Khoda pursed his lips. It wasn’t hard to read him in that moment: they might find another way, but it wouldn’t be as swift or as easy. And her Crows didn’t have the luxury of time.
“What…” Fie’s voice cracked. She coughed. “What was your plan?”
Khoda looked from her to Jasimir and back. “Nothing too salacious. Let him chase you around enough to start raising serious questions. He could say Jasimir’s tastes have changed, but…”
“I, er, had opportunities to be interested in women,” Jasimir said awkwardly, cheeks darkening. “I was not.”
Fie’s eyes widened with wicked glee. “Oh, I need to hear about that.”
“Later,” Khoda said. “But between that and you writing bastard over his head in fire, the rest of the palace ought to start catching on.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Rhusana needs to reschedule the coronation. I suspect she’ll be throwing parties and revels left and right to keep the nobility busy and happy in the meantime. That’s where we’d start, making sure plenty of people see him haring after you. The prince and I can pose as servants to eavesdrop and get a sense of who’s having doubts.”
There was a knock at the door. “Food for the sick,” Yula called from outside, their code for entry.
“Come in,” Khoda answered.
The door swung open only wide enough to allow Ebrim and Yula to slide in, both bearing large clay pots and a few rough bowls. Once the door shut, they both bowed deep. “Your Highness.”
“Please—I think we’re past that now,” Jasimir said, slightly strained. “Besides, you’re risking so much for me. I owe you a tremendous debt.”
The Sparrows straightened, but both Ebrim and Yula looked everywhere but at the prince, uneasy. Ebrim set his pot on the floor and revealed a fluffy, steaming heap of rice. “You’ve raised quite the hell in one day. The queen’s saying the Phoenix priests used the wrong oil, that it gave everyone fever visions. All the priests are being interrogated, and word is she thinks they sabotaged the ceremony. She’s pushing the coronation back two weeks, to the first of Swan Moon.”
“There was half a riot in the guest quarters,” added Yula, unveiling her own pot of a stew heavy with chicken and lentils. Fie’s stomach growled. “The nobles are furious they’re being asked to stick around that long. Some say it’s disrespectful, waiting until after Phoenix Moon.” She passed a bowl to Jasimir first, then Khoda, then Fie. “We’ve placed someone to intercept any messages sent to ‘Lady Sakar,’ but we can also give you an empty chamber to keep up appearances. His Highness may be more comfortable in the guest quarters as well.”
Jasimir ducked his head. “I’ll be fine either way. Fie and I have slept on much worse on the road.” He frowned. “Not to imply that this is bad, of course. Just—you don’t need to go to any trouble for me.”
“What His Highness means is ‘Yes, thank you,’” Khoda drawled. “Weren’t you the one just lecturing me about resources?”
Ebrim and Yula traded looks. “Let us know what you decide,” Ebrim said delicately. “And there’s something that’s come to my attention. No one’s come forward themselves, but I’m hearing rumors of other servants having, oh, encounters with the queen. Strange ones. She wasn’t what I’d call beloved among us, but this is new.”
“What kind of new?” Fie asked warily.
Ebrim ran a finger along the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezing shut. “Mind you, it’s all hearsay. But the story always starts with three or more servants on a job. One, just the one, gets called off by an attendant of the queen. They don’t return for at least an hour, maybe more, and when they do … they can’t remember a damned thing about where they’ve been.”
“Not a scratch on them,” Yula added. “Same clothes, no sickness like they’ve been drugged, nothing to say what they’ve done. The last thing they all remember is the queen’s attendant leading them away.”
Khoda set down his bowl, face sour. Then he got up with a grumble of “Of course she has one” and wrote below Rhusana’s ASSETS: Owl witch.
“Seems like an awful lot of trouble to keep her secrets,” Fie said around a mouthful of stew. “Why not just kill them?”
Yula covered a small gasp with a sleeve.
“What?” Fie blinked at her. “She murdered a whole score of Crows just to take my teeth.”
Ebrim eyed her like she was a feral cat. “The queen could pick off a half dozen Sparrows, certainly, but there’d be too many gaps in the schedules, too many worried families looking for them. Someone would notice.”
Fie let the unspoken question hang over them all: And no one noticed twenty Crows dead in the road?
That was the pinch of it, though. They’d notice. But so long as the plague beacons were answered, they’d look the other way. And since the Crows would starve without viatik, those beacons would keep being answered.
Khoda turned back to the rest of the room. “I take it no one’s named names, for fear of the queen.” The Sparrows nodded. He started pacing in a circle, scowling. “I’ll check with my other informants, but if she’s only targeting Sparrows, then you two will be my best sources. And I’ll need everything, as soon as possible. If she’s going to this much work to keep something quiet, especially at a time like this…”
“It’s ugly,” Fie finished.
Jasimir nodded. “Maybe ugly enough to sink her.”
“The night kitchen shift has also been hit with a rush order for more savory finger foods,” Yula said. “And the wine-master was given orders to have more casks of dry white wine ready by noon. Lights are on in the calligraphy scribes’ offices, too.”
“Invitations,” Jasimir said. “Light refreshments and white wine? She’s throwing an afternoon revel.”
Khoda looked at Fie. “Well?”
“You don’t have to do this.” Jasimir put a cautious hand on her shoulder. “We can find another way.”
Fie thought of Pa and Wretch and all her Crows, all the Crows across Sabor, waiting for the queen’s knife to fall to their throats. She’d made an oath; she’d bought them a king. She meant to keep it.
“Aye,” Fie whispered. “I’ll do it.”
Khoda only nodded shortly. Then he lifted the chalk to Tavin’s name and wrote, under WEAKNESSES, Lady Sakar.
* * *
In her dream, she knelt before a throne, silk knotted too tight round her head. It took but a thought to light it, and in the glassblack panes she saw her own reflection crowned in golden fire.
We have chosen, a crowd chanted at her back. We have chosen.
You chose wrong, she wanted to tell them, oil seeping into her scalp and down her brow, down her cheeks, until her reflection’s face was streaked with fire.
* * *
You walk like a mammoth, grumbled the undead spark of Niemi Navali szo Sakar.
Better a mammoth than a ghost, Fie thought back. She’d known she’d need the dead Peacock’s help to survive mingling with the gentry, but that didn’t make it any easier to have her voice rattling around Fie’s skull. It was one thing to borrow her face for a moment. It was another to shroud herself in Niemi’s face, her thoughts, her memories, for the whole of an afternoon. Fie could only hope she never saw the memory of Niemi leading Oleanders to Hangdog’s band; with any luck, batting her lashes at a false prince would be enough to keep the Peacock ghost occupied.
Since she’d called on a brand-new tooth of Niemi’s, though, the spark had no notion why Fie had brought her along. There were a great many things that vexed the Peacock girl, but none quite so much as the fact that she’d never had a chance to see the royal palace in person, and now a Crow was using her face to sneak into the queen’s own revel.
Not that much sneaking was required; an invitation had arrived just that morning, requesting the company of the Sakar family in the Midday Pavilion. Fie had surrendered that invitation at a gate made of an ornate gilded trellis, where vines thick with gold-orange blossoms were molded into the form of a phoenix perched on the apex o
f the arch. Trailing vines made up a fantail like a curtain over the entryway.
Perhaps Rhusana meant to say that she had no fear of phoenixes, even after the previous night. Or perhaps she’d just picked the easiest pavilion.
Now Fie strode down the sandstone walkway, taking in the terrain. The pavilion itself was a grand round structure, its roof like a bronze-laced parasol of amber-hued glassblack, the columns painstakingly brushed with gold leaf that faded into rose gold at the base. More of those climbing vines twined about brass lattices connecting the columns, their frilled petals fluttering down like drops of sunlight. The rim of a turquoise-tiled reflecting pool skirted the pavilion’s marble base like a moat, and more bands of turquoise tile ringed the pavilion like ripples in a pond.
Thankfully, stands of palms and cypress also offered shelter from the sun, which had passed noon an hour ago but refused to lessen its onslaught. A few Peacock gentry were milling about, but Tavin and Rhusana weren’t in sight, and Fie had no doubt the rest of the nobility were waiting to be fashionably late.
At least the plain gown they’d stuffed her into was made of light, gauzy silk. Both Khoda and Yula had insisted on it. Even though Peacock witches frequently glamoured their own outfits, they dressed in a base garment of the same cut so no one would reach for a sleeve and find bare skin instead.
“That’s all part of the Peacock game,” Khoda had remarked with a roll of his eyes. “It doesn’t have to be real. It just has to be real enough.”
She’d made sure to give Khoda a particularly unfortunate face when she glamoured a Sparrow attendant’s disguise for him.
Neither he nor Jasimir looked to be among the Sparrows Fie could see, but it was hard to focus with Niemi berating her with every step. Glide, you lumbering cow! Sway!
Fie clenched her fists and tried to glide. Instead she nearly tripped on her own hem.
Hopeless, the dead girl scoffed. And you thought you could be me.
I know, Fie spat back, that I’m better. Now show me what to do.
Niemi’s spark stayed spitefully silent. Fie fetched up against a cypress, seemingly to escape the sun.
I’ll embarrass you, Fie thought. I’m wearing your face, after all, taking your name, so they’ll think you’re the one—
Rage flushed from Niemi’s sulking spark. Fie felt her back straighten, her chin lift, then she was walking like she was suspended from a wire, graceful and smooth. The skirt of her glamour-gown trailed behind her, smooth as a lily on a pond, a cobalt blue color Khoda claimed the Sakars favored.
It’s only until you can sit somewhere seemly, hissed the Peacock girl. She marched Fie over to a wrought-bronze bench within the pavilion and plunked her down, only to stand her up again as a cry rang through the gardens.
“Her Majesty, Queen Rhusana! His Highness, Prince Jasimir!”
“Canape, Your Ladyship?” a familiar voice asked, dry. When Fie turned, she found the grizzled, drooping face she’d glamoured on to Khoda. He swung his tray to her, head down, and muttered, “Eat while you can. Try not to stuff your face.”
She took a delicate pastry, looked Khoda in the eye, and deliberately shoved it into her mouth while the rest of the garden’s attention was on Rhusana and Tavin. Niemi’s spark sniffed with disgust. Khoda wrinkled his nose at her, bowed, and swept away to bestow pastries closer to Jasimir. It was a risk bringing the prince here, but Khoda’s people had seeded rumors of Jasimir fleeing to the Shattered Bay overnight. Rhusana had already taken the bait, flooding the docks with guards; as far as she knew, he was halfway across the Sea of Beasts at this very moment, never to return.
“… condolences for Karostei.”
Fie’s head snapped round to find the speaker. Two Peacock lords stood nearby, and she recognized one: the man who had spoken for Rhusana from under his mantle of embroidered oleanders the night before.
He wore pale green today, but the subtle pattern of oleander blossoms had been wrought about his cuffs. Once could have been coincidence. Twice was a choice.
The other man was shaking his head mournfully, stroking a salt-and-pepper beard in a way that, with a sharp pang, reminded Fie too keenly of Pa. “It’s a disaster,” he sighed. “The high magistrate ordered an aid effort, so we’ll lose half the regional taxes for this moon just to rebuild it. They won’t even use the same land.”
“Old-fashioned superstition,” the Oleander lord murmured. “The king died of the plague, and here we stand. The Crows burned the whole town?”
“Even the walls. Their headman was supposed to weather it out. Supposedly they … overruled him.”
Khoda would tell her not to get involved. Pa would tell her not to get involved. Men like that had already decided what the way of it was, and until they paid for shutting out the truth, they wouldn’t change their minds. Sometimes even that wasn’t enough; even now, Fie could feel hums of assent from Niemi’s spark.
But what good was all this, the finery and gliding and mummery to make her into a Peacock lady, if she wasn’t going to do aught with it but lure a false prince?
Don’t you dare, Niemi warned too late.
“A band of Crows, one sword among them, overpowered a village headman and all the Hawks in his command?” Fie asked them loudly, trying to mimic the stodgy highborn affect. “Nonsense. This folly puts all Sabor in danger.”
The Oleander lord was staring at her with a peculiar kind of cool calculation, not because he cared for her thoughts but because he was running the numbers on the cost of vexing her. “Forgive us, young lady, but these matters do not concern you.”
Lord Urasa’s right, Niemi hissed frantically. You’re making a scene!
Good. Fie set her jaw. “Am I to wait until the plague spreads from his lands to ours, then?”
“If your family wants to keep letting bone thieves extort them for a service any peasant can provide, that’s your business,” the other lord huffed. “The queen proved they’ve been swindling us for, what, centuries now? And doubtless spreading the Sinner’s Plague themselves the whole time.”
Every throat Fie had ever cut flooded her head until every thought bled with rage. All she could think of were the children of Karostei. “And when the Covenant marks you for—”
“What’s all this now?” Tavin’s voice cut through the pavilion. Fie found him striding from the walkway, sun bouncing almost too bright off a sash of cloth-of-gold over his ivory silk tunic. The circlet he’d claimed to despise sat in his hair, and more gold flashed in rings cluttering his fingers, bracelets and armbands clasped round his wrists, even hoops through his ears. His features, though, belonged to Jasimir.
He took the steps up two at a time, a small act so familiar it made Fie’s teeth hurt. He nodded to the man Niemi had called Lord Urasa, the one wearing oleanders on his sleeves. “Don’t stop on my account. What could possibly have Lady Sakar so aggrieved?”
“Your Highness.” Lord Urasa bowed, as did the lord beside him. “This is all a misunderstanding. I believe the young lady places more faith in the Crows than either I or Lord Dengor.”
“You find their work distasteful?” Tavin asked, frowning.
“Unnecessary,” Lord Dengor answered. “We’ve seen adequate proof that anyone can burn plague-dead. I believe the only reason to persist in humoring the Crows is…” He shot a sideways look at Fie, and said with great meaning, “… sentiment.”
It was a tone she’d heard before, when Geramir had fretted that summoning Crows could be seen as favoritism. That simply treating them like any other caste had become, in their eyes, an act of unmerited generosity.
Be silent, Niemi half ordered, half begged. Leave it be.
But when fine lords left it be, it just meant Crows like her would have to deal mercy to children.
“How many deaths are you willing to answer for when the Covenant calls you to the next life?” Fie said instead.
Lord Urasa glanced at something over Fie’s shoulder and smiled. “Surely,” he said loud enough to ring across t
he pavilion, “the young lady is not calling the queen a liar.”
“Surely not,” a sharp voice echoed behind Fie.
Urasa bowed. So did Lord Dengor and everyone else in the area.
Fie’s stomach sank as she turned. Queen Rhusana was behind her, ice-pale eyes narrowed on her. Today her chimes were gone, replaced by a fine headdress of white gold shaped like a phoenix, its twin wings forming a diamond-studded fan in her silvery hair.
She was also wearing the same white tiger pelt Fie had first seen her in moons ago, the one Surimir had given her. But that was not enough for the queen: at her side paced a living, breathing white tiger, with pearls in its collar and a chain linked to a cuff on Rhusana’s wrist. Even that chain was wrought in the shape of oleanders.
This time, Fie was all too happy to let Niemi pull her into a graceful bow.
“Prince Jasimir.” Rhusana twitched a finger, and Tavin stepped forward, a furrow in his brow. “It seems our guest would benefit from expanding her perspective. Will you show Lady Sakar around the gardens?”
That sounded too much like an honor to be anything less than deadly. Fie’s stomach jolted as Tavin said, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”
“I think a visit to the western end may, perhaps, provide some … clarity.”
Tavin flinched so swift Fie barely saw, but he nodded. “Understood.”
Whispers swept around the pavilion, but what rattled Fie most was the glimpse she saw of Jasimir’s glamoured face in his Sparrow disguise, standing just on the other side of the pavilion’s bronze lattice screens. He looked stricken. Khoda had his elbow in a pale-knuckled grip.
“My lady.” Tavin was offering his own elbow, stiff and grim.
“Your Highness.” Fie bowed again, took it, and let him lead her from the Midday Pavilion, into the west.
The Faithless Hawk Page 21
