“Here!” he shouted, but Maaka was already beside him.
The Odo Sedoh lay supine on a reed mattress, Okoa’s feathered mantle covering him like a blanket. His hands were tucked behind his head, and his eyes were closed. He looked to be sleeping, but for a thin line of blood that had dripped from the bed to the floor.
Maaka must have seen it at the same time. “I’ll find Feyou!” he shouted, and then he was gone, pounding down the hallway and back the way they had come.
Okoa dropped to his knees beside the bed, hands hovering over the Odo Sedoh. Unsure what he should do and afraid of what he might find when he removed his cloak.
“Okoa.” The Odo Sedoh spoke, his eyes still closed.
Okoa startled but quickly recovered. “Are you unwell? Did you… did you send the crows to find me?”
The Odo Sedoh opened an inky black eye. “Thank you,” he said, and Okoa did not think he was talking to him.
He pushed the cloak aside and rose. Okoa could see now that it was indeed the same wound from before that had bled through his crude bindings. The Odo Sedoh pressed a hand to his side but said nothing about his obvious pain as he made his way over to the sky door and opened it. He was careful to step to the side before he said, “You may go now. I’ll come visit once I’m done with the captain.”
The crows dutifully took to the wing, filing out as if dismissed. If Okoa had not seen him talk to the crows at the monastery, he would have been in awe, but he realized he was beginning to take the man’s strange way with corvids in stride.
“Why are you here?” Okoa blurted.
The Odo Sedoh’s lips quirked up, the barest suggestion of a smile. “Why do you think? I did not bring myself here, crow son.”
Of course he didn’t. It had been Esa. But why? What was she thinking?
Okoa knew exactly what she had been thinking, and his gut told him this cell had originally been prepared for him.
A commotion at the door, and Maaka was back, with Feyou and another Odohaa whose name he did not know. The man carried a large bundle in his arms, something wrapped in a woven blanket. Behind them trailed two Shields.
“He’s hurt!” Maaka pointed to the Odo Sedoh, and Feyou pushed her way forward. She stopped short, gaze bouncing between Maaka and the Odo Sedoh, as if unsure what to do.
“We’ve brought a healer,” Okoa explained. “A true healer. She would like to examine your wound, if you will allow it.”
“Ah.” He removed his hand from his side. It was wet with the same reddish-gold ichor as before. “I would be grateful.”
That seemed to release Feyou, and she took the Odo Sedoh in hand. Once he was seated back on the bed, she examined his wound, her earlier hesitation gone as she got about her business.
“What happened?” she asked, voice direct.
“It is a wound from before. It troubles me.”
“Before?”
“Sun Rock,” Okoa supplied. “I could not heal it.”
He heard the other Odohaa, the one still holding the bundle, gasp. He looked back to see that the man had closed his eyes and begun to mutter a prayer.
“Sun Rock.” Feyou sounded awed. “From a Watcher?”
Serapio winced as her fingers probed. “I cannot remember.”
“So it is days old and still festers. And you did not think to mention it as soon as you arrived, Okoa?”
He flushed. How was it that Feyou made him feel the recalcitrant child? “I mention it now.”
“It was carelessly done.”
“I meant no harm. The bleeding had stopped before, and I had forgotten about it for the moment. I would have brought him to a healer eventually.”
“Eventually.” Feyou was unimpressed, and Okoa realized he was making his case worse with every attempt at explanation. “Maaka, hand me my medicine kit, and then leave me to work, all of you. This room is too small for all these bodies and all this useless conversation.”
Maaka did as his wife commanded and then stepped outside, dragging the other Odohaa with him.
Okoa hesitated. “He is important, Feyou. It is not that I do not trust you— ”
“With respect, my lord, I do not think you are in a position to decide who to trust and not to trust with the best interests of the Odo Sedoh.”
Her reprimand hit its mark, and he said no more. Damn you, Esa, he thought again. You make us look duplicitous.
“Watch them,” he told the Shield as he passed. “And aid her in any way she needs. We want the Odo Sedoh hale.” He said that last loudly enough for all to hear.