Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(53)
Okoa had never asked about the stable hand’s religious leanings, and why would he? But now he was beginning to suspect that he was talking to a believer.
“Yes, I know them. I’ve even attended a meeting or two.”
It was a small thing to confess. Most Carrion Crow scions of a certain age had been to at least one Odohaa ceremony, either out of curiosity or on a dare. And many people had a relative, an older aunt or cousin, who claimed membership in the group. They were a fact of life in Odo, even if the rest of Tova and the Watchers in the tower thought them cowed into submission.
Ashk grinned at Okoa’s confession, showing a mouthful of uneven gray teeth that had once been stained red. “They say a storm is coming. And soon. That the Odo Sedoh will return.”
Okoa nodded. They had been saying that all his life. Vengeance for the Night of Knives. Honor and pride once again for the clan.
“They sent me,” Ashk said, leaning conspiratorially close. “Told me to invite you to their next meeting. It will be tonight, after the funeral.”
Okoa shook his head, thinking quick. “I’ll likely be in mourning with my family.” It was custom to cover oneself in ash and sit vigil until the next morning, so he was not lying, but he was certainly glad for the convenient excuse.
Ashk pressed something into his hand. It was a crow feather. Someone had written with chalk on one side. “Here is the house where we meet. Come tonight if you can. If not, another time. There will always be an Odohaa there to welcome you, Lord Okoa.”
The man made to leave, but Okoa stopped him. “Who asked you to come to me? And why me? What do the Odohaa want from me?”
Ashk’s eyes were shining with tears, clearly overcome with some emotion. So much that Okoa took an involuntary step back.
“The storm is coming, Lord, and we want you to teach us.”
Okoa wanted justice for his clan, but joining with the cultists was not the way. They were fanatics, men and women convinced that if they only prayed hard enough, they could raise a god who had been dead for a thousand years. If he had learned anything at Hokaia, it was that justice came though the actions of humans holding wrongdoers to account, not through some vague divine retribution and certainly not through violence.
He pressed the feather back into the man’s hand. “I can’t help you. You’ve got the wrong man. I want nothing to do with the Odohaa or their reborn god.”
He turned sharply on his heel and left the aviary before Ashk could say anything else.
* * *
The storm is coming, and we want you to teach us. Okoa turned the phrase over again and again in his mind as he and his myriad relatives and the citizens of Odo processed to Sun Rock to send his mother on her way into death. The storm is coming, and we want you to teach us. The storm is coming, and we want you to teach us.
“Stars, Okoa! The least you could do is pay attention. We are going to our mother’s funeral, after all.”
Okoa shook himself to attention. He had been lost in thought and had accidentally stepped on Esa’s hem. She had worn a dress in proper mourning white that dragged on the ground, picking up a layer of dirt as they walked through the street. If she had truly aspired to the customary, she would have gone barefoot, but flurries had begun to fall an hour ago, and the air cut at the skin like pinpricks made of ice. Again, custom would have them bare-armed, a display of haahan appropriate in a time of grief. But Esa wore a thick fur coat of some poor white animal, and the rest of his relatives, cousins and aunts and uncles, who trailed behind their new matron and her Shield, did much the same, only with less panache.
“Apologies, Sister,” he murmured.
“I see you chose to wear your blacks after all,” she said, voice dry. She arched an eyebrow at his leathers. Not only had he kept his uniform on, but he’d topped it with a cloak of crow feathers made from Benundah’s own shed. He’d sewn it himself and kept it oiled and well preserved. It was the first time he had donned it in years, and it felt good to have it on his shoulders once again.
And I see you chose to pick at me like a hungry gull, he thought, but held his tongue. He might have said it aloud to Esa even as recently as this morning, but he understood now that she was targeting him for the smallest slight in order to distract herself from what lay ahead of them. He had been ungenerous before to judge her. They were both grieving, after all.
“What do you know of the Odohaa?” he asked instead.
She hesitated, no doubt expecting him to argue with her, but she answered his question. “They have done a lot for the people.”
That surprised him. “When I left, they were mostly underground. Focused on ceremonies to resurrect the crow god.”
“They still are in private, but no one’s foolish enough to stand in the streets calling for the Crow God Reborn anymore, and certainly there’s no talk of usurping the Watchers or the Sun Priest. No one wants another Night of Knives. So they’ve turned their public attention to charity, mostly. Feeding children, caring for widows. That sort of thing.”
“Militia training?”
Her mouth turned down. “I haven’t heard anything about that.”
“I spoke to a cultist today, someone I know. He asked me to train them to war.”
She frowned, thinking. “Armed rebellion?” she asked.
“Even with a hundred fighters, two hundred, they could not challenge the tower as long as it had the support of the other clans.” His fingers wove through the obsidian cloak clasp at his neck as he thought. “How many call themselves Carrion Crow?”