“That is a start.” She gave him an encouraging look. “I also have people looking into his past. He had to come from somewhere, and I want to know who his people are. If he has attachments.”
“I believe he was raised in Obregi.” He told himself these were simple facts, not confidences betrayed.
“Then I will send agents to Obregi. Discreetly,” she added, to stave off his look of disapproval.
“I don’t know what that accomplishes.”
“Yes, you do, Captain. Surely the war college taught you to learn everything about your enemy before you go to battle.”
“I didn’t realize he was our enemy.”
She snorted. “Don’t be naive, Brother.”
Everyone is my enemy. Serapio’s words at the monastery came back to him. Okoa had objected fiercely at the time, but here he was, proving him right.
“All I am saying is let us try to tame him first through alliance, and if that fails, we can consider pursuing your more… aggressive tactics. But betrayal and murder cannot be our first route, Esa.”
“You seek to cage the uncageable. To subdue the storm.”
“Where you seek to take up your knife against the lightning.”
“What choice do we have? It is that or be consumed.” Her laugh was short. “He told me that shadow consumes, and what is he but living shadow? God or not, I can tell it is his nature to consume, and Carrion Crow will not survive him. I say you kill him now while we have the chance, or one day, you will look up, Okoa, and find it is too late.”
Voices rose up to them from the camp below. A song, low and mournful. Okoa recognized it as one of the lamentations from the Night of Knives. A prayer of loss, a cry to their god for justice. Okoa tried to convince himself that the Odo Sedoh had indeed brought Carrion Crow their longed-for justice, but surely justice did not look like what he had seen on Sun Rock. He remembered Maaka’s words from earlier: We are a people with hope once again, and the Odo Sedoh has brought us that. Not you. Not your matron.
And Okoa doubted.
Everything.
“Lord Okoa?”
They both looked up as one of the Shield, a man named Ituya, stood in the doorway. Ituya was one of Chaiya’s recruits, only a few years older than Okoa and eager to serve. He had been one of the guards in the room when he had returned with the Odo Sedoh who had not fallen to his knees.
“What is it?”
“There is a woman in the camp asking to see the Odo Sedoh.”
Okoa laughed dryly. “Gods, man. There are five hundred people out there who want to see the Odo Sedoh.”
“Her name is Xiala, and she called him by the name Serapio. She said she was the captain of the boat that brought him here. She said he would know her. That she knows him, and he would know it was her.” He opened his hand, holding his palm out. On it sat a delicate wood carving of a mermaid. “She said to show him this.”
The siblings exchanged a look, words said between them without speaking.
Okoa took the carving and slipped it into his pocket. “Find this Xiala. Immediately. Use whatever Shield you need. I’m right behind you. Go!”
“I’m coming, too,” Esa said.
“You can’t.” He crossed the terrace in a dozen long strides. “You’re the matron, and I need to know you are safe.”
“Okoa!” She followed him into the hall, warning in her voice. “Do not grow soft,” she hissed. “She is a gift fallen into our laps. You know why we need her. Let me help.”
“I have the Shield,” he tossed over his shoulder, halfway to the stairs.
“And you have me.” A figure materialized from the shadowy staircase just above him.
Okoa’s heart thumped. Where had he come from? Skies, how long had he been there, and more important, what had he heard?
Serapio was dressed in black. Someone had replaced his tattered pants with a long black skirt that billowed around him as he walked, and he wore the padded armor of the Shield over a long-sleeved shirt. The crow-feather cloak graced his shoulders, and he clutched his bone staff in his hand. Okoa suspected one of the aunts had chosen his regalia, and she had chosen it for impact, as it made a formidable impression.
“If Xiala is here, I must find her.”
Okoa swallowed down his spike of fear. “Come with me.” He pointed at Esa. “Watch from the terrace. It’s not safe for you in the crowd.”
He didn’t wait to see if she would comply, just hurried down the stairs, the dark god at his side.