The Staff and the Blade: Irin Chronicles Book Four (35 page)

Her eyes shone as she nodded. Sari placed both her hands on his cheeks and drew him closer, never letting her eyes leave his even as he made love to her.

A gift. A moment of grace.

Damien didn’t ask why. He took her gift, poured his heart into his eyes, and did everything he could to show Sari that she was everything.

※

They made love twice more that night. Damien didn’t sleep. For long hours he held her, feasting on her touch and the weight of her body spread across his. He had no need to dream. His dream lay in his arms for however long he could keep her. He’d shown her his heart, but did he dare show her his pain when hers felt so much greater than his?

As the dawn light turned a familiar pearly blue, he spoke. “Our daughter would have been born this time of year.”

Sari froze but did not pull away.

“I know you thought it was a son. But I always dreamed of a daughter.”

“Why are you speaking of this now?”

He couldn’t read her voice. “The better question is, why haven’t we spoken of this earlier?”

She rolled over, not leaving his arms but turning her back to him. “It was a long time ago.”

“We never talked about it. Not once. It was as if she never lived.”

“She didn’t.”

He reached down and pressed his hand to her belly. “She
did
.”

Sari was silent for a long time. When her voice finally came, Damien thought it might break him.

“Don’t make me speak of this,” she whispered.

“Then don’t speak.” He pressed his forehead to her temple. “Let me speak.”

She didn’t move. Not an inch.

“I miss her,” he said. “Every day. The year she would have turned thirteen and sung her first blessing, I was a wreck for months. I traveled to Jerusalem and sat on top of the Zion Gate, watching the pilgrims come and go. I saw a girl who would have been our daughter’s age traveling with her parents, and I broke down weeping. I went to the desert after that.”

“To the Rafaene house?”

Encouraged, he continued. “They didn’t ask questions. I wasn’t the only one there.”

She said nothing more.

“I didn’t lose our child,” he continued. “Not as you did. But I
did
lose her, Sari. Or him. Do you know how happy I was?” He felt her tears on his arm. “I was over seven centuries old when you became pregnant. I’d lost hope of ever having a family. Then I met you. And you were… so startling. So unexpected. When I discovered you were with child, I thought, I do not deserve this happiness.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I didn’t deserve it. I don’t. But that joy was given to me for a brief time, and I treasured it, even if it ended in tragedy. Because she did live. And she was loved deeply.”

Her chest was heaving, her eyes dripped with tears, but Sari cried in silence.

“I still miss her,
milá
. I need you to know that. I still think about her. I still—”

“Damien, please.”

“I need you to know that I have not forgotten her. That I never will.”

Her body was still beside him. Her voice, when it came, was a whisper. “Please leave.”

Every instinct in him begged to stay. For her comfort, and for his. Damien closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the back of her shoulder. “Are you sure?”

“I want to be alone.”

She’d let him say more than he thought she would. Damien placed a soft kiss on her shoulder and released her.

Sari immediately fled to the attached bathroom, shut and locked the door. He dressed in silence and made his way back to his cottage just as the sun broke over the horizon.

※

Damien suspected he’d made a huge error, Orsala’s advice or not, when Sari refused to meet his eyes the next day. And the next. In fact, though Sari had stopped sniping at him, she completely avoided spending any time alone. He’d been afraid she’d leave the haven again, but she didn’t. She just didn’t talk to Damien.

“Ava’s magic,” Orsala said after she’d dragged him to her cottage for tea. “I want to talk to you about it.”

“About the darkness?”

“You’ve seen it too?”

“Felt it.” He paused and thought, trying to tease out the memories of his sister’s magic from the intensity of his night with Sari. “It’s not evil, but it feels…”

“Dangerous.”

“Yes.”

Orsala sat and ran a finger along the edge of her mug. “I think, for now, we watch and wait. She’s still grieving, and that might be part of it.”

“Did you see anything like this after the Rending?”

“No.”

And that had been the most intense period of grief any of them had ever experienced.

“Then probably there is something different about her. About her magic.”
About her blood.

Orsala seemed to understand what he had not said. “I thought she was of an ancient line of Irin at first, but… Is it possible?”

“That her magic is of the Fallen?” He shifted in his seat “Anything is possible,
matka
. We know her mother, but her father is a mystery. Her magic is…”

Indescribable
. Damien didn’t know how to classify what Ava had done at the sing. No seer he’d ever met had been able to show others a vision as Ava had.

Orsala paused. “I don’t know what to think.”

“I think things are changing. I don’t know how or why. But the impossible has become real. A woman with no connection to our race has been marked and mated to one of our blood. Her magic is unlike any other. Perhaps this is a sign from the Creator, or perhaps it’s something else.”

“If there are more women like Ava out there, more women who have survived in the human world…”

“Trust me when I say every Irin scribe with no hope of a mate or family will think of this,” Damien said. “I
have
a mate and I thought of it. If there are more Irina out there—women who can join our race—every scribe in the world will be looking for them.”

“But we don’t know enough about her.” Orsala shook her head. “As I said, she’s not evil, but there is something different. Her heart is good. It’s filled with incredible sadness right now, but her heart is a good one.”

“So we watch and wait,” he said, taking a gulp of tea and wishing it was spiked with whiskey. “It’s the only thing we can do.”

Orsala rose to refill their cups. “What happened with Sari? You were together after the sing and now she’d not speaking to you.”

“I talked to her about the baby,” he said. “She asked me to leave. I was not shocked.”

Orsala’s face went blank. “Well, no one can ever say you avoid the thick of battle.”

“We never talked about it,
matka
. Not once.”

“This is Sari. She doesn’t talk about any of it.”

He huffed. “Do
any
of the singers?”

“Do the scribes?”

“Yes.”

Orsala blinked. “Really?”

“Orsala, there is a generation of Irin scribes with no mates. No children. And no hope of either. Of course they want to know why.” He tried not to let his frustration get the better of him, but there was anger too. “I have two scribes in my house who were babies when their parents were killed. This world, this twisted reality, is the only life they’ve ever known. Irina are myths to them. When Malachi brought Ava to the house, you’d have thought they saw a ghost.”

He glanced out the window at the small row of houses on the edge of the haven. Set back in the trees, they were populated by rogue scribes and the mates they refused to leave behind. Men who had abandoned posts and assignments when their singers needed to flee. To the Irin Council, they were rogues. To Damien, they were an example of what he should have done.

“You don’t have many scribes here,” he said, “but you do have them. The few children who are born see mates and families around them. The generation of scribes that were abandoned by the Irina have never known what it is to live in a world where they aren’t isolated and alone.”

“We did what we thought was right,” Orsala said. “We took the children we could find.”

“And you left many behind.”

“What were we to do, Damien? Take children away from their fathers? We could never do that.”

“I don’t know!” He raked a hand through his hair. “But I wish we were not judged for the sins of our fathers.”

“Were they not your sins too?”

He turned toward Sari’s voice. She was standing in the door, black sunglasses protecting her eyes.

“Grandmother, Karen was hoping you could help her with a recipe. I was sent to find you.” Her head angled slightly toward Damien. “And now I’ll be going.”

No. Dammit,
no
.

Damien followed her, fed up with her avoidance. He reached out, but she turned and raised a hand.

“
Ya sala domem
.”

He halted at the spell. He could feel his body straining against her magic. She wouldn’t be able to hold him long, but if he were an enemy, it would be enough for the advantage.

“A new spell. I approve,” he managed to say. It felt as if he were talking through mud.

“I’m so glad you do.”

“What have I done to earn your ire this time, my dove?”

“The sins of your fathers? But none of your own?”

“I know my sins better than any other,” he said. “I have lived with their consequences for centuries.”

“So have we.”

“I can admit it when I’m wrong,” he said. He stretched his shoulders up as he felt the spell ease. “It was never my intention—”

“Intentions don’t matter when the outcome leaves you dead.” Sari backed away from him, walking farther down the path. “That’s another lesson we learned.”

“The scribes learned lessons too, you know.” Damien spoke quietly. “We learned what it means to lose our hearts. To lose our minds. We learned what it is to be alone.”

“Alone, maybe. But alive.”

“Do you know how many surviving warriors took their own lives in the decades after the Rending?” Damien said, his anger building as her magic waned. “Two in ten. Twenty percent of our men were unable to carry on. And it wasn’t only grief, Sari. It wasn’t only those who had lost mates and children. It was
guilt
. It was shame. That we had been blind to the plans of monsters. That we had never conceived of that level of brutality.”

“You should have.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he yelled. “That they didn’t? They
killed themselves
because they failed. Is that not punishment enough in your eyes?”

Sari blinked back tears. “What do you want me to say? That I grieve for them? I do.”

“They didn’t want your
grief!
” he said. “We only ever wanted your forgiveness. But we knew we didn’t deserve it.”

“Damien—”

“I see them in my sleep,” he continued, the pain rushing back to the surface. “I see the blood and the dust and the smoke from their fires. Because I failed them too. I failed you. I failed Tala. I failed our
child
.” He felt tears on his cheeks, but he did not wipe them away.

Show her,
Orsala had said. He’d show her. He’d show her every black thought and twisted shame. Then she could rip him to pieces if she wanted. It was the least he could offer after killing her sister and her babe.

“After I failed my mate, my child, and my sister,” he continued. “I failed my men. Because I was their watcher and I didn’t see. It wasn’t their fault they weren’t in the village to protect their families. It was
mine
.”

She took her sunglasses off. Her eyes were bloodshot. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. “The Rending was not your fault,” she whispered. “We all should have seen the signs. I was a warrior too.”

“And I was your watcher. In the end, it was my responsibility. What good is a watcher who does not see? He is nothing.
Nothing
.”

“I never said that! Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“You’re not the one saying it. I am.”

“Damien—”

“I don’t blame them, you know. The ones who killed themselves. I can’t blame them. Not when I’m the one responsible for their deaths.”

“No.” She rushed to him, wiping the tears from his cheeks as if they didn’t have the right to touch him. “Damien, no.”

“I failed them all, Sari.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away. “I failed you, and you won’t forgive me. I don’t blame you.”

Damien turned and walked into the forest, losing himself in the trees and leaving Sari behind. She did not call him back.

CHAPTER SEVEN

S
ARI
sat staring at the empty bed in her room. She hadn’t followed Damien. She needed to calm down, and he needed to know she was thinking about what he’d said.

Tala’s death.

The council’s inaction.

Why did the wound still ache
so badly
?

She had never doubted Damien’s sorrow. Never doubted his pain. But the well of guilt that consumed her mate was something he
had
hidden from her. Knowing Damien, she shouldn’t have been surprised.