A proper Crow would be with her people tonight. A proper chief-to-be would line up with the other trainees, wearing wreaths of magnolias, and wait. One by one, the old chiefs would cut their own strings of teeth, tie them round the throats of the new, and hand off their broken blades. Magnolia crowns would be cast to the pyre, and then …

Then, if Fie were a proper Crow still, she would have been a true chief.

A watch-hymn drifted through the window. Fie fled.

A Sparrow tooth slipped her past the guards tossing shells at hall’s end. The farther she went, the more she lost herself in the craft of Trikovoi, mammoth ivory rails wrought in angular pattern-knots, a fine-carved snow lion grasping a bundle of lit juniper incense in its marble jaws, mahogany columns and rafters carved for purpose, not pomp.

Tavin had only said his mother rode mammoths in the Marovar, not which fortress she rode for. Was that why he’d been so adamant to come to Trikovoi—he’d hoped to find her here? Had she been watching, waiting when Fie and the prince staggered into the road, only to find no sign of her son?

Or was she asleep in some other cold stone fortress, unaware that Tavin lived only as long as Tatterhelm allowed?

Fie’s gut knotted. She ought to be claiming her own from the skinwitches. She ought to be burning her magnolia crown on a pyre. She ought to be able to stop thinking of Tavin, even for a moment.

Instead, she hunted for her way out.

Then, as she passed the entrance of another grand hall, something snagged her eye: a figure that belonged behind ranks of soldiers.

She let the Sparrow tooth go and slid into the hall. Jasimir glanced up and raised his eyebrows at her, unsurprised.

“How did you get past the guards?” Fie whispered as she walked over.

“Practice.” Jasimir shrugged. “Sometimes I’d need to attend a state dinner or the like, but we’d get wind of some potential threat. Tav took my place, but I usually snuck out anyway. Mother only caught me the first few times.”

He gave a strained smile, and with a start, Fie saw what had drawn him into this hall: a fine painting over his shoulder. Two women, nigh identical in their armor, their flinty stares, even the hands resting on their saber hilts. Twin Talons.

Fie stepped closer, studying the portrait. After a moment she pointed to the figure on the right. “That’s your mother?”

He nodded.

She could see it, now that she’d met Draga. Jasindra’s dark eyes sparked nearer to gray than gold, like Jasimir’s; Draga’s nose arched in a way neither her sister’s nor her nephew’s did; all three shared a narrow jaw and lanky build. But Jasimir’s sharp-cut mouth and broad cheekbones had come from the king to be sure.