The Reawakened (26 page)

“Go ahead,” he told her.

The lantern light cast shimmering shadows of her long, dark lashes. “The back of my neck and shoulders are tingling, like I’m wrapped in a blanket. Did you put something in the tea?”

“No.” He broke into a warm smile. “You’ve mentioned it before when you’re teaching me to read.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Contentment.”

“You’ve felt it?”

“Not since I was young.”

She chortled. “Since you were young? Are you so ancient at nineteen?” Her smile faded. “You’re still only nineteen, right?”

He nodded. “Like you.”

“I remember being eighteen, and I know it was last year. But I don’t remember my birthday.”

Dravek felt a pang in his chest at the lostness on her face. “Your uncle Marek caught a pheasant and roasted it for dinner.”

She brightened. “I must have loved that.” She glanced at the stairs behind them. “Is he here now?”

“He’s outside of Asermos with your aunt Rhia. It’s just us, your daughter Malia and your cousin Jula. She’s out delivering the news from Velekos.” He focused on his reading lesson. “This one’s confusing. When this letter is here, it sounds different than when it’s at the end of the word?”

“I’ll show you.” She reached across to point to the text. Her skin brushed his, and he jerked his arm away. “What’s wrong?”

He explained for the hundredth painful time. “We’re not allowed to touch outside of training.”

“Why?”

“Vara says it intensifies our powers.”

“Oh. Does it?”

“Yes.” A gross understatement. Having her so close but untouchable created a constant, consuming fire inside him. They could now start a deliberate blaze just by touching hands. Fortunately Vara had taught them how to channel it into a precise, controlled force, with no more accidents like his wedding’s bonfire.

Sura chewed the inside of her cheek. “You’ve had to tell me all this before, haven’t you?”

“You remember?”

“No, but it seems like something that would’ve come up.”

“It’s probably on your sheet. But yes, it comes up a lot.”

“Does Jula know?”

“She knows it’s Vara’s orders. She knows she’s the one who helps with anything that involves touching you. But she doesn’t know why.” He wondered how much he should confess, how much longer he could hold back the words he wanted her to remember. “The worst was when you were pregnant and your back ached so bad.” He tucked his hands under his arms at the thought of stroking her long, strong muscles. “I could’ve rubbed the pain away, but…”

“I would’ve liked that,” she whispered. Then she cleared her throat and pointed to the parchment. “Anyway, when this letter comes at the end of a word—”

“My marriage is over.”

“Oh.” Sura was silent a moment. “Is this the first time I’ve heard this?”

He nodded. “As of tomorrow, Kara and I will be separated a year. Under Tiron law, we can divorce.” He traced unsteady lines within the corner of the parchment. “She wants to marry Etarek.”

“That’s good, right?”

“For them.” Dravek rapped the end of the wooden pen hard against the table. “I feel like I failed. If I hadn’t made her forget, we’d still be together.”

“But would you be happy?”

He twisted the pen in his hands. “I’d get to live with my son.”

“Stop before you break that.” She took the pen from him and set it aside. “From what I remember last year, you didn’t get along, and you felt trapped into marrying her.”

“But at least she—” He cut himself off.

At least Kara wasn’t forbidden. Marrying her had felt like the right thing to do, even more so after Sura came along. Now he could no longer use Kara to avoid his feelings for his Spirit-sister.

Dravek’s feet tingled as the floor vibrated in the direction of the front door.

A knock came, then the shouted code word, “Sparrow!”

Dravek grimaced as he pushed back his chair. “It’s your aunt Rhia. She’s been away for two months, since right after Malia was born.” He called out the coded response, then unlocked the door and opened it wide.

Rhia staggered through, dripping wet. “What a ride. We could barely see the road for all the mud. Marek’s stabling the horses. They’re a mess.” She gave Dravek a perfunctory hug, then turned to Sura, who was standing behind the chair, gripping its back. “It’s wonderful to see you.” To Rhia’s credit, she didn’t advance on Sura with an embrace, understanding that to her niece she was a near stranger.

Sura, however, came forward and took her hands. “I remember you.” She studied Rhia’s face. “You’ve aged.”

Rhia’s eyes widened, then she laughed. “Oh, you mean in the last ten years. Yes, I’m afraid I have.”

A whimper from the other room turned into a wail.

“Sorry,” Rhia whispered. “Guess I was too loud.”

“It’s all right.” Sura started to walk toward the bedroom. “It might be feeding time, anyway.” She gave Dravek a questioning look, and he resisted the urge to answer. He made a subtle gesture with his thumb, at the schedule tacked to the wall.

“Oh!” Sura examined the parchment. “Looks like she fed an hour ago. Maybe she needs changing.” She passed into the bedroom. The door swung shut behind her, as it always did when it wasn’t propped open.

“How is she?” Rhia asked Dravek in a hushed voice as she set down two packs at the bottom of the stairs.

“Same as before. Malia’s healthy as ever, though, so Sura’s memory isn’t keeping her from being a good mother.”

“She has a lot of help from you.”

Dravek wasn’t sure how to take the comment. While Jula remained ignorant, perhaps willfully so, of his feelings for Sura, the signs had not escaped Rhia’s notice—nor her judgment.

“Jula helps even more.” He pointed to the array of notes on the wall.

“Thank the Spirits Sura knows how to read.” Rhia wrung out her sleeves and wiped the wet hair out of her face. “At least the Descendants have given us one useful tool.”

“But if not for them, Sura wouldn’t have been pressured to have a baby in the first place, and she wouldn’t need to read all the things she forgets.” Dravek heard his voice curdle with hatred.

“The Ilions aren’t hopeless,” Rhia said. “They have Guardian Spirits, they’re just not connected to them.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve spoken with the dead,” she told him, “those who linger in the Gray Valley out of bitterness. Many of them hold a piece of another person’s soul. It looks like an animal.” Rhia grabbed a mug and the pitcher of water. “I once saw a man I knew who’d been slaughtered by a Descendant soldier. The dead man tormented a snake, twisting it, dangling it by the tail, stepping on its head. The soldier who murdered him must have been a Snake.”

Dravek turned away, troubled at her confession and at the fact that she used a Snake as an example of a Descendant Spirit.

She cleared her throat. “There’s a meeting in an hour at Galen’s. Marek’s joining me there. You should come.”

He knew that the source of her invitation wasn’t only generosity, but also the desire to keep him away from Sura. He looked at the bedroom door just as it opened.

Sura stopped short when she saw Rhia. “Hello.”

Dravek’s heart sank at the sight of her surprise. “It’s your aunt Rhia.”

Sura blinked hard, then scanned the room. When her gaze rested on the travel packs next to the stairs, she said, “Did you just arrive?”

“Yes.” Rhia set down her mug. “Dravek and I are going out for a few hours, but we’ll leave you instructions. I saw your cousin Jula just down the street—she’ll be home soon if you need anything.”

Sura’s eyes grew distant and thoughtful. Dravek remained silent, aware she was reviewing what she knew about her cousin and aunt from long ago. She saw the notes pinned around the door and went to read them. He stepped aside, but she reached out and touched his arm, as if to steady herself.

Dravek knew he should pull away, but he was the only thing in the room she recognized. After a few moments, he slid his hand over hers, then gently removed it from his arm.

She stared up at him. “Your hair’s long.”

“Do you like it?”

She shrugged. “It looked better short.”

“Then I’ll cut it.”

“No. It reminds me it’s not now anymore. Or rather, it’s not the same ‘now’ my mind lives inside.”

From the corner of his eye, Dravek saw Rhia watching them, with the same disapproval the rest of the world would lay upon them. He dared to hope that somehow, someday, he and Sura could be together.

Without that hope, he’d have one fewer reason to live.

A knock sounded at the door. Malia cried, lurching back from the precipice of sleep. Sura wanted to echo her wails. If she didn’t rest soon herself, her face would become well acquainted with the floorboards.

She shuffled to the door. Tacked to it was a large sign bearing what seemed to be a password.

“Sparrow!”

The deep male voice made her jump.

Sura tucked Malia into the crook of her left arm, quickly undid the two locks, then cracked open the door.

She looked up, up into the shrouded face of an enormous man. Rain dripped in rivers off his hood, creating a glistening waterfall over his eyes, which were nearly invisible.

“Let me in,” he said.

“Do I know you?”

“I know the password.” He pressed his palm against the door. “You have to let me in.”

He brushed past her, slammed the door behind him, then hurried to lock it. He took a quick look into the bedroom, then paused to listen at the bottom of the stairs. Satisfied, he nodded and headed for the bread basket on the table.

Malia quieted in her arms, as if sharing Sura’s speechless surprise.

“Where’s Rhia and Marek?” he asked her.

“They’re not here.”

“Jula?”

“Not here.”

He stuffed a huge piece of loaf into his mouth, then glanced around the kitchen. “Ale?”

She pointed to one of the cabinets. He withdrew the large tankard and started to lift it to his lips.

“Mugs are on the counter.”

He lowered the tankard. “Forgot my manners.” He poured himself a mug. “So where is she?”

“Rhia or Jula?”

“Either. Both.”

She checked the notes on the table while he downed the entire mug in one long swallow. “Rhia and Marek are at Galen’s.” Galen—another name she recognized from her childhood.

“Good. I was on my way there, anyway.”

Sura found another scrap of paper. “And Jula’s delivering the news.” Shoulders aching, she adjusted her grip on Malia. “Who are you?”

He set down the mug and pulled back his hood. “I’m Lycas.”

Sura’s jaw dropped. She was face-to-face with her father for the first time in nineteen years. Nothing about him was familiar—not the piercing black eyes or the thick black hair that curved around his neck in a long ponytail. Certainly not the scruffy beard, which held several visible strands of gray.

A crooked smile scrawled across his face. “See, I’m just a human after all, despite what the Descendants say.” He poured another mug of ale. “So what’s your name?”

She couldn’t speak, couldn’t even remember where her tongue was.

“On second thought,” he said, “don’t tell me. If I’m ever captured alive, they’ll want to know who helped me in Tiros. I can’t give them your name if I don’t know it.” He downed the ale, then slammed the mug on the counter and let out a loud belch. “Pardon me.” He wiped his mouth with a filthy sleeve. “I’ll go find Rhia now.”

He flipped up his hood, pocketed another piece of bread, and tramped toward the door. When his hand touched the knob, he stopped. She struggled to find her voice, to speak the name she’d never called anyone.

Lycas examined her face, then lowered his dark gaze to Malia, who had finally fallen asleep.

“Cute baby,” he said. “A lot quieter than mine was at that age.”

He swung open the door and disappeared into the rain.

“Wait,” she whispered, but he had already slipped into the darkness. “Father…”

Sura walked into the bedroom as smoothly as her aching feet and swimming head would allow. She placed Malia in her crib. The child stretched, but continued to sleep.

Sura stared at her daughter, already wondering if it had really happened. All her life she’d wished Lycas would walk through the door. Now that he had, he didn’t know her. Why should he? He’d spent his life doing more important things than learning the contours of her face.

She touched it now, cupping her palm around her jaw, wondering if it were as strong as her father’s. Everyone used to say her cheekbones were her mother’s, but what about her nose? She ran her finger over the bridge as she made her way back to the kitchen. No, it curved up instead of down.

As she was crossing her eyes to study it, she noticed that his boots had left muddy prints all over the floor. She retrieved the broom from the corner and started to sweep. The boards were damp from the rain, and her efforts only smeared the dirt. Still she swept, turning the images into ragged lines.

Sura left one print intact, a left foot, the one next to the stove, where he had drunk the ale. She stood toe-to-toe with the print, her own right foot dwarfed by the huge outline.

She put the broom away. If she forgot this incident later, the footprint would remind her. Just in case, she hurried back to the bedroom and scribbled a note on Lycas’s page.

He’s here.