shut again, holding her breath until the footfalls of the Hawks had faded.
The luck current led on into the unbroken dark. Fie swallowed. Then she registered the faint hum in her own bones and the simmer of a tooth on her string.
The Pigeon witch-tooth she’d burned out this morning had, somehow, sparked back to life.
Fie swallowed. The tooth had been cold, empty bone, she’d swear it on any of the two dozen dead gods’ graves she had to choose from here. She’d only left it on the string because she hadn’t found a good place to throw burned-out teeth yet.
Her Sparrow witch-tooth, too, seemed to have recovered enough of its spark to buy Fie more time, but she let it go cold. Part of her wanted to get out of the royal quarters as swift as possible, go find Khoda and Jas, and sort out their next move from the safety of the Sparrow quarters.
The rest of her had made it this far, and still burned with the wrath she’d kindled in the Hall of the Dawn. Besides, whatever hidey-hole the currents of fortune had led her into, it seemed the only way out would be to keep following them. She didn’t have time to waste asking why.
She made her way along the trail of luck, hands stretched before her. It wasn’t too long before they brushed up against startlingly rough canvas. When she pushed it aside, milk-pale moonlight bloomed before her, carving out a strange and lifeless chamber.
The fortune trails coiled inside, smug and gleeful like a hound who had led its master to a kill. Fie stepped into the room, staring about. Only dim moonlight gave her any reprieve from the dark, peering in from a glass dome overhead like a half-lidded eye. Cloth-covered furniture jutted from the flat sea of the cool tile floor like shoals.
In the far corner, Fie saw something that picked at her memory a moment until she placed it: a spear rack identical to the one in Draga’s tent.
No wonder it felt so cold and still—still as death. Instead of Tavin’s or Rhusana’s rooms, fortune had brought her to the chamber of the late Queen Jasindra.
Now she just needed to find out why.
Fie paced about, frowning. Khoda had said the king sealed the room years ago, yet she saw no dust on the furniture covers, nor on the windowsill, nor the floor. It all looked clean as the day the old queen died.
She reached for the dustcloth over the bed. Something brushed across the back of her hand like a cobweb. When she went to pluck it off, she saw … naught.
Fie went still. Then she looked up again at the glass dome. A half moon stared back.
Solstice always fell on the middle of Phoenix Moon, when the moon had swollen to its fullest.
Someone had cast a glamour over the entire room.
No wonder luck had led her here. Fie closed her eyes, trying to think. She didn’t know if a Peacock tooth could undo a glamour the way Tavin’s tooth let her snuff out fires. Maybe the truth Birthright—but she’d only used it to draw the truth from people, not clear away an illusion.
Then again, she’d sorted out how to balance Peacock and Owl. Lips pursing, she found one tooth each of Peacock and Crane and kindled them both.
They clashed horribly, like a flute and a lyre in a tavern brawl, but she knew the trick of it now. It took a few tries to get them to settle into cooperation, but then—then she saw it, the glamour over the room, glowing too vivid to be real.
Show me the truth, she told the teeth.
It was as if they had pulled the cords on a curtain, sweeping the glamour aside in uncanny folds of another world. The true room unrolled before her, lit by the glare of a full, unblinking moon.
Fie couldn’t help a sharp breath. Her hands curled to her chest, nausea crawling up her throat.
Everywhere she looked, she saw hair.
Long, silvery strands strung about the room like sick garlands, knotted with other, darker hairs. Shelves and shelves of shorter hairs, all fastened to neat squares of parchment with names scrawled out in a neat square hand. More of those parchment squares broken out over the bed and the windowsills, even tacked to the walls like a papery rash. Bundles of hair like skeins of yarn, each bearing a single label: Livabai. Chalbora. Teisanar.
One bundle had been left unwound on a desk, its label next to it: Karostei. Beside it were strange, gray, papery curls. Fie made herself squint closer, only to stumble back, trying not to vomit.
Skin. They were strips of dried skin.
It took a moment for Fie to conquer her mutinous belly. When she saw a nearby shelf of tidy jars packed with more bits of skin, she had to fight that battle all over again.
But Fie had work to do and an oath to keep and time that was running short. She glanced about to take in the whole of the room.
There were two doorways she could see besides the passage she’d taken. One had been boarded shut for good, but the other stood agape, planks sitting nearby with the nails still protruding. If that was Rhusana’s way out, then likely it would work best for Fie, too—or at least it was better than popping out into the hallway with no way to check for patrols first.
A thick mantle of dust had accumulated on the higher shelves of the room, but mostly everything was where it had been in the glamour. One low dresser had been revealed as a tidy stack of crates holding envelopes, inks, parchment; a station had been set up nearby with parchment squares, a glue pot, and a quill.
That was the worst part, Fie reckoned: the order of it all. She’d expected a monster. She had not expected one so organized.
More squares sat on the desk. Fie picked out names she recognized: Draga, Jasimir, Burzo, Kuvimir. She made herself get close enough to riffle through them all, telling herself it was just to make sure her own name was not among them. Then she checked the shelves and their rows of squares lined up like toy soldiers, ducking the long strands of what she presumed to be Rhusana’s hair.
She did not find a square with her name.
Nor did she find what she’d been looking for true. She checked every square, every name. None of them were Tavin.
She hadn’t expected it, she told herself, but the sinking twist in her chest called her a liar.
Expected, no. Hoped for, yes.
As she passed
the shelf of jars, something caught her eye: a second row of jars tucked behind the row full of skin. Their contents looked more solid, weighty—
She drew one out, and her heart leapt into her throat. The jars were full of teeth, and not just any teeth. Fie dug out a handful and let them sift through her hands like grain, near choking down a laugh of pure relief.
Finally, finally, a boon.
They were Phoenix teeth. They were hers. It must have been Rhusana’s own killers who took them from Drudge and bore them here to make sure nothing so precious, so dangerous, ever fell into the hands of a Crow again.
“Ha,” Fie muttered to herself. “Guess again, you dog-faced hag.”
She stole one of the pillows from the bed, cut it open, pulled out the stuffing, and poured the Phoenix teeth in, jar after jar, until she’d emptied them all. Just the weight of it alone made her want to sing. She’d soft-footed her way around this miserable palace for fear of the terrible price of getting caught. Now, if it truly came down to it, she could burn her way free.
Fie hefted her teeth, about to swing the bag over her shoulder, and paused. Her eyes traced the web of gossamer hairs spun about the room.
Fortune had brought her this far. And it wasn’t just so she could take what was hers.
In the end, she left one thing: a single tooth, sitting on the bed in the middle of a heap of parchment squares cleared from every shelf. Fie had even made herself empty the skin jars into the pile.
As she padded quickly to the open doorway, gold fire spilled out from the molar. By the time she reached the end of the hall, the moonlight at her back had blushed rosy.
There was no canvas drape over this exit, but the faint orange glow showed a sliding screen. Fie called on her Sparrow witch-tooth again to wipe her from sight. No lantern-light filtered through the screen, but that didn’t mean the room was empty.
She eased the screen aside, and moonlight lit her way again, this time from a whorl of skylights that cut the shape of the sun into the domed golden ceiling. The chamber itself was practically a wheel of gold, sprays of carved and gilded plumage coiling from every arch, every bedpost, every column and only interrupted by graceful blades of carved golden fire. It didn’t feel like a bedroom. It felt like a shrine. And if it adjoined the dead queen’s chambers, Fie had a strong notion who that shrine was for.
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