Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2)(40)

“I won’t leave you, Ser,” she whispered. “I promise it. I’ll come back. Just hold on.” And seven hells, don’t marry anyone.

A shout to halt from above. She’d been spotted. She had to decide now.

She followed Iktan, taking the steps two at a time. She hit the landing and ran, not looking back. Iktan was already aboard, the boat pulling away. She jumped the distance, not needing any aid to board a ship.

“There.” One of the sailors pointed her toward a small seat next to Iktan, well out of the way of the short rectangular sails they worked to cross the waters. She dropped to the seat, heart pounding. Odo faded behind them, the guards who had chased her left behind.

“Wise choice. Not so stupid after all.”

“Now tell me—”

Xe pressed a finger to her mouth and rolled eyes toward the two sailors meaningfully. “Quiet, now, until we’re in friendlier waters. We’ll have plenty of time to chat on the way to Hokaia.”





CHAPTER 13


CITY OF TOVA (DISTRICT OF ODO)

YEAR 1 OF THE CROW

A man divided against himself is profound only in his misery.

—Exhortations for a Happy Life



Okoa stood on the Great House terrace that overlooked the district of Odo and watched the masses come. The yard had been empty when he and the Odo Sedoh had flown back to Tova earlier in the day, but people had begun to trickle in soon afterward, no doubt on the word of their return spreading across the city. More followed with the Odohaa when they came to see for themselves. But it had been hours since Maaka, Feyou, and the others had departed, and still the masses grew. Now they stretched from the walls to the far cliffs that overlooked the Tovasheh, their campfires glowing in the unnatural twilight, their prayers a soft murmuring on the winds that buffeted the Great House.

Are they our salvation? Okoa wondered. Or our ruin?

Soft footsteps behind him had him glancing over his shoulder. Esa had changed out of her formal dress and was wearing a simple black robe that covered her sandaled feet and tied at the waist. Her dark hair fell loose down her back, and her face was scrubbed clean. He turned away.

“You look like Mother,” he said, gaze focused across the masses below them.

“How many do you think they are?” she asked softly, coming to stand beside him.

“Five hundred. Maybe more.”

“Not all Carrion Crow.”

“No. Other clans, too. The Shield have reported Winged Serpent and Water Strider among them. And some of the clanless from the smaller towns downriver and even some foreigners who were here for the solstice. Most have fled the unnatural sun, but enough remain.”

Esa shivered, the wind catching her hair and tangling it around her face. “What do they want?”

“To see a god?” he ventured. “To witness a miracle?”

She nodded and pulled her robe tighter. “Where’s your feathered cloak?”

“I let him keep it. He offered to return it, but…”

He could not read the look on his sister’s face, but he guessed it to be dismay. Irritation tightened his mouth. Who was she to judge him after what she had done?

“What were you thinking?” he finally asked, voice harsh with frustration. “A cell, Esa?”

“He is going to destroy us,” she said softly.

“You don’t know that.” But he felt it, too. Perhaps he had felt it from the moment they had fought in the monastery. And after what had happened with Maaka, the inevitability of it felt like snow high on the mountain, waiting to become the avalanche.

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“He wanted to stay in that damned cell with the sky door. I left a Shield at his door should he need anything. It was hard enough to convince Maaka not to whisk him away to Odohaa headquarters after your stunt, so I let him stay. Why he chose to I have no idea.”

“To make a point.”

“Of our poor hospitality?”

“Worse than that. He’s planning something.”

“Can you blame him? We didn’t exactly welcome him with open arms.”

“We can’t lose him to the Odohaa. That would be a disaster.”

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before locking him in a cell.”

“Do you think Maaka will go to the aunties? You saw how they reacted today. He could bend their ear. And if word gets out to the common population and spreads through the district, it could be fatal to our cause.”

“And what is our cause, Sister? I thought it was saving Carrion Crow, but I feel I’ve lost the thread of our purpose somewhere along the way, perhaps when you threw the Odo Sedoh in jail.”

She at least had the sense to look chagrined. “I thought perhaps if he understood that he is not wanted here, then he would leave. It was…” She exhaled. “It was a game, Okoa. He could have escaped that cell whenever he wanted. He knew it. I knew it.”

“The Odohaa did not see it that way.”

“I had not meant for them to see it at all.”

“Why did you think you could play games with him?”

“The Sky Made scions would understand—”

“He is not a scion!”

She crossed her arms and turned her back to him. “Do not scold me like a child. I am still your matron.”