The Reawakened

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “Hold him,” Vara said.

  Unable to raise his left arm, Lycas jammed his right one against the soldier’s throat. The man’s eyes bulged, then lit up, reflecting the golden glow of Vara’s gaze. Lycas felt him slump beneath him.

  Cold sweat covered Lycas’s body, and he knew the end was approaching. He struggled to his feet, where he swayed, light-headed.

  Vara gave a gurgling cry. He spun to see her standing rigid, eyes wide.

  “No.”

  There was a sucking sound, of steel exiting flesh, as an Ilion yanked his sword out of Vara’s back. She fell to the earth and landed on her side. Her dark gaze met Lycas’s before turning blank.

  “Vara!” Lycas drew a dagger and leaped upon the soldier, roaring in grief and rage. They wrestled each other to the ground, weapons flying from their grips. The soldier rolled on top and wound his fingers around Lycas’s neck.

  Black spots filled his vision. Instinct told him to fight off his attacker, but experience reminded him it wouldn’t work. He forced his hands down, feeling for a vulnerable spot. The soldier’s chest armor had ridden up, leaving the bottom of his torso exposed. As his sight dimmed, Lycas’s right hand slid to his dagger belt and unclasped the sheath of his longest blade. With a desperate lurch of his hips, he shifted the Descendant’s weight so he could withdraw the knife. Then he shoved it deep inside the man’s abdomen.

  The soldier jerked and spasmed, his grip on Lycas’s neck tightening, then releasing. He coughed, and a spurt of blood shot from his mouth, drenching Lycas’s face with hot, coppery-tasting liquid.

  Breath rushed into Lycas’s right lung, the only one that still worked. His strength at an end, he struggled to toss off the soldier’s deadweight. Suddenly the man disappeared, yanked backward by an unseen hand.

  Above him, a woman spoke Lycas’s name in a voice that would burn glass.

  Mali.

  He choked a breath in and out.

  She held out a hand. “For Spirits’ sake, get up.”

  Though he would’ve thought it impossible a few moments ago, he rolled onto his hands and knees, and finally his feet. The pain inhabited every inch of his body, but he couldn’t accept her offer of help.

  He wiped the blood from his face with his right arm and spat the remnants from his mouth. “How’d you get out of prison?”

  “Killed someone.” She glanced past him. “Look out.”

  Lycas pivoted in time to duck a blow from an approaching Ilion. He drew another dagger from his belt and plunged it into the man’s gut, up under the rib cage until he felt the tip pierce the heart.

  In his death throes, the soldier slammed Lycas’s left side with the hilt of his sword.

  The arrow inside him jarred loose at last. As he let the dying soldier drop, he doubled over from the spike of pain.

  Beside him, someone gave a gurgling grunt. He looked to see another Ilion, sword raised, poised to slice Lycas in half. Or he would have been, had Mali not jammed her own short sword into his neck.

  Lycas stepped back from the gush of blood. “Thank you.”

  “Hah.” She glared at him. “You owe me.”

  More than you could ever know, he thought as they turned as one toward the next onslaught of Ilions.

  For the first time in their lives, Mali and Lycas fought side by side, and here in his final battle, he felt as if he’d come home.

  Sura was born for this moment.

  She strode toward the gate, torch in hand. Though Medus the Badger fended off attackers beside her, and injured Ilions and Asermons crawled over her path, she was alone with the fire. If she and the flames devoured each other, as in her Bestowing vision, then so be it.

  The fence was still intact—no doubt it had been left unburned by the Ilions to trap the people. When she reached the gate, she could hear their cries, hear them banging on the wooden surface, hear the thuds of those who tried to leap over the fence. It was too high even for a third-phase Squirrel, and slanted inward at the top.

  “Stand back now!” she called through the tiny gap between the fence and the gate. “This is Mali’s daughter, Sura, from Asermos. I’m trying to let you out.”

  She retreated several paces, the mud under her feet slick with blood. Then she held up the torch, closed her eyes and hurled its heat at the lock.

  The wood around the latch exploded into thousands of sparks, and the door swung open. She leaped aside just in time to avoid being trampled. Her ears stung from the sound of the screams, and the air was pungent with sweat, blood and fear.

  A middle-aged man holding a small boy passed her. She grabbed his arm. “Are people still trapped in the buildings?”

  “Yes.” He panted and coughed. “Hundreds, maybe.”

  She saw a carved wooden otter around his neck. “Take this.” She handed him her torch. “Find the other Otters and set up a healer’s area.”

  When he was gone, she stood beside the fence opening, arms over her head to keep the sparks from her face, waiting for the flood of fleeing people to pause so she could enter. All she needed was one moment, one person to hesitate.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw the remains of a skirmish near the gate, with maybe a dozen fighters. Her father had led most of the Ilion soldiers down the hill. She hoped he lived to bury whatever was left of her after tonight.

  Inside the gate, a woman bent down to pick up her child. Sura squeezed through, leaping over the woman’s outstretched arms and into the hamlet.

  Her lungs ached as she ran past the burning homes and shops, but she let the rhythm of her steps and the rush of hot wind lull her into a trance. Nothing stood between her and the fire. Nothing ever would.

  She reached the hamlet’s central square. Here, she could feel the blaze as one great creature.

  The fire rose around her, feasting on wood and flesh and hair. She wanted to take it in but remembered Vara’s command to wait for her.

  Children screamed in a house to her left. Sura took one last look over her shoulder for her mentor, then shut her eyes to the orange and yellow glow. She could wait no longer.

  Sura called upon Snake and breathed in the flames.

  The house stopped burning, hissing as though it had been doused in cold water. Smoke wisped from one corner of the roof, but she staunched that last bit of heat, as well.

  “I will devour you,” she said, and breathed in again.

  A house across the street fell to instant smolder, fading from brightest white to darkest black in Sura’s inner vision.

  “You will not have us.”

  The flames slid into her as easily as air, filling her belly with pulsing, rising, swirling heat. She wanted to laugh. This was her gift; this was her destiny.

  The next breath came hotter, and slower. She began to feel full, as if the fire would burst out of her if she took too much.

  No. If she let it loose, it would kill again. She swallowed hard, and a searing pain shot through her body. There was nowhere to put this heat—no lakes or rivers nearby, and the surrounding land was too dry and held too much fuel for her to shove it into the soil.

  “Take me,” she said. “Become me.”

  She raised her palms and drew the heat through her fingertips, through the pulse of her wrists.

  Around her, flames turned to cinders. Cinders turned to ashes. The world cooled as she sucked in the fire through every pore.

  Until this moment, she hadn’t understood the full reach of her powers. The child she’d borne had given her strength, and now she would give it back the only way she could. After this defeat, the Ilions would retreat in shame, and Malia would grow up in a land of freedom. She would never have to lower her gaze as she walked down the street, never see the people she loved beaten and burned.

  Malia would never have to do anything like this.

  Sura took one last deep breath, and felt herself turn to flame.

  Rhia scrambled through the gate with Dravek, Elora and Marek as the straggling residents limped and crawled fro
m the burning hamlet. The fire’s fumes and the stench of charred flesh stung her nose. She pressed a vinegar-soaked cloth to her face and made her way through the flaming wreckage, searching for survivors.

  “Sura!” Dravek shouted. He scanned the hamlet, but Rhia saw few people stirring. She feared that everyone who could escape already had.

  In the distance, a woman screamed. Without looking back, Dravek dashed toward the center of the hamlet.

  “My baby…” a woman cried from Rhia’s left. “No…”

  Marek ran toward the voice. Rhia and Elora followed as fast as they could.

  A woman knelt, wailing and keening, at the end of the walkway of a burning house, rocking a small child whose arms were draped around her neck.

  But as Rhia came closer, the little girl stirred and looked up at them, her eyes wet and tinged with red. “Mama, someone’s here.”

  Elora rushed to kneel beside the woman. “It’s all right. See, your baby’s fine.”

  “In there!” The mother pointed to the house, then grabbed Marek’s arm. “My boy’s upstairs.”

  Rhia looked up at the second floor, which was half in flames, then at Marek. He couldn’t be thinking of…

  He was already gone. Before she could shout to bring him back, Marek was through the front door, which now hung by a single hinge.

  “Marek, no!” She lurched forward, but Elora grabbed her arm in a strong grip.

  Rhia stared at the house, watching the wooden walls shift and burn. Inside, a child screamed, and the woman at Rhia’s feet shuddered and moaned.

  She counted the moments. When she reached two minutes since Marek had entered, she forced herself to turn away. People needed her, and she could do nothing for Marek until he returned. If he returned.

  Crow’s wings slammed her mind from every direction, and she blinked back the smoke-and grief-induced tears. How had it come to this, Ilions burning innocent civilians? They would claim it revenge for Kalindos, but women and children had not died there; only soldiers who would have captured and sold them.

  She put her face in her hands. The earth itself seemed to cry out for peace at any cost.

  But perhaps peace still had a higher price than victory. After tonight, no Asermon would submit to Ilion rule. They would fight on until the last Descendant died or sailed for home.

  A great ripping noise came from the house behind her. She whirled to see the top floor caving in, the roof collapsing under its own weight.

  It teetered, burning, ready to fall.

  On Marek.

  Sura burned. Her clothes dropped from her body in charred scraps that tumbled away in the wind.

  The flames licked her skin from the inside out. They wanted their freedom. They couldn’t have it.

  “You’re mine,” she murmured.

  Her skin cracked and peeled, and she screamed in agony, feeling her resolve weaken. Any moment she would release the blaze back into the village, and they would all die.

  “Sura!”

  She opened her eyes to see Dravek staring down at her. Her vision blurred with tears that turned to steam.

  “You came.” She smiled through her pain, which seemed to fade under his gaze.

  She took another breath to speak. The heat rushed in again, searing every inch of her. She screamed again and wondered if there could be a more excruciating way to die.

  Dravek stepped close to her, and she saw her own flame reflected in his black eyes.

  “Don’t touch me!” she pleaded, though she wanted more than anything to feel his hands on her once more.

  “Give me the heat. Like we practiced, remember?”

  “It’s too much.” She tried to move away, but her legs shrieked at the slightest twitch of muscle. “I’ll kill you.”

  “I don’t care.” He came close enough to touch. “I’d die for you, Sura.”

  “Please go.” Another breath, and she would burst. She felt her eyes begin to swell.

  Dravek lowered his head to hers. “Give me the heat.”

  He kissed her. The fire flared from her body to his, which seized as he groaned in pain.

  Sura pushed against him, trying to break away. She wouldn’t take him to the Other Side with her. He had to live to see his son grow up, live to see the end of this war.

  Then she felt the heat rush out of him as quickly as it had left her. It was going somewhere else, somewhere safe.

  She yielded then, melding her body to his and letting him take it all. Dravek pulled her close, kissing her harder. Her body shuddered again and again, cooling, pulling her back from the brink of death.

  Sura captured more flames from the hamlet, starting with the homes near the gate. She pulled in all the heat, giving it to Dravek with her kiss, her hands and her body. His fingers tangled in the loose strands of hair flying around her face, then his touch traveled over her shoulder and down her back, caressing the scars from a distant memory.

  Unlike that fire, this one would not wound her. This fire was at their command, and they would devour it.

  A great roar came from behind Rhia, like a thousand angry cougars. She spun toward the gate to see the blaze rushing her way.

  “Get down!” She pulled Elora to the ground just as the flames passed in a red-orange curtain.

  She looked up from the pile of ashes she’d landed in. The fire was streaming from the other end of the town, as well, as if sucked out of the houses by an enormous breath.

  The flames converged in the center of the hamlet, transforming into a giant white spark like a bolt of lightning. It expanded, pulsing and glowing.

  Rhia shaded her eyes and held her breath. The white pillar seemed to want to explode and fill the sky, envelop every thing, living and dead. She wanted to run but could only stare, even as it blinded her.

  The light shimmered, sparked once more, then shrank to a tiny point. It flickered out.

  “What was that?” said the woman with the child.

  “Sura.” Rhia’s heart twisted. Her niece had taken the heat of the entire hamlet into herself. If Dravek had reached her in time, he had been consumed, as well.

  Rhia sat up, her body heavy with grief. She shifted to look at the house Marek had entered. Though no longer burning, the roof still teetered.

  She screamed his name as the roof collapsed.

  Locked in the desperate kiss, Sura squeezed her eyes shut and searched for flames, even the smallest smoldering flickers that could reignite and consume a room, a house, a child.

  Nothing. They had won.

  Dravek eased his mouth back an inch from hers. They gazed at each other for a long moment, eyes burning, breath coming hard.

  Then he kissed her again, and again, and she let the heat build within her, for its source was no longer death but life itself.

  He bent down and lifted her into his arms.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “You’re naked. Can’t let the neighbors see you like that. This isn’t Kalindos.”

  She laughed, then ducked her head as he carried her into one of the closest houses, one the flames hadn’t reached yet.

  “Hello?” Dravek called out, but no one answered. He set Sura on her feet. “Hopefully someone your size lived here before they evacuated. Let’s find you some clothes.” He opened the nearest door, tripping over the threshold. “I think this is a bedroom. Maybe there’s a dresser— Ow!” he said, after a sound like bone smacking against wood.

  Sura crept forward, her hands outstretched, eyes straining for light. Her hip hit something soft, and she reached out to touch a mattress.

  Dravek bumped against her in the darkness. “Sorry,” he said, and put out a hand to steady her. His fingers brushed her waist.

  She held his hand against her skin, where it was meant to be. “Are you?”

  He drew in a breath. “Am I what?”

  “Sorry.”

  He shifted his hand so that his thumb curled up to graze her breast. “Not for anything, Sura. Never again.” He slid
his other hand around her waist and turned her to face him. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” She brushed her lips over his neck as a familiar hunger rose within her. “I want you.” Her voice came low, insistent, predatory. “I want you now.”

  To her ecstatic relief, her eternal gratitude, he didn’t protest or even hesitate.

  Instead, he took off his clothes.

  The moment the house stopped crumbling, Rhia ran for the wreckage, slipping free of Elora’s desperate grasp.

  “Marek!”

  She tried to cross the broken threshold, but a cloud of ash and smoke pushed her back onto the walkway, coughing and gagging. She stuffed the vinegar-soaked cloth against her face and tried to move forward again. The ash seared her eyes, blinding her. She stumbled back and dropped to her knees.

  “No…” Her throat tightened, and her face crumpled into agony.

  A soft hand touched her shoulder. “Rhia, move back,” Elora said. “You can’t save him.”

  Rhia grasped her crow feather fetish in both hands, waiting for the rush of Crow’s wings. If her Spirit had stolen Marek from her, after Nilik, she would renounce Him. Then she would curl up here on the ground and let Crow take her.

  “Spare him,” she prayed, though she knew all the pleas in the world wouldn’t change Crow’s flight.

  A sharp bang made her jump. She wiped her stinging eyes and opened them to see another cloud of ash and smoke puffing out of the house.

  The door slammed open from the inside, then fell from its hinges. From the darkness appeared a man holding a young boy, their faces smeared with soot.

  Marek.

  He staggered down the porch stairs, then saw Rhia and Elora. “Help him!” he croaked.

  Marek laid the child on the ground at the end of the walkway. Elora went to work as the boy’s mother shrieked instructions at her.

  Marek straightened up and looked at Rhia. Before he could speak, she slammed him with the hardest embrace of their lives.

  “Not dead this time, either,” he whispered.

  Elora spoke up. “Your son’s going to be fine.”

  The woman clutched at the Otter’s sleeve, sobbing. “Thank you.” She wiped her face and looked up at Marek. “You saved his life.”