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Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1
CITY OF TOVA
YEAR 1 OF THE CROW
On earth, in heaven, and within,
Three wars to lose, three wars to win.
Cut the path. Mark the days. Turn the tides.
Three tasks before the season dies:
Turn rotten fruit to flower,
Slay the god-bride still unloved,
Press the son to fell the sire.
Victory then to the Carrion King who in winning loses everything.
—Coyote song
Zataya of the Coyote clan was no tower-trained Watcher casting fortunes and charting star maps, no birthright sorcerer from the southern cities dispensing futures gleaned from dark mirrors painted with blood, but she knew enough to read the portents around her, and they told her that something terrible was coming.
First there was the eclipse that lingered over the city since the new year solstice, an impossible thing made real by the crow god’s magic. Then there was the tailing comet that had blazed across the twilight sky last month when the Odo Sedoh ascended his throne upon Shadow Rock to break the matrons and rule the city. And now the seasons turned, again, and the constellations of the lesser gods burst to life upon the sky’s inky canvas: jaguar and kraken, serpent and spear.
And she understood.
The war on earth may have yet to start as the gods claimed their vessels and set their stakes, but the war in heaven had already begun.
For what was earth but a mirror of heaven?
And what was she but a thing caught in between?
But Zataya would not be idle. She would not wait to be devoured by avatars and armies. She would find a way to survive.
And why not? Her god was a sly god, a god of narrow spaces and narrower paths. He made his own way and did not wait for others to clear it for him.
So she would do the same.
When she had augured the future before, she had used southern sorcery, blood on a dark mirror that revealed the shadow world to those who sought it. But now she wished to walk with Coyote, and his communion manifested in natural things. Rock and flame, leaf and root.
She had been living in a small room in the matron of Coyote clan’s house and serving as her Shield captain, a title that allowed her to counsel and observe. But for this, she wanted no witnesses.
The Lupine stood abandoned after Denaochi’s death, its gambling tables and drinking cups left to entertain ghosts. That is where she went. Her old room was still there with all of her tools, and she knew no one would disturb her delicate work.
She set the fire in the hearth and stoked it until it burned steadily. Once the logs had diminished to glowing lumps of char, she used a flint spade to rake the largest onto the floor.
Tradition told her that the answer to her question lay within the heated charcoal, so she set her resolve and asked, “How do I survive the war that is in heaven, and the war to come on earth?”
Unhesitating, she struck the lump with the edge of the spade. It cracked into smoldering pieces of black and orange and red. She used a stick to poke around the heated mass, looking for what message the Coyote might send her.
And gasped.
A crow. She saw a crow.
“No,” she breathed, shaking her head. That could not be right. Surely the Coyote did not mean to bind her fate to the Crow God Reborn.
Frustrated, she swept the pieces away and lifted another charred lump from the fire. Again, she asked her question, split it open, and again the pieces formed a crow.
With a growl of despair she tried one more time, only to receive the same result.
Perhaps the fire was not the answer.
She went to her cabinets, still intact even after months of abandonment, and searched for the tiny herb that would surely give her a clearer vision. She found it, a crush of dried cactus flower they called Coyote’s Paw. It was a powerful medicine known to cause visions, and she swallowed it down.
And then she waited.
It did not take long.
She had expected to see things, but instead she heard a voice. It spoke to her in echoing whispers, a sound that seemed everywhere and nowhere at once. Inside and outside. Above and below.
She knew it was the voice of her god, the Coyote’s own song, and she repeated the words with a fervor, letting her lips form to their shape and her tongue learn their weight, knowing that this was the path to survival.
She was not sure how long she sat there muttering the same words over and over again, but when she came back to herself, her entire being resonated with them.
Only they made no sense.
She had memorized a riddle.
She should have known the Coyote’s currency would not be so straightforward.
It was the chilling hearth that reminded her that too much time had passed and soon her matron would notice her absence, and that would raise questions, and there were things Zataya did not wish to share with anyone.
She shoveled dirt into the hearth and put away her auguring tools, pausing to tidy her room. And there, cooled to shades of black and gray but still plainly visible, was the crow.
At the thought of the crow, the Coyote song that lay behind her teeth trembled her jaw and burst from her mouth. She found herself repeating the riddle, a whisper under her breath that would not cease. She slapped her hand over her mouth, and the song became a shout. She stumbled to the wall and slammed her head against the stones. Stars danced in her eyes, and she swayed at the pain, but still the words came like a bubbling froth.
Desperate, terrified, she slammed her head into the wall again.
And then again and again until her vision shuttered, and her mind went dark.
She collapsed to the floor, unconscious... her lips still moving.
