Black Sun

by Rebecca Roanhorse

  The way she said the last word sounded like she meant an entirely different word from reformed. “Reformation is your purpose?”

  She made a tsking sound with her tongue. “Clever, crow son, but just as Paadeh could not reveal your true purpose, neither can I. It is not our place and not your time. But patience. When Powageh comes all will be told.”

  “I know my true purpose already,” he said automatically. “Who is Powageh?”

  “Did I not just say to be patient?”

  “Will he be the one to return me to Tova?”

  He remembered enough from what his mother had told him and learned enough from his two years with Paadeh to know that whatever purpose they meant for him, it would happen in Tova, in the seat of Carrion Crow. And now this woman had linked it to the celestial tower.

  He filed every bit of knowledge away, willing himself to the patience that Eedi exhorted. Paadeh had taught him that, too. Taught him to trust in this process of becoming, knowing just as he shaped the wood, so his tutors would shape him. But for what?

  “Are you ready to begin?” she asked.

  He thought of what she had said about being there to teach him to use the staff but also not. “Begin what?”

  Something struck him in the arm, hard. He cried out in surprise. It hit him again, and he realized it was the thing she had been tapping on the floor—staff, spear, or something else. He felt the small rush of air as she moved to strike him a third time. He whipped his hand out, shoving the shaft away before it could hit him again.

  “Good,” she said, her voice evaluating. “Your reaction time is slow, but reflexes are good once you get started. Your sense of space is excellent. Now, what about your instincts?”

  Five long strides, and she was across the room. Something crashed to the floor.

  Serapio stood immediately. “What are you doing?”

  Another crash, and Serapio knew Eedi was razing his shelf, knocking his carefully carved animals to the ground.

  “Stop!” he cried. He took two steps forward and rammed his knee into his workbench. In his haste he had forgotten it was there. He cursed, a word he’d learned from Paadeh.

  Eedi laughed. “Well, you swear like a soldier. Let’s see if we can make you fight like one.”

  Another crash, wood dropped against stone to splinter apart. His stomach lurched. He had to stop her. He felt his way around the bench, leg throbbing, and took the nineteen remaining strides to the shelf. Ignoring her, he reached out and ran a hand along the place where his forest creations normally sat. It was empty. He cursed again and went to his knees, feeling the stone floor. His hand closed on an object, and after a moment of exploration, he recognized it as his crow. It was still whole. The first object he’d ever carved. He slipped it into the pocket opposite his chisel. He felt for more objects and retrieved a rabbit, a squirrel, and a fox. Six in all that he clutched against his chest as he rose. One by one he placed them back on the shelf, except for the crow, which he left in his pocket. He could feel Eedi behind him, watching, weighing.

  “What kind of training is this?” he asked, angry.

  “I’ll just knock them down again,” she said, flippant.

  “Don’t!” His breath was short, panicked.

  Movement, and he heard something else fall farther along the shelf. “You’ll have to stop me.”

  “I can’t see!” he shouted, all his calmness, his hard-won control, slipping in the face of the destruction of the things he had made, the things he loved.

  “No shit, crow son. But you don’t need to.” She had moved, somewhere by the door. He turned, following her voice. His heart stuttered. She was near the table by the window, the one where his carved trunk with the map of the Meridian continent sat.

  “Don’t touch it!” he screamed. He had suffered for the map, bled for it. He would not let her destroy it.

  She spit the words one by one: “Come. Stop. Me.”

  He rushed her, arms outstretched, knowing his folly even as he did it but having no choice. It was seven strides compensated for with speed, but she easily sidestepped him. He slammed shoulder-first against the stone wall, his hip grazing the table. Pain radiated down his arm until his fingers tingled. He cried out and braced a hand on the table, feeling desperately for his trunk. He exhaled in relief to find it there, untouched from what he could tell.

  “Well, at least you still have your balls,” she said, critically. “Now what?”

  She had moved again, back to the shelf. He forced himself to calm down, to think. He wasn’t going to physically overpower her this way, flailing ridiculously, tripping over his own feet. He had to outthink her.

  His hand roved the table, searching for something of use. His fingers closed on something slick on one side, rough on the other. A mirror, circular with a slate backing. He recognized it as something his mother had used for divination. It had been sitting on the table, four years forgotten.

  Her image flooded his mind, a beautiful creature under a cascade of black hair, calling him over to peer into the mirror that led to another place, a dark canvas that allowed his mother to see things others could not. A gateway into shadow.

  Shadow was his to control. He knew it instinctively as if the thing he had stolen from the sun awoke with his need, the power that he had earned through blood and loss. He pressed his open palm against the reflective side of the mirror and concentrated. He thought of winter’s kiss against the fresh cuts of his haahan, of the burn of the sun as it seared away his vision, of ice and snow and shadow. He could feel the shadow rising to his hand, a dark power for him to command.

  “Well?” Eedi asked, sounding bored. “Do something, or the next thing I break is your bones.”

  Serapio’s left hand closed around the wooden crow in his pocket. In his right was whatever had come from the mirror, a roiling icy smoke boiling around his fingertips.

  He thrust the mirror forward, willing the smoke to fly. She cried out. He knew that her eyes had followed his movement and that the mirror had released its icy shadow.

  He yanked the wooden crow from his pocket, aimed for where he thought Eedi’s head should be, and threw it as hard as he could.

  She grunted as it struck. Her spear clattered to the floor.

  Serapio rushed forward, retracing his path, and this time he connected. Their bodies collided. She went down hard on her back, him on top.

  Quick as lightning, he wrenched the chisel from his pocket and swung at where he thought her face should be. But she had already moved, or he had miscalculated. The blade skidded against the stone floor, jangling the bones in his arm. His fingers spasmed in pain.

  Not waiting, he clawed to his left, seeking her eyes. She caught his hand, holding it back. But he was strong, two years of woodworking lacing his hands and forearms with muscle. He broke her hold, raking a hand across her cheek, close enough for his fingernail to catch her eyelid.

  She screamed in agony. He pushed harder.

  “Enough!” she cried out, voice a spike of pain.

  But it wasn’t enough. His rage told him it would never be enough. He screamed, a half-formed sound, and doubled his efforts.

  The punch to his nose knocked him back. Bright lights flashed in his head, and he rolled away. Another punch to the side of his head, as if for good measure, and he rolled farther.

  “You fucking villain!” she shouted, panting. The noise was near the floor, like she was splayed out on her back. Her breathing was heavy, her words cruel, but her voice sounded elated. “What the fuck did you do?”

  “I didn’t want you to break my map,” he said, lying beside her, struggling to get his own words out around the adrenaline racing through his body.

  “My fucking eye!” she cried, stumbling to her feet. “You tried to tear out my fucking eye!”

  “I didn’t succeed?”

  “Fuck you!”

  And she was stumbling for the door, shouting for a healer. He laughed, he couldn’t help it. It had felt good to stri
ke back, to stop her. He did not like her breaking the things he loved.

  “Villain,” he mouthed, liking the sound of it, the weight of the word on his bloodied lip. If protecting his crows made him a villain, then a villain he would be.

  * * *

  He wasn’t sure how long he lay there before she came back. Part of him was surprised she had returned at all. He had all but convinced himself that he was done with tutors, that he did not need them anymore. But he recognized her steps, the tap of her staff, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief that she had not left him.

  “The mirror?” she asked from somewhere above him and to his right. He expected her to be angry with him, but her voice was calm, interested. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “I…” He thought about his hand resting on the mirror, the vision of his mother, and the knowledge that he could call on the darkness to help him. “What exactly did it do?”

  “You threw a shadow, crow son,” she said, and now he heard something in her voice, a reverence. “You loosed a stream of darkness right at my face. It was like being blinded.”

  “Blinded,” he said, voice silky with sarcasm. “I seriously doubt that.”

  She barked a laugh and came closer. She kicked him in the arm. Lightly, only enough to get his attention. “I’m helping you up. Take my hand.”

  He stuck his arm out, and two hands grasped him, wrenching him to his feet.

  “How’s your eye?” he asked, curious but not remorseful.

  “The healer said it isn’t permanently damaged, but it hurts like seven hells.” He caught a bare thread of admiration in her voice. “Just know that if I was really trying to kill you, you would have already been dead ten times over before you launched your attack.”

  “So you say.”

  “Shall we go again?”

  “No,” he said, choking on a half-laugh. “My jaw aches. And I bit my tongue.” He frowned, the obvious coming together slowly in his rattled brain. “Is that what you’re here for? To teach me how to fight?”

  “Ah, so you’re not completely devoid of sense. Yes, to fight. Paadeh trained the mind, I train the body. But I know nothing about this shadow magic. That’s Powageh’s shit. He was always the mystic among us.”

  “My third tutor,” he said, remembering the name. He hesitated and then asked. “And when will Powageh come?”

  “Don’t know. Not my business. This”—she bent to pick up something and shoved it against his chest—“is my business.”

  He wrapped his hands around it. It was the staff. Or spear. Or simply a very long piece of…

  “Is this bone?” he asked. He ran a hand along the smooth surface. It was porous and yielded when he pressed his thumb against it. “It’s not wood.” That he was sure of.

  “Bone it is,” Eedi admitted. “A true master spearmaiden’s weapon, harvested from the ice fields north of Hokaia and reinforced with blood magic. You can’t have it because it’s mine, but I’ll teach you to use it. As both a weapon and a seeing aid. And then you can make your own.”

  She picked something else up and touched it against his hand. He took it. It was his crow, the one he had thrown at her. It was still unbroken.

  “Shall we begin?”

  CHAPTER 14

  CITY OF TOVA

  YEAR 325 OF THE SUN

  (18 DAYS BEFORE CONVERGENCE)

  Truly the Sky Made clans are the best of Tovan society. Graceful and stately, they remind me of our own Seven Lords of the Seven Houses. I have inquired as to whether my host among the Sky Made might wish to visit Cuecola and was told that they already lived at the center of the universe and need not travel outside it. I found such an answer ill informed but kept such thoughts to myself.

  —A Commissioned Report of My Travels to the Seven Merchant Lords of Cuecola, by Jutik, a Traveler from Barach

  To Naranpa’s surprise, all of the Sky Made matrons, including Yatliza’s daughter, agreed to meet at the celestial tower. She expected Golden Eagle to balk at the very least, because Nuuma always preferred to have her way, but all sent back messages that they would meet her an hour before sunset.

  She arranged for the meeting to take place in the observatory at the top of the tower, the same space where they held the Conclave. The walls of the circular room displayed the sacred mosaic that depicted the Treaty of Hokaia and the investiture of the Sun Priest. Along the southern wall lay the jaguar of Cuecola crushed and bleeding from its mouth, nose, eyes, and ears, vivid red tiles meant to represent blood. The east depicted the fishwoman of the Teek, her head cut from her body and only slightly less gory than the dead jaguar. The spear of Hokaia was the simplest of all, a long bone spear broken into pieces and cast down on the ground. And finally, in the east, the only intact city totem—the sun of Tova. It was in ascension, rising to rest atop a great golden throne. And surrounding the foot of the throne were the totems of the four clans: crow, eagle, winged serpent, and water strider.

  In the center of the room on stone pillars rested the drum and the sacred bundle of cedar branches that had been used in their procession the previous day, the power of above and below endowed within them.

  All of them, the mosaic with its unsubtle history and the objects in the center, were reminders of the dominion of the priesthood. The Sky Made may hold the civil power in Tova, but they were nothing compared to the celestial authority that the tower commanded over the whole of the Meridian continent.

  She took her seat on the bench in the east. She had brought in four other seats, spare and wooden, and arranged them in a fan shape radiating out from her in a semicircle. They were simple stools used by dedicants. Another not-so-subtle reminder of who held the power here. She had thought about forcing the matrons to sit on the floor but decided that bordered on insult, and she had not reclaimed enough of the Sun Priest’s former mandate to risk it. The stools walked a fine line as it was, but an acceptable one.

  Now there was nothing to do but wait.

  She watched the light move down the far wall, clocking the passage of time as late afternoon moved toward evening. When the sun had all but disappeared and the sun clock told her that all that was left of daylight was minutes and not hours, she realized no one was coming.

  She sat, staring at her feet, unsure what to do. They had said they would attend. Had something happened? Another calamity befallen the city while she sat at the top of her tower and waited?

  She forced herself to stand, her legs unsteady under her ornate yellow vestments. Her mind felt blank, at a loss for what she was to do next.

  Go downstairs, she told herself. Send runners to find out if there was an accident. A bridge collapse. Another death.

  It was all unlikely.

  What was likely was the simplest solution. Someone had interfered.

  Abah.

  That thought finally made her move.

  She had passed through the eastern door and down to the fifth floor before she encountered a servant. She recognized him and called him by name.

  “Leaya, has something happened?” she asked. “Why have the matrons not arrived?”

  “They arrived an hour ago, Sun Priest.”

  “Where are they? I left orders for them to be brought to the observatory immediately upon arrival.”

  Leaya frowned. “No, Sun Priest. The other priest said your orders had changed and they were to be brought to the terrace.”

  “What other priest?”

  “The seegi. She told us you were in prayer for the dead matron and you weren’t to be disturbed. So we didn’t disturb you. Is… did we misunderstand?”

  Naranpa ground her teeth in frustration, her suspicions confirmed. And worst of all, Naranpa had walked right into it.

  “No,” she told the boy. “You did fine. Are they still here? On the terrace?”

  “Last I saw, Sun Priest. Eche had us bring them refreshments, even though he did not partake because of the Shuttering.”

  “How pious of him,” she muttered.

&
nbsp; “Yes, Sun Priest.”

  She glared at the boy, but he didn’t understand and certainly didn’t deserve to be the target of her ire. “You may go. And thank you. You did well.” She managed a smile.

  Naranpa leaned against the nearby wall, staring at nothing. Night had fallen in earnest, and she could see other servants in brown making their way up the stairs, lighting the resin lamps in their sconces as they climbed. The longer she stood here, the more likely she was to miss the matrons entirely.

  She wasn’t sure what to do. She wanted to barge into the meeting and reassert her presence, humiliate Eche and Abah if she was there. But Abah had already outsmarted her twice that day. There was no guarantee that Abah had not already made a contingency plan should she appear. And for all she wanted to hurt Eche and Abah, she did not want to do anything that might make the priesthood look weak or confused to the Sky Made. Abah may not understand that they needed to present a unified face to the city’s leadership, but she did.

  For the first time, Nara felt like she had truly misplayed her hand. Yesterday had started out with so much promise, but between then and now, she had taken a beating.

  Yesterday before the procession, she had thought herself well on her way to restoring the glory of the Sun Priest. Now she was teetering on the edge of the cliff, looking at a long fall back to where Kiutue had left her if she didn’t find a way to regain control and quickly. But whom could she trust? Her ego wouldn’t allow her to ask Iktan for help, particularly after her discovery that xe was sleeping with someone that wasn’t her. Plus, xe was keeping secrets, and as much as she hated to admit it, it gave her pause. Haisan was the eldest, and wise. But she knew he thought her only marginally competent. And Abah clearly was out to replace her with Naranpa’s own protégé.

  Stars and sky, how had she gotten so lost in such a short period of time? But it wasn’t so short, was it? Her mission had always been a gamble. She had loved her old mentor, and he had become a father to her in many ways, but he had allowed the hawaa’s power to be claimed by other societies, leaving what was once the most essential role in the priesthood a shell of what it had been before him, now more symbolic than functional. Naranpa had set out to seize some of that power back, not for herself but because she believed that the priesthood could be better, do better, for not only the city but the entire continent. But she was beginning to admit that she had underestimated how much the game was rigged against her.