Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2)(41)

Duty, he reminded himself. You are on the same side. “My apologies,” he said, and meant it.

Her shoulders softened. “He understands better than you think.” Her voice was subdued. “Tell me, whose idea was it to bring the Odohaa to his cell?”

“It was a coincidence. We were standing together when his crows came to fetch us.”

“A coincidence?” she scoffed. “You really believe that?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He didn’t see the point of arguing about what had already passed. “We will find our way through.”

There was a stone railing that ran the length of the terrace, and she sat against it, hands tucked in the sleeves of her robe. “I wish Mother were here. Don’t you miss her?”

Her words pricked at his heart. He realized he wished for her, too. Things would have gone differently if she were still alive. She would have known how to greet the Odo Sedoh, how to manage Maaka. But she was gone, taken from them, and now they were left to muddle through on their own.

“Did she ever write you letters?”

Her brow furrowed. “Letters?”

“Yes, something personal. Perhaps something before she died.”

“Why would she write me a letter when she saw me every day? If she wanted to say something to me, she could simply say it.”

“But what if it was a secret?”

“Did she write you a letter, Okoa? Is that why you’ve been acting strange since you returned?”

Esa might have been shallow, but she was not a fool. He nodded once, wary, watching her for a reaction. She pushed the hair from her face and took a step toward him.

“What did she say?” Her voice was breathy, unsteady.

“How, again, did you tell me she died?”

She pressed a hand to her mouth. “Skies, Okoa, did she tell you why she jumped?”

“I…” He faltered. He had expected her to say something different. Evade his question or feign ignorance, but tears had gathered in her eyes, and she looked at him expectantly. Had he misjudged her? Shame stuck like a pebble in his throat. “It was not a suicide note,” he admitted.

She inhaled sharply, fluttering her hand before her face as if to rid herself of some emotion. “I miss her.” Tears wetted her cheeks. “But it would have been worse if she was here.”

Okoa frowned. “What do you mean?”

“She was too gentle with the Odohaa.” She gestured to the hundreds below. “The proof is there. And Maaka at our door demanding, demanding, to see the Odo Sedoh.” Some of her grief shifted to outrage.

“You just said you wished she was here.”

“I do, in a selfish way. As her daughter. But she had a soft spot for Maaka and his cultists, and now they have become overbold.”

“I think you do not give her enough credit.”

“You weren’t here. You don’t know.” That cut him to the core, but she continued, as if unaware. “She was too sympathetic to their cause, and it put us at odds with the Sky Made and the Watchers. And now that the Odo Sedoh is here and has fulfilled our worst nightmare, her leniency has left him with an army of believers to command, more faithful to him than to the matron, or the Shield, or any other power in Tova. Don’t deny it.”

How could he, after what Maaka had said? But he did not tell her that.

“We could join them,” he said quietly.

She drew back as if he had hit her.

“An alliance,” he said quickly. “You are too smart not to see the benefit in it, Esa.”

She shivered, and he stood to offer her his cloak, but she waved it away. It was not the cold that made her tremble.

He said, “If we bind him to us, Carrion Crow never need bow to the other clans again. We’ve been a long time under their boot and at their mercy. We’ve had little to be proud of, little to celebrate, the Night of Knives always heavy on our backs. We’ve allowed the weight of it to bend us. I know that better than anyone.”

Her look was piercing. “You are no more of a believer than I am.”

Was he not? He was no longer so sure. He did know he was desperately trying to find a way to bring his sister, his people, and his god together, but he felt like he was searching for handholds on the side of a cliff, knowing one wrong move would send him plummeting to the earth below.

“What did you think when he approached you in the great room today?” he asked.

Her laugh was short and sharp. “That I must survive him.”

“He is not so terrible. There is a side to him…”

“He cut down the Watchers like stalks in the field. Do you think he would hesitate to do the same to you, to us, if he thought he must? It is the curse of the fanatics who only answer to their god. We are simply a means to an end to him.”

“That’s not true. At the rookery, he—”

“Did you know that I spent this evening in the library looking for every text I could find on the old gods who had manifested as humans or had human vessels?”

Tread carefully, he thought. “I thought you didn’t believe.”

“A precaution.”

“And what did you find?”

“There was a story of a woman in Cuecola who claimed to possess the appetites of the jaguar god and had eaten her husband before she was killed by the neighbors in a house fire. And another account of a dreamwalker during the War of the Spear who claimed to have killed a god in her dreams, but the encounter had left her brain scrambled, and she was locked away, screaming about visions and shadows.”