Fie had seen those hands stamped into every Saborian coin and woven into every flag, and now she could say she’d seen them wrapped around the neck of a queen.
Marriage had made the woman a Phoenix, but she’d been called the Swan Queen even before she left the courtesan caste’s pavilions. One of those empty thrones Fie’d passed belonged to her.
And in that moment, Fie kenned what part of tonight had fouled up.
It had been five hundred years, or somewhere near it, since the Sinner’s Plague had touched the royal palace. Five hundred years since Phoenixes had lit that plague beacon. Five hundred years since they’d called for Crows.
But if Queen Rhusana was here to pay viatik for these sinner boys, Fie knew sore plain who was under one of their shrouds.
The Crows were hauling the crown prince of Sabor to his funeral pyre.
CHAPTER TWO
THE MONEY DANCE
A dead prince lay in their cart like any other sinner, not an arm’s length away. Fie could scarce believe it. A prince. A Phoenix.
Some morbid part of her wondered if Phoenix boys burned like any other sinner. Maybe slower. At least they had the poor bastard beside him to compare.
But Pa didn’t move, still fixed to the spot even as the rest of the band pulled the cart nearer. And then Fie saw why.
The queen at the gate meant to pay them, to be sure; the steward at her side held the viatik in plain view. A viatik’s worth fit the family’s means, that was the rule. A Sparrow farmer might pay them in a sack of salt or dried panbread; a Crane magistrate might offer panes of glassblack. Viatik for royalty, though … Fie didn’t even know what would be proper.
She did know, however, that it wouldn’t be the dirty tabby squirming in the steward’s arms.
The night blistered with sudden, furious tears. A stray cat. Fair pay for a beggar at most. Not for two gold-sucking palace boys they’d marched seven leagues to burn.
Every frayed wisp of Fie’s patience twisted into a taut, angry wire.
The palace had leered at them, drawn steel on them, all but spat on them, and now they’d made a mockery of payment. Queen Rhusana didn’t care about sending her family into the next life with the barest scrap of dignity. All she cared for was flaunting the brutal truth: as queen, she could give Crows naught but contempt, and every time, Crows would have to take it.
No chief would abide this, not even one in training. Not even one facing a queen. Something had to be done.
The Crows were merciful, but they weren’t cheap.
The cart had near caught up to Pa. Fie leaned forward, blinking sweat and tears from her eyes. “Pa,” she whispered. The beak of his mask dipped. “Money Dance?”
For a long moment, he didn’t move. Then the beak dipped again.
For the first time that night, Fie grinned.
She jammed her nail-studded sole into the ground and stuffed every grain of spite into a long, satisfying scratch, the marble screaming for mercy. And then she screamed back.
Around her, the dozen Crows wailed in answer to the call, jolting to a halt. Thirteen torches clattered to the ground.
For the second time that night, the galleries above went silent.
The Crows shrieked again, Fie loudest of all, her pitch climbing at the end. The others took her signal and waited, stock-still. She counted out the quiet in her head: Four. Three. Two. One.
Another bloodcurdling cry tore through the hall from thirteen throats, its unmistakable anger echoing off distant archways. Another silence crashed in its wake.
On the third round of screams, the noble sneers were gone. All eyes hung on the motionless cart.
On the fifth round, half the gallery looked ready to cry.
Most fine lords and ladies had never been this close to Crows or plague-dead. To them, the plague was a poor man’s problem.
They didn’t understand that there were rules. That the plague cared naught for silks or jewels. That it left when the Crows said it could.
But by the thousand dead gods of Sabor, Fie wagered they were starting to catch on now.
She decided they’d stewed enough, and trilled the marching order.
Stamp. The thirteen Crows stepped forward as one, but the cart stayed in its place, its drag-ropes coiling on the marble like asps. Stamp. Hunting Castes, Splendid Castes, Common Castes—it didn’t matter. The Crows would teach every Saborian in this hall to remember. Stamp. Before, their threadbare black rags and long-beaked masks had made them look a