The Staff and the Blade: Irin Chronicles Book Four (32 page)

“I had to. She never came to me.”

“She would have.” Orsala patted his hand. “She will.” She turned to the human girl, who was gaping, and took her hand. “And you must be Ava. You are so very welcome. Thank you for coming to visit me.”

Damien didn’t know what Orsala was reading off Ava, but her approval would be the deciding factor on whether or not they could stay in the haven. Orsala was an empath. She could feel honesty and dishonesty in someone’s energy. She could read a person more accurately than any singer Damien had ever met, including his own mother, whose political acumen made her a master of character study.

Orsala’s empathy was what had made her such an effective elder. And such a wily adversary. The elder scribes had searched for years, but they’d never found her, nor had they found any trace of the Irina she protected.

She finally squeezed Ava’s hand and said, “You have a wonderful sense of humor. I can tell.”

Inspection passed, Damien noticed Sari’s shoulders relax as Orsala ushered them inside where she prepared tea and made pleasant small talk that made him feel at home and irritated her granddaughter.

Orsala finally cut to the heart of the matter. “How much do you know about Irina blood?” she asked Ava.

“I… a little. Not much.”

Ava looked uncertain, and Damien was reminded how much Irin history he took for granted. There was so much about their world that must seem strange and foreign to the girl. Something as simple as male versus female magic was a subject she was still trying to grasp.

“I know that Irin and Irina magic is different,” Ava said. “Related, but different.”

“Two sides of the same coin is the saying, I think. We speak the same language they write. But unlike us, Irin can grab the magic. Hold on to it with their writing. We can’t do that.”

Ava nodded. Malachi must have explained that much to her. “Has an Irina ever tried?”

Damien smothered a smile. Oh yes they did, and his mate had the marks to prove it.

“Yes. Some try,” Sari said. “It doesn’t work for us.”

Orsala was quick to add, “No more than an Irin speaking magic works for them. We are different. We were designed to be.”

“And you just end up with messy tattoos and no extra magic,” Sari said.

Damien couldn’t help himself. “They’re not messy. I actually think they’re rather attractive, my dove.”

Had he just called her his dove? He could almost see an assault spell working its way to her lips. Damien couldn’t find it in his heart to care. He was goading a reaction from her. It was the only power he had.

Sari bristled but held in her magic. “
Don’t
call me ‘my dove.’”

Orsala continued lecturing Ava about Irina magic as Damien watched Sari. With the force of her physical presence so near, it was easy to forget how keen her mind was.

She was beautiful, yes. Her golden hair fell in waves down her back, and her skin was smooth and tan from the summer sun. But her mind and spirit were always what had called to him most. He loved watching her talk about subjects she was passionate about.

“The songs were never meant to be written,” Sari said, prim as an academy instructor. “The act of writing them diminishes the power of their meaning.”

“I’m not going to get into this argument”—Damien couldn’t stifle his smile—“my dove.”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Will you both stop?” Orsala snapped, switching into the Old Language. “Or are your petty differences more important than this girl learning about her history and her people? You are embarrassing yourselves, fighting like this. Are you still nursing from your mother’s magic?” Continuing to glare at them, she switched languages. “So while I am working with Ava and teaching her beginning spells, you two will continue to research her background. We have records too. And you can speak to Candice.”

Candice? Did he know a Candice? Damien didn’t think so.

Sari was clearly opposed to this plan. “But—”

“Candice’s father was a historian and genealogist,” Orsala said to Damien. “One of the first in the Americas, so it’s possible she knows something about the families Ava might have come from. Once I get a feeling for her blood, you’ll have more to go on.”

Was Orsala on his side? He knew Sari’s grandmother had wanted them to reconcile for years, but she’d always stayed far away from what she called “family meddles.”

“And you want us to work together?” Damien asked. “Are you sure?”

“I am quite positive. Why don’t you both finish your tea and start right now?”

Sari said, “Together?”

“Yes. In fact, just take your tea with you and leave Ava and me alone.”

Well, this should be fun. Or painful. Possibly both.

He held out his hand. “Shall we, my dove?”

Sari was muttering curses under her breath when she stomped out of the house.

Damien smiled at his favorite grandmother. “So good to see you again,
matka
.”

“Don’t thank me yet,
Damjan
. You have a long way to go.”

※

And did he. The meeting with Candice commenced immediately after lunch when Sari pointed him toward the library in the main house and left him there. A singer he assumed was Candice came in a few minutes later with several thick, leather-bound journals. She was slightly built, blond, and smiling.

“Hello,” she said. “You must be Damien.”

He rose to greet her. “I’m sorry we haven’t met before. Let me help you with those.”

“If you can take these”—she cheerfully handed them over—“I’ll get the others.”

“Others?”

“There are forty-six,” the small woman said. “The majority of the early American records. Mainly from Raphael’s line, which was found among the Native American and Norse American Irin. And then the minor angels that followed Rafael, of course.”

“But Rafael’s lineage was lost,” Damien said, staring at the book in his hands. “There are only scattered remnants of his writings in the council archives. How did you come by these?”

“I was the only one left.” Candice smiled wistfully. “After.” For a moment, the mourning collar she wore around her neck was visible in the late-afternoon light.

She’d lost her mate. And the rest of her family too. Damien wondered how many of the other singers in Sari’s haven were as alone.

“My father’s journals,” Candice continued, “and the journals of his brothers, came to me. It was quite the undertaking to bring them here when I fled the United States, but Orsala and Sari knew they were important.”

Damien was in awe. A treasure had jumped into his hands. “I thank you. It should have fallen to one of my brothers to carry this burden.” Yet another failure of his brethren. Irin scribes were the keepers of written record. It was their gift and their responsibility. “Heaven will bless you for preserving this knowledge.”

“You are welcome to it.” She blinked a sheen away from her eyes. “I wonder if you might… Would you take them to Vienna? When you go? There is no real use for them here. I would like to keep my father’s personal journal, but all the rest…”

An anchor weighing her to the past. What must it have been like? To be alone with nothing but the writings of your ancestors to keep you company.

“I would be honored, sister.” Damien bowed toward her. “I would be honored to carry these records to the Archives. I promise I will keep them safe.”

“I know you will. Sari and Orsala both think very highly of you.”

Orsala he knew, but…

“Sari?” He smiled. “Does she speak highly of me? You’re the first to tell me so.”

“No,” Candice said. “I said she
thinks
highly of you.”

“And how do you know that?”

“It’s in her eyes when she speaks of you,” Candice said. “Sometimes you don’t listen to the words someone says. It’s more important to read their eyes.”

※

Damien watched Sari when she was reading. He’d always loved watching her read. It wasn’t her favorite activity. It was too still for her taste. But she did it when it was necessary. Her lips moved along with the words she was reading. Her fingers played in her long hair. She couldn’t be completely still.

Feeling his eyes, she glanced up. “What is it?”

“We’re not going to find records of her here.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because as far as Ava knows—and as far as Rhys has been able to check—Ava has neither Native American nor Norse blood in her. And all Irin native to the US can track their line to one or the other. We could do a DNA check, but we’re not going to find the information here.”

“Maybe her family immigrated.”

“Then they wouldn’t likely be in
these
records.” He tapped a stack of more leather-bound journals. “Would they? They’d be in the modern ones that have been digitized.”

Candice piped up from the corner. “I agree with Damien. I don’t think we’re going to find her records here.”

Damien needed to freshen his mind with a topic that didn’t remind him of the massacre the Americas had faced during the Rending. Almost all the native Irin families had been decimated by the Grigori. The Norse American Irin on the northeastern coast had fared a little better, but not by much.

“Candice, why did you come here?” he asked. “Aren’t there havens in the Americas now?”

Candice glanced at Sari, who nodded before the singer answered.

“There are. My mate has distant family here. Some of the scribes in the Oslo house. So I wanted my daughter to be closer to what was left of her people.” Candice smiled. “Perhaps at some point, some of them might find mates and have children of their own. It would be the closest she has to cousins.”

Damien hadn’t known about a daughter. If she was young, then Candice hadn’t been widowed during the Rending. “Were you and your mate living in a haven in the Americas?”

“No, he didn’t trust them.”

Sari said, “Many don’t.”

“Yes, but in retrospect…” Candice shook her head. “We should have gone to one.”

“Looking back is worthless,” Sari said woodenly. “We cannot change the past.”

“But we can learn from it,” Damien said.

“What?” Sari put down the journal she was reading. “What can we learn from the past? Expect the Grigori to hunt us? Not to trust the scribes? Not to trust anyone? Strike before you are struck?”

“You seem to have learned those lessons well,” Damien said.

“I had to.”

“I know.”

Silence descended on the library, and Candice made no excuse when she rose and left them alone.

“We
can
learn from the past,” Damien said again. “We can’t continue like this.”

“It seems as if some of my sisters agree with you,” Sari said. “Try to keep this between us, but there is talk among the havens about trying to reform the council. Unless we get some kind of representation in Vienna—”

“You and I.”

“What?”

He leaned across the table. “You and I,
milá
. That’s what I am talking about. Forget the havens and the council for a moment.
You and I
cannot continue like this.”

She reached across the table and grabbed another journal. “I’ll talk to you about this when I’m ready.”

“You told me yourself you were tired.”

“Tired. Exactly. I don’t have the energy to deal with politics and still—”

“Hate me?”

She blinked. “I don’t hate you.”

“Don’t you?” He could not keep the bitterness from his voice. “You blame me.”

“Am I not allowed my anger?”

Heaven above, yes. He deserved every bit of her anger, along with that of her sisters. The problem was, the anger wasn’t helping her survive anymore. It was eating his mate alive.

“Anger drains you,” he said softly. “It’s a lesson I learned a long time ago.”

Her eyes burned. “Does it? I’ve found that it feeds me.”

“But then you feed it, and it grows. Eventually, Sari, it
will
consume you.”

She walked over and leaned down to Damien’s ear. “Only if I don’t find meat to feed it,” she said. “You’ll have to live without me for a while. I’m going hunting.”

Sari left that night. And Damien didn’t see her for weeks.

CHAPTER FIVE

S
HE
waited, her back pressed to a wall in the dance club, music pumping like the blood in her veins. It was every club in any city she’d ever been to. They all smelled the same. They all sounded the same. The humans all pretended as if they were daring. They weren’t. In the vast span of history, Sari found modern humans to be absurdly bland.

A small crush of them walked past laughing, then turned the corner and the hallway was empty again. Except for her. Except for the door leading to the basement rooms where she’d seen the Grigori and the human girl stumble. Sari was waiting. There was only one now, but there were two more out on the dance floor, drawing humans like flies to honey. Soon they’d lure their prey away, and she could strike them all.