Haisan nodded, muttering a yes, yes, and the rest of the crowd slowly started to disperse, wandering off to their rooms or leaving in search of their last meal on the terrace before the rationing started for Shuttering. Naranpa had sworn them all to secrecy at Sun Rock, but she had no doubt the gossip would spread.
She flagged down a passing servant and asked them to have some of the strong dark tea she liked brought to her room. She knew she should eat while she still could, but she didn’t have the appetite.
Once the servant was gone, she climbed the steps to the fourth floor of the tower and her rooms. She hadn’t thought to have them searched for intruders before she was standing in front of her door, and suddenly she didn’t want to enter. Rational thought told her no one would dare transgress the celestial tower. She was safe here.
And yet…
No! She would not cower. She threw the door open, marching boldly into the room, and almost fainted.
Iktan sat languid as a cat on a bench by her bed.
“Dramatic,” xe murmured.
“Skies!” She pressed a hand to her chest. “Skies!” she cursed again. “You could have frightened me to death, Iktan. Do not do that.”
Xe shrugged, clearly unrepentant. “You are young and healthy. Surely your heart can take it.”
“You do not know what my heart can take,” she quipped, irritated by xir dismissive attitude. And immediately regretted it.
Iktan raised an eyebrow.
“That is not what I meant,” she said, sighing, “but that much is true, too.” They had been lovers as dedicants, not unusual among the priests since most joined the tower when they were deep in the throes of puberty. But their affair had been mostly two fumbling teens exploring each other’s bodies and still unsure what to do with them. When Iktan had been elevated to Priest of Knives, Naranpa had ended the affair for her own reasons. Iktan had taken her rebuff in stride, simply acquiescing to her wishes and never expressing how xe felt about it either way. And surprisingly, they had remained friends. She had a fondness for xir, and she always would, but she had to admit xe was also very much a killer with a killer’s emotional aptitude, and that she found disquieting.
“Tell me what you found,” she said.
Iktan was about to speak when a knock came at the door. Xe was up off the bench, a knife drawn from somewhere quicker than her eye could follow.
“No, stop!” She held up her hand. “It’s fine. I asked for tea. It’s just a servant.”
“Did not a servant try to kill you earlier?”
She paused, eyes wide. “But that wasn’t a real servant,” she protested. She had assumed the infiltration had happened during their walk through Odo. It had not occurred to her that perhaps the assassin had been hiding in the tower this whole time. “Was he truly one of ours?”
Another polite knock, and Iktan opened the door, knife tucked discreetly up a sleeve. The servant, a girl Naranpa recognized, entered with a tray, and the scent of yaupon filled the room. She crossed to a table and set the tray down.
“Thank you, Deeya,” Naranpa said. Deeya bowed once before leaving, never aware that Iktan was poised to bury a knife in her throat. Naranpa rubbed at her forehead, feeling the weight of the day. And then Iktan was there pouring her a cup of tea and offering it to her, hand outstretched, just as quickly as xe had bared a knife.
It was so like xir, such a surprising act of care moments after a willingness to violence, that she could only accept it and be grateful for xir presence.
Iktan returned to the bench. “The servant on the Rock was not one of ours,” xe said as if they had never been interrupted. “And he certainly seemed to be Carrion Crow.”
“And yet I hear hesitation in your voice.” She sipped from her tea. “Who else wishes the Sun Priest dead as much as the Crows? Perhaps another clan? Or maybe the progressives who prefer the Sun Priest weakened, or the traditionalists who think me a populist do-gooder, or someone else entirely that I’m not considering. A foreign city that chafes at the Watchers’ authority? Tell me who my enemies are, Iktan, so at least I know who will put the knife in my back.” She said it lightly, but her hands were shaking when she set her cup down.
“Perhaps you have many enemies, Nara. Perhaps you have just one. I don’t know yet.”
Xe was right. She was getting ahead of herself. “So what do you know?”
“The haahan at the base of the man’s throat was new. Carrion Crow carve up their children at the onset of puberty or shortly thereafter. And tend to be excessive about it. Backs, arms.”
“Yes, I know.” She thought of the elaborate designs she had spied on Yatliza’s skin earlier that day. “An outward sign of their mourning for those lost on the Night of Knives, so they never forget.” It goaded her, goaded the Watchers and the tsiyo in particular, but what could they do about it? After such atrocities as the priesthood had committed, the least they could do was tolerate the Crows’ grieving.
“This man was close to twenty-five years of age, give or take, but his haahan could not have been more than a few months old. And there was only one.”
“So he’s from somewhere else, a new convert to the crow god?”
“It’s possible.”
“Which means the rumors are true. The cultists are growing.” The priesthood knew the cult around the ancient god of Carrion Crow still existed in pockets of fanaticism, but the general consensus was that such cultists were awaiting their god’s rebirth, and until that impossibility came to fruition, they were generally more annoyance than danger.
Iktan said, “I have been keeping an eye on the cultists, and they do nothing more than meet, pray to a dead god, and feed the occasionally starving orphan. They are not a threat.”
“You say that with the assassin’s blood still coloring your sleeve?”
Iktan lifted an arm. The cuff of xir red robe was stained a deeper shade than the rest and stiffening. Xe shrugged, unimpressed. “I still believe it is possible that he was sent by someone who would like us to think he was Carrion Crow. If he had succeeded, the outcry would be enough that no one would believe the cultists were innocent.”
Naranpa closed her eyes. If Iktan thought it might be subterfuge, then she must consider it. It wasn’t that she was naive, but… oh, perhaps she was naive. She hadn’t been the head of her society long enough to achieve Iktan’s coating of cynicism.
“Kiutue certainly left me a mess,” she murmured. “The Sun Priest weakened, the cultists empowered, the societies at odds. But even he could not have foreseen this.”
“Nara.”
“Yes?” she asked, eyes still closed, chin resting on her chest.
“There have been others.” It was a quiet admission, but it threw her even further off-balance. She lifted her head, eyes wide, pulse suddenly racing, as if the danger was in the room with her.
“What?”
“One other, anyway. I took care of it.”
“You…” She crossed her arms over her stomach as a low anger bubbled in her gut. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was hoping I would not have to.”
“Iktan.” She fought to keep her voice steady, her nerves from fraying. “Carrion Crow?”