The Reawakened

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  Corek stepped over to the row of fetishes, then reached up slowly and ran his finger along the quill of the black feather.

  Rhia’s gut plummeted. Not Corek. Spirits knew his generation needed a Crow. But not him.

  “I never thought I would be Raven,” he said. “Not even after I failed my first Bestowing.” He put his hands in his pockets as he turned to her. “Did my father ever tell you? I tried about two years ago, before Lania. My parents made me, though I didn’t feel called.” He scratched the back of his neck, ruffling his shoulder-length black hair. “Nothing happened. No Spirits came.”

  “He never told me.” Her throat thickened, and she fought to keep the sorrow from her voice. “It wasn’t your fault, Corek. You just weren’t ready.” She stepped closer to him so she could maintain a whisper. “I have an extra fetish upstairs that you can have until you find your own feather.”

  “Thank you.” He blew out a breath and looked at the window. “I’ve let everyone down.”

  “No.” She touched his arm. “The Spirits provide what our people need.”

  “Our people need a Raven.”

  “And Crows. You’re the first new Crow since I was called twenty years ago. Your father and I won’t live forever.”

  “My father.” His jaw tightened, accentuating sharp cheekbones. “He’ll be disappointed.”

  “Damen will be proud, and happy to be your mentor.”

  “I’d rather train with you.” He glanced at her. “If you’ll have me.”

  She had to admit, the idea of an apprentice pleased her. Perhaps it would help fill the void left by Nilik. “We can start right away, if you’re willing to travel with us. Marek and Jula and I are leaving to meet the Kalindons as they evacuate.”

  “Jula’s going?” His eyes glinted with life for the first time since he’d entered. “I think I’ll come along.”

  She gave him a teasing smile. “She might not like you anymore once she finds out you’re a Crow like her mother.”

  Someone stirred in the room above the kitchen, and Rhia heard Jula’s soft feet hit the floor.

  “Go on up,” she said. “We’ll leave tomorrow, after you’ve rested from your Bestowing.”

  Corek put his foot on the first stair, then turned to her, his face taut with tension. “My father told me about the ritual you and he had to endure after you became Crows.”

  Rhia shivered to think of it, to this day. In order for her to face others’ death without fear, she had to die herself and be brought back to life by her mentor, Coranna. She found out afterward that every moment of her life since then had cost a moment in another person’s life, as Crow’s ransom.

  “Let’s not worry about that now, since your father and I can’t resurrect you until we become third phase.”

  His shoulders relaxed, then one eyebrow popped up. “Er, if Jula and I ever get married, don’t expect grandchildren for a long time, heh?” Without waiting for her reaction, he bounded up the stairs.

  Rhia watched him go and wondered how long before he realized the terrible burden of being Crow. This war kept the death Spirit’s servants busy. Before it ended, Rhia feared she would watch many more souls pass forever to the Other Side.

  07

  Asermos

  As Dravek examined the vineyard from their hilltop vista, he thought he could see the grapes glisten in the sunset. Just above the horizon, heavy blue clouds formed a solid mass that extended over most of the sky, making the last yellow rays cast long, lurid shadows over the landscape.

  The vineyard would be bright soon enough. He licked his lips.

  “Ready?” asked a soft voice behind him, a voice that warmed the back of his neck.

  He looked over his shoulder to see Sura approach. “It looks just like the map Endrus made. He said this vineyard is isolated, so it’s not well-guarded against thieves. The others won’t be so easy.”

  “I hope there won’t be any others.” Sura stood next to him as they watched the last sliver of sun slip beyond the horizon. It was the first time they’d been alone together since the night her father came.

  “Why is it blue?” she asked Dravek. “That spot of sunlight left on your eyes after you look away.”

  He blinked and watched the sun’s afterimage float over his vision. “I never noticed that before.”

  They waited, silent, for several more minutes.

  “What was I like?” she said finally. “Back when I couldn’t make memories.”

  He shifted his feet, wanting to take her hand. “You were happy.”

  “How could I be happy like that?”

  “Maybe because you kept meeting Malia.” He didn’t mention the way Sura’s eyes would spark whenever she saw him.

  “Rhia said you took care of me and my daughter.”

  “We all did.” It was a privilege, he thought.

  “Someday you’ll have to tell me everything. What Malia looked like when she was born. What I was like when I was pregnant.” She fell silent. “I hope we start soon. It smells like rain.”

  “Look.” He pointed down to their right. “I think it’s Endrus.”

  A torch borne by one of the rebels bobbed to the northwest corner of the vineyard. Another passed it to go to the southwest corner, nearest to the house.

  “That must be Bolan,” she said. “He’ll calm the guard dog.”

  Sure enough, a sharp bark came from outside the vintner’s house. Bolan tossed his flame into the vineyard before dashing toward the animal. As a third-phase Horse, his powers of animal communication could soothe the dog into silence.

  Two more burners streamed from the eastern end, then three ran straight south through the middle.

  It had begun.

  Vara would keep the flames from reaching the house—Lycas’s orders were to harm only property, not civilians. The Wolverine himself, along with a pair of young Bears, would detain the vintner and give him demands to deliver to the Ilion authorities. As an extra precaution, Vara would gaze into the man’s eyes and make him forget what they looked like.

  “It’ll get smoky,” Dravek told Sura, “but remember, you don’t have to see the fire to control it.”

  “I know.” He could tell she was fighting to keep her voice steady.

  “Pull in the heat and give it to me. Just like we practiced yesterday.”

  Her posture eased a bit. When they’d left Tiros, Sura had had no faith in her own abilities because she couldn’t remember their year of training. Yesterday Vara had put them through one more practice maneuver, using a rocky clearing and a series of woodpiles. Sura had astonished herself with her own skill.

  The vineyard began to burn, orange flames spotting the corners and then the middle. The torches raced and dipped to light more vines, their bearers hidden by the smoke and darkness.

  “We’ve never done one this big,” she said. “Never this strong.”

  “We can do it.” He took her hand. “Just give me the heat.”

  She drew a deep breath, and through her skin he felt her pulse steady.

  The wind shifted, bearing the unmistakable chill of an approaching rainstorm. Billows of smoke headed up the ridge, straight toward them.

  Sura tugged his arm. “Let’s move!”

  They skirted the ridge, hand in hand, but soon the smoke arrived, obscuring the ground in front of them. It smelled acrid yet sweet, like burned honey.

  Sura shrieked, and his arm jerked backward.

  Together they tumbled down the slope of the ridge. Dozens of small rocks bit through the fabric of Dravek’s clothes. Sura yelped in pain.

  They slid to a stop at the bottom. He crawled to her. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, coughing and hacking. “Scraped half my skin off, but nothing broken. You?”

  “Fine.” Heavy smoke poured over the vineyard, obscuring their view. “We’ll have to do it by feel.”

  “I can’t,” she shouted above the roar of the flames. “Too many fires close together.”

  Th
e wind changed again, but this time in temperature, not direction.

  Rain was coming, any minute.

  “We need higher ground,” Sura said. “We need to see.”

  The land’s slope was steady, with no undulations that would give them height, other than the ridge they’d just tumbled from. Finding a safe trail back up would cost too much time.

  Sura pointed past him. “There!”

  A white wooden barn sat at one end of the vineyard. Dravek saw a large, hinged window on its upper level.

  They took off for the barn, chased by the smoke and the crackle and snap of burning branches.

  Inside, mules and oxen kicked the sides of their stalls in fear. Sura and Dravek dashed through the barn and climbed the ladder into the loft. She ran to the window, slipping on the hay. She slid back the bolt, and together they pushed open the twin doors.

  The entire vineyard was burning, lines of orange stretching toward each other, yearning for union.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

  “But it’s not over.” He pointed to several isolated, sputtering blazes. “The torch bearers can’t go back in to relight. The smoke would kill them.” He looked at Sura. “It’s up to us.”

  They knelt beside the window, facing each other. Dravek looked past her shoulder.

  “There.” He indicated the lower right corner. Two of the vines were burning, but slowly, and they were too far from the others. “First let’s strengthen the blaze, then move it to the next row.”

  She slipped her palm against his, and he let the feeling burn into every corner of his body. He lived for these moments, when he could lose himself inside his thoughts of Sura and how much he wanted her, needed her. Loved her.

  Desire flared between them. He sent the heat.

  The blaze brightened on its vine, but didn’t spread.

  “It’s not working.” Her lips tightened. “What are we doing wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He touched her cheek, his thumb tracing the corner of her mouth. “We just need more.”

  She met his gaze, holding it until he felt like he was falling into her eyes. They had done nothing more than touch hands in their training sessions with Vara. It had always been enough.

  “Do you want to kiss me?” she whispered.

  His palms tingled, and the sensation spread up his arms to his shoulders, then his nape. “I want to kiss you.” Dravek grasped her chin and brought his mouth toward hers. Her lips parted, beckoning.

  He stopped a hairsbreadth away. He could almost taste her. He needed to taste her.

  His tongue slipped out, too far, and brushed the underside of her top lip.

  The grapevines exploded in a shower of sparks, which fell upon the adjoining plants and ignited.

  Sura gasped, her face close to his. “We did it.”

  “Yes.” He drew back to gaze into her dark eyes. “We can burn the world with this.”

  She stared up at him, the left half of her face in shadow from the brilliant blaze. “Dravek…” she whispered. “Touch me.”

  He grazed his fingertips over her neck, through the back of her hair, then followed the line of her scar beneath her shirt. He longed to kiss every inch of it, whether she could feel his lips or not beneath the dead, battered skin. He would make her feel them, someday.

  Her breath came faster, and she let go of his other hand to unfasten the top two buttons of her shirt. He slid the collar down to expose her left shoulder, to show her he preferred this burned, imperfect side. He leaned in, placing his lips near her skin without touching it, following the edge of her scar.

  Beneath the pulse pounding in his ears, he heard a hiss from outside. It grew louder, closer. He struggled to draw away from the intoxicating scent of her skin.

  “No,” Sura said.

  Dravek jerked his head up and looked outside.

  Rain, pouring in sheets from an angry sky.

  He gave a harsh sigh. “Now what?”

  “More.” She stroked his chest hard through his shirt. “We can do anything that doesn’t give us release.”

  He would follow her instincts. He lunged to kiss her mouth, at last.

  “No.” She turned her head aside. “I want that so much, I think I’d come the moment I had it. Then we’d lose the power.”

  His hands slid down her back, greedy for her flesh. “But anything else, right?”

  “Yes.” She pressed her mouth to his neck and bit hard. His body seized. In the vineyard another grapevine burned brighter, defying the rain.

  Dravek sank back against the hay bale and pulled her to straddle him. The pressure of her warm softness nearly drove him over the edge. She ground against him, and he groaned deep in his chest. She froze.

  “We’d better take this slow,” she murmured, “or the rain will win.”

  He nodded, his face wet with sweat against her neck. She eased herself away an inch or two from him, then rose and fell, stroking him through their clothes. His muscles clenched, and his toes cramped inside his boots.

  “Stop.” He trailed his fingers down into the neckline of her shirt. “Can I see you?”

  Her lips parted, and the corners of her eyes flickered with doubt. Then she glanced toward the sizzling, smoldering vineyard. “Yes,” she whispered. “Now.”

  He unbuttoned her shirt, drawing his fingertips against her skin with every new exposed inch. She closed her eyes and held her breath.

  When he reached the last button, he parted her shirt to expose her full, round breasts. For a moment he only gazed at them. Then he leaned forward and put his mouth near her nipple, so she could feel the warmth of his breath. She trembled, her whole body vibrating against him.

  The fire outside spread further, despite the strengthening rain. They would overcome this. They would win.

  He drew her nipple between his lips, caressing it with his tongue, then the edge of his lower teeth. Sura stiffened and cried out, her back arching. She tried to grind her hips again, but he held them still. It had been so long, and his ache for her was so hard.

  Dravek dug his fingers into her thighs as he suckled her. She moaned again. Between the sound of her passion and the feel of her muscles straining under his touch, his control was capsizing. He focused on the fire outside, on channeling the heat between their bodies into the vineyard.

  But something was shifting. No matter how hard and fast he sent the fire out, it bounced back, stealing his breath and scorching his skin from the inside out, heightening the ferocity of his desire.

  He pulled away and looked up at her flushed face and red, swollen lips. “Sura, make me stop. I need you so much, I can’t hold back. Tell me to stop.”

  “Don’t stop,” she murmured, her fingers gliding through the hair at the back of his neck. “Send it out. All the heat I give you.”

  “It’s coming back.” He spread his palms over her breasts, and the heat under his skin spiked again. “We’re not just feeding the fire anymore. It’s feeding us.”

  “Can’t stop. Rain’ll kill the fire.” Her voice slurred, as if from delirium. “Dravek, I need you.” She slid her hand between them, down to where he wanted it most. “I can’t stop touching you.”

  He meant to shove her away, to break the spell the fire had woven, awakening a force that could surely kill them. But when he pushed, their bodies refused to part. She tumbled backward in the hay, and he fell on top of her.

  For a moment they remained motionless, pressed together. Dravek stared down into her dark eyes and saw his own desire reflected there.

  Her hands glided down his back, and lower still. “It would be just like this.” Her legs tightened around his thighs. “Think what it would be like inside me.”

  He could think of nothing else. The fire was ripping him in half. He needed to come, was on the edge, just a few more strokes. It felt like he would die if he didn’t.

  But if he did, it would end everything. A war as fierce as the one outside raged in his mind.

  He dared to get cl
oser, though he knew he couldn’t trust his control. He slid against her, feeling the heat and moisture beneath her clothes. She cried out at the pressure and lifted her hips.

  Through his closed eyelids Dravek saw the vineyard flare and burst as the flames spread, hungry and insistent. A moment later the heat seared him, inside and out, driving him on.

  He moaned and clutched her body. “I can’t stop.” His hips jerked against her. “It’s too much.”

  Her body froze as she finally seemed to realize the danger. “No.” She shoved at his chest. “Dravek, stop.”

  “Can’t,” he gasped. He pushed her shirt open and filled his hand with her breast as his orgasm began to crest. “I need you. Sura—”

  Something seized him by the neck and yanked him upward. The world spun and pitched, and a searing pain ripped his spine and limbs.

  Dravek found himself dangling in the open air above the barnyard. His feet kicked, desperate for solid ground.

  Huge fingers tightened on his neck, and he heard a roar louder than the flames.

  “What are you doing to my daughter?”

  “Lycas, no!” Sura leaped to her feet, pulling her shirt closed. “Don’t hurt him!”

  “Why?” Her father’s eyes blazed with the reflection of the fire. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t bash this rapist’s brains against the ground.”

  “It’s not what it seems.” She stared at Dravek, flailing at the end of Lycas’s outstretched arm. “It’s how we build our power,” she told her father. “With our desire. Ask Vara.”

  Rage shadowed his face. “She told you to do this?”

  “Not touching, not like this.” Her words tumbled over one another. “Please don’t be angry with her.” Her fingers clenched, as if she could hold Dravek up by will alone. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “You’re both Snakes.” He shook Dravek, and Sura whimpered, fearing he would break his neck. “She’s your Spirit-sister,” he said. “It’s disgusting. It’s wrong.”

  “It’s not wrong.” Dravek ceased his struggle and turned his eyes to Sura. “I love her.”