The Reawakened (19 page)

He stared at the floor of Lycas’s tent, unable to meet his parents’ eyes. “Mother, I’m sorry I disobeyed you.”

“You’re a man now,” she said. “My wishes are to be respected, not obeyed.”

“Then I disrespected you. It almost got both of you killed.” He looked at them. “Don’t blame Jula. She thought she was helping me fulfill my destiny.”

His mother seemed to shudder. “Nilik,” she said softly, “please come back to Tiros with us.”

His jaw tightened. “I can’t. I’m needed here in Velekos.”

“You’re needed more in Tiros. It’s your home.”

“How can you say that?” His face contorted with disbelief. “You taught me that we’re all one people and we have to fight for each other. If we can beat them here, it’ll be the beginning of the end of the occupation.”

“They’ll have to win without you. You’re not ready.”

“Lycas says I am, so does Feras. Why can’t you just have faith in me?”

“It’s not a matter of faith,” Marek said. “We believe in your abilities.” He stepped forward and dropped his tone into a non-negotiable territory. “But you’re coming home with us.”

“No, I’m not. How can you even ask me? I’m a Wolverine.” He tapped his fist to his chest. “My Spirit is calling me to fight.”

“Yes, but not here.” Marek crossed his arms. “Come back and defend Tiros, or go north in the hills to the guerrilla command center.” His jaw set. “Anywhere but here.”

Nilik shook his head hard. “I don’t understand. What’s so bad about Velekos that I have to—”

His face froze as he suddenly understood. His mother was a Crow. She’d have only one reason for wanting so desperately to bring him home.

He looked at each of his parents while he tried to make his mouth and lungs work at the same time. His gaze finally settled on Rhia. “I’m going to die here, aren’t I?”

She didn’t look away or even blink. “I can’t tell you.”

“You don’t need to.” The agony in her eyes said it all.

Nilik’s hand curled into an impotent fist, straining the new sutures. He wanted to rip them out with his teeth. No wounds mattered now, if he was about to die.

His gut ached, collapsing in on his last meal. What if it
were
his last meal? What if he’d already drunk his last ale, stalked his last prey, watched his last sunrise?

He placed his hand on Lycas’s desk to steady himself. The connection to his uncle strengthened his resolve.

“I’m not leaving,” he said finally. “If I’m meant to die here, that’s what I’ll do.”

“Nilik, please…don’t do this to us.” His mother sounded as if she were choking on her words. Marek’s face twisted and his eyes closed, but he said nothing.

Nilik took a deep breath and spoke slowly. “Crow takes us in His time. If I leave, I might still die the same day as I would here.”

“You don’t know that,” she said.

“I’m not supposed to know when my life will end,” he said bitterly, “so I can’t make my choice that way. I have to ask myself, what would I do if I didn’t know?”

His mother held her breath, as if expecting him to change his mind. He stared at the map of Velekos on the table. The Ilion garrison was marked in a ragged red rectangle. Lania’s killers lived there, charged with manslaughter. In five years, they’d be home with their families, walking in the sunshine, enjoying the blood in their veins and the air in their lungs. She would still be dead.

He turned to his parents. “I’ll stay and fight. It’s what I do.” He stared hard at Rhia. “Promise to be proud of me, not angry.” His voice lowered to a whisper, despite the strength of his words. “I’ll die to bring Lania justice.”

She and Marek awaited two of them now. It had been two days since Lycas had “asked” Feras to find the Velekon spy or be tarred with the tag himself.

“Some days,” Marek said, “I still can’t believe the invasion happened. Remember when we used to visit Damen’s family in Velekos every summer?”

Rhia managed a smile. “Nilik and Jula would eat fresh oysters until they were sick.”

“They never learned.” He put his arm around her. “Stop worrying. How can your vision come true, now that Lycas ordered Nilik to stay here during the garrison attack?”

She rubbed her arms, though the afternoon was warm. “Crow never alters His flight.”

“How do you know?”

She remained silent, keeping her secret inside.

Marek turned her to face him. “Have you foreseen others’ deaths beside Nilik?”

She nodded, reluctant to be specific. “When I first came into my powers, I had a vision.” She shut her eyes against the image of a man writhing in the golden oak leaves, covered in blood. “It came true.”

“Did you do anything to stop it? Did you tell that person?”

“No, it would have gone against my sacred duty as a Crow.” Her gaze dropped to the ground. “And now I’ve violated it.”

He pulled her close. “How could you not? Nilik’s your son. Family comes before everything.”

She smiled against his chest. He was talking like a Wolf, for whom devotion was the highest calling.

“Besides,” he continued, “you haven’t technically told anyone your vision. We inferred it on our own.”

Her smile faded. Now he sounded like a Fox, muddying the rules to suit his own rationalizations. His wily side left him vulnerable to the temptations of deception and duplicity. She accepted the Fox in him, but it was the fierce, noble Wolf she’d fallen in love with.

He drew her away and looked into her eyes. “You saved our son.”

“You saved him first.”

“There was nothing else I could do.”

She swallowed hard at the memory of Marek disappearing into the night after their kidnapped baby. He’d risked his life and sacrificed his freedom, following Nilik to the Ilion city of Leukos, where a noblewoman and senator had bought Nilik to raise as her own, and used Marek as a slave in her home.

And eventually, in her bed. His Wolf Spirit, weakened by the city, had left him in the care of Fox, who reminded him to do whatever it took to stay with Nilik. Rumor had it that his killing of the senator during his escape had prompted a backlash against their people and hastened the invasion of Velekos and Asermos.

The Eagle sentry gave a bobwhite whistle, the signal that a friendly party was approaching.

Marek pointed past Rhia and smiled. “Jula will be happy.”

Rhia looked over the rock face to see her Crow-brother Damen and his young son Corek riding over the sandy soil toward the camp, followed by Feras.

She hurried down the ridge, Marek on her heels. By the time they reached the grassy slope on the outskirts of the camp, Damen had dismounted. She rushed forward to embrace him.

“I’m so sorry about Lania,” she whispered. “How are her parents?”

He pulled back and nodded, his lips forming a tight, straight line.

She turned to Corek, who with his short mop of dark straight hair, looked like an eighteen-year-old version of his father. As he dismounted, she noticed he’d lost his usual sprightliness, inherited from his mother Reni. Grief weighed heavily upon all of them.

Corek hugged her without speaking. As she let him go, she said, “Jula’s here.”

His brows popped up briefly, then settled back into sadness. “I’ve missed her. That is, I’ve missed all of you.” He turned and led his horse toward the camp, his steps lighter.

“Corek’s staying here from now on,” Damen told them. “It’s getting too dangerous in town. The Ilions have declared martial law until the end of the festival.”

She grimaced, then gave a brief wave to Feras as they made their way up the hill to the camp. He followed about fifty feet behind, still on horseback. Rhia didn’t need to ask Damen why the Bear was so sullen.

They made their way along the wooded trail until they reached the clearing at the center of the camp, in front of Lycas’s tent. Feras dismounted, then untied a long gray bag from the pack attached to his riding blanket. The bag held a large, round object.

Rhia’s stomach tilted. “He didn’t.”

“Lycas gave him a loyalty test.” Damen’s lip curled. “How else to pass it?”

Lycas came out of his tent. “You have something for me?” he said to Feras.

The Bear tossed the bag toward him. It rolled until it hit Lycas’s toes.

Rhia and Marek stepped closer as her brother knelt and untied the bag. He opened it, then looked inside without expression. “I don’t recognize the face.”

Feras shifted his lower jaw. “He was my brother.”

Rhia clutched Marek’s hand. Lycas just stared at the Bear.

Finally Feras added, “My stepbrother, to be exact, but I’ve known him all my life. Kalias runs—rather, he
ran
the Prasnos Tavern. The Velekon resistance has held many meetings in its back room.” He clamped his mouth shut, his face twisted.

“Are you sure it was him?” Lycas said.

Damen stepped forward. “We used Nathas when we—asked Kalias about it.”

Rhia wiped cold sweat from her forehead. As a second-phase Owl, Damen’s mate Nathas could detect lies, but he’d no doubt never been used in such a brutal way. Her people were turning into the thing they despised most.

Lycas let out a long breath, then retied the bag. “How do we know there aren’t more?”

“He gave us the names of three other collaborators,” Feras said. “If we can find them, we’ll deal with them. At least we know who to avoid when we make our new plans.”

Lycas nodded. “I regret that this had to happen.”

The five of them stood silent for several moments, then Lycas got to his feet. “Speaking of plans, I have a new one. A bigger one.”

He opened the flap to his tent and beckoned them inside. As Feras passed, he snatched the bag out of Lycas’s hand.

“You go on in,” she said to Damen. “We already know the plan.” Her chest felt leaden at the thought of it. Even though Nilik would not be taking part in the garrison attack, casualties would abound. She and Damen would be needed as Crows to perform triage for the Otter healers, telling them which soldiers could be saved and which needed nothing more than a peaceful passage to the Other Side.

Damen entered the tent, leaving Rhia and Marek alone.

“What are we becoming,” Marek whispered, “when men turn on their own brothers? Treachery, then murder?”

Her stomach felt sick. “The Spirits won’t let this stand.”

His eyes narrowed. “This is what the Ilions have done to us. We’ll never be the same. But what else can we do? We have to win this war.” He looked at the sky. “Speaking of which, it’s getting late, and I haven’t made today’s arrow-making quota. See you at dinner?”

She nodded. “I’d better go help cook.” Regardless of their culinary skills, Crows were expected to assist with meals, to help make up for the amount they ate. But right now, she felt as if she’d never look at food again.

She watched Marek trot off, then made her way alone to the mess tent. On the way there, she stopped when she saw one of the sentries accompanying a pale, hulking man with a mass of dark curls and a grubby beard. They drew closer, and Rhia stopped in her tracks.

“Sirin.”

He halted, too, staring at her without expression.

“You’re alive,” she whispered.

“No thanks to you.” He advanced on her. “Did they set you free after you did their bidding?”

The hairs rose on the back of her neck. “I had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“What was I supposed to do, overpower three soldiers, bite through your chains and set you free?”

“You could have refused to stand by and
watch
your own people tortured and murdered.” He glared at her. “But it’s no surprise—you always were a coward.”

She put her hands on her hips. “It wasn’t out of fear.”
Not entirely,
she thought. “I did it to learn what they knew about the resistance. It worked. Lycas has changed his plans to attack Velekos.” She gestured behind her toward Lycas’s tent. “He’ll be happy to have your assistance. Not to mention see his best friend alive again.”

Sirin pulled in a deep breath through his nose, then let it out. He nodded to the sentry. “Let’s go.”

As they passed her, she asked Sirin, “How did you survive?”

“The water was ice cold,” Sirin said while continuing to walk away. “It must have slowed my pulse.”

“Did they bury you alive?”

Sirin snorted and turned to her. “As if they would give me that respect. They dumped me in the river. That woke me up, and I managed to get the stones off me and swim downstream underwater.” For a moment, his eyes flashed amusement. “A pretty little huntress found me washed up on the bank. She fed me, set my broken arm, which is nicely healed now.” He gave her another dark look. “Again, no thanks to you.”

When he turned away again, she continued toward the mess tent. She hoped that one day Sirin would realize she’d actually saved his life, by announcing his death too soon.

Until then, she would watch her back.