The Odo Sedoh spread his arms wide. “Okoa’s only transgression is that he took me from Sun Rock and allowed me to recover from my injuries among the crows. If your Sky Made clans seek to place the blame on someone, let it be me.”
Esa swallowed and seemed to rally. “You are responsible for the fall of the priesthood? You alone?”
“The priesthood is responsible for their own fate. I was only the instrument of our god’s vengeance.”
“Our god…” Esa murmured.
“The crow god,” Juuna whispered helpfully.
Esa closed her eyes, and Okoa saw the muscle in her jaw tic. “How—”
Commotion from the hall cut her off.
Esa’s laugh was high and shrill. “What now?”
Okoa gestured for the guards to investigate the disturbance, and they hustled to the noise, slipping out the doors and barring them after they passed. There was shouting. It sounded like a dozen people, at least.
Okoa leaned close. “Can you understand anything?”
“There are many voices. Unclear who… someone named Maaka. He is requesting an audience.”
“Skies,” Esa muttered. “The Odohaa are bold. They have been clamoring at my door, yelling to see me, demanding that I do something. But I told them—”
“Not an audience with you,” the Odo Sedoh corrected. “An audience with me.”
The matron’s eyes widened.
Okoa could almost see his sister’s mind working. Her sudden realization of how easily the Odo Sedoh could seize power, her power, should she not get control of the situation quickly. A man who had slaughtered the Watchers. A villain to the clans but a folk hero to the Odohaa.
Their eyes met, and she quickly turned, as if to hide her thoughts. But he had already seen something that made him uneasy.
“Esa, what are you—”
“Brother.” Her voice was brisk with authority, her eyes bright. “As captain of the Shield, I command you to go and talk to Maaka and the Odohaa. You know each other, after all, and he will listen to you. Appease him. Tell him…” Her gaze lingered on the Odo Sedoh, even as she spoke to Okoa. “Tell Maaka and the others the Odo Sedoh and I will meet with them tomorrow. Tell them that tonight he is tired from his trials and his defeat of the Watchers and wishes to rest.”
“But what of the other clans?” Juuna fretted behind her. “What of their demands?”
“What of them?” Esa asked sharply. “Let them wait. This is Crow business now.”
She stepped forward and slipped her arm around the Odo Sedoh’s. Okoa saw the tremor in her hand when she did it but that she did it anyway. “Let us go out the back way,” she said, her voice a compelling purr, “away from the crowds. I’ll show you the Great House, find a private place we might speak.”
Okoa thought to say something, to warn the Odo Sedoh to be careful, that there were dangers in the world more subtle than priests and Knives. But he was a god, was he not? Surely, his warning should be for his sister.
He watched helplessly as Esa led him away.
Chaiya came to stand next to him. “She is not the girl you grew up with anymore.”
“I don’t know who she is,” he confessed.
“She is your matron.” Chaiya’s voice was flint. “That is enough.”
Okoa’s face burned. Chaiya was right. What would his mother think to see him doubt his sister?
Chaiya’s hand came down on his shoulder. “Duty, Okoa. That is all you need know. The rest will only confuse you. Do what duty requires, and you will always be in the right.”
“Of course.” He gave Chaiya a sharp nod.
Duty, yes, but to whom? Esa? Carrion Crow? The Odo Sedoh? That last thought came unbidden and unwanted, but he found that he meant it.
“Duty,” he murmured to himself, as he marched to the great doors and swung them open. But he was not convinced.
CHAPTER 7
CITY OF TOVA （DISTRICT OF ODO） YEAR 1 OF THE CROW
And they say to me
You are not one of us.
Your blood is impure, your birth an abomination.
You are vile and unwanted, always a stranger.
—From Collected Lamentations from the Night of Knives
Serapio felt obligated to let the Carrion Crow matron lead him through the turning hallways of the Great House, but as they walked, he quickly realized they were not following the same route as the one Okoa had taken from the aviary. He tried his best to mark the differences so he could find his way back: the sound of the matron’s hem as it dragged along stone floors, not reverberating the way her brother’s quick steps had on the spiraling stairs; the warm air that grew warmer, suggesting they were farther from the outside; the dry smell of stone and human, a sign they must be deep in the interior of the Great House. He did not like it, being so far from the crows and in such an unfamiliar place.