Serapio used his staff to find the bench and collapsed, trembling. Memories poured over him, none of them good, and he hunched into himself. He turned to Maaka abruptly. “Do you know my name?”
“I…” The man sounded flustered. Unsure. “You are the Odo Sedoh.”
“I mean the name I was given at birth. The one my mother and father chose.”
“To me you are the Odo Sedoh. It is the highest honor.”
“I have a favorite food I enjoy. Did you know that?”
“I…” The Odohaa sounded almost frightened, clearly at a loss.
“I very much like chocolate. I had it once when I was a boy, a present from my tutor on my birthday.”
“If the Odo Sedoh wishes chocolate…”
“No, I do not wish chocolate.”
“Then why…?”
“The kind I had was very spicy. I had something like it on the solstice, too. Here, in Titidi.”
“Shall I find the chocolate vendor, Lord?”
“No, Maaka. I only wanted you to know that I like chocolate.” He tried again. “Do you know any stories?”
“What kind of stories does the Odo Sedoh wish to hear?”
“Something from your childhood. Something of this place, of Odo.”
“My stories are not worthy of the Odo Sedoh.”
“Nonsense. I am asking.”
“Please!” Maaka choked out a half sob.
Serapio closed his eyes. He understood that to push more would only be a cruelty. He had proven his point. “Forget that I asked.”
He had only wanted to be seen for a moment. Recognized as a man, not a god. But he understood he had asked too much of Maaka, perhaps even of Okoa and the rest of Carrion Crow. Sometimes he felt as if he were two people. One was the Odo Sedoh, a man molded into a vengeful god and honed to a single purpose. Blessed with a destiny above all others.
The other was a lonely boy constantly seeking connection, trying desperately to find his footing in a world that had no place for him. He hated the boy and his weakness, his foolish desire to find friends and family. It had been the boy who had contemplated a life with Xiala, the boy who wished to be Okoa’s cousin and not the Odo Sedoh, the boy who wanted chocolate and stories like a child.
He understood now that when his mother had warned him that everyone was his enemy, she had meant he was his own enemy, too. He knew he could drive this frailty from his consciousness, embrace only the pain, the purpose. Become fully the weapon that he had told Okoa that he was. It only took courage… and a letting go.
He willed his fingers to become talons and drove them into the flesh of his hand.
“My lord!” Maaka cried out.
“I thought I might sense something of my mother in this place,” he said, the pain making the words crawl from between his teeth. “But there is nothing for me here.” Nothing for me anywhere… unless I make it.
“You’re bleeding! Skies, your hand!”
“Come. Kneel before me, Maaka.”
He heard the man shuffle forward and fall to his knees. “Have I failed you?” His voice shook. “If you only tell me what I can do, what you need.”
“You have not failed me,” he assured him. “I will call on you soon, Maaka. You and the Odohaa. Can you answer when I do?”
“With our blood.”
“Yes, you will answer with blood.” He pressed his bloody palm to Odohaa’s cheek. “We both will.”
He could hear the man weeping. Serapio breathed one last breath in, and when he exhaled, he shattered and took to the sky.
CHAPTER 27
CITY OF HOKAIA
YEAR 1 OF THE CROW
The hubris of divinity is but one more gift that is yours!
—From The Manual of the Dreamwalkers, by Seuq, a spearmaiden
Balam was pleased that Captain Keol had been correct and their voyage across the eastern isles of the Crescent Sea had been a generally uneventful one. The islands were never more than a day’s journey between them, which meant they slumbered on land every night. The fresh water was plentiful and the food along the shore abundant, particularly fish and crabs and the other creatures that called the shallow waters their home. Fruit was harder to find, but Keol explained that it was out of season and on their return voyage, the trees would be heavy with their bounty.
They saw no Teek, which was both relief and disappointment. Lord Tuun sat across from the fire each night, her slate eyes fixed on him. He brushed her off with disarming smiles and clever words that made her shoulders rock with laughter. But her humor was always short-lived, and by the end of the evening, he could feel her demand for the very islands around them weighing on him like the thick seaweed that washed up along the island’s rocky shore.
They arrived at the mouth of the Kuukuh River on the tenth day and bade their captain farewell, swapping the seafaring canoes for barges. Hokaia was another two days up the mighty river, and they arrived on the third day just as the sun rose, the great city of the spearmaidens stretched out before them, bathed in light.
For six square miles on either side of Kuukuh, great earthen mounds soared skyward. A hundred, if there were ten, and while most were four or five stories high, in the distance Balam could see the mound on which the spearmaidens’ palace sat. It dominated the horizon, rising ten stories at least, a behemoth and a wonder to rival any of the stone pyramids of Cuecola. Balam thought of the labor that must have been required to build such a thing, and then of what it took to maintain a mountain made by human hands. He was impressed.
They passed first through smaller districts, each dominated by an earthen mound situated on the north edge of a central plaza. Around the plazas, Balam noted oval thatched houses much like those in the outlying districts of Cuecola and cleared fields that resembled the great ball courts of his own city. Each plaza also featured a circle, wide enough for twenty men to stand inside, constructed of upright logs.
“Is it a cage of some kind?” The poles were too far apart to keep anything but a giant inside, and there was no roof, so he knew cage wasn’t accurate, but he couldn’t place the circle’s function.
“Solar calendars,” Powageh said at his shoulder. They all traveled together now, lord and servant and soldier. It was an uncomfortable closeness but tolerable for the few days it took to traverse up the river, and Balam did prefer Powageh’s company to Pech’s. They had taken up a position near the front of the boat, but guards hovered nearby, scanning the shorelines, a reminder that despite the fact that Cuecola and Hokaia were allies, the reception of the Seven Lords was unsure.
“The log circles?” Balam asked. “How do you know?”
“I was at the tower. We studied such things.”
“And the fields?” Tuun stood at his other shoulder.
“Ball courts,” Balam said. “They play a game called chunkey. I saw an exhibition match once from a traveling troupe when I was younger.”
“And there farther on is the war college.” Powageh pointed to another plaza barely visible on the western side of the river. Balam thought he spotted the flags of the Tovan clans, or at least crude imitations of them, flying over what looked to be an animal pen.
“Remind me to have any Tovans at the war college eliminated tonight. Golden Eagle can join us, but the rest cannot find out we are here on the chance they would alert their clans.” He caught the look on Powageh’s face. “It shouldn’t be many.”
“Slaughtering scions? It’s an act of war.”
“Is it?”
“And to think we were here as tourists,” Tuun observed dryly, and it was enough to make Powageh flush. She waved a bangled wrist. “It is all very impressive. One grows used to having Cuecola as the center of one’s world and forgets there are others who think themselves the center.”