If the clans would not open their doors and welcome him home, he would kick down their doors. Oh, he would be what Okoa had asked him to be, the bulwark and the blade, but not only for Carrion Crow. He would be the god over them all.
Serapio stood and walked to the place where he had been tracing patterns in the ice-crusted dirt before the sun god had come. He pressed tentative fingers to his wound and found it healed. Likewise the injuries the firebird had inflicted on him. Satisfied, he had turned his attention to his work.
The patterns were clear to him with his crow vision, lines of potential where the Odo Sedoh had left his carnage, where the shadow had eaten through and lay waiting below the surface. He took up his obsidian knife and cut across his arm. He let his blood fall, the blood that his old tutor had once coveted as an unimaginable source of power. And he fed the ground.
It started as a low rumble, like a great beast in its den, roused. He held out his hand, and the bone, sinew, and blood of dead priests and scions rose at his command. He shaped it like wood, spinning and chipping and refining as he went, and around him a fortress grew. Part Obregi keep, part Tovan Great House: rounded walls with turrets at the cardinal directions; rooms inside off a central courtyard, a great room at its heart; winding stairs that led to an aviary on the rooftop.
He exhaled, and the black walls smoothed and flattened. He turned his wrist, and red tiles patterned with interlocking crow wings spread across the floor. He dragged his foot, and blood formed and hardened into the steps to his throne room.
The throne itself he saved for last.
It was made of blackened sinew and white bone. The seat was round, supported by eight elongated X-shaped legs attached to a circular base. The back of the throne he wove from sinew and shadow, and wings that flared behind and above.
He left a hole in the ceiling above him so that the dark sun might shine through and cast its black light upon him. So that his small friends might come and go as they pleased. So that he could do the same.
And then he sat upon his throne and waited.
It did not take long for the crows to come. He told them what he wanted, and they scattered to do his bidding.
They returned within the hour, their cries heralding their return, and those they brought with them.
He had called twelve Odohaa to be his honor guard. Two for each direction, two for above, two for below, and he would stand in the center and make thirteen. Maaka and Feyou were among them, and he had asked each to pick five, the most faithful and loyal of their tuyon. He did not know their names yet, but he would come to know them as his own. They were imperfect vessels, but they would serve, and he would mold them into what he needed them to be.
“Odo Sedoh.” Maaka’s voice was breathy with awe. “What is this place?”
“This is our new home. The matron and her captain have proven themselves false. They have conspired with my enemies to kill me.”
He heard gasps in disbelief. Even now, they clung to foolish hopes.
“So I give you a choice.” Serapio stood. “You may leave the tuyon and return to Odo and no longer pledge your loyalty to the crow god, or you may stay and become my blood guard. Under my name we will unite the clans of Tova, and together we will rise under the crow god’s banner, a power to make the Meridian tremble.”
“We are loyal to you, Odo Sedoh!” That was Feyou. “Ask of us what you will.”
This was the difficult part, but he needed to know they could be trusted. They would be his guard now, his knife hand when he could not be everywhere at once. He had to know.
“Take out your blades and open your throats.”
Silence, and then a murmur of confused voices. He had expected it, but he was still disappointed. For all their bluster and sermons, they doubted. There was a time when if his god had asked him the same, he would have done it without hesitation.
“You pledged your lives to me. Promised me blood. Now I ask it, and you balk?” He leaned forward, hands braced against his knees. “If you are cowards, leave. But if you believe in me as you say you do, you will open. Your. Throats.”
He heard the first body fall. A shriek, followed by a gurgling sound. He did not know who it was but hoped it was Maaka. Then the second, then another, and another. Until they were all broken and bleeding on the floor.
Serapio smiled and raised his arms wide.
He understood the wound in his side now. It had been power like any other. It had only hurt him because he had fought it, and he had only fought it because his god had rejected it. But when Naranpa had laid her hands upon him and the shadow had flowed to her in kind, he had understood. Shadow devoured, and light healed, and he had both at his command.
He drew the blood from the dying Odohaa just as he had from the blood-soaked earth of Sun Rock, and he carved. This time, he created armor, thick padded layers over chests and arms, torsos and legs, encasing the Odohaa from neck to ankle. He knit the seams with sinew and reinforced it with bone and formed helmets in the shape of a crow skull. When he was done, he healed their terrible wounds.
They rose before him, whole and remade.
“Maaka, come forward.”
The man did as he was commanded.
“You are my first now, and Feyou my second. Swear your fealty.”
“Until my death, and into the afterlife.”
Feyou swore the same, and then the rest in turn.
When Serapio was satisfied, he spoke: “You are my Shield now called Tuyon, and we will unite Tova and become both weapon and wall, so that when the forces of the Meridian swarm at our gate, they will know their mistake. But first, we must meet the matrons. Go, gather the clan mothers to me. Let them tremble as you do, and we shall see who rules Tova now.”
CHAPTER 34
TEEK
YEAR 1 OF THE CROW
Live as a Teek, die as a Teek.
—Teek saying
“Land ahead!”
A cheer went up from the half dozen women who crewed the tidechaser, and one of them, a woman named Alani, nudged Xiala with her foot as she climbed over her to secure the boom on the triangle-shaped sail. Teek racing ships were small and crowded, built for speed and not comfort, and Xiala had found herself mourning the loss of her Cuecolan canoe that easily held fifty men. It was not fast, but at least a woman could stretch out.
The sky above her was thick with rain clouds, gray as the belly of a triggerfish, but so far they had avoided any spring storms. And with land sighted, it looked like their luck would hold and they would make it home dry.
Home.
The word curled tight in Xiala’s belly. She had believed she would never see home again. And now that it was before her, she wasn’t sure how she felt. She had longed to return, but not like this.
Alani leaned over and gave her a grin. “Come look.”
“I can’t.” She lifted her foot, and the chain that held her secured to the deck rattled.
“Ah.” The woman scrambled down and pulled a key from a string around her neck. “Mahina’s not here to see. Just promise you won’t try to get away.”
“Where would I go?”
“You can swim, can’t you? I hear you’re good at running.”
Xiala thought of the last time she had dived into the sea. Black scales that shimmered in the light, gills on her neck.
“Next time I run, no one will be able to catch me.”
Alani laughed. “That’s the spirit.”
The chain fell off, and the woman beckoned Xiala to follow. She climbed after her until they both sat hunched in the bow. Wind buffeted their faces, sending their long hair streaming back behind them. Xiala tasted salt on her lips, felt the cold flecks of ocean water strike her face, and whispered a prayer to her Mother. Not the woman who had birthed her and had forced her onto the ship at knifepoint and in chains, but the one who kissed her now and welcomed her back into her arms.
“There she is.” Alani pointed.
Xiala could just see it. A stretch of white sand, and just beyond it, thick green foliage she knew teemed with palms and mahogany, orchids and hibiscus, secret coves and endless waters. It was home, and for all she had not wanted to come, she could not help but be grateful she was here.