The Staff and the Blade: Irin Chronicles Book Four (25 page)

Sari fell to the ground and screamed until the blackness took her.

※

“TALA!” Damien roared and lunged toward his sister, but it was too late.
 

A Grigori grabbed Tala’s golden hair and pulled her to her feet, a river of blood coursing down her breast. He plunged a silver dagger into the back of her neck before Damien could reach her. Tala’s blue eyes went wide with sorrow and confusion as her face shimmered gold. Damien reached out, but all he felt was dust. She rose before his eyes, swirling in the moonlit room as her clothes fell empty to the floor. He felt the punch of pain in his own chest.

No.

He reached out, grabbed the Grigori who had killed his sister, and dug his fingers into its throat.

No!

Rage took him. He gripped the monster’s neck and twisted, snapping the creature’s neck before it fell to the ground. Damien spun and drew the black blade from his waist, throwing himself into the mass of Grigori as he called on the ancient magic that flowed in his veins.

Ours is the blood.

Ours is the bone.

Ours is the vengeance of heaven.

Old rage rose up, an armor as familiar as the talesm that covered him. The Grigori continued to attack, unaware of the beast they had roused. Damien moved as one with his sword, grabbing and embracing his enemies, not waiting for them to attack. A single cut from his black blade was enough to fell them, poisoning their blood and causing them to fall to the ground in writhing agony.

The warrior held the blade of heaven close, grabbing each Grigori and sliding the knife into their guts. Their necks. The sweet, soft ease of flesh under their ribs. A few were wiser than their brethren. They lurked in the corners of the room, waiting for Damien to tire.

He did not tire.

Damien sliced through them, his talesm a glowing shield as his body moved on instinct. He would cut down every monster in the room.

Kill them all.

Never stop.

If he stopped, the pain would start.

Damien felt their blades pierce his skin, but he did not halt. A slice on his shoulder. A near miss at his neck. Both his legs were bloodied by the mass of attackers. His world narrowed to the glint of eyes and the flashing sneer of his enemies. They blinked out, one by one. He heard a rush of feathers over his head.

Kill another.

And another.

Until all he heard was silence.

“Damien!”

A voice rose outside the house.

“
Watcher!
”

He shook his head, trying to clear the bloodlust, and realized there was nothing left to kill. He was standing in a pile of dust; the air was thick with it. The walls were ashen grey and spattered red. Two of his soldiers stood at his side, arms hanging loosely, blood and tears in their eyes. Their brothers’ dust rose with the Grigori they’d slain.

Damien fell to his knees, digging for his sister’s clothes. Tears pouring down his face, he lifted them and pressed them to his chest as the truth of Tala’s vision finally became clear.

“
Every night.”

Gabriel’s voice at the entry hall.

“Watcher?” he shouted.

“
I hear his voice crying out every night.”

Damien’s eyes rose to see his brother stumbling down the hall, pale and trembling, held by two other scribes.

“Where is she, Watcher?”

“Tala.” Damien breathed out her name like a prayer. “I didn’t see.”

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Gabriel roared. “
Damien, where is my mate?
”

He spotted Tala’s bloody clothes clutched to Damien’s chest.

Agonized screams rent the air.

“TALA, NO!”

C
HAPTER
N
INE

S
HE
didn’t speak because there was nothing to say.

Sari woke in her bed at the scribe house. As soon as she opened her eyes, the brothers tending her called for Damien.

When he came, she closed her eyes and turned away.

If she looked at him, her heart would force itself to beat again.

If her heart beat again, the pain would return.

※

“Sari? Sister?”

Kind hands tended her, but she refused to acknowledge them. From listening, she knew that not everyone was dead. Some of the young singers had fled to the forest and escaped, taking as many of the children as they could and leaving the old ones behind. They had hidden in caves until the scribes from the Paris house had come to find them.

A few had survived.

Most had not.

Of the fifty families that had lived in the village, ten women, five young men, and three children were all that survived. Everyone else had been slaughtered by the Grigori who had snuck out of Paris after laying a careful trap for the hunters there.

Abra was dead.

Farrin was dead. He’d died in his sleep, his body giving up soon after his mate had been killed.

Tala was dead.

Her baby was dead.

Her child was gone.

Sari closed her eyes and let sleep take her.

In her dreams, he was there. He held her silently while she wept until the mist fell over them and the day came again.

※

Gabriel returned a month later to collect his and Tala’s possessions. He found Sari in the library. His eyes were dead with repressed pain that matched her own.

“He won’t come,” Sari said when Gabriel glanced at the door. “I told him to leave the house while you’re here.”

“You think I would try to hurt him.”

“I know you would.”

Gabriel sat next to her, silent for long minutes.

“Reports are coming in from all over the world. It happened everywhere, Sari. Everywhere.”

“How?”

“Just like it did here, I think. Draw the attention of the scribes in the city. Attack the retreats while attention was diverted. We thought the attack in Belgium was a fluke. It wasn’t. They’ve planned this for years. Almost all the seers…”

Sari closed her eyes. “Did they find the retreat outside London?”

“Yes.”

Do not think of it.

“Oslo?”

“Yes.”

“Vienna?”

“Even Vienna.”

“My grandmother?”

“I don’t know. Everything is confusion right now. People are disappearing all over the world, and no one knows if they are alive and hiding or dead.”

Sari stared into the fire. Sitting near it was the only time she felt warm.

The fire still burns. Still burns…

The old scribe’s dust still coated her skin no matter how many hours she scalded her body in the bath.

“How many?” she asked.

Gabriel’s voice was barely a whisper. “How are we to know?”

Sari didn’t look at him. If she did, she might start feeling again. “Where will you go?”

“Vienna. I want answers.”

Sari’s heart clutched in her chest. “Gabriel, I need you to take me away from here.”

He looked at her long and hard. “I hate him, you know.”

“I know.”

“He should never have taken her there. Never. We were in battle, and she was untrained.”

“I know.”

“She never stood a chance against so many.”

“Gabriel, I know.”

“I hate him for lying to me.”

Some days Sari thought she might hate him as well.

Gabriel continued. “But you should not leave him.”

“I cannot be here anymore.” Sari shook her head. “I cannot even look at him.”

“If Tala were alive, I would hate her too. For putting herself in harm’s way. For lying to me.”

“You have a right to be angry.”

“But I would never…” His voice choked. “Never
leave
her. Especially not right now.”

“If I stay, I will do something unforgivable.” She closed her eyes so the tears wouldn’t escape. “I don’t know who or what to trust anymore. I need you to take me away from here. Hide me. Hide the girls who are left. I know you can.”

“He will find you. You know he will find you, Sari.”

“I know he
can
. I am hoping he will not.”

Gabriel waited for a long time, staring into the fire as he sat next to her.

Finally he reached out and took her hand. “Where do you want to go?”

E
PILOGUE

P
ARIS
, 1811

I cannot stay here. I cannot see you. I have lost everything—

“You haven’t lost
me
!” Damien stood and threw another book against the wall of their room, but he didn’t throw the letter. He’d read it so many times it was creased with dust and tears. He folded it carefully and put it back in Sari’s copy of
Adelina’s Songs
. The same place he had found it months ago after she had disappeared with Gabriel, a few warriors, and the surviving women and children from the village.

She’d placed it there deliberately, the letter bookmarking the lament Adelina sang after her angelic lover had killed their child.

Take me, O heaven, and silence my voice

For my soul is black with pain.

I wander among the rocks and trees

And hide from my beloved.

I am barren in the wilderness.

The child of my heart is no more.

His child had died too, along with his dreams for the future. What was the future anymore? Their people were a remnant who fought against each other as much as they fought the monsters who had rent them in two.

Damien had been the one to gather the clothing in the bathhouse, carefully folding each piece and whispering prayers before he placed them in the meeting house where his men sang the old verses to lift their sisters’ and children’s souls to heaven. The songs sounded wrong in the voices of his brothers, but there were no singers left to offer their songs. The few who had survived had fallen silent in horror and grief.

Damien and his men burned the village to the ground, but no comfort came.

The survivors returned to Paris, heartsick and aching. Most of the warriors who’d lost mates had woken, though many wished they had passed like Farrin. Some had lost everything. Not only mates but children. Damien watched his men closely, but two died by their own hand within weeks. No one could condemn them. Too many families had been destroyed.

They called it the Rending.

The council was in chaos. Anger was hurled in every direction. More than one watcher had been killed when scribes blamed their superiors for the deaths of their mates and children. All over Europe—all over the world—the Irin were in chaos.

Damien remained in Paris, trying to put the pieces of their world back together while Sari hid.

A tiny voice whispered at the back of his mind.
You could find her
.

He
could
find her. If Damien turned the full force of his skill to it, no hiding place in the world could conceal her. He would rip apart the earth itself to bring her back.

I know you can find me. Please, give me time. You hid from your pain for hundreds of years, Damien. Allow me the same respect.

Not that long. Heaven above, he couldn’t wait that long to see her again. His only consolation was his dreams. In his dreams, he held her. In his dreams, his mate let him comfort her. She let him weep. She didn’t push him away. She held on as tightly as he did. She didn’t turn hate-filled eyes on him. In his dreams, his guilt didn’t eat him alive.

I love you. I will never stop loving you. We are
reshon
. We will be together again. But please give me time. I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t know what our world has become.

“
Milá
, neither do I.” Damien fell back on the bed, clutching the thin book of poetry to his chest. His bed was empty. His heart was full of sorrow. And his guilt ate him alive.

He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the spray of blood across silk flowers. He couldn’t look at Sari without seeing her sister’s shocked gaze.

He hadn’t protected Tala.

He hadn’t protected any of them.

Damien had beat his chest before the sacred fire, weeping as he burned prayers to Mikael.

Send them back. Take me. I will gladly give my life for a single child.

The heavens were silent as the blood of Irin women and children soaked the earth. Somewhere, Damien knew, the sons of the Fallen were laughing. Not in Paris. The Grigori had wisely fled from Irin rage. Damien did not know where they were hiding, and for the moment he didn’t care. He wanted his mate back. He wanted his family back.