A brief shadow of disappointment crossed Nilik’s face, then he straightened his posture. “Yes, sir. Good night, sir.” He nodded to Damen on his way out.
Lycas peeled off his socks and frowned at the dampness around the toes. His boots were leaking. “I’ve discovered I like ordering family members around. I could get used to it.”
Damen crossed to the opposite side of the tent, which could fit perhaps four or five standing men, and stood next to a small table for reading maps and writing letters. Lycas’s tent wasn’t nearly as elaborate as an Ilion field commander’s, but he thought any sign of privilege distanced himself from the men and women he led.
“How are things in the Acrosia since Lania’s funeral?” he asked Damen.
“The whole neighborhood’s a tinderbox, especially with the Evius festival coming up. Every year it’s worse, with them parading up and down our streets, shoving it in our faces that they own us now.” He turned to Lycas. “The worst part is how many Velekons enjoy it. To them it’s not a symbol of our oppression, it’s a day off, a chance to drink free wine.”
“Do the Ilions suspect our plans for the festival?”
“Hard to say. They’ve increased patrols, but so have we. It’s only our Bears and Wolverines that keep their police from making illegal searches.”
Lycas sighed. Velekos was so close, in so much danger, and yet if he entered, it would only put the people he cared about at risk—not to mention get him captured.
“Was there something you wanted to tell me?” he asked Damen. “Something you didn’t want Nilik to hear?” He wondered if it had to do with Rhia’s bizarre change of heart in letting her son come to Velekos.
“He’ll hear it eventually.” Damen stepped closer. “They’ve lowered the charges against Lania’s killers. Manslaughter.” His gaze fell. “Maximum sentence five years.”
Lycas stood slowly, sure he’d heard the Crow wrong. “After what they did to her—”
“They’re claiming self-defense.”
“A sixteen-year-old girl against half a dozen armed soldiers?” He fought to keep from shouting. “How is that anything but murder?”
“She was breaking the law by doing magic, they say, so the soldiers were detaining a criminal, protecting the populace.” Damen lowered his voice. “They fear us. No matter how many weapons they have, they still lack magic.”
“That’s their fault.” Lycas paced the dirt floor of the tent, fists clenched. “Nilik will go mad. I think there was more between him and Lania than we guessed.”
“She was in love with him.” Damen crossed his arms over his chest. “She said they hoped to marry after their Bestowings. I think that’s why she was so eager to go, despite the danger.”
Dread filled Lycas’s stomach. If Lania’s killers faced leniency from the Ilion courts, Nilik would be more determined than ever to deliver his own justice.
At his age, with new Wolverine power coursing through his veins, such rage could get him killed.
12
Kalindos
Sura watched fire scorch the sky.
Dravek’s torch still burned at sunset, but soon afterward a bright streak of light had caught her eye. The moon had set a few hours after the sun, leaving the sky dark and the stars close.
Now she lay on her back, watching meteors chase one another and counting the seconds between flashes. The balls of fire mesmerized her, so that when the thing from the previous night crept close again, hungrier, she did not shiver or even blink. It surrounded her like liquid, as cold as seawater but twice as thick, whispering of what it would steal if she did not give.
She gave. It didn’t matter, she knew, staring into the sky. There were a million worlds out there that no one ever thought about. Perhaps on one of them, another young woman was lying on the ground gazing at Sura’s sun, having her own self sucked out of her, drop by drop.
Her vision turned black at the edges, as though hundreds of gnats hovered around each eye. If this living void took away the sky, she would fight it.
But as the blackness closed in, shrinking her sight to a pinpoint of light, then nothing at all, she realized it was too late. The thing had her. Her soul pulsed out one heartbeat at a time, but still she felt no fear, only curiosity.
For inside her, the flame still burned.
Dravek waited for Sura to scream.
He had screamed, all night, when the living void had taken him at his own Bestowing. So had everyone else he knew. It had seemed worse than death, because it wasn’t life being annihilated, but a soul, sucked out, chewed up, spit back inside a person in an unrecognizable form.
He understood why it had to happen. One had to be empty to receive the Spirit at the Bestowing. Fasting emptied the body, meditation emptied the mind. But nothing could empty the soul, nothing but that…thing.
He checked the stars’ positions. Winter constellations were rising, which at this time of year meant the sun would be up soon, though no light grayed the eastern horizon.
By now it should have had her.
Unable to sit still any longer, he strapped on his pack. It wasn’t heavy, since he’d brought no food for himself. He’d planned to spend these three days speaking with his Spirit, asking the questions that burned inside him. But She had remained elusive and silent.
Dravek slid the torch from its holder and started to cross the boulder field—a dangerous maneuver at night. One slip could leave him with a twisted or broken ankle. But Sura’s silence drew him on. What if she were hurt or sick?
He told himself that his feelings for her were a product of their spiritual kinship. Kara often spoke of her “Wolf-brothers,” and though he knew they all curled up together for warmth during weeklong winter hunts, it stirred no jealousy in him. Nothing like what he felt when Etarek or another former lover smiled at her.
He stopped short. As an experiment, he imagined Kara with someone else—another man’s hands caressing her body, his lips closing over her nipple as she sighed and shuddered in his arms.
Nothing. He felt no jealousy, not even a spark of arousal.
He hurried forward onto the next rock. He would demand Snake’s presence, demand answers.
Dravek had almost reached the other side of the field when a woman’s laughter cut the predawn air. He looked up at the side of Mount Beros.
A breeze blew, rustling the needles of the surrounding pines and muffling the sounds of mirth. Dravek stepped onto the soil of the forest. He crammed the end of the torch into a gap between the two closest stones, then sat to wait.
As the sun rose, the wind died, and her voice came again, moaning and shrieking in what sounded like ecstasy. His body responded instantly, wanting to be the cause of those noises. He rubbed his face and groaned.
“What are You doing to her?” he whispered as he began to pace. “What are You doing to me?”
Snake wouldn’t answer. Dravek turned to the torch and stared into the flame, usually the surest way to reach Her. He stared until he couldn’t feel where he ended and the fire began. Then he sent out one last plea. Unanswered.
He sank to his knees, bent forward and grasped his head in his arms. His forehead pressed the damp soil. “Come to me,” he pleaded. “Tell me what You want.”
He repeated his Spirit’s name, and Sura’s, chanting into the ground near his lips. Here he would wait, no matter how long, until one of them appeared.
Then he would have his answer.
Sura had become fire.
The living void had left her empty, even as she laughed in its nonexistent face. Now she was filling again.
The rising sun shot through her body, burning her without pain. She cried out in welcome as its warmth flowed into her like the love of a man.
The clouds came. Rain soaked her for hours, but she didn’t crawl inside the nearby cave. She lay on the ground, listening to the rhythm of the water on the rocks. Her fingers followed the trails of drops over her neck and shoulders and breasts.
As the dirt turne
d to mud, she sank into the earth. It oozed around her, cradling like a mother. She had come from the earth, as surely as she would return to it.
The sky darkened into evening, and she noticed a new faraway light, steadier than the meteors, brighter than the torch. It drifted closer, as if sailing on the breeze.
A bird filled her vision with feathers of every color, and she sat up quickly as she realized who it was.
Raven.
Sura scrambled to her feet, then fell to her knees and dipped her forehead to the mud, cursing her own boldness. How long had she lain there, lazily watching the Spirit of Spirits approach her as if it were an everyday occurrence?
“Forgive me,” she whispered.
Raven landed without a sound on the edge of the ridge, casting a white light, warming and soothing Sura’s outstretched fingers.
“Rise and behold,” She said in a voice that shamed the wind.
Sura stood on shaky legs and gazed at the Mother of Creation, who towered twice her height. “I didn’t know you would come.”
“I come for everyone.”
Sura quaked inside, not from fear, but from gratitude. She was truly a part of her people now, a privilege denied to her fellow Asermons.
Her fingers curled into fists. She would give her people this freedom to honor the Spirits, or she would die trying.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “You have honored me.”
“We need you all,” the Spirit said, “as much as you need Us.”
Sura stared into Raven’s endless dark eyes. “What can we do?”
“Because of the acts of humans, some of Us will fall.” Raven bent close to Sura’s ear. “But what you asked the Eagle,” She whispered. “Soon.”
The Spirit folded Her wings against Her sides as all the feathers darkened to black. For a moment She looked exactly like a crow, and Sura took a startled step backward.
Then the bird’s body lowered to the ground, lengthening, then twisting and curving into a familiar shape.
Snake.
Though the night was cloudy, the ridge was filled with a light like the moon’s, glistening on the Spirit’s ink-black scales. She lay coiled, golden eyes gleaming.
She raised Her head to Sura’s height. “Greetings, my love.”
Sura began to weep. “I knew it.” Her lungs heaved into a sob, and she covered her face with her hands. “I was afraid you would come, and afraid you wouldn’t.” She should be grateful, but a part of her mourned the fact that she could never be with Dravek.
“Shame saps our power,” Snake hissed. “I choose those few who are strong enough to do the right thing out of honor, not the fear of guilt.”
“But how do we know what’s the right thing?”
“It’s not always obvious. It’s not always popular. It’s almost never easy.”
Sura sniffled. “That doesn’t much help.”
“We can’t give you all the answers. You’d just misinterpret them.” Her tongue flitted out. “Besides, how else would you learn except through mistakes?”
“I’ve already made too many.”
“There’s no such thing as too many mistakes.” Snake dipped Her head. “Let me show you something.”
Inside the cave, a pool of water appeared. It glowed blue-white from within, and a faint veil of steam rose from its surface.
Sura’s skin itched with mud and sweat. She took a step toward the pool, and it promptly vanished.
“Not for you,” Snake said.
Sura spread her arms, displaying her muddy body. “But I’m filthy. I need to wash before my Bestowing.”
“You have already been cleansed. By fire. Last year.”
Sura’s knees went weak at the memory. “That water could heal me. Bring it back.”
“You are as healed as you will ever be. You’re as clean as you will ever be. You’re ready.” Snake uncoiled Her long black body and glided toward her.
“No!” Sura backed up against the cave wall and tore open her shirt, revealing the scars that covered the left half of her back and chest. “Can’t you see what happened to me?”
“I see more than you ever will.” Snake slid forward, unblinking.
She pulled her shirt closed, clutching the edges as if to shield herself. “If I’m healed, why does it still hurt?”
“Sura, my love.” Her name slithered off the Spirit’s tongue. “Some things hurt forever.”
Snake began to sway. Sura held Her gaze, mesmerized. She felt herself start to fall, and her fingers clutched the stone wall. She slid down, desperate to feel the earth beneath her.
Finally she lay on her belly, her head turned toward the Spirit.
Snake’s eyes glowed, and Sura fell inside them.
She was naked, surrounded by fire but feeling no pain. It licked her skin, painting it in red splashes that glowed like embers.
Sura put her hand out, into the heart of the flame. It danced through her flesh, into her bones, daring her to join it. She moved her hips, her feet, her shoulders to its rhythm. It seemed as if her own heartbeat depended on it. Joy filled her as it had when she’d danced with the deer, but this was better, because it was for her alone. She spun and writhed with the fire, the only parent, lover, companion she’d ever need.
People appeared beyond the flames. Running, shrieking without sound, clutching at each other in terror. Her people.
She tried to reach them, but the fire held her back as if it were a solid wall. It wanted them, and unlike her, it could hurt them. It could kill them.
“No!” Sura breathed in hard, and the flames leaped into her mouth. She swallowed them, then reached for more. Only she could eat them, only she could save the screaming, burning people.
As she filled herself with the fire, it began to sear her throat and stomach. She looked down to see the flames pulsing through her skin, working their way out, desperate to join their cohorts in the frenzied feast of life. Sura ate faster, and the fire darted down her legs and arms, then pushed against her toes and fingertips.
“Please…” Her tears sizzled as they flowed, scalding her cheeks. If she kept the fire, it would consume her as she had consumed it. But if she released it, the others would die.
“Take me,” Sura whispered.
Her eyes swelled in her skull, and just before they burst, she saw her people live.
Sura opened her eyes, closed them, then touched her lids to be sure they were still there. She sat up.
Snake lay coiled across the cave, just out of reach. The strange moonlight surrounded Her.
“I do not choose my servants lightly,” She said. “Only the strongest enter my realm. If you can resist the temptation to misuse fire, I can trust you with a far more dangerous power.”
Sura shivered at the thought of her second-phase Aspect, the ability to burn away memories with a mere gaze into another’s eyes.
“Many mock your power. They fear you.” The Spirit’s tongue flicked out as She moved closer. “But this passion will save you. It may save us all.”
She slid over Sura’s legs, smooth and cool, around her back, finally curving around her waist in an embrace that felt as welcoming as an old friend.
This was it, Sura realized. The Bestowing. She prayed she would remember it always.
“Be mine,” Snake whispered. “I accept you. I love you forever.”
Sura’s reverie was broken by an urgent thought. “What about—”
Snake squeezed Sura’s breath from her lungs. She tried to finish the sentence, had to know if what she shared with Dravek was against the will of the Spirits. She had so many questions, but only one that truly mattered.
It was too late. Power surged through her, along with a peace that quenched every doubt.
Through his cloud of whispered chants, Dravek heard a voice speak his name. At last.
“Spirit, you’ve come.” He lifted his head from the ground, then wavered with dizziness. It was morning.
He turned to see Snake standing near him in the for
m of a woman with long, tangled black hair, an earth-soaked face and eyes that glowed like stars.
Dravek blinked, and when his eyes reopened, he realized it was no vision. “Sura.” He got to his feet, then swayed and stumbled. “Are you all right?” His voice was a bare rasp, his throat raw and dry.
“I’m wonderful, but you—what’s wrong? How long have you been on your knees?”
He tried to shake the clouds from his head. “What day is it?”
“The third day is over. My Bestowing is finished. Look at you, you’re shivering.” She opened her pack and yanked out a blanket. “And so pale. Have you eaten?”
She stood on tiptoe to drape the blanket around his shoulders. Her body came close, radiating heat, making him shiver even more. He turned away to keep from trapping her in his arms.
“What are you?” he managed to choke out. “A Snake, of course. What have you been doing all this time?” He stared at the ground, his mind sinking into despair at her news. Had he really kneeled there for over a day?
“I was praying.” For all the good it did. He tightened the blanket around his chest.
“I could see your fire every night,” she said. “I wasn’t afraid.” He turned to her. “I’m glad.” He gazed at her mouth, chapped and red from her three-day ordeal. He licked his own lips, wanting to share what little moisture he had with her, cover her mouth with his own, heal its sunburn with his tongue.
Sura glanced past him, then broke into a sudden smile. “Look.” She moved to crouch at the base of the closest boulder. He peered over her shoulder to see a pale, mottled snakeskin. It draped across her hands like a ribbon.
Dravek knelt beside her. “You should keep it, to remember your Bestowing.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It was left here for you.”
“I insist.”
She pursed her lips. “We’ll each take half.”
“Don’t break it.”
“It’s already in two pieces.” She raised her hands to reveal the two halves. “Head or tail?” Before he could answer, she held out the head. “I’ve had enough staring for a while.”
He took the skin from her carefully. It was still fresh and supple, a perfect mold of the animal it once contained. The skin’s head featured two tooth holes and two transparent scales that had covered the snake’s eyes. Sura was right; those vacant orbs seemed to be watching him.
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