Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2)(69)

Chaiya raised his hands, stepping back. “Easy, Okoa. I only want to talk of your father. There’s no one around to hear us.”

The strain pulled at his shoulder, but he kept the bowstring drawn. He had been gone from Tova since he was twelve, but he knew this much: “My father was a traitor. There is nothing else to talk about.”

“There is more, if you will hear it.”

His arm trembled. A growl started in his chest, pain manifested as sound. It escaped his lips in a low scream as he loosed the arrow, turning his aim just in time to miss hitting his cousin. The arrow flew harmlessly into the trees. Chaiya turned to watch its flight before facing him again. His eyes were wide.

Okoa did not bother to reply to his look of outrage.

Chaiya said nothing for a long minute. “Cousin…”

“I told you no.” Anger sat thick in his chest. He grabbed another arrow, nocked it, and drew, this time facing the target. He searched for the calm he had had before, but his concentration had fled. He lowered the bow, frustrated. “Damn you, Chaiya. First you make me doubt Benundah, and now this? What game are you playing?”

“No games. It’s just… we need to talk about your father. It is important, more so now.”

“Why?” The word came out a strangled plea.

Your father is a traitor. He could hear his mother’s hissed whisper as if it had happened that day and not a dozen years ago, her fingers gripping his arm, tears thick in her eyes. He has betrayed us, Okoa. And now the Sky Made will have his life for it.

“Did your mother ever tell you of his crime?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Okoa had been eight when his father was taken away. He had worked hard to forget the details, afraid of the memory. Fearful that if he spoke of his father, no, if he even thought of his father, people would remember his deeds and see the same taint on his son.

“He plotted rebellion.”

Okoa’s hand flexed, tightened around the bow. “Stop.”

“Independence for Carrion Crow. That’s what he believed in. He said the Sky Made had failed us on the Night of Knives and were as much our enemies as the Watchers. He dragged his best friend and your mother into his schemes, but during his trial, he took the blame upon himself and cleared their names. It is why they were spared, and he was not.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I do not want to see you make the same mistake. I see your face when you speak of the Odo Sedoh, Okoa. He confuses you, gives you false hope of some Carrion Crow future that can never be. You think that if we align with him and Maaka’s fanatics, Carrion Crow can be independent and free of the Sky Made.”

Had Esa told him what he had said?

“Is that so impossible?” Okoa’s voice was a whisper, as if he had confessed something in shame. As if his hope was not meant to be spoken aloud. “He is worth a hundred men, a thousand if he rallies the crows to his side.” His voice rose. “And look at what gathers in the yard. An army. And with the Watchers gone, what Shield could stand against us?”

“Think practically, Okoa. We need access to the mines north of Titidi, the farms east of Kun, and the trade routes through the Tovasheh. Tova functions only as a city, not divided into districts.”

“Then we use him to bring all of Tova under our wing.”

Chaiya’s mouth tightened in disapproval, and Okoa flushed, exasperated. It was treason he spoke now, he knew, but he would not take it back. He still held the bow clenched in his fist, and he slammed it down on the table, sending the remaining arrows tumbling to the ground. He strode away, hands gripping his head in frustration.

“Then what would you do, Chaiya?” he yelled. “Tell me, because I do not know!”

“Do your duty.”

“Duty to whom?”

His cousin’s expression tore at his heart. “If you must ask, Okoa, then I am too late.” He started to walk toward the edge of the lake.

“No!” Okoa grabbed his arm, whirling him around to face him. “Don’t walk away. Tell me what to do!”

“Convince Esa to answer the Sky Made’s missives! Tell her to promise them the Odo Sedoh. And have her arrest Maaka!”

“Arrest Maaka?” The demand set him back. “On what grounds?”

“Have you not seen him preaching in the yard every day? Calling what happened on Sun Rock ‘divine justice’?”

“It is his right. Besides, if you jail him, you will make him a martyr.”

“If you don’t, he will use the Odo Sedoh as an excuse to drive your family out of the Great House. Mark me, there are things you don’t know about Maaka. That man has always hated this family since they allowed the Sky Made to take your father.”

He thought of Maaka’s warning not to confuse fealty to the Odo Sedoh with disloyalty to his family and how Okoa’s father would not make that mistake. There was a connection there, but he did not have time to tease it out.

“Well?” Chaiya’s look was grim.

“I…” he faltered. Chaiya asked too much of him.

His cousin’s look was long and weighing, his voice cold with disgust. “You are your mother’s son.”

The words hurt coming from his cousin, more than he could say, and he lashed out. “First I am my father, now I am my mother. Which is it?”