I’m alive!
And then he was falling, falling… back into his dreams.
Dream morphed to memory, and memory took on shape and form.
He remembered speaking his true name under the black sun, and how it had shattered him.
He remembered that he had gone forward with staff and blade and become the whirlwind.
His remembered his hands had grown slick with blood, and his ears had filled with the cries of the dying. And standing amid the chaos he had wrought, he had exulted.
And then he remembered he had been thwarted. The Sun Priest who was his nemesis, her death his very purpose, was not there. She had been replaced by an impostor. Some fool wearing the mask and vestments of priesthood but lacking the essence of a god. The Odo Sedoh had slain the deceiver, his rage so dark that he barely registered the sweep of his knives separating neck and head.
And then the crow god had fled, and his body had begun to fail.
As it was meant to.
As was expected.
But there was one condition his creators had not foreseen. Something his mother had not anticipated, an occurrence for which his tutors had not planned. Serapio had made the small crows his friends. He had loved them and protected them. And in the moment of his death, those friends came to him with mutual love and monumental will and sacrificed themselves so that he might live. The southern sorcerers should have known the power of a sacrifice given with love, as such a sacrifice from his mother had been what tied the boy to her god so long ago. But perhaps they could not fathom that such small beings as crows were capable of so much love, and that a man whose deeds were as dark as his would deserve it.
CHAPTER 3
CITY OF TOVA （THE CROW ROOKERY）
YEAR 1 OF THE CROW
Put not your faith in the gods of old. Their will is unknowable, their power fickle. They will abandon you when you least expect it.
—Exhortations for a Happy Life
“Drink this.”
Someone lifted Serapio’s head, and liquid touched his lips.
Memories tumbled rootless and disordered, and he was twelve again, a clay cup sweet and cold in his hands, his mother smiling as she fed him poison. Her face morphed before him and became a skull, empty and leering. Her voice, the slap of running feet bound for flight.
Panic welled in his chest, choking, suffocating. A primal urge to get away rolled through his body, the need to stop what he knew came next.
He threw his arms wide, a shout on his tongue.
A man cried out, startled, as Serapio knocked him away. He dimly registered that whoever had cried out was not his mother, but instinct gripped him now, and all he knew was that he must survive. He hurled himself forward, colliding with the man, but the stranger was quick. Powerful arms encircled him and rolled him to the ground.
Only years of training kept Serapio from being pinned as he fought to stay off his back. His opponent was bigger than him, heavier, but that left gaps in his guard, space for Serapio to maneuver. He turned his shoulder and thrust his forearm into the man’s throat. Distance opened between them, but before Serapio could move, a punch ripped across his jaw.
“Stop!” The shout was raw, hoarse.
Serapio’s neck twisted with the impact, and he followed the momentum, rolling to his hands and knees. His face throbbed, and he felt unsteady, but he scrambled to a crouch. He tucked his chin, lifted his fists in defense, and listened for his opponent’s next move.
None came. Instead, the man shouted, “I do not want to fight you! I am not your enemy!”
“Everyone is my enemy!” Serapio roared.
“Not! Me!” The stranger’s breath came in gasps. “Not me.”
“Even you.”
Just as he had not hesitated to attack, he did not hesitate now. He had no weapons, no crowsight, and in this unfamiliar place, blindness put him at too great a disadvantage. He could not let the man get the upper hand again. Serapio reached for shadow, willed it to his fingertips. Destroy! he thought. Devour!
But the shadow did not come. Instead, pain, sharp enough to make him hiss, tore through his side. He collapsed into himself, body hunching instinctively around the agony.
“What is it?” The voice was concerned. “Is it your injury? What—” Feet shuffled closer.
“Stay away!” Serapio thrust out a hand to hold the man back. Confused, in pain, he demanded that the darkness answer his call.
Nothing.
Terror edged at his senses now. A helplessness he had not felt in a decade.
He dug deeper, desperately seeking the place where his god lived within him, that reassuring pool of shadow that had been with him since he was a child.