Serapio had forgotten he had cut his sewn eyes open. He raised a tentative hand to his face and felt lashes flutter against his fingertips. Strange that it already seemed so natural after so many years of lack. The crow at his shoulder cawed, and he understood. The healing of his eyes and his other wounds were part of the small crows’ gift. But if they could not mend the wound in his side, then it must be something of magic, too great for crows alone.
He rubbed his hands through his hair, suddenly tired of this place, this conversation. He did not like any of it, especially his ignorance and patchwork memory. He had always been a man of purpose and destiny, disinterested in what others thought of him, bound to a higher calling. But now he found himself bothered by the way Okoa cast half glances at him and held his words soft on his tongue to avoid offense. Even worse, he was frustrated by his own hesitancy, his own lack of confidence, the missing part of him where his god should be.
He stood. “I need to go back to Tova. I have unfinished business there with the Sun Priest.”
He was sure that if he returned, his purpose would return, too, and his god as well. And perhaps, perhaps, if he still lived when it was all over, he could find Xiala and continue what they had begun. The last was too much to hope, but he found himself hoping it anyway.
“How soon can we return? We have lost too much time here while I slept.”
Okoa’s look was pensive, and Serapio could feel the man’s unvoiced thoughts like an itch between his shoulders.
When Okoa finally did speak, his words came slowly, heavy with portent. “While there are those in Odo who have long awaited your coming and will rejoice that the Odo Sedoh has returned, they are not everyone. You were raised far away. Cuecola? Obregi, you said before?”
“I am Carrion Crow.” A thin line of anger threaded his voice. For Okoa to label him an outsider even after all he had done cut through him more painfully than any Knife. Now it was Serapio’s turn to show his haahan and bare his red teeth. “Do you not see?”
Okoa’s eyes stayed on him. “Even so, there are things about Tova you do not understand. Please.” He smiled, a small tilt of his lips. “Cousin.”
The familiar address warmed Serapio in a way he had not expected. Is this what it feels like to have kin? he wondered.
Okoa’s words were careful, measured. “The Watchers were well loved among the Sky Made. Many were scions of the clans. There are even those in Odo who did not hate them as the Odohaa did.”
“There are Carrion Crow who loved the priests?” Nothing his mother or his tutors had said had hinted at such a thing. “But they were your enemies.”
“There were likely Carrion Crow among the dedicants you killed. Our history with the Watchers is complicated.”
The thought rocked Serapio back. Perhaps Okoa was right that he did not understand, perhaps his impatience was shortsighted. He had always seen the world starkly: Crow against Sun Priest, himself against the world. Nothing in his life, except perhaps the brief time he had spent with Xiala, had suggested reality was otherwise.
“You said that the Odohaa would welcome the Odo Sedoh, but what you have not said is that all of Carrion Crow would do the same.”
“There is something they taught us at the war college: When you upset the balance of power, there will be those who resent you, no matter if your cause is righteous.”
“There is something I learned, too, from one who trained at the war college. ‘Make them fear you.’?”
“Spearmaiden bravado.” Okoa smiled knowingly. “I was told you trained with a spearmaiden. The Sky Made will fear you,” he acknowledged, “but not forever. Fear turns to anger, and Carrion Crow clan will surely be the target of that anger. If the clans turn against us, if they seek Crow blood, what then? Will you fight for Carrion Crow now as fiercely as you did on Sun Rock?”
“I thought you said I was a man too easy with killing, yet now you ask me to be that killer for you.”
“I am not unaware of the irony, but I see no other way.”
A weapon, always. Whether his god asked or this son of Carrion Crow, his purpose was the same. There was a peace in it, the kind a man feels when he excels at his calling. But there was something else there that chafed, made him feel unseen and disposable.
“Are you not the Odo Sedoh?” Okoa demanded, his measured patience replaced by outrage, and Serapio realized he had taken his silence for refusal. “Are there not people crying out not only for vengeance but for protection? Will you not be both a weapon and a bulwark?”
Okoa vaulted to his feet, and Serapio braced for an attack. But the man only began to pace, fresh anger radiating from every powerful stride.
“I helped you,” Okoa said. “I watched over you. Took you far away to where your enemies could not find you. I do not think it is too much to ask you to return and fight for Carrion Crow.”
“Are you saying I owe you this?”
“Yes! But…” Okoa faltered, his expression contrite. “I do not ask it for myself. I ask it for my people.”
“Your people and my people are the same. Cousin.”
“Then you will do it?”
He cupped his hands, resting them in his lap. They were so empty they ached. He wondered how he could promise anything when he had lost hold of his god. And if he did not hold his god, what did he hold? The stars, Xiala would say, and the thought made him smile. But he was not sure he believed it.
“I will come to Tova,” he agreed. “And then we will see.”
CHAPTER 4
CITY OF TOVA (COYOTE’S MAW)
YEAR 1 OF THE CROW
And Coyote said, I have no desire to live among the Sky Made. Let me build my home here in the cool cliffsides under the light of the moon and call the revel to me. And on the last day when the ancestors are accounted, we will see who has lived the better life.
—From Songs of the Coyote
Who are you?
A hand stroked Naranpa’s hair, soft breath tickled her ear. And she was a girl of ten again, snuggled tight against her mother in the room in which her family of five slept. Father and mother on one side, then Nara in the middle, and Denaochi and Akel on the other side, all stretched out on reed mats on the floor, shared blankets between them. Body heat kept them warm through the cold Tovan nights when the wind rattled through the Maw strong enough to smooth stone, and in the sweltering summers, she and her brothers would sleep outside on rounded rooftops. But it was winter now, wasn’t it? Just after the solstice. Nara’s thoughts hitched. There was something about the solstice. Something she needed to remember.
Nara? Is that your name? Why do you shine here, Nara?
Because she was special. Mama had said so. Smart and kind and special, and that was why she was picked to serve in the tower.
The tower? The voice sharpened with interest. Do you mean the celestial tower? Tell me what they taught you in the celestial tower.
So many things, Nara wanted to say. How to map the courses of planets, how to mold the earth to better mirror the heavens, how to understand celestial patterns and predict the future.
You were a dedicant. But who are you now?
She shied away from the question. There was pain there, something she didn’t want to think about.
She thought of Mama instead, and the last time she had seen her. It had been the day she left to serve in the tower. A spring morning, and her brothers, Akel and Denaochi, were there, but her father had not come. Mama said it was too hard for him to say goodbye.
These childish memories. The voice sounded annoyed, exasperated by her retreat. Forget them. Focus. Who are you now?
A hand trailed across her scalp and then down her neck, the rake of fingernails against her skin raising goose bumps as they passed. She shivered. There was something she was forgetting. About winter and the solstice. And something Denaochi had told her about her mother, something important.
Who are you now? The voice sounded angry, impatient. Fingers that had caressed her moments ago now closed around her throat. She opened her mouth to scream, but only a dry choking cough came out. The hand tightened.
Who??
Nara clawed at her attacker, desperate to break the hold. She couldn’t breathe. Desperation welled up, hard and sudden. She was going to die if she didn’t break free. If she didn’t answer.
I am the Sun Priest!
Silence, like the echo after a bell. And then a swirl of outrage and disbelief.