Fie took some small glee in it, at least, though she didn’t reckon she could claim credit. Crows perched on nigh every branch, every rooftop, every crest of the royal palace now. Even the oleander-walled Midnight Pavilion had surrendered its elegance to the cackling, rowdy birds, leaving nowhere for Rhusana to celebrate herself but the muggy indoors.
“Are you nervous?” Tavin asked.
Fie blinked up at him, arm twined with his. She’d been fanning herself with enthusiasm, part for the swelter and part to hide how her hands were shaking.
Pretend it’s about the ball. A tight smile dragged over her face. “A-A little, yes.”
It felt strange and sour to mimic Niemi like this. The dead girl’s teeth had stayed in the guest quarters; Fie knew the evening would be hard enough without Niemi whining in her skull. It savored even sourer, though, that it was almost too easy to copy the Peacock’s manners now.
“Don’t be.” Tavin reached over and briefly clasped her hand. “It’ll be fine.” He looked like a prince from a song, all brocade and cloth-of-gold, the circlet cutting a streak of gold through his hair, jewels shining at his ears, his fingers, his throat.
She could almost picture his true face beneath the glamour, and that hurt most of all.
Tonight would not be fine. It would end well for only one of them, and they were about to find out who.
Fie didn’t need Niemi’s help to keep that to herself as they passed a lovely golden sculpture of Ambra seated on a tiger, holding a banner aloft. She almost sneered at it before remembering a certain degree of reverence was expected.
Particularly under the eye of the queen. Even now, Fie could feel the prickles on the back of her neck. Rhusana was in fine form tonight, her white tiger collared in diamonds that matched her own headdress, more diamonds covering its unfurled glittering wings. A gem-embroidered veil trailed behind her, the full length of a man. Two pale braids secured her headdress, and four more fell at each side of her face, nearly touching the floor. White gold leaf had been pressed into intricate patterns framing her eyes like a mask, and her gown was wrought of thousands of gilded feathers, diamonds fastened at the tips of each. Curiously, she’d had the sleeves and bodice embroidered with fine black thread.
Tavin caught Fie sneaking one more glance at the queen. His mouth quirked. He leaned in and said under his breath, “Apart from the fact that she’s wearing enough money to buy Sabor twice over, you know what the worst part of that outfit is?”
“What?” Fie couldn’t help asking.
“They didn’t really think that headdress through. She has to walk through most doors sideways.”
Fie let out the most ungraceful snort she’d produced in the entirety of her near-seventeen years.
“Shh!” Tavin said, but he was laughing too.
The other partygoers cast sidelong looks their way, clearly vexed that not everyone was as miserable as they. Lord Urasa’s lip curled in particular, and he turned back to his conversation partner with an open sneer.
Then Fie saw who he was speaking with: none other than Rhusana’s accomplice in overtaking Draga’s camp, Lord Geramir.
Geramir was frowning at her. She saw him mouth “Who?” to Urasa.
Fie fanned herself faster. “When does the ball begin again?” she asked Tavin, trying not to squeak. The last time she’d seen Geramir, she’d told him the only Sakar child was dead. If she was lucky, he would have forgotten.
“Quarter hour or so, if we stick to schedule,” he said, then followed her gaze to Lord Geramir.
This time, she clearly heard the name “Sakar” from Lord Urasa’s lips. Then she heard Geramir repeat it, even louder.
Tavin tensed at her side. “It’s awful in here. Would you like to get some fresh air?”
“Y-yes.”
Then Tavin was steering them through the crowd, past portraits of dead kings and the swords of dead queens. Out of the corner of her eye, Fie saw Geramir heading straight for Queen Rhusana.
Khoda was going to kill her. Maybe it was still salvageable—she could just tell Tavin she needed the privy, change her glamour, melt into the crowd and hold to her part of the plan anyway.
Maybe that was better. He’d never know the girl he’d been carving kindnesses for in this wretched place had been his downfall all along.
They had just stepped out into a side garden, the sunlight just beginning to steep to gold, when a voice rang out at their backs. “Prince Jasimir.”
Tavin stopped, and they both turned. A Sparrow attendant was standing in the doorway, a thin smile on his face. On his uniform was the richly embroidered insignia of the queen.
“Her Majesty wishes to speak with you,” the attendant said. “And Lady Sakar.”
Tavin took a deep breath. “I’m afraid you’ll have to try the guest wing for Lady Sakar. She was feeling poorly, so my friend here, Lady Markahn, has stepped in.”
Fie stared at him, then wrenched her expression into a look of mild surprise.
“I see.” The attendant bowed and turned to the side, sweeping an arm toward the doorway. “We’ll send someone for her, then. In the meantime, Her Majesty awaits.”
Tavin unwound his arm from Fie’s and turned to her.
“I’ll … see you in the Hall of the Dawn,” Fie blurted out. “In fifteen minutes, right?”
He raised a hand that trembled and briefly, lightly, touched her face, gazing at her as if to memorize every scrap of this moment.
It made Fie want to scream.
Then he leaned in to plant a kiss on her cheek. His lips moved against her skin, breathing barely loud enough to hear:
“Yes, chief.”
He pulled back, spun on a heel, and left her standing in the garden as the queen’s man pulled the door between them closed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
FAITHLESS
The first thing that registered for Fie was the pounding of her own heart, a war drum in her ears.
The second were the crows, crying from the rooftop above.
Tavin knew. He’d—known.
How long had he—
Her veins were fire, her bones were ash, and he was gone, gone—
She stumbled over to a bench tucked in the garden’s corner, crashed down on it, tried to think, tried to breathe. He’d known. He’d known. But—answers, she needed answers, she needed to scream, she needed to burn this tower down and pull him from the embers.
Crow-song rattled above.
Fie’s hands were shaking almost too bad to pry Tavin’s tooth from the bit of rag she’d kept it in, but then she had it clutched in a shaking hand, her other scrambling for an Owl tooth. The spark of a long-dead clerk plodded out in her mind, a grandmother cracking her knuckles as Fie woke Tavin’s tooth next.
She saw flashes of memory, tried to shut them out; the Owl clerk politely stepped in and whisked them away.
I need—I need—
Fie tried to muster her thoughts into some semblance of a request but couldn’t pare it down. I need help.
The Owl clerk went to work. After a moment, she said: It seems the question you have is: How? From what I can tell, these are your answers.
Fie blinked, and the garden was gone.
* * *
He was nine, and someone was speaking to him: “If you truly love something, you’ll do whatever is best for it. You’ll give everything you have for it. You understand that, right? Love means sacrifice. It’s why your job is so important.”
Tavin nodded, though the idea scared him.
“You love your brother. And you love your country. You should be ready to protect them, no matter the cost. Can I trust you to do that?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he mumbled.
The king smiled down at him. “Good.”
* * *
He knelt by the side of the road, by a dead body in the green grass, an empty leather bag at its side.
He could have stopped this. He could have saved her if he’d pushed harder, if he hadn’t wai
ted for his mother’s permission—he could have saved her—
Fie was dead because he’d failed. He hadn’t given enough.
* * *
“You’re hardly a fool.” The Black Swan spy regarded him with a piercing stare. “You know the queen has to be preparing a strike, right?”
Tavin knew better than to answer right away. It had been clear Khoda was nowhere near close to being completely honest with them earlier, in his mother’s tent. If there were truths he’d squirmed out of stating in front of a small crowd, Tavin had come to pry them out.
But this was a test. Would he accept anything Khoda said because he was an all-knowing spy, or would he reject it because Khoda was clearly untrustworthy?
The way to play these games was neither. He’d survived the palace long enough to know. “She already struck at Fie, who wasn’t a threat. It doesn’t make sense to just ignore the small army marching behind Jas. But we’re all aware.”
Khoda nodded, tight-lipped but approving. “Rhusana doesn’t do things by halves, so when she hits, we’ll know. But that’s all I have for you, I swear. Like I said, we can’t get anyone embedded close enough to her.” His gaze narrowed. “You’re not a fool. So I want you to think about this: an army isn’t the only way Rhusana can be defeated. If she makes her move, and it doesn’t look like there’s a way out … We need someone on the inside.”
“I’m not a spy. Besides, Fie and Jas would never let me take that kind of risk.”
“They don’t have to know,” Khoda said.
“No.” Tavin felt the ugly fire in him bristle and hiss at that. “I won’t do that to either of them.”
“Then do it for both of them.” Khoda looked genuinely unhappy. “This is all still purely hypothetical. But we both know what Fie’s capable of. What she and the prince can do together. And we know what lengths they’ll go to save what they love.” He grimaced. “So if it looks like Rhusana’s going to win, if it looks like there’s no way out … Think about it. You could be what we need to take her down from the inside.”
Tavin didn’t answer. He didn’t want to think about it; he wanted Jas on the throne, and Rhusana in prison, and to stay with Fie as long as she abided him, which was hopefully the rest of their lives. “I’m going,” he muttered.
“Just in case,” Khoda called after him. “If you think it’s a good idea … might want to get a haircut.”
* * *
They were in his mother’s tent, Rhusana gloating and sauntering around like she did when she was sure of victory. He hated it, hated her, hated how easily she’d done it.
And now she was gripping his chin, whispering in his ear, and offering him the throne on a white-gold platter.
It was just as Khoda had said. There was no way out.
There had never been a way out. This was what he was supposed to do. This was sacrifice. This was love.
He just hoped that when Fie killed him, it would be quick.
He just hoped this was enough.
* * *
The Owl clerk’s voice broke through the fog. Is this enough? she asked. Or would you like to see more?
More, Fie answered.
* * *
Whoever had nearly broken into Jas’s prison was smart, but they were a terrible spy.
Then again, if Fie hadn’t just yelled that the only Sakar child was dead a few days ago, he wouldn’t have known. He suspected the person wearing her face now was banking on that.
“Is there an exit over here?” the spy asked, stepping toward the back of the statue. “I’ll just leave this way.”
“No—!” He seized her arm, reading the caste in her blood to know what he was dealing with—
A Crow.
A witch.
It hadn’t even taken her seven days to break into the royal palace and find a prince hidden in a secret prison known only to Phoenix monarchs.
She was absolutely going to murder him by the end of the week.
He’d never been more delighted.
Then he realized: if she had so much as a notion—if she knew the danger he was in, spying on the queen—she would kill herself trying to bring it to an end.
She already had to hate him for the choice she thought he’d made. He had to make sure she kept hating him.
It took everything in him to let her go.
* * *
The firebird roared over Tavin’s head, smashing into the wrought-gold sun behind the thrones. He liked to think that somewhere, Fie was laughing. He’d made sure she had the best view possible.
It had been a risk, giving Khoda the schedule for the coronation, but the Black Swan had assured him that whatever happened wouldn’t be traced back to him. He’d been right.
Fie had made it look like the work of an angry god, of Ambra’s ghost. For all he knew, it was.
* * *
It was night, and he was alone. Not in that hideous bedchamber—when his escort had hurried him up there the night before, after the disastrous coronation, he hadn’t precisely been able to sneak away. Tonight was different. He was in his own room, the one he’d spent the last nine years of his life in.
And he was lying on his own bed, face buried in the blanket he’d made sure to take with him from Draga’s camp, because it was the only thing in this entire damned palace that still smelled like Fie.
Rhusana had tried to make him kill her today. Not that the queen had known; she’d just tried to make an example of a dissident, with the added bonus of reminding him he was as much on a leash as her ridiculous pet tiger. But he’d seen it, the look in Fie’s eyes, when she realized how easily he could end her life at the edge of that terrible well.
She missed him throwing up after.
Now the only thing that gave him even a moment of peace was the salt-smoke-mint smell still lingering in the blanket they’d once shared.
He didn’t know how many times he could cry into it before the smell of her would be lost for good.
* * *
More? asked the Owl clerk.
More, Fie said.
* * *
Khoda’s instructions had been simple: Fie would want to go into the catacombs, and Tavin would take her there. They would both be looking and listening for anything strange, and if he found anything, he was supposed to act surprised.
That had been the plan.
It had not involved Fie kissing him.
He should have known better, but she’d looked ill ever since stepping into the catacombs, and it was his own damn fault for fussing over her until she decided to shut him up, and twelve hells, he’d missed this. He’d missed her more with every heartbeat. It could all be nothing, it could just be her playing along, but he wanted to believe she missed him, too, he wanted it like a drowning man wanted air. If he didn’t look at the glamour on her face, he could pretend all was as it had been, that there were no lies, no secrets between them.
He could pretend she might forgive him.
And now he was inches away from committing a blasphemy with her on Ambra’s casket. Though, admittedly, blasphemy had been something of a hobby of his as of late.
She was supposed to hate him. He was supposed to make her hate him so that when this all came to a bloody end, it would hurt less—at least for her.
It was selfish, this, in the most terrible way. And it was one more sin she would never forgive.
* * *
“Do you see the problem?” he asked.
His mother looked at the repulsive decrees spread across her desk, delivered from the queen’s footman not an hour ago. “First off, I won’t approve a single one of these. She’ll have to wait until after the coronation to exercise her right to command the military.”
Tavin had taken a gamble, reaching out to his mother after Aunt Jasindra’s room had burned. From Rhusana’s panic, whatever had been in there was critical to her, and from the shift he’d seen in people around them, he had a hunch what that was.
His mother had all but confirmed it, the loss of Rh
usana’s influence, as she’d merrily issued orders to light the plague beacons.
“Look closer,” Tavin said.
Draga did. Then she covered her mouth.
“It looked close enough. Rhusana didn’t check further.” It was one of his prouder moments: every single order Rhusana had put in front of him was signed not with Jasimir but Jasindra. Every one was worthless.
Except for one. He pulled a parchment from his sleeve, one signed by both Jasimir and Rhusana and bearing the royal seal. “I have a proposal,” he said. “And I think you’ll approve.”
* * *
“You know this is it,” Khoda said.
It was only hours before Rhusana’s final ball. He was ready, or at least he thought he was.
He’d done everything he could.
“The master-general won’t chase you. But getting out, that’s on you. Fie and Jasimir will have their hands full.” Khoda shook his head. “If you can make it to the Shattered Bay, give my name to the ferrywoman who works the sundown shift. She can make arrangements to get you across the sea. But there will be no place in Sabor for you after tonight.”
Tavin let out a short, harsh laugh, one that made Khoda give him a sidelong look. “Did you think there ever was?” he asked.
He’d done everything he could, given everything he could. He had no more left to sacrifice.
By every dead god, he hoped it would be enough.
* * *
The teeth did not offer her more, and Fie did not ask this time.
She sat in the garden, teeth clenched so tight in her palm that a distant part of her thought she might draw blood.
All along, Tavin had been helping her. Undermining Rhusana. Dying by inches. All along.
She’d thought he’d given up. She’d thought he didn’t believe they could win against Rhusana, that she was not enough.
The Faithless Hawk Page 29
