Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(22)

And then there were steps, hurried, like his father couldn’t wait to be gone. Which left the stranger here alone with him.

“Hello, Serapio.”

A crow pecked at his hand. He dug into his pocket and pulled out another handful of crumbs. The bird squawked happily. It was joined immediately by its compatriots, and the food quickly disappeared.

“Who are you?” the boy asked.

“I’m here to help you.”

“I don’t think you can help me.”

The man chuckled. It was not a kind sound. He imagined the man standing in the doorway that led out to the terrace, leaning against the frame, studying him. The man set Serapio on edge, which made his birds fuss and flap.

“Are you another healer?” Serapio asked. “Someone come to poke and prod at my eyes?”

“Oh, I’m not here to help you see again,” the man said. “I suspect that would be a waste of time. You’re going to have to let that hope go, boy.”

Serapio cocked his head, curious. No one had said that to him before. Spoken so plainly about his fate. It was always platitudes and false comforts which inevitably led to whispered incredulity that his own mother had “ruined” him and what a monster she must have been.

“I don’t have false hope,” he countered quietly.

“Of course you do,” the man said, patiently. “Life is a series of false hopes. We all have misplaced hopes until we learn better. I did.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m here to prepare you for your destiny.”

“I already know my destiny.” He pulled more food from his pocket, and the notched-beak crow landed on his palm. He knew it was him by the weight of him, the particular sound of his hungry caw.

A pause from the stranger, and Serapio knew he must be considering his words. “Tell me.”

“I’m meant to be reborn a crow.”

“And then?”

No one had ever asked “and then?” They all just assumed him mentally ill, head full of fanciful delusions of flying or escaping his maiming.

“They speak to me, you know,” the boy said.

“Not surprising. They know one of their own. And what do they tell you?”

“Mostly crow things. Of pleasant hunting grounds and the joy of flight. Of family and lost things, too.”

“You must know something about that last bit.” It was the first note of sympathy that Serapio had heard from the man.

He nodded.

“What else do they tell you?”

“That I’m one of them. That just like their great ancestor, I have swallowed the shadow of the sun. They call me Grandfather Crow sometimes, although I am not so old.”

“An ancestor, eh?”

He lifted a knobby shoulder in a shrug.

“What else do they call you, Serapio?”

He hesitated. “When my skin is too cold, Nightbringer. Or Suneater, sometimes, when I’m angry. They say that my body is cold, but my anger is hot.”

“All this you have learned from the crows?” He sounded surprised, like he had not expected that.

“They are my friends. I have earned their trust.”

“And what did your mother call you?”

Serapio twisted from where he sat on the stones to face the stranger. “Did my mother send you?” he asked.

“Your mother is dead.” The man’s voice was flat and unsympathetic, a man making a statement of fact. “But yes, she did send me, after a fashion. Arranged for me and two others to come should her work succeed.”

“You mean me,” Serapio said. “I am my mother’s work.”

“What did she tell you?”

“That I would be a god.”

The stranger was silent for so long Serapio thought he might have left undetected.

“You are a strange one,” he remarked, finally. “Come in. I have something here for you.”

Serapio heard the man’s footsteps retreating into the room. He considered ignoring the command to follow, but his curiosity got the better of him. He whispered a farewell to his friends, stood to dust off his hands and pants, and made his way to the bench he knew to be just inside the door. He took a seat.

“Take this.” Something pressed against his knee, and Serapio grasped it. It was rough bark and thick, as long as his hand and as wide. He flattened his other palm against it.

“A tree branch?”

“And now this.”

Something else at his knee. He took it, feeling a handle and a wide blade, blunt and tapered on the end. “A knife?”

“A chisel. I’m going to teach you how to carve.”

“Why?”

“It is only a tool, a means to an end. Now, when was the last time you used your hands?”

“I just used them to pick up this chisel and wood.”

A sharp blow struck his cheek. He cried out, collapsing to the floor. The crows outside shrieked. He raised a trembling hand to his face. It came away wet with blood, a thin slice of skin ripped free from the kiss of some weapon he didn’t know. It stung where the flesh was exposed to air. Rage bubbled up inside him, not cold at all, and he opened his mouth to call his crows.

“Bring them down on me, and I’ll strike them, too. I don’t want to hurt them, or you, Serapio, but you will respect me. Do you understand?”