She had always kept a small library here of her personal books, things like Kiutue’s journal and her own. She hoped perhaps there was insight there in her old mentor’s words, something she had overlooked in her previous ignorance. But as she opened the drawer in the bottom of her desk to retrieve the journal, she realized her mistake. These were not her old rooms—they were Eche’s old rooms. And in the one day he had been Sun Priest, he had managed to dispose of anything here that might have been hers.
She dropped heavily to the bed, defeated. If there was nothing here to tell her of her potential powers, and there was no one alive of the Watchers to consult, then she was on her own. She might have powers within her, gifts from the sun god passed to her through investiture, but if she didn’t know how to use them, what use were they? And what chance did she have against the Crow God Reborn if she couldn’t wield anything more formidable than a glowing hand?
Somewhere a voice cried out. She lifted her head, listening, unsure if she had imagined the sound. No, there it was again, faint but real. Her pulsed ticked up. Someone else was here.
She made her way to the door, listening. It was coming from above, but the only thing above her was the open-air observatory where the Conclave met. Another sound, this time a thump, like a heartbeat awoken, and she took the stairs, one by one.
CHAPTER 15
CITY OF TOVA （DISTRICT OF ODO）
YEAR 1 OF THE CROW
No miracle is beyond the Odo Sedoh!
He shall heal all wounds
And bind all that is broken.
He shall cast down our enemies
And lead us out of despair.
—Prayer to the Odo Sedoh, recorded at a meeting of the Odohaa
Serapio swept through the crowd, leaving Okoa behind. He whistled for his crows, asking one to come and help him see, but he dared not wait for a reply. Every moment he waited was a moment away from Xiala.
He could see enough to make out the barest of shapes and shadows, enough to realize there were people everywhere. Where had they all come from? There were hundreds. It gave him pause. The only time he had been in a comparable crowd was during the Convergence festivities with Xiala, and she had led him through it, making the unfamiliar more adventure than threat. But there was no Xiala to hold his hand now, and peril surrounded him.
Find her so that you need not fear being alone ever again, he told himself, and set his purpose. He pressed forward, using his staff to guide him. As he passed, he heard the crowd react to his presence. Songs died on reverent lips, the sleeping woke to bear witness to his coming.
He hated it.
Once, when he was no more than fifteen, his tutor Paadeh had locked him in a box. It was long and flat, and to this day he remembered the feel of wood pressing down on him. He had panicked at first, screamed and beat his fists against the unyielding lid. Only when he had exhausted himself and lay tearful and hyperventilating in his own piss had Paadeh let him out.
“You must learn to control your emotions,” his tutor had warned, “or you will always be their slave. If you can’t survive being locked in a box for fifteen minutes without wetting yourself, how will you ever become who you are meant to be?”
Fifteen minutes? Serapio would have sworn he had spent hours in those narrow confines.
The next time Paadeh put him in the box, he lasted twice as long. And by the season’s change, he found himself seeking out the box. Lying there, bereft of the noise and riot of the world around him, he felt at peace. Confinement became second nature.
But now his senses were overloaded. A controlled space he could manage. Paadeh had never thought to acclimate him to a mob.
Here in the yard, he was exposed, vulnerable. He clenched his empty fist and prayed for his god to fortify him, but his god did not answer. He reminded himself that he had the shadow magic he could call from his blood if he needed it, but it came at a cost. And the shadow consumed what it touched; he did not want to hurt these people, but he would if he had to.
He only wanted to find Xiala.
To hear Okoa speak her name, to know she was looking for him and had not abandoned him—he could not explain the emotion it roused in him. The desire to take to the sky and fly to her was so strong he had to force his breath to steady. It was as if he were made only of need, a thousand shards of desire in the shape of a man, and he would give whatever he must to reach her.
The ground was uneven, the dirt made mud by the recent snows and then churned by hundreds of feet and refrozen into dangerous peaks and valleys that snatched at his feet. His staff helped, but he could not move as quickly as he wished, and frustration blackened his already anxious mood. He heard the people around him, unfamiliar voices speaking mostly in whispers that he could not quite decipher, but what he could hear was their rising awe as he swept past them, the hum of their excitement, their gasps of disbelief. Their only words now “Odo Sedoh.”