Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(78)

Her heart fluttered, and heat kindled in her belly. Was he saying he cared for her? That her life mattered to him? So few people had ever cared whether she lived or died, only about what she could provide to them through her Teek talents. And a goodly half of those ended up actively wanting her dead by the time they parted ways. Was he different?

“They were indwelling bastards, all of them,” she said with a shrug. “Even that fucking Callo.” Her breath caught a little, and she quickly took another drink. “You did what you had to do.”

They sat together for a while, neither speaking, but with Xiala steadily drinking. They were still in the doldrums—for how many days? she wondered. How long had she slept while he sat here on this flat, windless sea, waiting for her to wake up? Well, he had come to clean her wounds and give her water. She tried to remember how many times but couldn’t. In fact, remembering anything at all was getting harder and harder the more balché made it down her throat. Just the way she liked it.

“Now what?” she asked, her voice slurring slightly.

He looked surprised at her question. “Tova by the Convergence,” he said. “My plans have not altered.”

“Sure, but…” She gestured expansively. “Look around, Ser. Even if I wanted to get you to Tova, I don’t know where the hell it is.”

His lips quirked up at the nickname, but he didn’t correct her.

“There is the mouth of a great river that way,” he said, lifting a hand to point slightly behind him and to the west.

“And how do you know that?”

He cocked his head. As if in response, a crow cawed out. She turned to look behind her, too quickly, and it pulled at her wound. But there it was, a huge black body, perched on top of the shack she had been sleeping in. It spread its wings and yelled at her again, flapping for emphasis.

“Where did they all come from?” she asked, although there was only one bird on the roof.

“Land. I’d been talking to them since we left shore, but only began to rally them to us when they locked you in with me.”

She imagined what that must have looked like. Hundreds of crows rising up and flying unerringly out to sea.

“Got it,” she said, turning back to Serapio. “So they are like your eyes?”

“When they wish it.”

“And your weapons?”

“Not my only one, but yes.”

Not his only one? What other power was he hiding? She thought back to Lord Balam. Clearly she had not asked enough questions before taking on this commission.

“Okay, so your crow friends say the Tovasheh is that way. How many days?”

He pressed his lips together, thinking. “They are not always clear on the passage of time. But it should not matter. We go as quickly as we can and arrive in time for the Convergence.”

“And how do we get there? I seem to have lost my crew. I don’t suppose your birds can work a paddle?”

His brow creased. “No. But they have offered to make a wind…”

She had a vision of them arriving at port, a flock of black birds gallantly pushing them to dock with their tiny beaks and flapping wings.

“Mother waters, no. Let me try with my Song first.”

“Of course.”

“But…” She lifted a finger. It swayed slightly before her. “I want to know why.”

“Why what?”

“What’s so special about Tova for you? And why must you be there by the Convergence? What is the Convergence, anyway? You keep saying that like I’m supposed to know what you’re talking about.” She sighed, big and gusty. “I’m done not asking questions. I want to know everything.”

He was silent. Skies, the man could go silent with the best of them. She was about to concede that they were at a standstill, when he said, “A Convergence is a celestial alignment. A day when the sun, moon, and earth align, and the moon’s shadow devours the sun.”

“A black sun,” she said, nodding. “That’s what the Teek call it. They are rare.”

“Rare, yes, but this one is the rarest of all. This Convergence will happen over Tova on the winter solstice when the sun is already vulnerable. A Convergence has not been seen in Tova in almost four hundred years, and never on the winter solstice. Truly, the sun’s power will be at its weakest in a millennium.”

“And why must you be there?” Even as she asked, she thought of the way the sun seemed to shudder when it first saw him, hide from him when he was in his power. Which sounded ridiculous, as she was deeply aware. But she had felt it; the sun feared him.

“I have a meeting I must keep on that day.”

“With the sun?”

“With the sun’s priest.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer. Just pulled her hands to his mouth and pressed them against his warm lips. Her heartbeat quickened, and a mild tingle raced across the back of her neck, as if he had whispered something against her skin. She shivered, more pleasure than fear.

“Can you get us to Tova, Xiala?” he asked, voice low and fervent. “Can you call the sea with your Song and get us to the Tovasheh?”

“I…” She suddenly felt very drunk, as if the balché hit her all at once. And with the feeling of Serapio’s lips lingering against her knuckles and his words still in her ears, she knew she was about to do something foolish. A small voice in her head reminded her that he was dangerous, and she knew little about him. But that wasn’t true. She knew he had a sense of humor, although he hid it well, that he had never seen a naked woman, that he had nursed her wound back to health, and that, most of all, he had saved her life.