Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(109)

Satisfied, she turned back to the body. She drew an obsidian blade from her belt and, with a well-practiced cut, opened a long gash in her arm. Blood welled bright and red. She held the wound over Naranpa and let the blood drip down on her chest and belly, even across her face. She signaled to the girls, and they knelt by the body, using their hands to spread the blood evenly across Naranpa’s cold skin while Zataya bandaged her wound. Zataya watched until she was satisfied that the priest was thoroughly coated. Only then did she shrug the mantle from her own shoulders to cover the body.

She paused with the blanket poised over Naranpa’s face.

“Open her mouth,” the witch said, and one of the girls complied. Zataya tucked a smooth white lump of salt beneath Naranpa’s tongue before dropping the blanket over her head. Then she made her way around the body, making sure the edges were tucked in tight and no air could get in or out. Done, she dropped to her haunches to admire her work.

“What happens now?” one of the girls asked.

In truth, Zataya wasn’t sure. She worked usually in earth magic—charms of finding, small fortunes told, potions and cures for ailments and colicky babies. But her mother’s mother had traveled widely and had learned some of the blood magic of the southern sorcerers. She had taught her daughter, who had taught Zataya. But for a Dry Earth witch who had never actually performed such sorcery and in truth had only learned about it at third hand, it was very possible that nothing would happen. But she had promised Denaochi that she would try everything possible to save his sister, so that was what she intended to do.

Down here in the depths of the Maw, it was much too dark to have any use for the sun. Its light never reached this deep in the canyon. But Zataya shivered all the same as shadows spread across the city and the meager daylight disappeared altogether. She heard faint cries far above them, echoing down through the walls of the canyon. The eclipse must have begun.

“What happens now,” the witch told the girl, “is we wait.”





CHAPTER 42




THE CITY OF TOVA

YEAR 1 OF THE CROW

Today I observed a crow funeral. One fledgling had fallen from the nest and brained itself against the ground. Throughout the day all the crows of Odo came to visit the corpse, talking loudly among themselves and bearing witness to their fallen companion. I asked my uncle about it, and he said that the crows are only warning the others about a fatal danger so that they do not repeat and perish as well. But he did not hear the crows weep, as I did. He did not behold their terrible sorrow.

—From Observations on Crows, by Saaya, age thirteen



Okoa flew over Sun Rock on Benundah’s back and despaired. The ceremonial grounds had become a wasteland. Bodies were strewn across the amphitheater, or what was left of bodies. Many had been reduced to nothing, only dark smudges against the red rock earth. The rest fanned out from the center in a disquieting symmetry, as if their arrangement had a hidden deeper meaning.

He had studied war, but he had never seen anything like this. It turned his stomach, made him nauseated at the level of destructive power the Odo Sedoh had wielded. And he was convinced this man was indeed the Odo Sedoh. When Benundah had come to him in the aviary and urged him onto her back and brought him here, there was no longer room for doubt.

Although Okoa had no idea what being the Odo Sedoh truly meant. In all the Odohaa’s talk of a god reborn and vengeance, he had never imagined the reality of it. It had always seemed something far off, a noble battle between the dogged and underpowered cultists and the cruel Knives and their Sun Priest. But below him were people—just people—and he had no idea how to process it all.

Benundah cried out and made for the middle of the circle. He tugged at her reins, forcing her to bank and soar clear of Sun Rock. He wasn’t sure it was safe to land, even for her. But she shook her head, fighting his control, and turned back to the amphitheater, again. This time he let her lead, and she circled twice over the center, crying out in a voice he had not heard from her before. It was raw, primal, and it shivered down his spine, reminding him Benundah herself was a creature of magics.

Directly below him in the center of the circle of the dead he saw a figure. Small from this height and lying on his back. Benundah screamed again, and he knew it was him.

“All right,” he said to his mount, resting a reassuring hand against her shoulder. “I’ll go look.”

She immediately descended, swooping low to land at the lip of the amphitheater. Okoa slid from his saddle and took in the scene before him. The first thing to hit him was the stench. It smelled of death, of emptied bowels and viscera, and over the offal stench was the sweet and coppery scent of blood and the familiar must of crows.

He did not want to go down into the pit, but he had no choice. He breathed deeply through his mouth, squared his shoulders, and drew his knife before descending the stairs. He had been here only two weeks ago for his mother’s funeral, and countless times before that for celebrations and ceremonies, but now it seemed an entirely different place, unfamiliar and haunted.

He picked his way across the killing grounds. He recognized the bodies here. There were a handful of people arrayed in Sky Made clan colors, likely household guards, but mostly he saw the corpses of priests. A cluster of red-robed dedicants he knew to be tsiyos in training splayed out like the plucked petals of a ruined flower, a spiral of twisted limbs and torn bodies. He shuddered. If he had not seen it with his own eyes, he would not have thought such domination possible. All his life, the Knives of the Watchers were untouchables, demons from every Crow child’s nightmares. Even recently, they had bested him and his Shield. But here they were, mowed down like so much grass in the field.