The Staff and the Blade: Irin Chronicles Book Four (15 page)

In this seeing, she opened the house to what it always had been. Water bubbling on the glowing stove. The smell of bread and salt. Ocean air and smoke. Her home appeared as it had in her childhood, except…

Empty clothes were piled in front of the fire. More clothes at the table. A bowl of uneaten soup with the spoon dropped to the floor. No people. Only clothes. Shoes. A forgotten staff lying on the ground.

The cold tugged at Tala’s belly, and a scrambled voice whispered in the distance like a voice from another room.

She walked through the cottage and opened the back door to enter the meeting hall of Adna’s House. She glided between the tables, cloaks and kirtles crumpled on benches before open books and mugs of steaming broth. She walked slowly, taking in the smell and temperature of the room. She opened the side door to find the sun on her face.

Tala stood in the doorway of her room in Salamanca, the courtyard of the scribe house stretching hot and dusty in the summer air. The fountain in the center of the small plaza bubbled happily, and Tala noted the bright skirts and colorful wraps lying empty on the ground around it where water jugs had been dropped and baskets of flowers lay abandoned. In one corner, children’s toys lay deserted beside tiny dresses and shoes. An empty cradle rocked in the wind, no hand stirring it to motion.

Empty. Everything was empty. No one breathed or played or sang.

A quiet scream whispered in her mind.

The smell of lemon blossoms filled the air as Tala walked across the silent courtyard and opened carved double doors.

Stepping down a small flight of stairs, the sounds of battle rang in the air. Smoke and gunpowder clogged her nose. She saw humans rushing past, some pushing cannons and others writhing in pain on the muddy, bloody ground. A ghostly human, his bayonet fixed, ran past her, his soul voice desperate and crying.

She walked through the battle, soldiers running and scattering from her path. An even road ran through the torn field and toward a grand house at the end of an alley of trees. Looking up, she realized the house was a modern confection of a mansion, fronted with ornate columns and bright flower borders. In the smoke-filled battle, it lay undisturbed, an island of beauty amidst blood and sickness.

Tala walked up the steps and halted at the massive double doors.

Voices drifted from inside.

They were familiar, but she could not recognize them. The doors opened on their own, and Tala forced herself to step inside. The entry hall was grand, a double staircase curling up to the second-floor landing. Stained glass decorated the walls; colored sunlight painted the room. It was beautiful and eerie. She heard children laughing somewhere in the house and the sound of slamming doors.

More laughter behind her.

Tala spun, but no one was there.

She turned slowly in the entry hall, a thick Persian rug cushioning her bare feet. There were shouts, but they came in echoes and whispers through the corridors of the empty house.

Empty. So empty.

It’s all gone.

Walking down a wood-paneled hallway, Tala reached out and touched the walls, feeling the house breathe with her as she searched. She saw nothing, only heard the memory of scuffling and muffled shouts. A child was sobbing somewhere. Another child. And another. Tiny voices started to crowd her mind. Whimpers and sniffles and pained crying.

The house, once a beacon of light and warmth in the raging battle outside, grew dark and cold. The farther she walked down the hall, the more children she heard. All were crying. All were in pain. A woman screamed, and she started to run.

“No! Tala, no!”

The shout came from behind her, but she could not turn back. A blood-red door came into view.

“No, no, NO!”

She reached for it, and the shouting turned to screaming behind her. Deep, guttural howls of agony that pierced her temple and kicked her gut. Sharp pain flooded her body, and her mouth filled with bile a moment before her vision went black.

“TALA, NO!”

※

She sat up straight and fell to the side, retching over the edge of the bed, vomit splashing on the floor as Tala emptied her stomach and groaned. A sharp pain pierced her temple as her body convulsed in the wake of the vision.

“Tala?” Gabriel’s rough voice at her side. “Oh, my love.” A soft hand soothed the small of her back. “Just your stomach or your head too?”

“Both,” she managed to say, her mouth bitter with sick.

Gabriel rolled out of bed and walked down the hall. In a few minutes, he returned with a cool cloth he put on her forehead, a candle to light the room, and one of his brothers who helped him clean the floor. Gabriel lifted Tala and held her cradled in his arms as the young scribe quickly changed the sheets and smoothed the bedclothes.

Tala would have protested, tried to help, but her head was still spinning and her whole body felt weak. She often entered a seeing state between her first and second sleeps, and she usually woke with her stomach twisted in knots. Headache and nausea were typical symptoms when a seer had a vision, but these were worse than usual. Her stomach felt bruised. Her temple felt as if it had been jabbed with a knife.

Her mate whispered soothing words to her and rocked her like a child. Though Tala was a few inches taller than him—she’d been taller than almost everyone in Spain—Gabriel’s powerful body and broad shoulders easily held her when she became ill.

In a few more minutes, they were alone again. Quiet thanks to the brother who had helped them, the promise of a cold pitcher of water, and Tala was back in bed, the cold sheets cutting through some of the lethargy from the vision.

“A bad one this time.” Gabriel helped her to sit and gathered her hair, twisting it into a loose braid to keep it out of her face. Gabriel adored her golden hair, begging her to keep it long no matter how much the Spanish summers burned. And Tala adored him, her quiet, sardonic mate whose calm exterior and mild manner concealed a passionate protectiveness toward the singer he had pledged himself to.

They had met in Salamanca only twenty years after Tala had arrived. Spain was finally starting to feel familiar to her, and Gabriel had been returning to his childhood home after a long assignment in North Africa. He was tanned and dark as a Moor, his hair grown past his shoulders and his cheeks rough with weeks of travel the first time Tala had seen him throwing water over his neck and shoulders by the fountain. A deep rasping voice had woken her from an afternoon siesta, the summer heat still unbearable to a woman bred in the cold north. She walked to the door in a daze and opened it, squinting into the glare of the midday sun.

The low voice halted when she opened her door. Tala blinked and held her hand up to shade her eyes and discovered the unfamiliar scribe who had disturbed her rest. The dark man was staring at her, his mouth open and his black eyes fixed. She’d closed the door quickly, unnerved by his silent stare.

It had taken months for Tala to understand that the fact Gabriel was quiet didn’t mean he was shy, as she was. Gabriel didn’t speak unless he had something to say, but he was always thinking. He was a mapmaker by training. A scholar. At first Tala hadn’t been able to tell when he was being serious or teasing her.

She had become accustomed to the brash warriors who filled the Salamanca scribe house. Most of the unmated scribes had flirted madly with her until they realized she was not a bold young woman eager to play as most singers were when freed from the apprentice house. After weeks of determined attempts to court her, the warriors’ innate protectiveness had taken over. Most saw Tala as a younger sister. Others ignored her. But male attention toward Tala was firmly discouraged by the Salamanca scribes if visitors attempted it.

Gabriel, familiar to most of the residents of the scribe house, was the subject of cheerful ribbing when he did not play their battle games or train with them, but he had earned their respect in different ways. His keen mind and observations were valued by the watcher and the chief archivist.

He was not a social man. He sat apart at mealtimes, usually reading a book or drawing silently, until one day Tala realized that he was sitting across from her and had been for weeks. His courtship was quiet, persistent, and focused. Gabriel silenced Tala’s usual guardians with a single look. Within months, he’d made her his lover. And one morning, Tala woke in Gabriel’s bed, realizing that she was in love with him and had been for weeks. When she told him, he smiled with not a hint of surprise.

“Tala?”

Nearly a century and a half mated, and Tala still shivered when he said her name in that low, rasping voice. At home, they mostly spoke Spanish, though they’d been assigned to Paris five years before. She had fallen in love with the language when she fell in love with Gabriel.

“I’m fine.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “Can I have some water?”

He held a glass to her lips. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Is it about the war?”

War had been raging among the humans of Europe for years, led by a brilliant French general by the name of Napoleon. From the ashes of the revolution, he had risen to domination in France. War was always a difficult time to be a seer. Visions came fast and furious but often were hard to interpret. Attempts to intervene could cause more harm than good. Tala had made the mistake when she was younger of thinking every vision had to be acted on. Now she knew that some knowledge could only cause pain. Some events were inevitable.

And some were not.

The strange vision of the house felt like a storm gathering. There were so many layers. It was different from the random flashes she usually received.

She frowned. “I’m not sure what it was about. I need to think about it. Try to remember everything. It’s all muddled right now.”

“Sleep.” He tucked her into his side. “Let me know if you want to consult with Anabel, and I’ll make arrangements to go to Lyon.”

“Thank you, love.” Tala pressed her ear to Gabriel’s side and listened for the steady thump of his heart. She closed her eyes and focused on it. He was her rock. Her anchor. Tala had thanked the Creator the moment she realized Gabriel would be her mate and her partner. She could not have asked for a better man.

He blew out the candle and the room fell into deep darkness. As Tala drifted to sleep, a thought slipped into her head.

“Tala, no!”

Gabriel. It had been Gabriel’s voice. And the scream had been his own.

C
HAPTER
O
NE

S
ARI
felt like singing. It didn’t matter that they’d been forced to take a tiny smuggler’s craft to the French coast because of the human war. It didn’t matter that she’d had to leave the majority of their household things in London. Sari felt like singing because finally, after years of requests and subtle pleas to Vienna, Sari and her sister, Tala, were going to be together again.

Damien’s assignment to Paris had come only weeks before when his replacement had been confirmed by the Watchers’ Council. Sari had shouted with excitement, then made her pleasure evident when she pulled her mate into their room to celebrate privately. Playful ribbing followed them, lifting the spirits of their brothers, most of whom were unhappy to see the leading scribe and singer of London move on.

When Tala and her mate Gabriel had first been sent to Paris, Sari had rejoiced. The journey to Paris was much shorter than the one to Spain. But when Napoleon had mounted his war steed, visits to her sister had become few and far between.

Sari knew the Elder Council in Vienna had worked tirelessly to call on old allegiances, hefty bribes, and sometimes ancient promises in order for their people to remain neutral. A few Irin warriors had been conscripted into battle, but the majority of the Irin scribes and singers were able to live normal lives. Or as normal as they could be while the Irin world struggled with its own demons.

Damien glanced at her in the carriage, a small smile flirting at the corner of his lips. “You do realize most of the other singers will be living in one of the ‘damned and cursed retreats,’ do you not? I tried to overrule the previous watcher, but my request was denied.”

“I don’t care.”

He chuckled. “Never in a hundred years would I have imagined I’d see the day my Sari said that.”

“It’s not forever.”

He stared at her hard, then looked away, focusing his eyes on the passing scenery.

Sari sighed. “Damien—”

“Is it so bad a thing to be near a place that is safer?” he asked quietly. “A place where a child… Never mind.”

A twist in her gut. “I haven’t said no. I’ve just said I want to wait.”

“You’ve wanted to wait for thirty years.”

“We should have had twice the number of guardians in London. We couldn’t spare me with the increase in Grigori activity, and we definitely couldn’t spare
you
.”

The growth in British naval power over their time in London and the increase of international trade had meant a stunning uptick in Grigori activity. Britain was still an island, but it was no longer isolated or visited by raiders who came and left. No, the sons of the Fallen found easy prey along the growing waterfronts and busy ports. More and more humans lived on the margins as cities grew, which made those individuals ripe for Grigori picking.