Sirin approached and sat next to Lycas, balancing two plates of food in one hand while he unscrewed the top of a water flask with the thumb of the other. “I can’t get used to seeing you clean-shaven, my friend. Almost didn’t recognize you when you got here yesterday.” He rubbed his own dark brown beard, which was thick and ragged from months in the wilderness.
Lycas accepted the extra plate and spoke without taking his eyes off Nilik. “Can you use him here?”
“Your nephew? I thought you were bringing him to the camp near Velekos.”
“I’d rather not.” He couldn’t explain why, not even to himself. Nilik knew the password, but Rhia had been so adamant about keeping him in Tiros.
Sirin examined Nilik as he gnawed a strip of dried venison. “What experience has he got?”
“Basic weapons? Some. Mountain warfare? None. But you always say, the greener they come, the easier they are to train.”
Sirin grimaced and scratched the back of his neck. “I’m up to my ears in recruits.”
“Success will do that.”
“Every company in the battalion is full. More recruits means we have to add a fourth company. That would put us at regiment strength, which adds a whole other level of command that we can’t handle.”
Lycas took the water flask. “You can handle it.”
“We’ve got problems with discipline, training. Half the Bears leading these platoons couldn’t persuade a dog to lick its own balls. Then there are the logistical issues.”
“None of which will be made worse by taking Nilik.”
Sirin let out a harsh sigh, then lowered his voice. “I thought the whole point of Nilik being here was to go to Velekos, find the thugs who killed that girl. He’s a motivated fighter.”
“Too motivated. His thirst for vengeance will make him careless.”
“It sure hasn’t hurt your judgment.”
Slowly Lycas turned his gaze on his executive officer. Though his eyes were narrowed in contemplation of Sirin’s words, the younger Wolverine took it as a glare of intimidation.
Sirin glanced away, cowed. “As you wish, sir. I’ll reassign him before you leave tomorrow.”
“Thank you, as always, for your candor.” Lycas made himself add, “This time it worked.”
Sirin cocked his head. “So you don’t want me to reassign Nilik?”
“I’ll take him to Velekos and train him myself. You were right.”
“I was?” Sirin blinked rapidly. “Wait. Explain this, so I can remember it for future reference, and so I know I’m not hallucinating.”
“I wanted you to keep Nilik here so I wouldn’t have to watch him die like my brother. That’s a bad way to make a decision.” He took a gulp of water and handed back the flask, already missing the taste of Tiron bitter ale. “Besides, you’re in charge of personnel. I trust your advice.”
Sirin chuckled. “A year ago, you would’ve pounded my face into the dust for questioning you. You’re getting old, Lycas.”
“I think the word is wise.”
From behind them came the slap of small boots against stone. Lycas turned to see Sani, the third-phase Eagle woman he’d brought from Tiros as a lookout.
“Sir, Ilion soldiers,” she said. “Twenty men, plus an officer on horseback.”
Lycas hurried to the eastern edge of the ridge, Sirin and Sani on his heels. He squinted at the dusky rolling hills that lay between here and Asermos. Though gifted with excellent night vision, he couldn’t discern details at such a distance.
“Are they headed this way?” Lycas asked Sani.
“No, they’re passing south to north, far enough there’s no way they can see us.” She shoved the strands of gray-brown hair out of her pale face and focused on the passing Ilions. “Looks like they’re on the road to Tiros, probably to the northwest garrison.”
“Twenty-one, you said.”
“Correct, sir.”
He tallied up the number of fighters at his and Sirin’s disposal. They were nearly equally matched with the Ilions, not even counting the Tirons Lycas had brought.
“Release the bait,” he told Sani.
When she was gone, he turned to see Nilik approach.
“Descendants?” his nephew asked him. “Coming here?”
“Maybe. Our archers will drop them, but it’s up to us to finish them off, up close.” He put a hand on Nilik’s shoulder. “If you need to debrief afterward, come to me.”
Nilik swallowed, and Lycas knew immediately that the boy had never killed before. He nodded and choked out a, “Thank you, sir.”
A Cougar hurried to the farthest edge of the ridge to their right, a flaming arrow nocked in his longbow. A sheet of parchment fluttered, attached to the shaft.
The arrow arced across the darkening sky like a meteor, leaving a green afterglow on Lycas’s vision. It would only land half-way to the Ilion soldiers, but they might come to investigate it. When they did, they’d find a note with nothing but Lycas’s initial in bold blue paint next to a Wolverine paw print.
“Few can resist,” Sirin told Nilik. “Junior officers are so ambitious.” He turned to Lycas. “I can only imagine what reward they’d receive for capturing or killing you.”
“Or you.”
“Pah. I’d be a consolation prize.” He shifted his shoulders. “By the way, the bait worked while you were in Tiros, so at least the lower-level Ilion commanders believed you never left the hills.”
“Good.”
Lycas had no desire to be a celebrity. But by fixating on him, the Descendants spent all their energy trying to find and defeat one person. He understood what the Ilions did not: that his death would make no difference.
It wasn’t his revolution, after all. It was everyone’s.
07
Kalindos
“Forgive my bluntness, but who died?”
Dravek didn’t answer right away, which made Sura even more nervous. They were approaching a clearing about an hour’s walk from Kalindos, a clearing filled with hundreds of boulders of all sizes. They looked as if they had rolled there centuries before, gathering for a great boulder meeting that had never adjourned. On the other side of the field loomed the gray-brown ridges of Mount Beros.
As he walked, Dravek juggled two short torches, which unfortunately were lit. When they reached the edge of the clearing, Dravek stepped out onto the closest boulder, tossed the last torch high in the air and caught it behind his back.
“No one died,” he said.
“Then why is your hair so short?”
“I work with fire.” He shoved the unlit end of one torch into a chest-high hollow post between two boulders. “Prefer to keep the flames from engulfing my head.”
She stepped onto the flattest stone she could find and set down the pack he’d given her to carry. “You could wear it long, just tie it back.”
“I think it looks good like this.” He ran a hand over his head in both directions. The short strands sprang back into place. “Don’t you?”
His smile almost made her lose her balance as she shifted to the next stone.
“You shouldn’t cut your hair unless someone’s died. It’s a sacred privilege, not a matter of vanity.”
“Don’t assume you know all about me.” He crossed over several boulders to where the other hollow post stood. He inserted the torch, then pointed to a flat boulder halfway between the two flames. “Let’s sit.”
She made her way over to join him, stepping carefully to keep her balance so he wouldn’t touch her again. They weren’t wearing gloves today, and the thought of his skin against hers did not enhance her concentration.
They sat cross-legged on the rock, facing each other.
“Let’s see if you’re really a Snake.” He nodded at the torch to his left. “Make that one flare.”
“I can’t. All I can do is snuff.” A nervous laugh escaped her throat. “I’m just a lowly snuffer.”
He smirked. “Then show me how you snuff.”
Sura
swallowed hard, then with no small effort, tore her gaze from him and stood to face the torch. She cupped her hands around her mouth, forming a tunnel that she aimed at the base of the flame. Her mind brought forth an image of a wet blanket descending, wrapping, smothering.
She sucked in a hard breath, and the torch snuffed out.
Sura feigned nonchalance as she turned back to Dravek, her limbs tingling with the torch’s heat.
“Good,” he said. “Now try it again without looking.”
The flame burst forth from the end of the torch. She gasped. His eyes had never left her face, nor had he given the slightest twitch.
“How did you do that?”
“With my mind,” he said, “the way you’ll learn to do.”
“But I thought Snakes could only control fire, not make it out of nothing.”
“It wasn’t out of nothing. The torch was still hot, so I just brought it back to life. Now try it again without looking.”
Sura set her jaw and faced the torch again, this time with her eyes shut. Her mind reached out, calculating the distance, trying to see the flame’s position.
“No need to scrunch up your face,” Dravek said.
“Shh. I’m trying to see it.”
She heard the rustle of his clothes as he stood and drew near. The heat under her skin continued to build.
“Don’t try to see it.” His whisper caressed the top of her ear. “Just feel it.”
She shifted away a few inches and extended her hand toward the torch. “I can’t.”
“I’ll help you.” Touching her waist, he turned her around. She drew in a sharp breath and reached for his arms to steady herself.
“I won’t let you fall.” He turned her in place, spinning her slowly one way, then the other, until she no longer knew which way was which. “And no using the sun to get your bearings…” He covered her eyes with his palm and began to turn with her. She let her body relax against his, surrendering to this disorienting dance.
After a few more rotations, Dravek held her still, his hand over her eyes. “Try it now, Sura. If you’re really a Snake, you should feel the fire wherever it is. It calls to you.”
She settled her mind, noticing how cool his hand felt against her brows and the bridge of her nose. Perhaps he had released his own heat by reigniting the torch a minute ago. She wanted do the same, to stop the burning within that begged her to reach for him, to do the wrongest thing in the world.
She drew a deep breath, and the fire appeared in her mind—not as an orange flame dancing in the breeze, but as a pulsing white core of heat. It wanted to be inside her, swallowed and consumed like prey. She coiled her awareness around it and squeezed, gently but without mercy. The fire sighed as it died.
“Yes,” Dravek breathed. “Now bring it back.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. Quickly, before the torch cools. Let the heat flow back all at once. Count to three and then release.”
“One,” Sura said under her breath. The heat twitched within her, wanting to take form in flame again. If she didn’t send it out, it would devour her.
“Two,” she whispered. Dravek was right. It would be easy. Make it burn.
An image slammed her mind, the one she’d been fighting all morning, the one that Dravek’s intoxicating presence had banished for a few moments.
An Asermon farm, burning. Flames licking the thatched roof, ripping it, until it collapsed on the shrieking people within.
She tightened her mental grip on the torch’s embers, smothering them to cold hard nothingness.
Dravek let her go. “You almost had it. What happened?”
She tried to speak, but the heat seared her lungs so that she couldn’t even catch a breath. She bent over and gripped her knees.
Dravek reached for her.
“Don’t touch me!” she choked.
“You’re burning up,” he said. “If you don’t let it out, it’ll hurt you.”
“I can handle it.” She sat down hard on the boulder. Red circles danced before her eyes.
Dravek knelt beside her. “You don’t have to handle it.” He took her wrist. “Give it to me.”
As if he’d opened the spout of a well pump, the heat rushed from every part of her body, down her arm toward the place where they touched. He gasped and went rigid. His eyes bulged, showing more white than black.
“What’s wrong?” She tried to pull her arm out of his grip, which had tightened like a muskrat trap. “Dravek?”
A sudden sweeping whoosh! came from behind her. She turned to see the extinguished torch flare toward the sky. The flame reached higher than the tallest tree, its core shining with blue-white heat.
Dravek let go of her wrist and collapsed on the boulder. Sweat soaked his scarlet face, which was quickly paling.
The torch cracked in half, then toppled over onto the rocks. They watched in silence as it slowly burned itself out, the ashes falling in clumps and scattering across the rock in the steady breeze.
“Did we do that?” she whispered, though she knew the answer.
Dravek sat up slowly, turning away from her. He put his head in his hands and murmured, “There must be a reason for this.”
She looked at the broken torch. “We made a lot of heat.”
“It was you,” he said. “I was just channeling it.”
“But if I took the heat from the first torch and gave it to you, then the second flame should have only been twice as big. But it was easily ten times the size. That means we multiply each other’s powers, not add to them. But why?”
“Why,” Dravek whispered, but didn’t answer or even look at her. Finally he let out a long breath before getting to his feet. He stepped over the boulders until he reached the broken torch. She watched him bend down next to the foot-long piece of wood, watched the muscles of his back shift as he reached forward to grasp it, watched his long fingers curl around the splintered shaft.
Sura knew she shouldn’t stare. He was another woman’s mate. He was her mentor. Most of all, he was her Spirit-brother. But her eyes refused to blink as he lifted the torch and brought his other hand toward it.
The flame burst forth, small and orange and controlled again. His shoulders relaxed, as if he’d just released a great source of tension.
Dravek turned to her. “I think you’re a Snake. But it’s not up to me.” He stepped to the next boulder and pulled a small pack out of the one they’d brought. “Here’s everything you need.”
“For what?”
“Your Bestowing. A change of clothes, a few blankets, a bit of food and water to break your fast in three days, before you return.”
“My Bestowing?” She stood up and almost backed off the side of the boulder. “Now? Where?”
He looked at Mount Beros, then back at her. “The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll have full control of your powers, and the sooner you can help your mother.”
“But—”
“I’m leaving,” he said. “After the wedding, Kara and I are moving to Tiros. You and I don’t have much time together.” He looked away, then back at her. “To train.”
Sura hid her flinch at this news. “I didn’t know that.” She climbed up onto his boulder and took the pack from his hand. “Where on the mountain do I go?”
“Just keep walking until you find the place that feels right.”
I already have, she thought, and wanted to slap herself. She slung the pack over her shoulder. “Dravek, what if I’m not a Snake?” She attempted a smile. “Can we still be friends?”
His gaze was deadly serious as he moved closer. “If you’re not a Snake…” Dravek touched her cheek with the barest tip of his fingers. “We can be anything you want.”
08
Sangian Hills
“I think I’ve finally got it,” Marek said, rustling the papers behind Rhia as they rode south on their journey from Tiros. “Alanka’s son’s a crafty one when it comes to code. A Fox after my own heart.”
“R
ead it, read it.” Rhia had been eager to hear the latest news from Alanka. She hadn’t seen her sister in almost twenty years, since she and her husband Filip had decided to stay in Ilios to complete the rescue of nearly two hundred captured Kalindons scattered across the nation. Letters came once a year at the most. Rhia had tried not to pester Marek every night this week during his painstaking code interpretation.
He cleared his throat. “‘Dear everyone, I hope this finds you well and happy, as much as can be expected. Filip and I are thrilled to be grandparents, though I torment him by disappearing and reappearing when he’s trying to give a speech. The people here in Ilios think it’s fun, though. All the political talk and military efforts by Filip and Kiril don’t impress people nearly as much as a third-phase Wolf’s invisibility. Hee-hee.’”
Rhia smiled, though she missed her sister so much it hurt. She wondered if the landscape in that part of Ilios were anything like the red-brown hills they rode through now. She found it ironic that the more remote sections of Ilios were freer than Asermos and Velekos when it came to practicing magic.
“‘As you might have heard,’” Marek continued reading, “‘we’ve sent most of the surviving Kalindon captives back home to the Reawakened lands. Once the Ilions found out the children in the army camp didn’t develop magic no matter how deep the wilderness, they started selling them off at slave auctions. It felt strange to purchase people I used to baby-sit, but at least they’re free now.’”
“Why do you think they don’t develop powers?” Rhia asked Marek.
“Maybe the Spirits won’t give magic to those who’d use it against us. Let me finish before I get motion sick.” He flipped a page. “‘Arcas and Koli send their love. They finally had a child after all these years of trying. I call her my little sunbeam. I’d never tell my own children this, but I secretly always hoped one of them would have Filip’s blond hair instead of taking after my—’” Marek cut himself off. “What’s that smell?”
“Is that part of the letter?”
“No. Stop for a moment.” He slid off the horse’s back and rushed around the next bend in the trail.
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