The Reawakened (33 page)

The dead tree loomed as black and menacing as ever. She could swear it had grown.

She glanced behind her at the fog that led back to her world. She would never admit it out loud to Crow, but she harbored a secret fear of being trapped in the Gray Valley.

Rhia waited several moments for someone to appear, then turned right and began to walk. She didn’t like to travel to the left, toward the cave of the never-born. Crow had taught her that He’d reserved that place as a womblike haven for those who died before their birth. She understood that for them it continued the comforting presence of their mothers’ bodies. But it still made her skin crawl.

“Nilik!” she called as she walked, her voice and steps echoing against the cliffs on either side. She searched the rocky facade for movement along the ridges, where disconsolate souls often lurked.

“I know you’re not here,” she whispered. Nilik had gone to his death willingly and for a purpose that meant the world to him.

But Marek had insisted she look. He’d slept little on their journey into the Kirisian Mountains to meet his fellow Kalindons. The impending attack on his village, coupled with the anniversary of their son’s death, had turned his thoughts dark and obsessive. The newest Descendant atrocity had opened Marek’s old wounds, memories of the things he’d done to keep Nilik alive.

Footsteps rattled the rocky soil behind her. Rhia stopped and closed her eyes.
Please don’t let me be wrong. Please don’t let it be my son.

She turned. Sirin stood on the trail, looming over her, his skin and hair absorbing the dull red light around them. Only his pale blue eyes seemed alive.

He was almost close enough to touch—not that Rhia would try. She knew better.

She stepped back, away from his glowering face that held no forgiveness.

“Traitor,” he whispered. “You put me here.”

She kept her voice steady. “You died in battle, not because of what happened in that Asermon prison.”

“One thing leads to another,” he hissed. “The arm I broke in that tub cost me my life in the fight.”

“You said it had healed.”

“It shattered at the impact of the first sword.” He held up his arm, which stretched whole and straight in this world. “I’d broken limbs before and had full use of them in less time than that.”

“Lycas said Wolverine is weakening. Maybe that’s why—”

“Weakening?” Sirin’s eyes flashed. “You don’t know the half of it.” He grabbed her arm.

She bit back a scream at his touch. Cold snaked through her body as if her blood had turned to ice water.

Sirin dragged her down the trail, away from the dead tree and the fog. She focused on the sound of Corek’s steady drumming, using it as an anchor to the real world.

They reached the top of a low ridge, where she could see into the distance. Sirin pointed to a remote, flat section of the Gray Valley.

“Do you see it?”

Rhia widened her eyes to take in the invisible sun’s dim red light.

Stumbling across the wasteland was a low, hulking animal, one she’d never seen before. Its muzzle drooped and swayed as it moved. It lurched to a stop and lifted its head to peer around.

The creature had small round ears and a long furry tail. Light brown fur streaked its dark flanks. By its shape, it almost looked like a small bear.

She drew in a sharp breath. “Wolverine.”

“He’s dead.” Sirin took her shoulders and turned her to the right. “He’s not the only one.”

Rhia’s jaw dropped slowly, until she could feel the stale breeze curl down her throat.

In the other world, Corek’s drum skipped a beat, then two beats. Then it pounded faster, calling her back.

She slipped out of Sirin’s grip and ran.

Rhia sat straight up, ears ringing from her husband’s cry. Her head swam from the time in the Gray Valley and the heady scent of the thanapras herb they had to burn to get her there.

Jula’s arms draped around Marek’s shoulders as he rocked and keened. Corek set the drum aside and stared at Rhia, eyes round with fear.

Rhia crawled over to Marek in the darkness of the tent and found his hands, cold and trembling.

Marek’s teeth chattered. “He’s gone,” he whispered. “Wolf’s dead.”

“I know.” She slid her arm around Marek’s shoulders. “I just saw Him. Wolverine and Cougar and Bear, too.”

His head jerked. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” She swallowed hard, fighting a sense of doom. “I thought it was impossible. Spirits can’t die.”

“Do you believe now?” He spoke through gritted teeth. “They were weak before, during the last Collapse.” Then he murmured to himself, “But They didn’t die before the last Reawakening. How would They come back?”

She turned his chin to face her. “They can’t die. They’re eternal. There must be another explanation.” What could kill a Spirit? And which Spirit was next?

Corek slid quietly out of the tent, Jula following with a sorrowful look back at her father. They left the tent flap open, letting in the early-morning light.

Rhia saw Corek grab Jula’s arm. “Look at that,” he said.

Jula let out a yelp.

Rhia and Marek scrambled out of the tent to see a rust-colored haze spread across the sky in front of the sunrise.

“Smoke,” Marek whispered. “It’s coming from Kalindos.” His voice broke. “The Descendants came back.” He turned to the tent and yanked the nearest peg out of the ground. “If we skip breakfast and don’t stop to rest, we’ll reach my people by midday. They’ll need us.” His hands shook as he folded the tent’s fabric, slapping it together and finally rolling it into a sloppy bundle.

She kept her voice soft. “They’re our people.”

He was right about the needing, though. Once they met the Kalindons, she and Corek would no doubt preside over at least one funeral.

As Marek had hoped, they reached the Kalindons shortly after noon. Rhia found the strength in her exhausted limbs to dash the last few yards into her father’s arms. It had been ten months since she’d seen him, when he’d traveled to Tiros for Nilik’s memorial.

Tereus hugged her close. “I’ve missed you so much.” He embraced Jula, then drew a deep sigh as he let her go. “You won’t believe what’s happened.”

“We know,” Rhia said. “The Ilions invaded Kalindos. From the smoke cloud, it looks like they burned it.”

“I burned it,” came a scratchy voice behind Tereus.

Dravek appeared, paler than Rhia had ever seen him, his hair cropped short again. He stepped closer, as if realizing they could barely hear him above the wind in the trees.

“Lycas ordered me to do it,” he said, “but I was the one who lit the fires.”

“You burned Kalindos?” Marek lunged at Dravek and seized the front of his shirt. “You burned my home?”

“It was my home, too.” Dravek struggled to untwist Marek’s hands from his collar. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll make you sorry.” He pulled back his fist.

“Marek, stop.” Rhia grabbed his arm. “It’s my brother’s fault. Dravek was only following orders.”

Marek shoved the Snake away, following him with a bloodshot glare. Rhia realized that the last time Kalindos had burned, thirty years ago, Marek’s parents had perished.

“I don’t understand,” she said to Dravek. “Did you burn it to keep the Ilions from getting in?”

“No.” He held her gaze. “We burned it to keep them from getting out.”

Her knees felt weak, and she had to blink hard to keep her head from swimming. “You killed them?”

“A thousand men.” He finally looked down. “It’s why the Spirits died, the ones who were there with me.”

“Did Snake die, too?” Jula asked him.

“No. Maybe She has lower standards for honorable warfare.” Dravek scoffed and wiped his forehead. “But I think it was something else. Drenis said—” He interrupted himself and addressed Jula and Corek. “That’s our second-phase Kalindon Wolverine.” He glanced at the rest of them. “He said his Spirit had been weakening for a long time.”

Rhia nodded. “Lycas mentioned it after the battle last year. He was accidentally shot because a Cougar or a Wolf missed their target. I thought it had gotten better since then.”

“Because he’d reined in his bloodthirst,” Marek said bitterly. “But Lycas couldn’t resist the idea of so many Descendants in one place.” He drew a heavy hand through his hair. “Wolf was already weakened by the occupation. The burning of Kalindos killed Him.”

Tereus shook his head sadly. “Come, let’s find you a space to sit and get you some food.”

As Rhia passed Dravek, she saw his eyes turn dim and dispirited. No doubt the smoke inhalation had injured him, but she recognized that haunted look. Marek had worn it after the first time he’d taken a life. Some men weren’t born to kill.

Up ahead, in a rocky clearing next to the mountain face, a funeral pyre had already been laid out. Rhia forced her legs to carry her forward.

Endrus lay upon the pyre. She clutched the wood, inhaling the oil that had been sprinkled upon it, and fought back tears.

Corek came to stand at her elbow. “Did you know him?”

“I last saw him when I was in prison in Asermos. He almost died there.” She thought of her sister Alanka. Endrus had been one of her closest friends and even a mate for a short time. It would break her heart to hear he’d perished with her home village.

They held the funeral that afternoon, setting Endrus’s pyre ablaze. Dravek used his remaining strength to stoke the fire when it sputtered from insufficient oil. Rhia chanted the prayers, then called the crows, and Corek followed her lead. Adrek wept the hardest, until his eyes were bright red from smoke and tears.

Rhia held in her own grief until after the crows departed. When she heard their calls fade into the distance, echoing off the mountainside, she turned away from the crowd and heaved great sobs for what her people had lost. Not just Endrus, or Nilik or the trees and homes that made up Kalindos.

They had lost themselves.

She woke to discover she wasn’t the only one.

Unfortunately they were always outnumbered.

So this morning, Lycas had sent messages ordering the entire battalion to retreat farther up into the hills. Sura hated the thought of sitting in the dry, barren mountains when Asermos was so close, and so close to liberation.

Dusk was creeping over the headquarters as the platoon packed up everything but their tents and bedrolls. No one spoke above a whisper—exhaustion and defeat had stolen their spirits.

Sura stalked to her father’s tent and swept aside the door, though she knew she was being insubordinate by walking in unannounced.

Lycas faced away from her as he stared at the Asermon map still pinned to his tent wall. He held his hands behind his back, his shoulders sunk into a slumped posture she’d never seen before.

“What?” he said.

The words stuck in her throat—or more precisely, in her brain, because she’d lost them.

“Uh…”

He turned quickly and scowled. “I thought you were Medus.”

She sounded and smelled nothing like the Badger. But Lycas could no longer pick up her scent or recognize the distinctive fall of her steps.

“What do you want?” he asked her. “I’m busy packing. You should be, too.”

She steeled her courage and stepped forward. “This is your answer to the loss of your Spirit? Run away and hide?”

“Until conditions improve.”

“They won’t.” Her lips tightened for a moment before she could speak again. “Wolverine’s not coming back.”

“He left because I fought too hard. If we stop fighting—”

“He didn’t leave, Lycas. He died.”

His jaw muscles tensed. “When are you going to start calling me ‘Father’?”

“When you start acting like one. When you can look at me without contempt.”

“I didn’t make you tear open your shirt for your Spirit-brother.”

She gasped, as hard as if he’d slapped her.

“I know,” he said. “You love him. As if that makes it right. As if that solves anything in this world.”

He sounded bitter, petulant, nothing like the Lycas she knew. “Can you even hear yourself?”

“Not over the sound of your voice.”

“You’re acting like you’re twelve.”

He stopped, his scowl fading. “That’s how old I was when Wolverine first spoke to me.” He drew a dagger from his belt, a blade she recognized as one of his oldest. “He came to me first, in a dream. It was another year before my twin brother had the same vision. I don’t know why He waited to call Nilo.” He sighed. “Maybe Wolverine knew we’d never be happy apart.”

It was true. Two decades after her uncle’s death, her father still carried that void inside him.

He rubbed the left side of his chest, just under his heart. She thought she saw him wince.

“Are you all right?” Stupid question, she realized.

“I don’t know.” Lycas spoke more softly than she’d ever heard him. “I don’t know what I am anymore.” He let out a long breath and sat on his bed. “Except tired. You should get to sleep early tonight, too. We have a hard journey ahead of us tomorrow.”

He set his elbows on his knees and ran his hands over his head. She heard him draw a breath between his teeth, as if in pain. Without Wolverine’s inhuman strength, she realized, Lycas was feeling every ache of his forty-three years.

“We can’t let Mother down,” she said.

He stared at the floor. “She’s survived this long. There were no Wasps at Kalindos, so she probably still has her powers. She’ll think of something. Or someone else will think of something.” He closed his eyes. “I’m all out of thoughts.”

She felt her own eyes grow hot watching her father shrink into himself. How could she blame him for his despair? He’d spent half a lifetime fighting the Ilions, having nothing of his own but his Spirit, and now even that was gone.

The sound of a horse’s hooves reached her ears. “It sounds like the messenger.”

Lycas said nothing. A few moments later, Vara shouted his name from outside the tent. Still, he didn’t move.

“In here,” Sura called to her.

Her mentor swept through the tent door. “You need to read this,” she said to Lycas. “It’s urgent, from the Ilions.”

“Read it to me.” He rubbed his eyes. “I can’t see so well anymore.”

“Lycas—” Vara opened her mouth to say what Sura knew was a string of harsh words.

“Here.” Sura brought the lantern over to her.

“Thank you.” Vara drew in a quaking breath and began. “Dear Lycas. We know you’re weakened. One of our prisoners, a second-phase Bear, died tonight from a beating he should have shaken off. We’ve tested the fortitude of our other prisoners and realized that your warrior Animals have lost their powers.”

Sura gasped and looked at her father. His face frozen, he stared at Vara as she continued.

“If those who have taken up arms against us surrender now, we will spare the civilians of Asermos, Velekos, Tiros and Kalindos. Refuse our offer, and we will hunt down your people wherever they flee. Without magic, you’ll be powerless to protect them. We will kill your men, then ship your women and children to Ilios.”

Sura held back a groan of dismay. She tried to read the parchment over Vara’s shoulder, but the Snake’s hands were shaking so hard, the words blurred.

“As a token of our sincerity—” Vara stopped and swallowed hard “—tonight we shall have our vengeance for the massacre at Kalindos, and tomorrow at dawn we shall execute the mother of your child, Mali the Wasp.”

Sura’s feet went numb, and she forgot how to breathe.

Lycas sprang to their side so swiftly, Sura jumped back in surprise. He snatched the message out of Vara’s hand and scanned it, eyes flashing from side to side.

“Death by drowning,” he whispered. “In public.”

Sura put her face in her hands, stifling a sob. It would work, even on a third-phase Wasp, even if it took hours. The grape-heads would crowd around to gawk at the bloated corpse of Sura’s once-invincible mother.

She wanted to plead with her father not to let it happen, to ride in and fight to the death to release Mali and all the other prisoners. But he would have done it long ago if it weren’t a suicide mission.

Lycas began to pace, and her heart lifted at his reborn energy, however frenetic.

“They’ll call it all off—the execution and the retribution—if we surrender tonight.” He glanced at them. “By ‘we,’ they mean the three of us, and the others who helped burn the vineyards.” He let out a harsh curse and crumpled the letter in his fist. “This is what I get for not killing the soldiers guarding those farms.

Now they can identify us.” He stopped and looked at Sura. “I’d surrender myself if it was the only way to stop this. But as long as I’m alive, I won’t let them take you.”

Her eyes softened as she looked up at him. “What do they mean by vengeance for Kalindos?”

Lycas studied the parchment again, rubbing the back of his neck. “Maybe they mean to burn Asermos or Velekos or Tiros. But those villages are far too big to surround. Kalindos had a built-in trap with that fire ring.”

Sura looked at the map of Asermos on her father’s otherwise empty wall. The town was far too sprawling to burn. The Ilions might choose a neighborhood, but even then, they had no way to trap the civilians inside.

Her gaze shifted to the outlying areas, to the two remaining vineyards they hadn’t yet burned due to their proximity to the village. The largest was within sight of the hamlet the Ilions had built to house her people.

Her hands suddenly turned cold, the sensation spreading into her spine and down her legs.

She forced out the terrible truth.

“They’re going to burn the hamlet.”