Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2)(107)

He was younger than she’d expected. The glimpse she had caught of him on the roof had been brief, and he had been contorted with pain and his form half corvid. But now he looked very normal. A man in his early twenties, shoulder-length hair tied back from an almost delicate face. Tall and thin, dressed in what looked like quilted black Shield armor from the waist up and an ankle-length skirt over bare feet from the waist down, a white staff in hand.

He did not look up at her approach but continued to walk in a strange pattern, curling and looping back on itself, as if he were tracing something in the dirt that only he could see. He was talking, quiet murmurs she could not discern, and occasionally he would stretch out his hand as if measuring the distance between his steps. Only when she had descended the stairs of the amphitheater and come to a halt in the center, no more than twenty paces away, did he stop.

As if on cue, the sun flared above them, just as it had on the celestial tower. Light broke across Sun Rock, the first dawn in many days.

He raised his face to the sun and smiled. “Ah…” His voice was easy, conversational. Nothing like the monster she had heard speak atop the tower. “It is as I suspected.”

She shivered; she could not help it. The contrast was too startling, the contradiction disconcerting. She had come to face a nightmare and found this man instead.

“And what did you suspect?” She pitched her voice to carry.

He raised a hand, as if asking her to wait, and then, again as if expected, he winced in pain. His hand went to his side, and he gritted his teeth. She watched him swallow and come back panting. Then he straightened, and shadow flared around him. When he finally looked at her, his eyes were solid black.

She involuntarily took a step back before she felt her being respond, and she gasped as her eyes brightened and her body ignited. This was not the fire of her rage but something else. Something as warm and nurturing as the sun, akin to the healing power that had come over her in the Agave.

His laughter was a dark joy. “It seems our gods very much want us to fight.” He shifted his hold on the staff and spread his feet.

“I know what caused your wound.” She spoke quickly, her words tumbling from her tongue.

He tilted his head. “So do I.”

“But I can heal it.” It was a daring thing to say, to promise when she was not sure it could be done, but it was what spilled forth.

“And why would you do that?”

“Because this is not you. This is not us.” The truth of it came together all at once. The stories she had read in the tower books. Her visions. “As you said, it is our gods who compel us. Who puppet us through these motions. How many times have we fought before, Crow God? How many times will we fight again? It is an endless cycle, light and dark, fire and shadow. We, you and me, Serapio and Naranpa… we need not die for it!”

He was quiet for a very long time. “How do you know my name?”

She realized her mistake, but it was too late to take it back. “Okoa told me.”

“Okoa…” Some emotion flashed across his face. “Funny. He has never called me by my name, even though it was something I wanted very much once.” He smiled. “Is that what you came to tell me? That Okoa has aligned with the Sun Priest?”

“I came to sue for peace.” It was not, in fact, the reason she had come. Sorrow had driven her. Exhaustion. She had come to win, or to die. But hope flared now, as new and promising as the sun above. “I have tried to do what is right for Tova, but I have only failed. The city was dying before you came, the Watchers corrupted, the clans too insular. We lay bloated and rotting under the sun as our people suffered.”

“And now?”

“They suffer still,” she admitted. “Too much darkness destroys as easily as too much light. We must seek the balance between us.”

He seemed to turn inward, as if communing with a presence she could not discern. “My god does not think so. He has been bound for too long, kept from this place and his people by the greed of the sun god.” He spread his hands. “He wishes to rule.” He stood for a moment, arms still wide. A slow-creeping smile blossomed across his face. “He wishes you dead.” Now she heard the god, the terrible voice like the dark shadows of the grave.

He began to run.

Toward her.

She only had time to turn, willing her feet to motion, before he was upon her. He slammed into her back, forcing her down. She hit the ground, face-first, ice cracking under her cheek. His forearm dug into the back of her neck, and his knee pressed against her spine. She sensed more than felt something sharp coming for her throat.

Terror drowned her. She fought to think, but her mind was gibberish. All she had was adrenaline and panic. She struggled, but his grip was stone. Desperate, her vision fading and her mind losing consciousness, she reached for that locked place inside her, her river of choler and grief. She ripped the dam free and let her fear explode in a torrent of rage.

Her body erupted.

He fell back with a curse as she unfurled her wings, twisting her sinuous body to rise.

His lips curled, amused. He lifted his arms, palms up, and exploded.

They collided in the air, firebird and the black-winged flock. Naranpa felt the stab of a hundred beaks, the tearing of talons ripping across her stomach, and she screamed. Flames streaked from her mouth, searing corvids and driving them back. She gripped a bird between her talons and tore it in half. Shrieks shredded the air, and the crows fell. Suddenly, she was free.