Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(57)

“The crowd is turning into a riot,” the woman said. “It’s not safe for any of us, but definitely not you.”

“But I’ve got to explain.”

“Nara!” Ieyoue said, exasperated. She grabbed Naranpa by the shoulders and turned her back to face the way she’d come.

Blood. Enough to turn the snow red. Churned by men fighting with hands and knives and complicated by people desperately trying to flee across the narrow bridges that could only accommodate two abreast and less in the ice.

“Skies,” she whispered, shocked.

“Now!” And this time when Ieyoue pulled her away, she followed. Across the bridge to Titidi, the Water Strider clan making way for their matron and the Sun Priest.

Naranpa lost sight of the rest of the Watchers, letting Ieyoue lead her through the streets of the district and to the Great House. Glimpses of water gardens and canals wearing a fine coating of frost were incongruously peaceful after the rush and horror of the riot.

Once they were inside, Ieyoue had her wrapped in blankets and sitting in her offices, a hot beverage in her hand, before Naranpa could process what had happened.

“Get the Sun Priest something to eat,” the matron commanded a nearby servant.

“No,” Naranpa protested softly. “I’m fasting.”

“Surely you can break your fast for now. You need food to fight the shock.”

“I…” But she didn’t have the will to fight about it.

Ieyoue nodded, sending the servant away to fetch a plate.

“May I?” She reached behind Naranpa’s head to release the mask’s clasp. She pulled it from her face. “Now, drink. The tea will help.”

Naranpa looked at her golden mask, now streaked with Carrion Crow blood. “Do you think they’re dead?”

“Who, Nara?”

Iktan, she thought first. And then the son, Okoa. But her lips could form neither name.

“Someone’s definitely dead,” Ieyoue said gently. “We will wait a few hours to return you to the tower and sort out who.”





CHAPTER 20




THE CRESCENT SEA

YEAR 325 OF THE SUN

(12 DAYS BEFORE CONVERGENCE)

The sea has no mercy, even for a Teek.

—Teek saying



The storm didn’t strike until well into the next week. Seven days of clear skies, favorable winds, and steady progress through the endless blue were more than Xiala had hoped for, and every morning that dawned clear, she gave thanks to her mother, the sea. But experience warned her that the weather wouldn’t hold, and she had never been wrong before.

After an increasingly cloudy night that obscured the stars and left her with her ear pressed to the floor of the canoe, listening to the way the waves moved around them to determine direction, she knew a storm was hours away and not days. When the morning dawned a fiery red, she cursed her fickle father above. Serapio had kept watch with her, and he asked what was wrong.

“Red skies mean rain,” she said, “and skies that red mean a whole fucking lot of it.”

“Is it beautiful?” he asked.

She laughed, low and skeptical. “Beautiful enough to kill you.”

His lips ticked up, but he said nothing.

Ever since that first night when she had used her Song to give the crew a break, Serapio had shown up once the moon was high and the crew was mostly asleep and sat vigil with her. She had indulged him at first, amused by his enthusiasm for her stories and, admittedly, flattered by his attention and unusual curiosity. But by the fourth evening, she realized that she was impatiently glancing toward his shed, wondering when he would come out. She had already thought of a handful of stories to tell him that night, knowing that he would like best the one about the seabird that flew a thousand miles to save its hatchling.

“Look at you, Xiala,” she whispered to herself with a wry shake of her head. “You like him. The blind foreigner who doesn’t say much. Well, you always do like the strange ones.”

Which wasn’t true. She usually liked the pretty ones, the easy ones she could leave in port the next day and not feel bad about. But there was something about his quiet presence beside her night after night, something intentional about the way he sat next to her, his hands folded in his lap. Or if she was telling a particularly enthralling story, the way he would absently trace a finger over his palm, circling an invisible line on his skin. She took pleasure in his proximity, the kiss of his breath against her skin, the smell of distant smoke that lingered on his clothes.

He was peculiar, though. There was no denying that. But she no longer felt uneasy in his company or saw giant crows around his head. She was willing to chalk his awkwardness up to being a foreigner, and a sheltered one at that. How could one know anything about the world, about people and the way they interacted, if one had grown up isolated in the mountains like he had?

She’d gotten that much out of him, but she wanted to know more about those mountains and everything else about his homeland, but he was tight-lipped. “A man is like a clam,” her mother had once told her. “Let him open on his own, and he will give you a pearl.”

Her aunt had scoffed, arguing that it was best to crack them open right away to find out if inside there was only sand and no pearl at all, and that’s why the Teek had no use for them. But that wasn’t entirely right, and Xiala had known that even at a young age. True, there were no men in their society. She had told Serapio that sailors simply did not find their floating islands very often. But the truth was that some did; they just didn’t live long enough to tell anyone else about it. And she, a Teek a long way from home, would not be explaining the murderous habits of her kinfolk anytime soon. She considered it a cultural peculiarity and no one’s business but the Teek’s.