Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(43)

“She’s matured since last you saw her, Okoa. She will never have your warmth, will never be the people’s favorite the way you are,” he said, and Okoa flushed at the compliment, “but she is a good woman. She will be a good matron.”

Chaiya was probably right. The last time he and Esa had spent any time together they were teenagers. He had certainly changed, so why not her? Strange to think he was twenty and she twenty-two and about to lead the clan.

“Will you stay on as the captain of Esa’s Shield?”

“No,” Chaiya said, voice heavy. “I failed your mother. It would be shameful for me to stay on. Besides, Esa has asked for you to become her captain.”

“Of course.” Okoa pushed back from the table, limbs jittery, restless. He knew the time for him to take Chaiya’s position would come eventually, but he had imagined it happening decades from now.

“I’ll need to come back for the funeral.” He turned to Chaiya. “There will be a funeral, won’t there?”

“A citywide funeral, three days hence, upon our return.”

“Good. That’s good.” He paced back and forth, trying to grasp the facts. His mother. She was gone. Truly gone. And now he had to go home and serve his sister.

“We will arrange to have your things sent home,” Chaiya said. “They’ll come by boat down the river and along the coast, all the way back to Tova.”

“It will take months.”

“It can’t be helped. You and I will ride Kutssah back to Tova tomorrow morning. We’ll return in time for the funeral.”

“Good.” Okoa swiveled on the ball of his foot and turned back the other way. He stopped in front of Chaiya. “Then I guess that’s it.” It was an awkward thing to say, wholly inadequate, but he had never lost a mother before and was unsure what one said at these times. For a moment, he did wish Esa was here. For all her ambition and obsession with propriety, she was still his big sister. She would know what to say.

“Sit, Cousin,” Chaiya said. “There’s one more thing.”

Okoa stopped his pacing. He didn’t sit but folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall behind him. “Go on.”

Chaiya reached into the fold of his shirt and withdrew a sheet of slim yellowed paper. It had been folded and sealed with the glyph his mother had used to sign her name to official documents. He handed it to Okoa.

“What is this?” Bark paper was rare in Tova, imported from Cuecola. The process for making it was laborious and lengthy. Most paper was kept by the celestial tower for its records and star charts, but the Sky Made clans each had a store of its own for civic matters.

“Yatliza entrusted it to me upon your birth.”

“My mother gave this to you when I was born? How could that be? You must have been a child.”

“I was thirteen. A child, but not much of one. I had received my first egg, hatched Kutssah, and if you recall, my mother had already died.”

Okoa remembered now. He did not recall Chaiya’s mother because Okoa had not yet been born when his aunt died, but he realized this letter was probably meant to be held in trust to her. In her absence the letter had gone to her only child, Chaiya. And now it came to him.

“What should I do with this?” he asked, looking at Chaiya for guidance.

“Open it. Read it.”

Okoa held the paper to his chest. It was his mother’s last words, but they were words that had been written twenty years ago and not meant to be read until this day. What had his mother thought to write upon the birth of her son? Words of love, no doubt. Of the future. Perhaps simply an echo of the star chart that all Sky Made had drawn by the priests upon birthdays and funerals.

“Should I open it now?”

“If you like.” Chaiya’s eyes watched him, and Okoa felt a sudden shiver of foreboding. He trusted his cousin with his life. But something, a feeling he couldn’t name, told him to wait.

He tucked the paper into his shirt, his pulse spiking with anxiety. “I think I’d like to read it first alone. You understand.”

Chaiya’s eyes narrowed, more in hurt than suspicion. He stood abruptly.

“Of course,” he said smoothly. “You are right not to trust me.”

“I-I’m sorry, Cousin. I do trust you, of course I do. But I just need to read this alone.” He couldn’t explain his sudden discomfort, but he knew to trust his instincts, and his instincts were telling him Chaiya was not telling him something. Not lying, but not being honest, either.

Chaiya’s anger softened in understanding. He grasped Okoa by the shoulder, shaking him roughly, a gesture of camaraderie. “I’ll bunk with Kutssah out in the open air tonight. Meet me at first light in the aviary. We have a long flight back to Tova, and with Kutssah carrying us both, we will move slower.”

“Can she bear both our weights? We are not small men.”

“Of course, Cousin. I would not have come all this way if she could not.” He smiled, showing red-stained teeth.

Teeth like a predator, Okoa thought. And stained as if for ceremony. Or battle. Which didn’t help his calm.

Chaiya embraced him in farewell. Okoa wondered if the older man could hear his elevated heart rate.

“Tomorrow, then,” Chaiya said.

“Yes,” Okoa agreed. “Tomorrow. First light.”