“Correct. ‘I will serve my nation.’” Draga folded her arms. “Before I serve the throne. I agree that the Oleanders pose a significant threat, but I don’t consider alienating allies good for my nation. And that is what I serve first.”

Every Phoenix tooth in Fie’s string wanted to burn Trikovoi to the ground. She knotted her hands to keep them still. If the Hawks thought her teeth a threat, they’d take them, too.

Jasimir sent Fie a look that said, This isn’t over.

Fie wished she could believe it. She might yet get her kin back, but without the master-general, the oath lay hollow as a skin-ghast.

“Tomorrow, we’ll work on rescuing the hostages.” A shadow crossed Draga’s face and vanished. “You two will be quartered in adjacent private rooms. I’ll arrange for baths and meals to be provided. Open the door only if you hear four knocks, understand?”

The last comment ought to have been aimed at the prince. Instead, the master-general’s steely gaze pointed at Fie.

Of course. Draga didn’t trust her own troops to guard Crows on the road. Why would a fortress be any different?

“Aye,” Fie said, matching her stare, steel for bitter steel. She’d get Tavin and her kin back. She’d stop the queen. But the fight for the oath—for Crows to walk more than a murderous road—was nowhere near over. “I understand.”

Fie was not sure what to make of the bed.

In her sixteen short years, Fie had slept indoors, outdoors, on sun-warmed dust, in shady tree boughs, on the tiles of shrine floors, through sweltering heat and relentless rains and sometimes creeping frost. She’d slept on mountain and plain and in city and marsh.

But she had never slept in a fortress. The room itself was peculiar enough: plain stone walls lined with heavy tapestry, more diamond-shaped windows barred against intruders and the moonless dark, a cold brazier, oil lamps dangling in the corners. Fie had been surprised to find both her swords left in a plain rack. Then she kenned why: the Hawks had decided they didn’t pose any true threat in the hands of a Crow.

A puddle glossed the floor where a copper tub had waited for her alongside a change of clothing and an array of soaps and ointments. Stone-faced cadets had borne the tub away after she’d scrubbed off the smoke and road dust, and they’d returned with a finer dinner than she could conquer. Even now, a lukewarm skin dried over leftover chunks of goat and squash swimming in a rich cream sauce. Draga had even sent them with a small bowl of salt, a thoughtful touch that Fie despised.

But she still wasn’t wholly sure of the bed.