The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen

Author:Margaret Owen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

* * *

The dawn gave them no answers.

It did, however, allow them a small mercy. The supplies they’d abandoned were knocked about the clearing as if a drunkard had bumbled into them, but near all of it was salvageable. Beyond that, the visitors had left only two signs of their arrival. The first were strange, writhing drag marks all about the dirt.

The second was a thin film of something sticky and charred, left behind on the campfire’s now-dead coals. The outline was too plain to deny: a flat wedge with five dents at the broad end.

“It’s a footprint,” Tavin said. “Who steps in hot coals and doesn’t scream?”

“If we’re right about Rhusana being a witch, maybe those were people under her thrall.” Jasimir glanced at Fie, cautious.

She ignored him. If the prince thought a raid from an unseen nightmarish beast was enough to make her forget what he’d said, he had sore underestimated the depths of her spite.

Instead she cinched her pack shut. “We can ponder it on the road. Daylight’s wasting.”

Jasimir sucked in a breath. She ignored that, too.

Then Tavin pointed over her shoulder. “Fie, look.”

She twisted round. Above the treetops, a thin column of orange smoke coiled in the air to the north.

It seemed the Covenant had a long day in store for her. With a sigh, she yanked her pack back open.

“How far is it?” Tavin asked.

“Plague beacons start black.” She rummaged about for the goat-hide map. “Every league marker nearby lights up purple smoke. Then every league marker that sees purple lights blue, and then it goes green, yellow, orange, and red.” Sure enough, a new red curl rose from the south, where they’d passed a league marker the afternoon before. “So five or six leagues.” She spread the map out. A web of rivers and roads scrawled across the leather in seared lines and Crow signs, mottled in forests or hills.

“Is it Livabai?” Tavin peered over her shoulder. “Because that’s bound to be a trap.”

His breath caught her hair in a sore distracting manner. Fie gritted her teeth and tried to focus on the cities. Livabai sat on the shores of a lake, and she didn’t see one within seven leagues. “No.”

Her finger traced the flatway line, prodding out the beacon’s probable sources. The answers were not kind. “We know it’s north of here. If we’re lucky, it’s due north. If we’re less lucky, we’ll need to head west at the next crossroads. Worst is if it’s east.”

“Trikovoi’s northeast,” Tavin said. “So why is east bad?”

“Because then the plague’s more like to be in Gerbanyar.” She read out the city’s Crow signs. “‘Cold.’ ‘Don’t stay overnight.’ And best of all, ‘Oleanders.’”

Tavin’s frown cut sharp as Hawk steel. “That’s too risky.”

“They’re all too risky,” Fie said. “Pa told you: Crows go where we’re called.”

“And if you’re being called into a trap?” His frown didn’t budge. “Vultures passed us yesterday, then our camp was overrun by the world’s worst band of pipers, and now suddenly there’s a plague beacon from the same direction they both headed.

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