Somewhere above him, the crows screamed, a mirror of his distress. His body vibrated in response.
More hands on him. On his arms, his back, trying to drag him to his feet. He shouted for them to go away, to give him space, but they didn’t understand.
He was being overwhelmed, suffocating in the crush.
He collapsed to his knees, hands over his head, body shaking like a tuning fork to the calls of the circling crows. His limbs trembled, and the crows screamed, and the hands and the voices and the box, and all at once… he shattered.
He felt himself break apart, burst into a half-hundred crows.
He could see through a hundred eyes. He struggled skyward on a hundred wings.
People shouted and scattered as his talons ripped at hands and faces, as beaks plucked at exposed flesh.
Do not hurt them! he reminded his half-hundred selves, and the crows only did what was necessary to be free. And then he was a flock rising up, up, silhouetted against the blackened sun. And then he was whirling high around the Great House. He looked for a woman in blue but could not find her. He looked for Okoa, and there he was, surrounded by his Shield, who were surrounded by bloodied bodies made that way by his hand. They all had their heads raised skyward. He saw the matron on the terrace, watching. He saw the great crows in the aviary, heads turned upward to him. And then he was wheeling westward, looking for somewhere away from humans to land.
He spied a tower, not so far. He recognized the tower but could not quite remember why, his human memory and crow mind out of sync. It looked abandoned now, and he only needed to rest. It would serve his purposes.
He flew in a half-hundred bodies to the top of the celestial tower, and there he landed, trying desperately to knit himself back together into a man. He lay gasping as the world shifted and spun around him, the dark sun vibrating like a living beast. He watched his arms pulse black and feathered, and then solidify into flesh, only to burst into birds again. He screamed, a roar of terror, as he willed himself back together.
Slowly, reluctantly, his flesh solidified. Brown arm encased in black fabric. He flexed his fingers, opened and closed his fists, and almost wept when they did not break apart.
He collapsed back against the wall behind him, hair stuck to his head, body bathed in a cold sweat. He had never felt anything like this, not even with the crow god at his apex. He had flown as a flock, seen through a hundred pairs of eyes, sliced through the wind on a hundred pairs of wings. It was exhilarating. It was terrifying. And now he was drained, as if the transformation had used up some essential part of him.
Out of habit, he reached for the place where his god dwelled to refortify himself. He caught his mistake too late, as the image of an empty hand flashed through his mind. He tried to withdraw his desire, to stave off the inevitable disappointment, but to his wonder, he was not empty. Divinity flowed, cool and soothing as a dark river, as the sun above him flared brighter. He glanced up to see that the eclipse had shifted, that the shadow had moved to expose more of the sun.
His heart soared, and tears dripped black down his cheeks. The crow god had chosen to come to him, even if it allowed the sun her advantage. But why?
He turned his head, his crow eyes searching.
He was not alone.
A figure hunched low along the stone wall across from him. A woman, her expression caught between terror and awe. She glowed, the light that poured from her body mirrored by the growing sun above them. Shadow and light flicked and danced between them, and his divine powers crashed around him like an angry tide.
He knew who this woman was.
“Sun Priest,” he growled, in his voice of a thousand wings. He pushed himself to standing, and his hand against the wall was a talon that cracked through stone like soft wood.
She backed away.
He moved to pursue but found himself on his knees, gasping, the wound on his side ripped open. He looked down, and light burst white and cold through the bandage Feyou had so carefully wrapped around his middle. He knew what the wound was now, or at least who had given it to him.
“Sun Priest,” he hissed, the pain so dense his crow vision began to fail.
He could not catch her, not like this, but there were other ways to follow.
“Go!” he cried, thrusting his arm out. “Find her!” And this time, he willed himself to break, and his arm shattered into a half dozen crows.
She ran, hurtling down the stairs and out of sight, and the crows pursued with one purpose.
To kill.
CHAPTER 16
THE TOVASHEH RIVER
YEAR 1 OF THE CROW
Even a shark must sleep.
—Teek saying
Xiala and Iktan’s boat sailed down one of the Tovasheh’s tributaries in silence. Iktan hadn’t shared their immediate destination, and Xiala didn’t know what was safe to say in front of the two Golden Eagle sailors. They had passed the familiar Titidi port earlier. Xiala was even sure she had seen Uncle Kuy’s barge, docked and empty. Which made her remember Uncle Kuy and what he must be thinking of her disappearance. She hoped she hadn’t gotten him in trouble, that her escape, if that was what it was, could not be traced back to him. She had asked Iktan, but xe had shrugged as if Uncle Kuy’s fate was of little importance and they had larger concerns ahead. Which she supposed they did. But she couldn’t help but worry.