Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(65)

He stood. Paced away from her, hands behind his back, shoulders tense.

“What are we waiting for, Captain?” Baat growled. “Let me gut this Teek.”

How quickly he had turned against her. She remembered him at the feast on Little Moth, joining in her joke about Loob’s wife.

“What are you so scared of?” she asked.

“Shut your dirty mouth.”

“Are you scared of me, or are you scared because you know what I said about you panicking was true? That you’re the one who killed Loob, not me.”

“I said, shut the fuck up!” He pushed the knife deeper into her neck, and this time something inside her throat gave. She cried out, and it came out a gurgle. Her heart thundered, her pulse so loud in her ears that Callo’s protests on her behalf came to her as a distant roar, like waves crashing against a faraway shore. She was choking on her own blood.

“Xiala!”

Her name was a thunderclap, a sound that saturated the air. A single word that seemed to fill the space around them, freezing Baat as he withdrew the blade, stopping Callo as if encased in stone, and immobilizing the rest of the crew just as they were turning to see who or what had spoken.

It was Serapio who had shouted her name. He stood just outside their shared prison door.

Xiala could see him plainly. It was the same as that first time he had appeared on the deck, although this time he wore his black robe. The world seemed to shudder, as if it recognized him and feared what it saw. The sun, hidden behind the clouds, seemed to dim even further, as if cowering from an old enemy, and the wind, which had been nonexistent moments before, rose up screaming across the deck, tossing Xiala’s hair around her face.

Then the world blinked and righted itself. All but the sun. It was completely gone.

The sky had become a black wall. A living, undulating, screeching wall of feathers and claws and beaks that was descending on them like a nightmare.

The first crow struck Baat. Quick and sharp as an oyster blade, a deep slash that ripped his scalp away. She watched him drop, feeling light and strangely detached. I’ve lost a lot of blood, she thought absently, as the birds fell upon them.

Men jolted back to life, screaming as birds ripped flesh from cheeks and plucked eyes from sockets. She watched a black-feathered body use its beak to tear Callo’s lips from his face. Watched as he dropped dead in front of her as heavy as a felled log. Watched as the birds took his eyes, and his ears, and continued to rip apart the rest of his body.

She looked away, tears leaking from her own eyes. She had wanted to kill the bastard, hadn’t she? But mother waters, not like this.

Her eyelids drooped closed, and she tumbled from the bench.

She didn’t know how long it had lasted when the screaming finally stopped. She thought perhaps she had lost consciousness for a while, her body’s small mercy granted to her to survive the whirlwind of death.

Her lids fluttered open.

Serapio hadn’t moved. His robe flared around him like black wings, and the crows he had called, from where she couldn’t fathom, came to him as if to their master. They flowed around his form in a tight spiral, round and round, until they broke and surged upward. They seemed to shatter across the sky in bands of shadow, radiating from his body like the feathered rays of a black sun.

Serapio’s face was radiant, caught in ecstasy, his broad smile showing teeth red enough to match the blood that soaked the deck.

She wanted to say something, call to him. But her throat didn’t want to work.

He seemed to sense her there, reaching for him.

When he spoke, his voice was the sound of a thousand beating wings.

“I am not the sea,” he said, “but I have children, too.”





CHAPTER 22




CITY OF TOVA

YEAR 325 OF THE SUN

(12 DAYS BEFORE CONVERGENCE)

The costliest mistake one can make is to underestimate one’s opponent through low expectations.

—On the Philosophy of War, taught at the Hokaia War College



It took a day for the streets of Tova to settle. All the Sky Made clans called their personal guards to service to disperse crowds and enforce a curfew. Those who were caught loitering or out on the street without demonstrable business were detained and escorted home. Tova did not possess a civil police force, only individual clan militias and makeshift jail cells meant for temporary use. The most common punishments among the tight-knit Sky Made clans were banishment and, for lesser crimes, a system of restitution to make the injured party whole. Things were different in the Maw, where crime bosses ruled the streets, but the system, even there, worked much the same. Restitution, banishment, and, for the truly horrendous, a quick and merciful death.

“My guard will escort you back to the tower,” Ieyoue offered to a restless Naranpa. She had been confined to Water Strider’s Great House for almost a full twenty-four hours with no news of what had happened. Ieyoue had sent word to the tower that she, Naranpa, was well and safe, but they had not sent news back.

“Thank you for all you’ve done,” she said to the matron. “I and the Watchers will not forget it.”

Ieyoue took the declaration in stride, no doubt tallying the favor for later use, but Naranpa didn’t mind. She was grateful.

She returned to the tower in a blue hooded robe, her priestly raiment and mask hidden in a nondescript bag she carried on her back. The great doors were barred, for Shuttering or because of the riots, and she had to petition the tsiyo at the door for entry. The girl recognized her, small miracles, and let her pass. The main room was empty, as were the stairs, and she made her way back through the tower in eerie silence. She stopped at the terrace, but it was empty. The only place left was the observatory.