Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2)(29)

The guard peered suspiciously at the marking before reaching out and running a finger across the skin. “Fresh,” she accused.

“I come late to my heritage,” Uncle Kuy confessed, “but I do come. Talk to Lord Okoa, the captain of the Shield. He knows me. He will vouch for me.”

The guard pinched thin lips together. “And her?”

“My niece,” Uncle Kuy lied. “I’m the only family she has. I couldn’t leave her behind when the crow god called us. She is true.”

Xiala dipped her head, mimicking what she thought an obedient niece might do, and made sure her hair and eyes were well covered.

“And your business?” the guard asked.

“We answer the call of the Odo Sedoh.” Uncle Kuy swept an arm around, encompassing the camp just beyond the makeshift wall and the club-wielding guard. His eyes shone, and Xiala thought perhaps some was theater but suspected most was genuine. “We join with our brethren to pledge our lives to—”

“Move on,” the guard said, cutting him off. She stepped to the side to usher them through. “Find a fire, a place to rest,” she intoned, as if speaking from rote. “Food will come around, latrines are on the northern edge of the camp, no weapons, no fighting, or you’re out. No exceptions.”

“Praise to Odo Sedoh,” Uncle Kuy said, head bobbing.

Xiala was sure she saw the guard roll her eyes skyward. If she had to guess, the woman had heard the same speech and the same fervent farewell a dozen times, and it had ceased to impress. She made note that not every Crow was quite so devout as the ones she’d met before now.

The camp was busy but not so crowded that they couldn’t make their way through. She guessed at most two hundred people were gathered in a yard that likely accommodated a thousand if they stood shoulder to shoulder. Most of the people near the gate were families, mothers and fathers with infants and children underfoot. They had already set up small pit fires and looked to be settled in to wait. For what, Xiala was unsure.

As they moved farther into camp, she saw more people who looked to be Odohaa. Many displayed bare arms and backs despite the cold, skin wreathed in haahan. She had only ever seen Serapio’s, and while they told a story of who he was, a story she had come to respect and find the beauty in, many of the haahan here were works of art. Delicately carved crows, their wings rendered in loving detail, sigils that she guessed were prayers, and of course, the ubiquitous crow skull. Many were freshly limned in red dye, as were the teeth she glimpsed in prayerful mouths.

“Are they all Odohaa here?” she asked Uncle Kuy.

She had never gotten along with religious types, at least until Serapio, and this many at once made her itch. Experience told her they would not like a Teek, particularly one who might take their precious Odo Sedoh from them. She hadn’t shared her plans with Uncle Kuy and decided then and there that silence on the matter was the wiser course. Let him think she simply wanted to see a friend again, not that she wanted to rescue Serapio from this fanatics’ den.

“Most are Odohaa,” Uncle Kuy acknowledged. “But not all. There are some like me with Carrion Crow blood but no home in Odo. Others who may have homes here but have come to see the Odo Sedoh when he is revealed. And then there are those who read the skies and see the shadowed sun as a sign of what’s to come and have chosen sides.”

“There are so many.”

“And more to come.”

“Why?

“They have waited generations for this moment, Xiala. How could they not?”

That sounded too much like something Serapio might say, and it left her uneasy.

“Let’s sit there.” Uncle Kuy pointed to a nearby fire where three people sat talking. Two women and a third person wrapped in a black cloak, hood up, gender not immediately known. None of the group flaunted haahan or red teeth, and she relaxed at that. She wasn’t sure she would know what to say to an Odohaa, and the idea of praying to Serapio was so absurd that it made her laugh. She hoped he would think it was absurd, too, but she suspected he might not.

“May we join you, friends?”

Uncle Kuy’s question was directed at the eldest of the group, a woman in a black dress and red cloak with a hem of beads and feathers. Her dark hair was threaded with white and cut into a blunt bang. The woman next to her was dressed much the same and looked enough like her companion that Xiala guessed them to be relations, likely mother and daughter.

“All are welcome,” the older woman said genially. Uncle Kuy looked to the other companions, and they both nodded in agreement.

“Our thanks,” he replied, and Xiala murmured a thanks as well.

Uncle Kuy sat next to the daughter, and Xiala took the place next to him, the cloaked stranger on her left. She dropped to the ground, grateful to be off her feet. The walk through Titidi earlier and the trek across the sky bridge and through Kun had taken a toll. Before the day she had spent walking with Serapio, she’d been twenty days at sea, and her legs did not adjust to land easily. She was paying the price for it now. The stranger next to her poked at the fire to rouse it, and she nodded, grateful, before leaning forward to catch the warmth against her hands and face.

“Do you come from far?” the older woman asked politely. Her eyes took in their blue cloaks just as the guard’s had.

“Not so far,” Uncle Kuy said. “My grandfather was Carrion Crow.”