The Reawakened

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  A warm wave swept through her body, even as her stomach curdled with fear.

  Lycas slowly turned his head to stare at Dravek. “You what?”

  “I had to say it before you murdered me.” He kept his gaze on her. “I wanted her to know.”

  She took a step forward. “Dravek, I—”

  “Don’t. You. Dare.” Lycas held out a hand. “No daughter of mine—”

  “Please.” She sank to her knees. “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand perversity.” His arm muscles bulged as he tightened his grip on the back of Dravek’s neck.

  “No!” She crawled to the edge of the hayloft. “If you kill him, I’ll jump.”

  Her father’s hand flew out as if to grab her, but she was out of reach.

  “Sura, don’t do this,” Dravek said with what sounded like diminishing breath. “Please.”

  She stood and spread her arms, ready for a headfirst, backward dive onto the barn floor. “You need us,” she said to Lycas in a strong, steady voice.

  The three of them stared at each other for a long moment.

  Vara called from the vineyard. “Lycas, we’re finished, let’s move out!”

  He gave Dravek one last glare, then hurled him facedown on the floor at Sura’s feet. She knelt to help him up.

  “Don’t touch him,” Lycas said. “That’s an order.”

  Dravek held out his hand to stop her. “Do what he says, Sura.” Slowly he got to his feet, then wiped away the hay stuck to his face. “I’m all right.”

  “Only because I can’t afford to kill you,” Lycas growled.

  They left the barn and rendezvoused with Vara and Endrus, who gave them looks of trepidation before joining them in the retreat up the ridge. Bolan and the others departed in another direction, eventually to return to Asermos.

  After half an hour of running uphill, Sura’s chest felt like it would crush her lungs flat. She took heaving breaths and forced her legs to keep moving up through the forest, all the way back to the new campsite, farther east than the one they’d left earlier.

  The moment they stopped running, Sura collapsed on the ground. Her face and lungs felt seared with smoke, and her legs threatened to cramp. But the physical pain couldn’t dim the triumph in her mind.

  They had won the battle, and Dravek loved her.

  While Endrus, Sura and Dravek set up a rudimentary camp in the damp woods, Lycas took Vara aside, out of the other Snakes’ earshot. He made no effort to mask his disgust as he told her what he’d seen in the hayloft. The memory made him want to crush someone’s head between his bare hands.

  Vara examined the frayed edge of her rain cloak as he spoke. “What they did was outside the bounds of training.” She gave him a calm gaze from under her dripping hood. “But it worked. Isn’t that what matters?”

  He ignored her logic. “Why didn’t you tell me that was the source of their power?”

  She uttered a low laugh. “When I told you that together they could start and spread fires better than any Snake I’ve ever heard of, you didn’t ask where that power came from. If you’d stopped to think, rather than being greedy for a new weapon, you would’ve realized that it didn’t exactly come from butterflies and fluffy clouds.” She shifted closer and softened her tone. “You know Snake’s domain.”

  “Fire.”

  “And sex.” She dropped her hand to brush his palm with her fingertips. “Remember?”

  “Not really,” he said, though their encounters were impossible to forget, even half a lifetime later. “It was a long time ago.”

  “If you want, I’d be happy to—” her glance flicked down, then up again “—spark your memory.”

  He hesitated, breathing in the scent of her sweat, heightened by the rain and the long run to the camp. He could almost remember how she tasted.

  “Not interested.” Lycas stepped back so she couldn’t feel his skin cool with the lie. “I’m sure Endrus would meet your needs.”

  She glared at him as she crossed her arms. “I always preferred your brother, Nilo, anyway. He was much kinder.”

  “No, he wasn’t.” Lycas turned away. “He was just better at hiding his meanness.”

  He strode back to the camp, where he found Endrus, Sura and Dravek tying a sleeping tarp between three trees.

  “Dravek, come here.”

  “Yes, sir.” Without hesitating, the young Snake dropped the rope and crossed the campsite—a brave feat, considering he’d almost been throttled.

  He took Dravek’s shoulder and steered him away from the camp, out of Sura’s hearing range. Despite his tight grip, he could smell no fear on the boy. “What you did out there tonight—”

  “Sir, I regret you found us in that…position.”

  “Shut up and let me finish.” He couldn’t look at the little bastard’s face after what he’d done. “You’re more experienced with your magic than Sura, correct?”

  “I suppose.”

  “And Vara has trained you thoroughly.”

  He nodded. “And I taught myself, with Snake’s guidance, before I came to Tiros.” He paused. “Why do you ask?”

  “If the Ilions don’t respond to our demands, I’ll have Sura and Vara burn more vineyards. With the right weather conditions, we can do two at a time. Sura will stay in my squad, and Vara will go with the rest of the platoon to another location.” He paused to let the Snake grow nervous.

  To his credit, Dravek waited for him to continue instead of asking about his own assignment. Either he was thoroughly cowed or defiantly confident.

  “For you,” Lycas said finally, “I have a special mission.”

  He knew he shouldn’t relish his latest idea so much. But not only would it strike a deciding blow against the Ilions, it would put distance between Sura and this depraved young man.

  It might even get him killed.

  08

  Kalindos

  “I can’t believe you had the gall to come back,” snarled a familiar voice above Dravek’s head.

  He stopped, just in sight of the Kalindon fire wall. Other than the Ilions, his sister Daria was the last person he wanted to see.

  She dropped to the ground beside the trail and glared at Dravek. She glanced at Endrus beside him, and her eyes widened.

  “Uncle Endrus!” She launched herself into his arms. When he set her down, she held up her bow. “Guess what? I became a Cougar just like you and Father.”

  “Congratulations.” Endrus stepped back and gestured to Dravek. “Your brother and I are—”

  “He’s not my brother anymore.”

  Dravek’s stomach froze. “What do you mean?”

  “We heard what you did to Kara, wiping her memory.”

  “It was an accident, I swear on my Spirit.”

  “Right.” She put her hands on her hips. “Everyone knew you’d cheat on her, but with your own Spirit-sister? I never thought even you’d be that sick.”

  “Wait. How did you know—”

  “Etarek sent a message. Later he tried to take it back and say he was just imagining things, but that must have been after he realized he’d gotten the better woman out of the whole sordid affair.”

  Dravek’s fist clenched. “Don’t you dare speak that way about Sura. You don’t even know her.”

  “Not half as well as you, apparently.” Her smirk faded. “If you had to have your perverted trysts with that little Snake, why not just break it off with Kara? Why’d you have to take away a year of her life?”

  Endrus held up a hand. “I don’t have time for this. You got Lycas’s second message?”

  “Galen sent it to Thera’s mind two days ago.” She looked at him, the corners of her eyes drooping. “Is this plan the only way to save Kalindos?”

  “Unless you think a few dozen archers can defend the village from an entire battalion. As I recall, it didn’t work so well the last time.”

  Daria hunched her shoulders, and Dravek wondered if she remembered her capture as a two-year-ol
d, despite her perpetual denials.

  She jerked her chin in the direction of the village. “Go on, they’re expecting you.”

  As they moved away, Dravek took a last look back at his sister. She was watching him with sad, round eyes.

  He and Endrus trudged on toward the fire ring. Its door was open, the boards scattered in random piles. Dravek’s fingers twitched at the sight of the mess. It would take all day to repair the wall.

  A lanky figure with long dark blond hair pushed a wheelbarrow full of rocks through the opening. Dravek stopped at the sight of his stepfather.

  “Adrek?” Endrus gasped.

  Adrek dropped the handles of the wheelbarrow. It tipped, spilling the stones, but he was already at their side.

  “Endrus!” He threw his arms around his fellow Cougar and pounded him on the back. Then he pulled away and ran his thumb over the scar on his friend’s cheek. “Spirits, what did those Descendants put you through?”

  “About a million adventures, each of which will require one mug of meloxa to tell.”

  Adrek laughed, then gave Dravek a cold glance before wrapping his arm around Endrus’s shoulders. “We’ll have a welcome-home party like Kalindos has never seen. Come on, I’ll take you in to see everyone.”

  Endrus gestured to Dravek. “What about your son?”

  Adrek didn’t even look back. “That Snake’s not my son.”

  Dravek’s lip curled. “Coward.”

  Adrek stopped, then slowly turned, his green eyes full of rancor. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?” He advanced on Dravek. “I can’t even look Kara’s parents in the face after the way you hurt her.”

  “It’s none of their business, or yours.”

  “You’re lucky they didn’t drag you back from Tiros and throw you in jail.” He scowled up at him. “Times like this, I wish I never brought your whining, worthless self back from Ilios.”

  Dravek breathed deep in a failing attempt to control his temper.

  Endrus cleared his throat. “I could really use a drink. Maybe we should—”

  “Stay out of it, Endrus.” Adrek narrowed an unflinching glare on Dravek. “I should’ve known, with your Descendant blood, that you’d bring us nothing but shame and sorrow. Instead I raised you as my son, for your mother’s sake.” He raised a finger to Dravek’s face. “If it weren’t for you, she’d still be alive.”

  Dravek’s fist shot out. Adrek’s hand swept it aside before it could connect with his jaw. With an almost offhand gesture, he twisted Dravek’s arm behind his back and forced him to his knees.

  Dravek’s eyes blurred from the pain. “Don’t talk about my mother,” he choked out.

  “You should be glad she can’t see what’s become of you.” Adrek released Dravek’s arm with a shove. “I hope you burn with the rest of them.”

  Dravek sprang to his feet, shaking out his throbbing arm. “Don’t you dare threaten me.”

  “You plan to use your powers on us?” Adrek sneered. “Make us forget what a little rat snake you are? It won’t work if we don’t look at you. And everyone knows it.”

  He beckoned Endrus to follow him. Instead Endrus waited for Dravek and walked beside him through the fire-ring opening. On the other side, people loaded rocks into wheelbarrows and carts, moving the stony trench to the outside of the fire ring.

  Someone shouted, and in a few moments a small crowd was running to greet them—or more precisely, to greet their long-lost friend Endrus, who’d been in Asermos working with the resistance for over ten years.

  No one gave Dravek more than a glance. He turned and walked into the village alone.

  “I’m so sorry.” Tereus opened the door of the healer’s home for Dravek. “It’s unconscionable how they’re treating you. Please sit. I’ll bring you some water.”

  Dravek looked around at the warm confines of the building, where Elora the Otter had treated many of his accidental burns. “Got any meloxa?”

  “It’s not even noon,” Tereus said, “but then again, you probably need it.” He led him into the kitchen and set a flask, a water pitcher and a mug on the table.

  Ignoring the water, Dravek poured the contents of the flask into the mug. The meloxa was sharp and sour on his tongue, and seemed to burn a hole in his throat going down. He barely repressed a cough. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely.

  Tereus slid into a chair across from him. “So tell me all about my great-granddaughter.”

  Dravek noticed that Tereus considered Lycas his son, though they weren’t blood relations. By contrast, Adrek hadn’t asked Dravek about his new son Jonek, Adrek’s own step-grandson.

  Still, the thought of Malia made him smile. “She’s beautiful. And sweet, too. She lets anyone hold her.” He shifted the mug on the table. “She feels like a daughter to me, maybe because I see her more than I see my own son.”

  “Or maybe because you’re in love with her mother.”

  Dravek’s face heated. Instead of replying, he took another swallow of meloxa.

  “I’ve known you since you were a boy,” Tereus said. “You wouldn’t hurt Kara on purpose.”

  Dravek shook his head emphatically, though he would always wonder if erasing her memory had been nothing but an accident. “She got hurt just the same. I should be glad I’m not in jail.”

  “There are more urgent matters facing the village right now. Speaking of which, we need to call everyone together so you and Endrus can give instructions.”

  “Kalindos seems so empty already,” Dravek said.

  “The sick and the pregnant and the ones with small children have already left for Tiros. We’re grateful Thera’s powers have stopped fluctuating, and that she got Galen’s thought-message so we could evacuate in time.” He folded his roughened hands on the table. “I didn’t agree with Sura and Etarek’s decision to have a child for this reason, but their actions may have saved innocent lives.”

  Dravek tried not to think about the not-so-innocent lives that would meet their end soon.

  “Are we doing the right thing?” he asked. “I don’t mean the evacuation, but—the other part. What does the dream world tell you?”

  Tereus steepled his fingers and pressed their tips against his mouth. “Swan has rarely been so clear in Her messages. This plan will end in disaster.”

  Dravek’s mouth went dry, and he took a gulp of water. “We should call it off, then.”

  “She’s equally adamant about what will happen if we don’t do it. There’s no escape from the Descendants.” He rubbed his thumb over the palm of his other hand. “It’s easy for me to say it’s wrong. I didn’t live through the first invasion of Kalindos. Both of Elora’s sons were stolen that night.”

  Dravek nodded. Nearly all Kalindon families had been decimated by the attack, but Elora had lost everything. Her children had never been found, alive or dead. “What does she think about this?”

  Tereus looked him in the eye. “She says it’s time for Kalindos to stand up.”

  Dravek took the last sip of meloxa and wondered at her choice of words. Kalindos would stand up indeed. But by doing so, their homes, their lives, everything they’d ever known, would fall to ashes.

  09

  Asermos

  Captain Addano entered the officers’ mess and was dismayed to find it less than empty.

  General Lino hailed him. “Addano, get over here and listen to this.”

  Addano nodded and crossed the otherwise empty dining room toward the general’s table, which also held three majors, the general’s staff officers.

  As he sat down, they gave him looks of undisguised contempt. His job offended their sense of Ilion honor, even as they ordered him to continue it.

  He hated them in return, but they were the only reliable sources of information. He hoped tonight’s news would be better than last week’s, when he’d heard about the takeover of the Tiron garrison and the destruction of the bridge. Sometimes he felt like he was the only one who noticed the occupation wasn’t goin
g well. Or maybe they all knew it, but no one wanted to voice the reality.

  General Lino poured him a half a glass of wine, then set the carafe at the other end of the table. “I’ve ordered wine to be rationed until we can get a shipment in from Ilios, if they can spare it.”

  “This is fine.” Addano tilted his glass. “Thank you, sir.”

  The vineyard fires had stolen one of the few bearable aspects of living in Asermos: cheap wine. The Ilion command had rebuffed the ransom demands of the rebels, provoking six more arsons in the last three days.

  Luckily Addano had about fifty bottles in his home, a stockpile that should last him five or six weeks.

  “I thought you should know,” the general said. “We’re going to fill the hamlet this fall instead of waiting until spring. All the native Asermons from the outlying farms—about a thousand head.”

  “Why now?” he asked. “I heard it wasn’t even finished.”

  “With so few vineyards left, we don’t need so many beasts for the harvest anymore. Better to contain them.”

  “Contain them from what?”

  Lino scoffed, then slowed his voice as if he were speaking to a child. “The bandits, of course.”

  Addano blinked. Even now that the guerrillas occupied more territory than the Ilion army and controlled one of their garrisons, the senior officers still insisted on calling them “bandits.”

  The general poured himself another glass of wine—a full one, Addano noticed. “I wouldn’t normally share such strategic intelligence with a junior officer, but I’ll need some of your men to help with the relocation. I could have Major Strato here make the assignments, but your operations are so…specialized—” he raised an eyebrow “—I thought you should recommend which men can be spared.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he said, ignoring the frowns of repugnance on the majors’ faces. “How many do you need?”

  “The question is, how many do you need to maintain your work?” He waved his hand toward the major. “You two figure it out. I don’t want your mission undermined. It’s too valuable.”

  Addano said nothing as the overboiled green beans slithered down his throat. He tried to forget how the fresh ones from his father’s farm had tasted, lightly steamed and coated in butter.