Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(101)

The first touch of his fingers shivered through her lower body like the kiss of lightning, hot with shock. She reached down to guide his hand, showing him what she liked. He followed her lead, and their hands moved as one. Slowly, the sensation became a warm hum that built until it crested. A wave of pleasure broke over her, and she moaned.

“Serapio…”

She clutched at his arm and tried to pull him closer, but he stopped her with a gentle kiss against her knuckles. He took her trembling hand, laid it across her belly, and continued to wash her. Each arm, fingers to elbow to shoulder, and across her breasts and finally the back of her neck.

When he was finished, he wrung the water out of the cloth and hung it across the bathing bench. She watched as he replenished the coals that warmed the room and set out a cup of cool water for her.

He gathered his wet clothes, took up his staff, and kissed the top of her head.

“I lied, Xiala,” he whispered. “You were the one who gave me a gift.”

And then he was gone, the door falling closed behind him.

Xiala sank into the bath and wept, her tears mingling with the bathwater and turning it to salt.





CHAPTER 35




CITY OF TOVA YEAR 325 OF THE SUN

(1 DAY BEFORE CONVERGENCE)

Even when armed with blade and bow, even with an army of a thousand at her command, a spearmaiden’s greatest weapon is her tongue.

—On the Philosophy of War, taught at the Hokaia War College



“There’s a man here to see you.”

Okoa looked up from the book he was reading. He sat in the library in the Great House, surrounded by ancient books made of bark paper and stones inscribed with words he could not read. Most of it was in Cuecolan, a language he was only passingly fluent in. And the celestial tower housed the books he really wanted to read, but it was surely closed to him now.

Although perhaps not. The message he had received from someone claiming to be the Sun Priest still sat in a drawer in his desk. He had read it a dozen times and still not been sure what it meant. It contained only three glyphs: Storm, Betrayal, Friendship. He had sent a message back asking for a chance to meet but had heard nothing, and then he had been distracted by the work before him and his promise to the Odohaa and a hundred other duties as the new Shield in a city on the brink pulling at him.

“Who is it?” he asked, rubbing his tired eyes. He half expected it to be Maaka asking why he had not returned. Okoa thought it better to cultivate a relationship with the Odohaa, at the very least so he could keep a watchful eye on them. He didn’t want to be surprised by some midnight raid against the celestial tower that ended in horror. Another reason he was here in this library digging through these texts, looking for… he wasn’t sure what. Something to convince Maaka that the Odohaa should bide their time? Or at least not take up weapons? He felt like a hypocrite. He was the one who had dismissed their belief in a resurrected god as folly, but now that they seemed to be shifting their sights to a more pragmatic solution to their vengeance, he found himself desperately wishing for some kind of sign the Crow God Reborn might be more than a madman’s prayer.

“He says he’s a bargeman from Water Strider but his grandfather was Carrion Crow from one of the lesser families. He says he has news you will want.” The servant paused, hesitating.

“Go on.”

“That the Odohaa would want.”

That got his attention. He stood, pushing away from the desk. “Bring him to my private office. I’ll receive him there.”

The servant hurried off, and Okoa made his own way back to his rooms. He didn’t want to discuss Odohaa business in a place where eyes and ears could be watching. It was bad enough Maaka had dragged him away and he had not returned to the Great House until the next day. Esa had been mad with worry, and Chaiya, his eyes blackened and his arm bandaged from wrist to elbow, had hugged him as if he had expected to never see him again. He had explained what happened and discovered two Shields had died before the fighting had been broken up by Golden Eagle’s guard.

“They owe us for our dead,” Chaiya had said. “And the injury to you.”

“And they will pay,” Esa had assured them both. “The Sky Made Council will see to it. The proper way.” Which meant payment in cacao, not blood.

After the riots, it seemed more and more citizens were sympathetic to the Odohaa, if Okoa believed the snatches of conversation he heard in the hallways. It worried him, which pushed him all the harder toward finding a solution. He just wasn’t convinced he would find it in books.

The man was there waiting when he arrived.

“I was told you have news for the Odohaa?”

The man blinked. “Yes, Lord.”

“Go on, then. I haven’t much time, and you’d best not waste it.”

The man looked taken aback at his blunt manner, but he visibly rallied. “I have seen him.”

Okoa frowned. “Seen who?”

“The Odo Sedoh.”

Okoa’s shoulders slumped. As much as he wanted to believe at this point, he found it impossible to think the Crow God Reborn was traveling down a barge on the Tovasheh. He rubbed at his neck, lips tight with disappointment. “Listen, I am sure you think—”

“No!”

He looked up, alert, hand going to the knife he kept at his side.