“We are meant to be one,” she murmured, but she could not say how. “Our battle is eternal and unwinnable.”
She concentrated, the same way she had before when she had healed her brother. She thought perhaps it would not work, that her palliative powers were as spent as her rage, or that they would refuse to help her god’s immortal enemy. But her hands warmed, and a glow spread along his skin.
She drew the essence of the sun god that had infiltrated his body to her own. Light and matter, and there, in her hand, a thin strip of hammered gold the size of her fingernail materialized. She recognized it immediately. It was the missing piece from the mask of the Sun Priest. It must have lodged in his side when Eche stabbed him.
She held it up to show him and realized something else had come to her hand. Shadow. It blackened her fingertips, crawled up her palm, encircled her wrist. She cried out, her hand suddenly icy with pain. The grain of gold tumbled to the ground.
The shadow ceased to spread and then dissipated, the cold retreating. But the healing glow had faded as well.
“The shadow feeds.” He had opened his eyes, black pools that cut through her. “It always feeds.”
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.”