But she slowed to read the last section, titled “On the Establishment of the Watchers.” It was further divided into four sections that explained the overall responsibilities of the Watchers, the individual responsibilities of each order, and the methods of replenishing their number. But the part she was most interested in was the section on the rites of investiture.
She had been thinking about it ever since she’d had the vision of the firebird losing her scales in battle, and on the heels of that, the woman who had brought back the sacks of golden scales to be forged into something worth dying for, and the spill of human blood mixed into the mask mold. The rest of the visions fit the pattern, too, right up to the one of the man on top of a tower in the rain, mask in hand.
She wasn’t sure of the mechanics of it all, but she was convinced there was something more than theater in the wearing of the Sun Priest’s mask. She had always loved the mask, felt a strange connection to it, even though it had not been in her possession long. She had thought herself simply attached to a symbol of her station, but now she wondered. If the vision had been true, and the mask was not forged gold but instead was wrought from the very essence of the god, what did that mean? And if the teeth and sweat of a god were used in southern sorcery to attempt to resurrect the dead, what might be done with a god’s golden scales? And what did it mean to wear it? Might wearing the mask infuse the wearer with power? She wasn’t sure, but she hoped to find the answers in the book.
She read it through carefully, and while it confirmed her suspicions about the origin of the mask, it said nothing about it granting the wearer any powers. She turned to the pages describing the other priests’ masks, hoping to find something there, but there was even less written for those, only that the priests were meant to be anonymous to guard against any one individual rising in popularity. The priesthood was meant to be a selfless vocation and not one that allowed any single priest to develop leadership based on the strength of personality. It was something that had become less important in her time, but the signers of the Treaty had railed against individual charismatic leaders at length, no doubt a reaction to the spearmaiden who had started the war.
Tired, and disappointed that she had come so far and found so little, she read through the final page. She skimmed it so quickly and the ritual seemed so mundane that she almost missed it.
She had experienced the ritual herself, and yet she had not recognized it for what it was. The blood-marred scales that made the mask, the invocation of the sun god, the will of the raised dedicant, and the declaration of desire. It was all there, plainly written.
Anyone who knew what to look for would have seen it immediately. In fact, she had no doubt that those who established the Watchers three hundred years ago knew exactly what they were doing. But she had never thought to see it, because she had been told a thousand times that the Watchers did not practice magic. That they did not worship the old gods. That there was nothing mystical in their rites, only reason and order.
And they had been sorcerers all along.
* * *
She hurried from the ta dissa’s sacred room to a more familiar section of the library. On these shelves were the day-to-day references of the Sun Priest, the oft-consulted Manual, and other documents. She flipped through them, an unnamed urgency pushing her forward, but there was nothing about the Sun Priest’s powers. Nothing about magic. Skies, to even say “Sun Priest” and “magic” in the same sentence felt blasphemous enough to rot her tongue.
Exhilaration buoyed her on to the next document, and she flipped through the pages looking for any information that would help her understand the heat in her chest and the change in her eyes. Her eyes! With a sudden jolt, she remembered Kiutue’s eyes. They had been flecked with gold as well. Almost a deep amber by the time he reached his end. Why hadn’t she thought of it? How had she not put the puzzle pieces together? All the elements right in front of her, but she had been taught not to see them.
She slammed the last book closed. Nothing. There was one more place to look.
She ran up the stairs to her old rooms. She was at the door and pushing it open, caught up in the giddy joy of discovery, before it truly hit her. There was her old bed, and there her desk, and there her washbasin… and there the stand where the Sun Priest’s mask should have been. It was gone. Someone had taken it. It took her brain a moment to realize that Eche must have been wearing it when he was killed on Sun Rock. Had it been lost, or had her vision of the man in black holding it been the past and not the future after all, a vision of the Crow God Reborn claiming it for himself? She didn’t know, and she could not answer the question now. She had other mysteries to solve.
She had always kept a small library here of her personal books, things like Kiutue’s journal and her own. She hoped perhaps there was insight there in her old mentor’s words, something she had overlooked in her previous ignorance. But as she opened the drawer in the bottom of her desk to retrieve the journal, she realized her mistake. These were not her old rooms—they were Eche’s old rooms. And in the one day he had been Sun Priest, he had managed to dispose of anything here that might have been hers.
She dropped heavily to the bed, defeated. If there was nothing here to tell her of her potential powers, and there was no one alive of the Watchers to consult, then she was on her own. She might have powers within her, gifts from the sun god passed to her through investiture, but if she didn’t know how to use them, what use were they? And what chance did she have against the Crow God Reborn if she couldn’t wield anything more formidable than a glowing hand?
Somewhere a voice cried out. She lifted her head, listening, unsure if she had imagined the sound. No, there it was again, faint but real. Her pulsed ticked up. Someone else was here.
She made her way to the door, listening. It was coming from above, but the only thing above her was the open-air observatory where the Conclave met. Another sound, this time a thump, like a heartbeat awoken, and she took the stairs, one by one.
CHAPTER 15
CITY OF TOVA (DISTRICT OF ODO)
YEAR 1 OF THE CROW
No miracle is beyond the Odo Sedoh!
He shall heal all wounds
And bind all that is broken.
He shall cast down our enemies
And lead us out of despair.
—Prayer to the Odo Sedoh, recorded at a meeting of the Odohaa
Serapio swept through the crowd, leaving Okoa behind. He whistled for his crows, asking one to come and help him see, but he dared not wait for a reply. Every moment he waited was a moment away from Xiala.
He could see enough to make out the barest of shapes and shadows, enough to realize there were people everywhere. Where had they all come from? There were hundreds. It gave him pause. The only time he had been in a comparable crowd was during the Convergence festivities with Xiala, and she had led him through it, making the unfamiliar more adventure than threat. But there was no Xiala to hold his hand now, and peril surrounded him.
Find her so that you need not fear being alone ever again, he told himself, and set his purpose. He pressed forward, using his staff to guide him. As he passed, he heard the crowd react to his presence. Songs died on reverent lips, the sleeping woke to bear witness to his coming.
He hated it.
Once, when he was no more than fifteen, his tutor Paadeh had locked him in a box. It was long and flat, and to this day he remembered the feel of wood pressing down on him. He had panicked at first, screamed and beat his fists against the unyielding lid. Only when he had exhausted himself and lay tearful and hyperventilating in his own piss had Paadeh let him out.
“You must learn to control your emotions,” his tutor had warned, “or you will always be their slave. If you can’t survive being locked in a box for fifteen minutes without wetting yourself, how will you ever become who you are meant to be?”