The Reawakened Read Online Free PDF

enough.”
    “You’re right,” he snapped, “it won’t. Not until every last Descendant leaves our soil, or until I’m rotting under it.”
    Rhia closed her eyes and shook her head, wishing Lycas could find half the peace in this world as their brother had found on the Other Side.
    “Where is Nilik, anyway?” Lycas asked.
    “Probably off sulking. He’ll hear it from me for his rudeness.”
    “Don’t. It hurts his honor to watch other warriors leave without him.” Lycas gave her another accusatory glare.
    “He might follow you.”
    Her brother’s gaze wavered, and he moderated his tone. “If he does, I promise I’ll send him home, unless I know you’ve changed your mind.”
    “I won’t.”
    “But if you do, give him a password. Use the dog’s name.”
    She nodded, just to let the issue lie. “Send word when you arrive.”
    “If I can. You know how it is.” He ruffled her hair through her hood, causing water to cascade over her face.
    She smacked his hand away. “Ow!” she groaned at the impact. It was like whacking a boulder. Lycas let out a booming laugh, and she was filled with a mixture of sorrow and annoyance.
    Rhia turned away to adjust her hood and saw Marek and Jula standing with Galen the Hawk under the awning of the corner store. They hunched over a lengthy piece of parchment, on which Galen was making a few last-minute marks. In the four days since Lycas’s arrival, the three of them had slept little, finishing a coded language that was similar enough to the Descendants’ writing to fool them. A disinformation campaign could wreak as much havoc as a hundred dagger-bearing Wolverines.
    Marek rolled up the parchment and placed it in a long leather satchel. He and Galen hurried over to Rhia and Lycas, followed by a pair of Badger bodyguards.
    Third-phase Hawks like Galen could send instant thoughts to each other over long distances. Unfortunately, Galen was the only one of his kind, but as soon as another Hawk entered the third phase, he would be a powerful weapon against the Ilions—hence the need for the hulking Badger guards.
    Marek gave Lycas a long, hard hug goodbye, while Galen turned his gaze northeast toward the mountain pass.
    “No pigeons,” Rhia told him. “I get nervous when we don’t hear from my father for over a month.”
    Galen sighed and smoothed a long gray hair back under his hat. “One day Thera will enter the third phase, and we’ll be able to communicate instantly. Then we could finally coordinate our efforts to help Asermos.”
    “We’re ready to leave,” Lycas said. He gave Galen a quick bow, then stood up just in time to be slammed with a hug from Jula.
    “Take me with you,” she said.
    He laughed and peeled her arms from around his waist. “Funny girl. I promise I’ll personally escort you to Velekos the moment it’s liberated.”
    “And I can swim in the bay? And eat oysters?”
    “Until you vomit.”
    She kicked the toe of her boot into the muddy ground. “You better not die and break your promise.”
    Lycas laughed. Rhia didn’t. Biting back the words “Be careful,” she watched her only living brother strap his supplies to the back of the dark bay mare, then lead the horse to the head of the line.
    He looked back at the last moment and gave the crowd a mocking version of the Ilion salute—putting his fist to his groin instead of his heart.
    Rhia let out a sigh when the troupe headed for the scrub of the nearby hills. Trouble always followed Lycas, so maybe it would leave with him, too.
    A movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Nilik stood alone, away from the rest of the crowd. Like his uncle, he wore no hood to fend off the driving rain. Water streamed over his shoulders and long, pale brown hair. He watched Lycas and his troupe ride away, his own face frozen in a stoic sculpture that made Rhia uneasy.
    In the last two years, Nilik had looked like a younger, taller version of his father, with the same animated blue-gray