He turned his head toward Okoa’s voice. His movements had always been reminiscent of a bird’s, but now they seemed more pronounced. “I almost did not.” He flexed his hand, and Okoa thought he saw talons, long and black, instead of fingers.
“I have news that will interest you.” He touched the letter in his pocket but did not remove it. “But first I would ask you what happened.”
“What happened,” Serapio repeated. He felt his way toward the water barrel, dipped his hands in, and brought water to his mouth to drink.
“In the yard, when you attacked the crowd.”
Serapio paused, hands in the barrel. “Attacked.” He splashed water on his face and through his hair. “I only did what was necessary.”
“They were innocent people. No one was armed. You could have found another way.”
He pressed his wet hair back from his face. He blinked black eyes, droplets clinging to his lashes. “My way is death. There is no other way.”
“Crows are not only creatures of vengeance and the grave. They are loving, caring, nurturing. Is there not that in your making, too?”
“Once, perhaps.” He cupped his hand, running a finger over his palm as if tracing invisible lines. “But now?” He clenched his hand into a fist. “What do you want of me, beyond trying to make me something that I am not?”
Okoa hesitated. He had asked him to be a weapon for Carrion Crow, and now he was. He need only point him toward their enemies, and his dreams were in reach. Not only his dreams. His father’s dreams.
“I know where you can find the Sun Priest and all the matrons of the Sky Made. They are meeting—”
Benundah squawked loudly, and they both turned. Serapio tilted his head up, eyes on the open sky. “She says they’re coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
Before he could answer, Okoa felt the wind of giant wings and looked up to find Kutssah barreling toward them. He shouted and threw himself to the ground, sure that the giant meant to skewer them. But at the last moment, she pulled up, and something came hurtling off her back.
It was Chaiya, and he leaped from his mount to tackle Serapio.
They went down in a heap.
Chaiya had something in his hands, netting of some kind, and he threw it over the Odo Sedoh.
Serapio shouted, and the air around him vibrated. His form shifted, man to black bird and back to man, as he realized his crow form offered no escape.
His hand morphed into a talon, and he ripped through the netting. Chaiya reared back, narrowly avoiding the sharp claw, and then there was a black blade in his hand. He stabbed toward Serapio’s face.
Okoa cried a warning, to whom he wasn’t sure.
Serapio turned his head, avoiding the blow, but the blade sliced a line across his jaw. Blood welled, and Serapio did not hesitate. He called on the shadow, and it came. Black smoke laced the veins beneath his skin, crawling the pathways of his body like dark rivers, until shadow burst from his fingertips. He grasped Chaiya’s wrist, the hand that held the knife, and shouted words in a language Okoa did not know.
The shadow enveloped his cousin’s hand and slithered up his arm. The bigger man scrambled back, eyes wide in horror. His obsidian blade clattered to the ground, the hand that had been holding it half eaten away, the flesh melting into a pool of black rot halfway up his forearm.
“Seven hells,” Okoa breathed, horror shivering up his spine. He had to stop this, but how?
Chaiya weighed twice as much as Serapio, and vision, experience, and the element of surprise had given him the quick advantage. But Serapio had been honed for one purpose only, and he had shadow magic at his command, his very blood a weapon. Okoa feared his cousin would quickly become outmatched.
But not yet.
Serapio stumbled, the netting wrapping around his legs and catching his feet. Chaiya, even with half his arm withered, attacked. He dug a fisted hand into Serapio’s wound, the one on his side that had never healed, and Serapio’s whole body shuddered in agony. Chaiya staggered to his feet and slammed his boot into Serapio’s skull.
Serapio collapsed, insensible.
The crows in the aviary screamed, Kutssah the loudest.
Chaiya froze, foot raised for another blow.
“Kutssah?” Confusion twisted his features.
Okoa did not think, just moved. He tackled Chaiya, throwing him well off the stunned Serapio. “What are you doing?” he shouted.
Chaiya did not fight him but lay panting under his weight. His arm was a black ruin, and Okoa felt nauseated when he caught a glimpse of it. But the hardest things to see were the tears in his cousin’s eyes.