Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(91)

“Can a bad person become a good person by performing a good deed?” he asked.

“How do you mean, crow son?”

“If we agree that Paadeh and Eedi, and perhaps yourself, Powageh, are not good people, but you have trained me to a higher cause, the cause of justice, then perhaps you are a good person after all.”

“The crow god a god of justice?” The old priest scoffed. “I’ve not heard that before.”

“Vengeance, then. But what is vengeance if not justice?”

“Vengeance can be for spite. It can eat you up inside, take from you everything that makes you happy, makes you human. Look at what it did to your mother. Would justice do that?”

Serapio considered. He did not much feel like a human most days, although he was not sure what it felt like to be a god, either, despite Powageh’s insistence that he was an avatar. And he thought that the thing that made him happy was vengeance, or at least the idea that he would travel to Tova and exact it for his ancestors since they could not do so for themselves.

“You did not train me for four and a half years to fulfill a promise of spite,” he said confidently.

“Why did you kill them, then?” his tutor asked.

Serapio answered honestly. “Paadeh whipped me repeatedly. Often. He wanted me to make physical pain my friend and labored hard at it. But I forgave him that.”

Powageh grunted noncommittally.

“But he also threatened my crows. Said if I didn’t do as he told me, he would whip them, too. It would have killed them.”

“He always was a petty tyrant of a man,” Powageh muttered. Serapio could feel the weight of xir scrutiny. “So you killed him because he threatened your friends.”

Serapio nodded.

“And the spearmaiden? Eedi? What did she threaten?”

“My clan.”

After a while Powageh let out a heavy exhale. “She always did talk too much for her own good. Figured it would get her killed one day.” Another sigh. “And how do you plan to kill me, crow son?”

Serapio had been thinking about this, too. “You saved my mother’s life. Gave her shelter, loved her.”

“I did.”

“I do not think she would want you to die.”

A startled laugh from the priest. “But my transgressions are many, Serapio. I have killed people in the name of the priesthood, many from your clan alone. You, the Crow God Reborn, the harbinger of vengeance incarnate, would let me live?”

Xir tone was jesting, but Serapio knew xe was serious. He had long ago realized Powageh carried a great burden, something dark that drove xir.

“Sometimes it is better to let one live with their misdeeds than to free them through death. A dead priest cannot atone. A live one… well, there is always the choice.”

“Well, crow son,” xe said, voice weary with the weight of age and choices, “perhaps my life has not been a mistake after all. But do not be so quick to grant me your mercy. There is one last lesson I must impart to you: your task on the Day of Convergence.

“The Sun Priest and the Sky Made matrons will arrive at Sun Rock before sundown. The Convergence should occur while the sun is just above the horizon line. The Convergence will last only minutes, twelve at the most, and those minutes you must use to your advantage.”

“But there will be Knives,” Serapio said.

“Yes, the Society of Knives will no doubt be there, along with the Sky Made matrons and their Shields. You will have to find a way through them all.”

“You mean kill them.”

“Yes, but once you have had your fill of blood, shadow will be your knife.”

“What does that mean?”

“Saaya had a theory. It was only a theory, mind you, but she was right about so much. Right about shaping you, after all. She believed the Watchers had once been instruments of gods.”

“Vessels?” Serapio asked, surprised.

“No. Or perhaps once, but no longer. The priesthood believes their powers are simply a product of natural talent honed through study, and there is merit in that opinion. For those of us who rose no further than dedicant, perhaps that’s all there is. But Saaya believed there was a deeper essence in those that wore the masks, something that came in the moment of investiture as head of one’s society that imbued them with a god’s essence.”

“What do you mean by investiture?”

“An ascension to rank.”

“A ceremony, then. Sorcery,” he said confidently.

Powageh’s laugh was short and sharp. “Ritual magic? Perhaps, but the priesthood would kill anyone where they stand for heresy if they suggested such a thing.”

“That doesn’t make it any less true.”

“Of course not. The crow and the sun are long enemies,” xe continued, “some say from before the God War. Saaya believed that if the crow god at the height of his influence were to devour the essence of the sun invested in the Sun Priest at the nadir of hers, then the power in our world could be flipped to favor the crow.”

“So it’s not only the institution you and my mother are after, it is the god itself. The very ordering of the world.”

Powageh said nothing, but Serapio could hear the breath rattling through xir faulty lungs and knew he had guessed right.

“You must think us arrogant fools,” xe finally said.