The book counts down toward a convergence, where the return of the old crow god is prophesized.

Ten years before the convergence, Serapio’s mother Saaya makes him drink a milky white herbal tea which acts as both analgesic and poison. His mother, from the Carrion Crow clan, believes she is turning him into a god. She wears formal dress, including a collar of crow feathers, and paints his teeth red with dye. Earlier that day, she cut a haahan (sacred symbol) of crow wings on his back and a crow skull at the base of his throat. The haahan symbolizes perpetual mourning for what the clan has lost. Serapio stares at the sun during a solar eclipse, which in the crow religion is a sign that the crow god is holding sway over the world at that moment. His mother brings him inside and ties him to a chair. She hangs a bag of powder around his neck and sews his eyes shut permanently. She tells him that once he’s learned to see without his eyes, he must go to the central city of Tova and become a god. Serapio’s father pounds on the door; Saaya kisses Serapio’s forehead and jumps from their terrace to her death.