CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PLAYING THE FOOL
Tavin didn’t speak to her for an uncomfortable few minutes, pacing slowly down the sandstone walkway, her arm tucked into his. Fie didn’t know what awaited her, but from Jasimir’s face, it had to be something grotesque. Maybe it was a prison, or a scandalous exile from the palace grounds. Maybe something worse.
Fie dragged each breath in time with her steps, trying to steady her pounding heart. Rhusana would want her timid and trembling; Fie’d give no such satisfaction to her, nor to Tavin as her surrogate.
The silence swelled between them until a croak burst it like an overfilled water skin. Startled, Fie looked up.
Two crows perched on a nearby arbor shawled in purple wisteria. A third landed and cawed as she and Tavin drew closer.
Tavin’s brow furrowed at the sight.
“Are they not common in the south?” Fie asked after a moment. Her voice creaked from disuse. “Crows, that is.”
He blinked, almost as if he were startled to find her still there. “Not in the palace.”
Fie prodded the spark of Niemi’s tooth. If you ever wanted to flirt with a prince, now’s your chance.
The spark had kept its peace since Rhusana had cast them from the pavilion, no doubt seething that a Crow girl could tarnish her name so badly. The prospect of snaring a prince, though, was one too juicy for Niemi not to bite.
“I imagine there are much finer sights to see in the royal menagerie,” Niemi cooed through Fie. “Is it as marvelous as the rest of the grounds?”
“Well, it’s down a white tiger now,” Tavin muttered under his breath.
Fie felt her head tilt. “Is something amiss? I know I let myself get carried away earlier, but … we can still be friends, can’t we?”
She didn’t catch Tavin’s answer. A jolt had clutched her as they turned onto another pathway—the same strange, nameless dread that had clung to her in the hedge tunnels the night before, when she’d trailed him from the Hall of the Dawn. Every step seemed to send a clear, uncanny note through her bones until they hummed back.
Mercifully, if Tavin waited on a reply, he didn’t show it, marching stone-faced past another grand pavilion in shades of scarlet, violet, and orange—the Sunset Pavilion, no doubt. If he felt anything like the radiating tone of wrong, he didn’t show that, either. Instead he steered them closer to the royal quarters, which swelled up above them to provide a better view of the gardens. They passed an arch with a stone phoenix perching on skulls at its crest, marking a set of stairs that descended belowground, and instead climbed a flight of marble steps, emerging to a small plaza under the main veranda of the royal quarters.
That was when Fie saw it, less than a pace away.
It was as if the gods had simply punched out a great, perfect circle in the middle of the paving stones. Fie reckoned she could lie her entire band down in a head-to-foot line and still not touch both sides. Its walls were slick, unbroken glassblack, and the surface of the water could have been one more unmarred pane, still and black and seemingly bottomless. It lay too far below to touch—
Too far below to climb out.
And suddenly Fie knew, without words, that the horrible ring in her bones was coming from below the surface.
“I take it they don’t talk about the Well of Grace in the north,” Tavin said quietly.
She jumped, and his grip on her arm tightened. The edge was much too near for comfort. “N-no,” Fie stammered.
He was staring at the water. “It’s against the law, and the Hawk code, to raise a blade against royalty. So that rules out beheading. And Phoenixes can’t exactly die by fire. So this”—he waved his free hand at the waters—“is for when a Phoenix needs to be executed. The grace, you see, is the ordeal—fighting not to drown for as long as you can. It can take hours, even days. It’s supposed to be terrible enough that when the Covenant weighs the sins that got you executed, it’s balanced out by the suffering you endured, and then you can be born a Phoenix again.”
“How many—?” Fie couldn’t finish the question. From what she’d seen in the memories of Phoenix teeth, they were inordinately fond of recreational murder. There could be dozens, perhaps more than a hundred bodies at the bottom of that well. No wonder her bones ached so, from all that wretched, hopeless death.
“No one can say,” Tavin admitted. “Sometimes they fish out the bodies once they start floating, if they’re still worthy of being buried in the royal catacombs. Not always. And it’s not just for Phoenixes, but also for the people who cross them. Not even a Gull witch could summon enough wind to carry themselves out. They’ve tried.”
Fie shot him a sidelong look. Tavin was slipping, calling the Phoenixes them.
But suddenly his eyes cut to her. “Lady Sakar,” he said, terse. “Do you understand why the queen asked me to bring you here?”
The people who cross them.
Fie froze.
It had been a long, long time since she’d looked at Tavin as a boy who could kill her.
It would be so easy, a quick shove, and once she wore herself out screaming and trying to stay afloat, she’d be one more body at the bottom. They could call it an accident.
And every way she could fight him off, she would lose—she knew that as sure as the sun rose. He’d win with steel, he could not be touched by fire, and whatever she might wreak with a Hawk war-witch’s tooth he could easily undo with his own healing.
She’d just always trusted that Tavin wouldn’t hurt her, not when he needed her help, and then not while he held her heart. That wasn’t the boy Fie knew.
But this was a traitor with a stolen face.
She should have cut his throat while he slept.
“I know why I’m here,” she rasped.
He took a step back from the well’s edge, drawing her away with him, then unwound his arm from hers. “I’m going to play the fool,” he said tightly. “I’ll tell the queen I thought she just wanted you taken away from the party, and if you’re asked, we only passed by the well as we walked about the gardens. But if you ever speak openly against her again, she will know, and she will kill you.”
To Fie’s humiliation, her sight blurred with tears. She couldn’t help it; the well still droned in her spine, her heartbeat still crackled down her veins, she still hated him, missed him, she hated this awful palace and everyone in it and she wanted to go back to her roads and her crowsilk and her pa.
The words choked themselves free: “How do you live like this?”
Tavin’s face fractured the way it had the night before. He turned his head away and said, voice cracking, “They’re all short lives.”
Fie wanted to push him into the well for quoting her own words to a different face. She wanted to cry more because he’d remembered them.
All she did was scrub her face with a sleeve until she could speak again. “W-why are you helping me? Won’t the queen be angry?”
Tavin didn’t look at her. “I don’t want to answer to the Covenant for any more than I already have to,” he said heavily. He hesitated a moment, then turned to the stairs, offering his arm once more. She took it. “The palace is full of dark secrets. You don’t have to be another one.”
Fie gulped. She needed to manage something today, or Khoda might send her back to the well himself. “And if I like dark secrets?” she made herself ask.
Tavin’s eyebrows shot up, as if to ask, Even after this? He gave her a long look, one that ended with a hint of a smile. “Then I have a lot to show you, Lady Sakar.”
Niemi’s tooth-spark flickered at Fie, prompting. “You saved my life, Your Highness. If I may be so bold, I think you can call me Niemi.”
Something hitched in Tavin’s face, only to smooth over. He reached over to rest his free hand on hers. “Thank you, Niemi. And you may call me Jasimir.”
* * *
Jasimir and Khoda were both waiting for her at the meeting statue, and they fell in line behind her, seamlessly shifting from palace servants to pers
onal attendants as Fie strode toward the guest quarters.
Once they reached the empty chamber Yula had set aside for them and the door had shut, Fie found herself wrapped in an abrupt embrace.
“I’m fine, Jas,” she wheezed, but she hugged the prince back anyway.
Jasimir didn’t let go, but still managed to point a finger at Khoda. “You’re not allowed to yell at her,” he said, voice muffled in her shoulder. “I—I forbid it, do you understand me?”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Khoda sounded less acerbic than Fie had expected, but twice as tired.
“I thought they were—I thought he would—” Jasimir pulled back but kept a tight grip on her shoulders. “How did you get away?”
“He’s just going to play like he misunderstood.” Fie ducked her head. “He didn’t want to kill me. Let others kill the Crows, aye,” she added bitterly, “but he’s not up for drowning Peacock girls yet.”
“His Highness was right.” Khoda folded his arms. “We’re asking too much of you. I should have warned you about Dengor and Urasa—”
Fie shook her head. “I can do it. Hells, now Tavin and I are on a first-name basis. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Not if you had to take a trip to the Well of Grace to get there!”
Jasimir let her go, only to turn to Khoda, rubbing his chin. “No, no, we … we can work with this. The aristocracy will smell that lie a league away and know he intervened for her. It already looks suspicious that he’s courting a woman. If that becomes a point of conflict between him and Rhusana…”
“The strength of their alliance would also be questioned,” Khoda said.
Jasimir nodded. “Making an argument.”
Khoda pinched his eyes shut, rubbing the spot between his brows. “Yes. But no. But yes. Ugh.” He blew out a breath and fixed his stare on Fie. “We’ll take Tavin’s approach. You play the fool from now on, all right? A beautiful, elegant, empty-headed fool. The queen will have an easier time believing you’re just a naïve country bumpkin than a Peacock who puts the welfare of Crows over her own status in court.”
“And if Rhusana thinks you’re a fool, she may let something slip in front of you,” added Jas. “That’s how I survived five years of her.”
Fie shuddered, remembering the look on Tavin’s face when she’d asked how anyone lived like this. “Has it always been this way?”
Khoda and Jasimir traded looks. “Not always … this bad,” Jasimir said slowly.
A knock rattled the door. Fie scrambled to throw herself onto the nearest low sofa in a genteel swoon, as Jasimir stationed himself behind her with a palm fan, straight-faced. “What are you doing?” he whispered, bewildered.
“Being a fine lady,” Fie muttered back from behind a sleeve.
“You look like you’re dying in a tragedy play.”
“Silence, manservant,” she hissed, pinching her mouth at him as Khoda shot them both dirty looks and answered the door. Fie caught a ruffle of murmurs and the clink of silver. A moment later, a tray appeared in Khoda’s hands and the door swung shut.
“Refreshments for my lady,” he said loudly, then jerked his head at the door.
A shadow still lingered in the gap between the bottom of the door and its frame. They had an audience.
“Well then, bring them here!” Fie called in her most petulant snob voice. “What are you waiting for?”
Jasimir tapped her shoulder. When she looked up, he pointed to his open mouth, then drew a finger across his throat and shook his head.
Khoda set the tray down on a nearby low table. “At your leisure, Your Ladyship.”
The shadow at the door slipped away.
Jasimir tossed the palm fan aside, then went to the window, pushed the screen aside, and plucked a fresh frond from a palm outside. Then he approached the tray, tapping an index finger to his chin as he studied a plate of flower-shaped sweet biscuits, a soft white dome of cheese, tiny jars of jewel-colored sauces, and pitchers of chilled tea and water. He dipped the palm frond in the water; naught happened. He tried the tea next.
The tip of the frond withered instantly, and black lines spidered up even the untouched green. Jasimir hastily let the frond go. It sagged over the pitcher’s edge.
“Already trying to poison you, that’s a good sign,” he remarked, and picked up an envelope. “Oh, but she sent an invitation to her party tomorrow in the Midnight Pavilion. That’s a smart touch. It’s harder to argue that she’d bother inviting someone she thought would be dead.” Then he read something and wrinkled his nose. “Or perhaps not. ‘The pleasure of your company is specifically requested by His Royal Highness, Prince Jasimir.’”
Khoda lifted the tea, careful not to splash any on himself, and pulled aside the serving cloth beneath it. A slip of parchment waited there. He unfolded it, scanned a moment, then nodded to himself. “Yula says we can leave the food in the chamber pots and she’ll smuggle meals to us when she sends cleaning staff to the room.” He glanced at the door again, mouth twisting. “Rhusana’s still interrogating the Phoenix priests. She thinks they’re behind the failed ceremony and the prince’s escape, so that’s pressure off us for a bit. Two servants are missing. Both were called away from a team job, one yesterday, one shortly before the coronation, but they both returned. They only went missing after they left the palace and went into Dumosa.”
“Sounds like runaways,” Fie said. “Took off and didn’t look back.”
“Running from what, though?” asked Jasimir.
No one had an answer for him. Fie couldn’t help watching the rest of the palm frond blacken and die as it absorbed the tea.
Maybe Tavin was trying to protect her—not her, Niemi—by giving her status as his guest. Or maybe Rhusana meant to kill her publicly this time.
She couldn’t trust either of them. And no matter what Tavin said or what he did, it was all for a dead Peacock girl.
* * *
In her dream, she drifted on her back in cold, dark water, staring up at the sky.
“You can’t stay in there forever,” a woman’s voice called nearby. She came into view in between bright scarlet petals floating on the water: a soft, lined brown face, black hair braided in a crown over her head. The hood of her long, black silk robe lay flat over her shoulders.
“Watch me,” Fie heard herself answer, and let the water swallow her whole.
* * *
The Midnight Pavilion could not have been more different from the Midday Pavilion. Instead of vivid oranges and turquoises, this was a work of black marble, wrought iron, and lapis lazuli of deepest blue, all trimmed in gold. Instead of reflecting pools, alabaster fountains sent a fine mist across the warm night. Jasmine perfume hung in the air, wafting from vines stringing constellations of star-shaped blossoms below the clear crystal panes of the pavilion’s roof. Strings of silver and gold lanterns cast a shimmering light around the grounds.
More notable, though, were the hedges enclosing the garden, dotted with snow-white oleander blossoms. There was no chance that was a coincidence. If anything, Khoda had said, it was so open now that it was near becoming an opening: Rhusana was so busy signaling her support of the Oleander Gentry that she’d become overconfident in their popularity.
Fie had kept her thoughts to herself on that front, but all she could think of was the Hall of the Dawn, when the Peacocks had been asked to speak for the queen.
None of her skeptics had spoken for her then, but none of them had argued when Lord Urasa did, either.
The murmur of polite conversation hitched when Fie entered the garden on Tavin’s arm, letting the strains of flute and lyre songs well up in the gap. Her pale teal glamour-gown had been the subject of much debate between Jasimir and Khoda; it was meant to show deference to the queen, but too close to white and she’d make herself a challenger. Too intense a hue and the message would be lost. They’d settled for a muted seafoam silk with beading in blue and green to add the pattern of a fantail to the skirt.
It was al
l so beautiful, Fie had thought as she’d spun the glamour, recreating the work of days, weeks, months in an instant.
And with every sunrise, it was getting harder to remember that none of it was real.
But with every eye fixed on her now, it was all suddenly, horribly real. The conversation resuscitated itself with gusto after a moment, palm fan after palm fan snapping up to hide lips as the flurry of whispers rose.
The queen regarded them from a modest throng near the entrance of the pavilion, her white tiger seated beside her, tail flicking. If she was vexed that her Hawks had found no trace of Jasimir but the rumors he’d fled across the sea, she gave no sign.
“It’ll be fine,” Tavin said quietly. “Just follow my lead.”
Her grip on his arm tightened without even thinking. Irate, she started to loosen her hold—
Don’t, Niemi’s spark ordered, unbidden.
Fie near tripped over her own hem again. She’d meant to call the tooth only if she had to make conversation, but it had somehow come back to life on its own.
He thinks himself our savior now, Niemi continued. Let him.
She didn’t have a chance to argue; they’d drawn close to the queen. “Welcome, Prince Jasimir,” Rhusana said with a deep nod, then: “Lady Sakar.”
Niemi guided her into a peerless bow.
Stay down until she dismisses you, the Peacock girl whispered. Don’t look her in the eye.
“I trust you enjoyed your walk in the gardens with the prince.”
“Indeed,” she said, Niemi feeding her every word, “it was most instructive.”
From her bow, she could see the tiger’s tail lashing back and forth, like Barf’s when she spied a beetle.
“I am glad to hear it,” Rhusana said glossily. “I hope you enjoy this evening just as well.”
That’s your dismissal. Niemi lifted her back up but kept her head bent.
It’s also a threat, Fie snapped back. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Rhusana had tried to have her killed twice yesterday, she wanted to make sure Niemi Navali szo Sakar knew she might try a third time tonight. At least it would be hard to drown her in a pavilion. “Your Majesty is too gracious.”
The Faithless Hawk Page 22
