Black Sun

The next day, Xiala wakes up on the ship in the darkness of Serapio’s cabin, not remembering what happened the previous night. She tries the door and realizes her crew has locked her in. Serapio tells her that one of her crew died, and the crewmember she saved blames her for his death. There is romantic tension. Xiala borrows some of Serapio’s clothes. Serapio uses his hypersensitive hearing to listen to the crew debate whether they should kill them both. He tells Xiala that when the crew brought her to his cabin, she had a fin, gills, and giant non-human eyes. Xiala realizes she’s heard about this in stories from her culture, but never seen it happen.

The crew keeps Xiala and Serapio imprisoned for two days; on the third day, Serapio hears that the cook has died of an illness. Xiala says it will only be a short time before the crew comes to them begging for help. Serapio eats the star powder and goes into the trance that lets him control the minds of crows. 

The crew comes because the ship has hit a patch of water that makes navigation difficult. They offer to let her go if she gets them to land with her magical singing. She tells them that they’ll be hanged for mutiny and realizes that the crewmember that died was kicked on the way down by the one that lived. They hold a knife to her throat and it goes a little too deep: she loses a lot of blood. Serapio’s crows come and murder the crew.

Twelve days before the convergence, in Tova, the matriarch of the Water Strider clan offers to have her guards escort Naranpa back to the celestial tower. Naranpa comes in to find the rest of the priesthood having a big meeting about whether to retaliate against Carrion Crow for what they thought was another assassination attempt. Naranpa believes that it was not one. Because their decision has to be unanimous, they remove her as head of the priesthood and post a guard outside her door. 

Naranpa leaves the celestial tower by scaling down the outer walls; she makes her way through Tova and back to the Maw, where she grew up. She takes a gondola down into the Maw.

This chapter relates the perceived assassination attempt from Okoa’s perspective. He is not trying to harm Naranpa; he is pushed into her and her guard cuts him. He runs from Naranpa to protect his sister Esa in the chaos that follows: his first priority is getting her home safe. When they get home, Okoa starts to feel dizzy, and he wonders if the knife was poisoned. 

At his house, one of the members of the older crow religion finds him and carries him to his house. When he wakes up, Okoa threatens him before realizing the man was only trying to help him with a quick antidote to the poison. The man shows him downstairs, where there’s a gathering of members of the older religion, the Odohaa. They tell him that they are the Odohaa war council, that they plan to counter violence with violence if the priesthood tries to attack them, and that they plan to attack on the day of the solstice during the convergence, when there’s a solar eclipse. Okoa needs time to consider it, and tells them he will get back to them soon.

In a continuation of Chapter 22, Naranpa enters the main market of the Maw. The Maw is a canyon entered from its top; along its sides, people live in caves that stretch down to the river. A woman sells her a mourning ribbon for the matriarch of Carrion Crow, and Naranpa bribes the woman to tell her where she might find her brother, Denaochi. Though reluctant at first, the woman tells her to try a gambling house, the Lupine. Naranpa passes as a man in order to be allowed inside.

At the Lupine, Naranpa picks a gambling table she thinks will be her brother’s and plays a match. She wins a small bet and the staff at the gambling hall stop her before she can place another. They tell her the boss wants to see her. 

It’s five years before the convergence and Serapio’s seventeenth birthday. He hides from the soothsayer who has come to tell him the future as he waits for Powageh, his third tutor. Someone sneaks up on Serapio in his hiding place; he starts to attack before he realizes it’s Powageh.

Powageh shares a lunch with Serapio and explains the history of Serapio’s mother and her obsession with revenge on the celestial tower for the Night of Knives. During the Night of Knives, the celestial tower killed all of Serapio’s extended family on his mother’s side. Several people, including Lord Balam, joined his mother’s fight; she wanted to raise the crow god into human form using a blood sacrifice. Serapio was meant to be a vessel to contain the crow god.

Serapio learns that his father was never part of the plan and that his mother used herself as the human sacrifice to help the crow god be reborn inside him. Powageh says that Serapio is the weapon that will bring the priesthood down. 

Nine days before the convergence, Xiala wakes up again in Serapio’s room. She finds Serapio sitting alone on the captain’s bench with none of the bodies of her crew in sight. She realizes that she and Serapio are similar in their magical abilities. She gets drunk as Serapio tells her his crows have found the way back to shore. He tells her he has to be in Tova on the day of the convergence for a meeting with the Sun Priest and asks if she can get them there in time. She agrees and kisses Serapio. He gently rejects her, pulling away and reminding her of their purpose on the ship. She realizes she should distance herself from him; instead, she invites him to sit with her, listening to her stories, as she steers the ship to Tova.

In a continuation of Chapter 24, Naranpa follows the gambling house employee deep into the bowels of the gambling house, where the air is thinner. She climbs down ladders and through tunnels. Her brother Denaochi is there, in his office. Upon seeing him, Naranpa cries. Denaochi is bitter about the fact she left, because he had to shoulder the burden of their mother’s sickness and their father’s death alone. His body bears the marks of torture.

Naranpa asks for Denaochi’s help to assist Tova. When she tells him that Carrion Crow has tried to assassinate her twice, he says he thinks it’s unlikely that they’re responsible—he thinks it’s likely from within the priesthood itself. He finds it wryly ironic that Naranpa wants to save the very people who have betrayed her.

In a direct continuation of the previous chapter, Naranpa sits in Denaochi’s office. When he gets up and moves around, she notices his limp. He agrees that they cannot let another Night of Knives happen because violence is bad for the city overall (including the Maw).

Denaochi calls for Zataya, a witch who uses a scrying mirror to tell the future. Zataya looks into the future and sees mostly shadow, although she also sees the death of the Sun Priest. She asks Naranpa for her tongue; at first, Naranpa refuses, although she eventually relents. Zataya uses a stingray spine to bloodlet Naranpa and coat a small bison amulet with her blood. Zataya tells Naranpa that if Naranpa says her name, she’ll be able to find her anywhere.

Denaochi offers a place by his side for Naranpa, but she refuses. She asks for writing instruments. Naranpa writes a message in glyphs to Okoa and asks her brother to see that it’s delivered to him.