The Reawakened (10 page)

Soon the torches of the base camp appeared, visible only from the north, hidden from Velekos by high rock walls. His stomach grumbled at the thought of the meal awaiting him, and he smacked his lips in anticipation of the accompanying ale.

Just past the sentries, Damen was the first to greet them. Lycas was surprised to see Rhia’s Crow-brother, as he usually stayed in Velekos unless there was urgent news. The lines on his face seemed deeper than ever, or maybe it was just the shadows cast by the sputtering torches.

“Glad to see you back,” Damen said. “Any troubles?”

Lycas shrugged. “Another day, another platoon of dead Ilions. Nothing we couldn’t handle, with Sirin’s help. He’s back at headquarters now.”

Damen nodded, giving a glance toward the north, where the guerrilla command center lay deep in the hills.

Lycas put a hand on his shoulder. “How’s the family?”

Damen rubbed his forehead, ruffling short strands of gray hair that now outnumbered the black. “I’m a Crow. You’d think I’d know what to say after Lania’s murder, how to make it better.”

“Nothing will ever make it better.”

“I know. But Nathas is my mate. I should be able to take his pain away. Diminish it somehow, heh? But I can’t.”

For lack of comforting sentiments, Lycas said, “We’ll give those bastards justice. It won’t bring Lania back, but…”

Lycas trailed off, out of words. He couldn’t imagine what the girl’s parents, Reni and Nathas, must be going through, not to mention Damen’s son Corek, Lania’s half brother. Long ago, Reni had agreed to bear Nathas and Damen a child each, partly so that they might progress to the second phase, but also because they all wanted children. The fact that the five of them created a loving though unconventional family must have kept the Spirits from punishing them for becoming parents for the sake of power.

Lycas thought again of Sura, and wondered if she were alive. What had the world come to when a father couldn’t take his own children’s survival for granted?

His hand passed briefly over the sheath of his oldest blade, the one inside his coat, next to his heart. Deep within its hilt, wrapped around the base of the steel itself, lay a lock of hair from his infant daughter’s head.

“You should have seen Lania’s funeral.” Damen walked with him toward the camp’s main tent. “Hundreds of people. The Ilion police was out in full force to prevent rioting. No eulogies were allowed, because they feared it would rile up the crowd. I was only permitted the bare ritual, which had to be submitted and approved in advance.” Damen shook his head. “Of course no calling of the crow, because that would be magic.” In response to Lycas’s sharp look, he said, “Don’t worry, I called one later.”

“Good.” As they reached the tent’s door, he heard the rustle of tired, familiar feet behind him, trotting to catch up. “Damen, I almost forgot. Nilik came with me.”

The Crow man turned and broke into a smile, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners, accentuating the age lines. He moved forward to embrace the approaching Nilik, then suddenly stopped. His smile faded. “What are you doing here?”

Nilik blanched. “I came to fight.” He took a step forward. “I’m sorry about Lania.” His voice almost cracked speaking her name.

Damen shook his head slowly. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Lycas’s chest turned oddly cold, his dread returning. “Rhia said he could come.”

Damen gave him an incredulous look. “She couldn’t have.”

“Why not?” Nilik’s voice was urgent.

The Crow wiped a hand over his face and blinked hard. “Nothing. It’s just dangerous here for a newcomer. Be very, very careful.” He came forward and put a hand on Nilik’s arm. “Promise me. Your mother would have my head if anything happened to you.”

Lycas scoffed. “She’d have mine first.” He went inside the commander’s tent, holding the flap open for them to follow. “Damen, tell me there’s fresh meat left from dinner.”

“I’ll send over meals for both of you.” Damen’s voice came low, to Nilik. “Did you have your Bestowing?”

“Yes. I’m a Wolverine.”

Lycas smiled at the pride he heard in Nilik’s voice. Not a hint of whining for not being the Raven child. Lania’s death had given his nephew a cause, a focus away from the prophecy’s lifelong burden. Perhaps Wolverine had bestowed His Aspect on Nilik so he could avenge her death.

“Jula’s a Mockingbird,” Lycas added.

“Ah,” Damen said. “Interesting.”

“For once, I don’t believe your stoicism.” Lycas set his pack in the corner where he usually slept, noting that the tent floor had remained dry despite the rain. “Go on, say it. If one of Rhia’s children isn’t the Raven, it must be your son. The prophecy said it would be someone born of a Crow.”

“In a hard and dangerous labor, I know, and Corek’s birth certainly wasn’t easy.”

Lycas sat and tugged off his left boot, suppressing a groan of relief. “You should send him to Tiros for his Bestowing. It’s not safe here anymore.”

“I know that.” Damen gritted his teeth around the words, and they all shared a moment of grieved silence for Lania’s fate. Then the Crow said, “It’s not worth the risk when he hasn’t felt a calling. Getting in and out of the village now is treacherous. I thought for sure the Ilions would detain me this time, but they know I’m a Crow. My powers are no threat to them. They also know the Raven rumors about Corek.”

“All the more reason to get him out of Velekos. Bring him here while you still can.” Lycas pulled off his other boot. “I’ll lend you a couple of my men to help sneak him out.”

“His mother won’t want to let him go, especially after—” He cut himself off and glanced at Nilik.

Lycas turned to his nephew. “Go find a spot in the barracks. I’ll see you in the morning.”

A brief shadow of disappointment crossed Nilik’s face, then he straightened his posture. “Yes, sir. Good night, sir.” He nodded to Damen on his way out.

Lycas peeled off his socks and frowned at the dampness around the toes. His boots were leaking. “I’ve discovered I like ordering family members around. I could get used to it.”

Damen crossed to the opposite side of the tent, which could fit perhaps four or five standing men, and stood next to a small table for reading maps and writing letters. Lycas’s tent wasn’t nearly as elaborate as an Ilion field commander’s, but he thought any sign of privilege distanced himself from the men and women he led.

“How are things in the Acrosia since Lania’s funeral?” he asked Damen.

“The whole neighborhood’s a tinderbox, especially with the Evius festival coming up. Every year it’s worse, with them parading up and down our streets, shoving it in our faces that they own us now.” He turned to Lycas. “The worst part is how many Velekons enjoy it. To them it’s not a symbol of our oppression, it’s a day off, a chance to drink free wine.”

“Do the Ilions suspect our plans for the festival?”

“Hard to say. They’ve increased patrols, but so have we. It’s only our Bears and Wolverines that keep their police from making illegal searches.”

Lycas sighed. Velekos was so close, in so much danger, and yet if he entered, it would only put the people he cared about at risk—not to mention get him captured.

“Was there something you wanted to tell me?” he asked Damen. “Something you didn’t want Nilik to hear?” He wondered if it had to do with Rhia’s bizarre change of heart in letting her son come to Velekos.

“He’ll hear it eventually.” Damen stepped closer. “They’ve lowered the charges against Lania’s killers. Manslaughter.” His gaze fell. “Maximum sentence five years.”

Lycas stood slowly, sure he’d heard the Crow wrong. “After what they did to her—”

“They’re claiming self-defense.”

“A sixteen-year-old girl against half a dozen armed soldiers?” He fought to keep from shouting. “How is that anything but murder?”

“She was breaking the law by doing magic, they say, so the soldiers were detaining a criminal, protecting the populace.” Damen lowered his voice. “They fear us. No matter how many weapons they have, they still lack magic.”

“That’s their fault.” Lycas paced the dirt floor of the tent, fists clenched. “Nilik will go mad. I think there was more between him and Lania than we guessed.”

“She was in love with him.” Damen crossed his arms over his chest. “She said they hoped to marry after their Bestowings. I think that’s why she was so eager to go, despite the danger.”

Dread filled Lycas’s stomach. If Lania’s killers faced leniency from the Ilion courts, Nilik would be more determined than ever to deliver his own justice.

At his age, with new Wolverine power coursing through his veins, such rage could get him killed.

Now she lay on her back, watching meteors chase one another and counting the seconds between flashes. The balls of fire mesmerized her, so that when the thing from the previous night crept close again, hungrier, she did not shiver or even blink. It surrounded her like liquid, as cold as seawater but twice as thick, whispering of what it would steal if she did not give.

She gave. It didn’t matter, she knew, staring into the sky. There were a million worlds out there that no one ever thought about. Perhaps on one of them, another young woman was lying on the ground gazing at Sura’s sun, having her own self sucked out of her, drop by drop.

Her vision turned black at the edges, as though hundreds of gnats hovered around each eye. If this living void took away the sky, she would fight it.

But as the blackness closed in, shrinking her sight to a pinpoint of light, then nothing at all, she realized it was too late. The thing had her. Her soul pulsed out one heartbeat at a time, but still she felt no fear, only curiosity.

For inside her, the flame still burned.

He had screamed, all night, when the living void had taken him at his own Bestowing. So had everyone else he knew. It had seemed worse than death, because it wasn’t life being annihilated, but a soul, sucked out, chewed up, spit back inside a person in an unrecognizable form.

He understood why it had to happen. One had to be empty to receive the Spirit at the Bestowing. Fasting emptied the body, meditation emptied the mind. But nothing could empty the soul, nothing but that…thing.

He checked the stars’ positions. Winter constellations were rising, which at this time of year meant the sun would be up soon, though no light grayed the eastern horizon.

By now it should have had her.

Unable to sit still any longer, he strapped on his pack. It wasn’t heavy, since he’d brought no food for himself. He’d planned to spend these three days speaking with his Spirit, asking the questions that burned inside him. But She had remained elusive and silent.

Dravek slid the torch from its holder and started to cross the boulder field—a dangerous maneuver at night. One slip could leave him with a twisted or broken ankle. But Sura’s silence drew him on. What if she were hurt or sick?

He told himself that his feelings for her were a product of their spiritual kinship. Kara often spoke of her “Wolf-brothers,” and though he knew they all curled up together for warmth during weeklong winter hunts, it stirred no jealousy in him. Nothing like what he felt when Etarek or another former lover smiled at her.

He stopped short. As an experiment, he imagined Kara with someone else—another man’s hands caressing her body, his lips closing over her nipple as she sighed and shuddered in his arms.

Nothing. He felt no jealousy, not even a spark of arousal.

He hurried forward onto the next rock. He would demand Snake’s presence, demand answers.

Dravek had almost reached the other side of the field when a woman’s laughter cut the predawn air. He looked up at the side of Mount Beros.

A breeze blew, rustling the needles of the surrounding pines and muffling the sounds of mirth. Dravek stepped onto the soil of the forest. He crammed the end of the torch into a gap between the two closest stones, then sat to wait.

As the sun rose, the wind died, and her voice came again, moaning and shrieking in what sounded like ecstasy. His body responded instantly, wanting to be the cause of those noises. He rubbed his face and groaned.

“What are You doing to her?” he whispered as he began to pace. “What are You doing to me?”

Snake wouldn’t answer. Dravek turned to the torch and stared into the flame, usually the surest way to reach Her. He stared until he couldn’t feel where he ended and the fire began. Then he sent out one last plea. Unanswered.

He sank to his knees, bent forward and grasped his head in his arms. His forehead pressed the damp soil. “Come to me,” he pleaded. “Tell me what You want.”

He repeated his Spirit’s name, and Sura’s, chanting into the ground near his lips. Here he would wait, no matter how long, until one of them appeared.

Then he would have his answer.