She did not argue. All she wanted was to clean the grave dirt and witch’s blood from her body and sleep. She rubbed at the warm place over her chest. She wanted an answer to that, too.
He stood and held out his hand, the one missing three fingers. She took it and held on tight. No longer angry, only grateful she was not alone.
CHAPTER 5
CITY OF TOVA (DISTRICT OF TITIDI)
YEAR 1 OF THE CROW
There are no tides more treacherous than those of the heart.
—Teek saying
“Xiala, come back to bed,” Aishe said, her voice still thick with sleep. “There’s nothing to see out there.”
“A moment,” Xiala said from her perch at the window.
It was a pleasant view across the canyons of Tova at sunrise, or so Aishe had informed her. In the time she had stayed in this room with the Water Strider girl, the sun had not risen, so Xiala could not confirm it for herself. Instead, the sun had hovered on the horizon like a bloated mango, casting only enough light to shadow the city in an eerie perpetual twilight. She knew who was responsible for this impossible sun, if not how he had done it, and despite the fear the unnatural sky roused in her, all she could think about was seeing him again.
“You’re not going to find him staring out the window,” Aishe said, her voice soft with sympathy.
“I know.” And yet she could not stop her eyes from searching the streets below her.
People scuttled quickly between buildings, huddled against the winter and the darkness. The bridge that led to Sun Rock stood empty, swaying in the violent winds that had rocked the city since solstice. And there was Sun Rock itself, visible in the far distance, the last place she knew with a certainty he had been.
Aishe came to her, wearing only a long sleeping shirt. She wrapped her arms around Xiala and kissed the place behind her ear that she knew Xiala liked. Xiala smiled half-heartedly as the woman continued to lay a track of kisses down her neck. One arm held her close as if she were a rabbit who might bolt, while her free hand wandered. She traced fingernails down Xiala’s upper arm, before cupping her breast and running a thumb across her nipple. It was a question, and Xiala tried her best to answer. She closed her eyes and forced herself to relax into Aishe’s embrace, but it was useless. Her gaze was drawn back outside to the perpetual twilight and to Sun Rock, seeking the impossible.
Aishe halted her seduction with a resigned sigh, defeated. Xiala hadn’t always been so apathetic to Aishe’s touch. In the hours after the solstice Convergence, they had found each other on the streets of Titidi. Desperate to put Serapio’s death behind her, Xiala had fucked the girl against an alley wall as the world fell to chaos around them. They had done it again in Aishe’s rooms in the early hours before dawn, with an urgency that Xiala had to admit was driven more by desperation than by lust. And when the sun had failed to rise, they found themselves entwined again, this time more in fear than anything else.
By afternoon, the clamor that had filled the streets the night before had fallen into stunned silence, as if the whole city held its breath and waited for the end of the world. But the world did not end, and they eventually roused themselves to find food. Aishe had taken her to the house terrace, where they found Tyode and Zash. The brothers told them the accounts of what had happened on Sun Rock under the shadowed sun.
“More than two-thirds of the priesthood dead,” Zash whispered, as the four of them huddled over bowls of cold beans. “Every Society head dead. Oracle, Healing, Historical, even Knives. Laid out in a row like some sort of sacrifice.”
“It had to be him.” Tyode’s voice was filled with an awe that bordered on admiration. “Who else could do it? Defeat the Knives and half a dozen Golden Eagle Shields before the clans scattered.”
“Don’t sound so happy about it,” Aishe hissed at her brother. “We brought him here, didn’t we? Eyes will turn back to us when people find out.” She shuddered and made a sign to ward off evil.
“They won’t find out,” Tyode protested, but his tone was subdued. “And if they did, we’re innocent. We didn’t know what he had planned.”
Xiala had known, but she had kept her mouth shut, and she kept her mouth shut now again.
“Do you really think they’ll care about the details?” Zash’s gaze cut to Xiala and then away, as if embarrassed. “We knew he was an Odohaa assassin. He practically told us he was going to kill the priests.”
“Maybe he told you.” Tyode sounded defensive now. “But I figured he was just a braggart.”
None of them bothered to respond, the revision such an obvious lie. Maybe Xiala was the only one who had known for a fact, but the siblings had certainly suspected.
“It just didn’t seem possible,” Tyode finally said. “No matter what Uncle claimed he was.”
Xiala did not argue with the Water Strider siblings. They were good people and had taken her in. They had only known Serapio for a few days, only seen him on the barge as a novelty. But she had seen him in his power, had been there when he had slaughtered her crew, and she had said nothing, warned no one what he was capable of. Perhaps she couldn’t quite believe it, either. It was hard to reconcile the killer with the gentle, solicitous man she knew. The one who had saved her life, the one who had not judged her but cared for her. Who whispered sweet nothings to crows as he stroked their feathers. The one she had grown to love.
“What will he do now?” Tyode asked. “Do you think he will come for us?”
They had all turned to Xiala. At that time, she had thought him dead and said so. Only later would the rumors come to their ears of the great crow that had left the Rock with two figures on its back, and that he had survived, and that Carrion Crow sheltered him even now, had been in on it all along. She knew better, knew Serapio had not known anyone in the clan and certainly hadn’t conspired with them. But again, she said nothing. What was there to say? To her new friends, or to anyone?
The four of them had sworn not to speak of it again, and they had held to that promise, as far as Xiala knew. But her instincts told her it was only a matter of time. Four was too many to keep a secret, and eventually one of the brothers, or even Aishe herself, would let slip that they had brought the Odo Sedoh to Tova.
Probably Zash, she thought. She could feel it, in the way he watched her at mealtime but turned away when she tried to meet his gaze. He had never asked about her unusual eyes, never inquired about where she was from, but it would come eventually. And as his suspicions grew and fear gave way to anger, he would be the first to accuse her. It was only a feeling, but it was one she knew well. Soon people like Zash would be looking to blame someone for what had befallen Tova, and experience told her she made an excellent target. She wondered what they did to Teek here. Did they collect their fingers and throat bones? Wear their eyes on rings, as she had once been told? Or would the mob just rip her apart, no time for a delicate filleting when their priests were dead and the sun had somehow ceased to rise and set.
“You can’t stay, you know.”
Aishe’s voice broke her from her reverie, bringing her back to the seat in the window and the hole in her heart. Aishe rested her chin on Xiala’s shoulder, and for a moment, Xiala thought the girl had read her mind. But one glance at Aishe’s morose expression told her the reason she was kicking her out was more mundane than blaming her for the darkness that had enveloped the city.
“I know I said you could, but…”
“You don’t need to explain.” Xiala understood. They had crossed the line from friends to lovers, but Xiala’s heart belonged to someone else, and Aishe was sensible enough to end things before either of them became too entangled to get hurt. In Xiala’s defense, when they did what they did, she had thought Serapio was dead.