This time, she was careful to wrap her hand in the cuff of her sleeve before picking up the piece of golden mask. “I think you will heal now.”
He nodded, understanding. His voice was careful, thoughtful, and already he seemed refreshed. “All my life, I have been taught to hate you. Those who raised me spoke only of vengeance, but their vengeance ended always in my death, and they did not care. I was but a means to an end. They used my mother’s grief against her, saying that I was meant to avenge Carrion Crow, when the truth was they cared nothing for me or my clan. But you, my enemy, care if I live or die. It is confusing.”
He was quiet for so long Naranpa thought he did not mean to speak again.
She spoke instead. “Their end is war, and you are but a casualty in their war.”
“Not simply war.”
“What do you mean?”
“This eternal struggle you speak of. I feel it, too. Always before, the sun has prevailed, but I did not lie before. The crow god craves his rightful place.”
“Tova’s enemies plot against her, using your god’s ascendancy as the excuse. They will come with armies, seeking to destroy the city and to claim her treasures as their own.”
His smile was grim. “Let them come.”
“You cannot defeat them alone. They will bring sorcerers and magic you have never seen.” If Cuecola roused her sorcerers and Hokaia her spearmaidens, Teek her Singers, Golden Eagle their flock, and all their military might together on land and air and water… even the crow god would not be enough.
He tilted his head, studying her. “Then stay and fight with me. Surely they will tremble at our powers combined.”
“I do not know that our gods would let us stay in the same city without willing us to try to kill each other.”
“We could fight them, too.”
“The gods? I do not think so, Serapio.” She lay next to her enemy and confessed her plans. “I’m leaving Tova. You have lived with your god for a lifetime. I am new to mine and her power. I need to find a teacher, someone to show me how to master this new ability.” Her firebird form still felt like a dream, so much like the vision in her mirror. But it had been real. She had transformed, and if she willed it, she was sure she could transform again.
“So next time we meet, you will be more adept at killing me?” His tone was wry.
She laughed. “No, Serapio. I do not think I want you dead.”
He was quiet.
“I believe you are supposed to say you no longer wish to kill me.”
A smile crooked his lips. “Where will you go?”
Her look was arch. “I do not think I will tell you, Crow God.”
“Then I will not try to find you.”
He was very alone, this man. Lost to grief and rage. She recognized in him a mirror of herself. As different as they were in age and temperament and gender, of all the people in the world, they probably understood each other the best. She would like it very much if they were friends. Not today, though. Today they were enemies who had fought to a truce. But another day, in the future.
But she did not tell him that.
“Beware of Carrion Crow.”
His voice was hard. “So it seems.”
She was unsure how much he knew, but at the very least, he understood Okoa had plotted with her against him. She thought to tell him of the matrons’ meeting, but it felt perfidious to do so, and the matrons were still her allies. So instead, she said, “I see a side of you that is human. Show them that. Show them who you are, and perhaps you might sway them to your side.”
His laugh was bitter. “You only see what you want to see, Naranpa. As do they. As do we all. It is too late for ‘human,’ and I have done things Okoa will never forgive.”
There was a bleakness in his expression that made her not press further.
“Perhaps you are right,” she admitted, as much to herself as to him. “But perhaps unforgivable acts are what is required to save this city. I tried kindness, again and again, and failed.”
“I do not begrudge the kindness you have shown me.”
“I am not saying there is no place for mercy, but perhaps the Odo Sedoh’s best weapon is ruthlessness. Ruthlessness and fear. Your coming bound the matrons to common purpose as they never have been before. And now it is you, a man of uncompromising will, who can keep them bound together. They are not bad people, but the matrons are too used to power, the Sky Made too rigid in caste and clan. They will not understand the danger until it is too late to stop it. Kindness will not win the war to come.”
His voice was soft, a touch incredulous. “You want the crow god to rule them?”
Was that what she was saying? She didn’t know. She only knew something had to change if Tova was to survive.
“Unite them as you must.”
It was a dark fate she left for Okoa and her allies, but it was necessary. Their path to survival would be one of shadow and blood, but at least it gave them a chance.
He lifted his head as if hearing a voice she could not, and for the first time, she realized that in his human form he was blind. “You should leave, Sun Priest.” His voice quivered, somewhere between the soft-spoken young man and the god.
She heaved herself to her feet.
“Farewell, Serapio.”
“And you, Naranpa.”
“May the stars guide you.” It was an old Watcher parting, and likely out of place between them, but it seemed right to say, and she found that she meant it.
She turned inward and found the presence of the sun god. She drew from it and let it infuse her. She felt her exhaustion lessen, her breaks and bruises melt away. Her body ignited in transformation, and she took flight.
CHAPTER 33
CITY OF TOVA (SUN ROCK)
YEAR 1 OF THE CROW
Make them fear you, and sometimes that is enough.
—On the Philosophy of War, taught at the Hokaia War College
Serapio felt Naranpa leave. Heat flared against his face, and wind from the ripple of wings tousled his hair. He could not see in which direction she flew and decided that was for the best. He would not be tempted to follow.
“It seems I am of a purpose once again.”
For the first time since he had awoken in the monastery, he felt at peace. Losing his god had broken him. He had been an empty hand, desperate to be filled again, bereft of direction if not a divine vessel. It had driven him to try to find a place within Carrion Crow, the people he had thought would be his home. But he had only confused and frightened them, and they had not recognized him as kin, no matter his haahan, his blood teeth, his mother’s bloodline. His grief had morphed into shame and then resentment that settled into a quiet rage which he had cultivated like a hatchling fresh to the nest. Even the return of his god could not mend what had been broken by his abandonment.
The Odohaa loved him well, but it was not enough. They might love the Crow God Reborn, but they would never love Serapio, could not even see the half-Obregi boy separate from the Odo Sedoh. They wanted him only as their savior, only as a righteous killer. They cared not for the toll such a destiny took on him. They did not want to hear of his love of stories, or of the beautiful animals he carved from wood, or his preference for spice in his chocolate. If he died, they would rejoice as long as his death brought them glory.
And so he would use them accordingly.
All his life, he had sought destiny, and when it had played its course and he was left to be a man, he found himself unwanted. Except Xiala, he thought. She would take you as you are. And he would take her, gratefully. Desperately.
But in the end, he had lost Xiala, too, and all that remained was Tova.
A Tova he would make his own.
And a destiny he would shape to his needs alone.