“Tavin told me you’d be a good king.” Fie’s voice stayed rough and low. “He believed it enough to give himself up. So maybe you earned the crown after all.”

Jasimir attempted a wan smile. “You can’t start being nice to me. It’s terrifying.”

Maybe they could make it like this. Fie didn’t want to let herself hope, but she hadn’t wanted to get attached to a mouthy Hawk, and that hadn’t square worked out, either.

Maybe they could make it to Trikovoi and get her kin back, get her Hawk back, save the Crows.

Maybe they could change Sabor.

“You get Nice Fie until sunrise,” she told the prince. “Then I am never letting you forget that you barfed on a corpse.”

The moon hung at an hour past midnight.

“Was your ma like the master-general?” Fie scraped the question from the exhausted fog in her skull.

Jasimir hesitated. “She … she was and she wasn’t. The army called her and Aunt Draga the Twin Talons for a reason, but in private, they were very different. Mother had more of a mind for diplomacy and court games. She could ruin anyone in one breath if they crossed her. Most of court quickly figured out not to.” His voice hitched. “Fie, I think—I think Rhusana murdered my mother.”

Fie straightened. “What? How?”

“Father uses Swan pavilions to host smaller events of state. He started going to Rhusana’s more and more one summer, then bringing her to the palace itself, and then by winter solstice…”

Fie remembered that day in cold Hawk Moon, when every beacon in Sabor lit up in black smoke. “What happened?”

“The doctor said Mother was ill, but they wouldn’t let anyone see her until … until the pyre. There were marks all over her throat, I saw them. And two moons after they burned her, we had a new queen.”

“So Rhusana poisoned her?”

“I don’t know.” Jasimir stared into the cold night. “No. I do. I just don’t know how she did it. I … I haven’t told anyone. Not even Tavin.” Jasimir shivered. “Maybe I should have sooner, but … he would have thought I was … weak for doing nothing.”

“Tavin or your father?”

His mouth twisted, bitter. “Both.”

Almost daybreak. Fie wasn’t awake, not truly, just staring into the hazy dark.

Jasimir’s mouth moved, forming words scarce above a whisper. He’d muttered the chant to himself enough times that Fie had lost count. “… I will not run from my fear,” he mumbled. “I will not forsake my blood. I will not dishonor my dead. By my steel, I swear.”

It wasn’t a watch-hymn, but Fie supposed the pretty words of the Hawk code worked near as good.

“I will follow until I must lead. I will shield until I must strike. I will fight until I must heal. By my nation, I swear.”