The Staff and the Blade: Irin Chronicles Book Four (42 page)

But there was no Irina Council.

And his mate was going to change that.

“I am an Irina singer!”

Sari lifted her voice, and Damien thought her forefathers must have heard her in the heavenly realm. A beam of light shone through the stained-glass windows of the Library, hitting her linen robes and making them glow gold and red. Dust and blood. She was a warrior.
His
warrior. But also a warrior for her sisters.

He burned with pride that she was his.

“A daughter of Ariel’s line,” she continued. “I request an audience with my representative on the Irina Council. Where is my council? Where are the elder singers who speak for me?”

One brave elder stood.

“Daughter,” he said. “I’m sorry, but your council has fled.”

“No. My council was attacked.”

Another elder stood. “Your council is in hiding.”

Sari took a step toward him. “My council was protecting itself. Protecting its daughters when the scribes did not.”

Damien heard the muttering and whispering around him, but he could not take his eyes from the woman commanding the floor.

“And they do not trust us to protect our sisters even now?” the second elder said, an oily smile taking over his face. “Does the Irina Council not trust us to protect our own mates? Our daughters?” He wasn’t speaking to Sari, but to his audience, the Irin scribes who watched. “We
want
to protect them, and yet they hide.”

Sari walked back to the middle of the room where the star of the elder singers’ desks had once sat with honor. Now those desks lay abandoned, unused and forgotten, pushed into the corners of the room.

A million hidden stars, struggling for the right to shine.

“And I
want
to speak to my council,” his mate said again.

“I’m sorry.” The elder’s smile said one thing as his words said another. “But your council is no more.”

She raised her hands, his glorious mate, and her magic filled the room. Old magic. New magic. The two twined together as the scribes’ gallery stood frozen in silence.

There was a low rumble, then with a mighty crash the seven desks of the elder singers slid to the center of the room, pulled by Sari’s elemental power. Papers and dust went flying. Furniture shifted as people ran to escape the desks’ path.

Sari stood motionless in the center of the floor, eyes traveling to meet the gaze of each elder as the massive wooden desks settled into place in the ancient star-shaped pattern around her.

Damien released the breath he’d been holding.

And Sari said, “It’s time.”

End of Book Three

V
ISIONS

※

T
HE
I
RIN
and Irina are together again. Society is being rebuilt. But what do you do when the foundation of your world has crumbled? Where do you go when all the boundaries have been redrawn? For Damien and Sari, charting a new path into the future means confronting the demons of the past. They’ve forgiven each other, but can they forgive themselves?

※

T
HROUGH
AGES
YOU
have come to me,

And I choose you.

Because you wandered many roads alone

And this body has bled and shed blood in honor,

I choose the one who sees me and challenges me,

My warrior, my lover. Friend, protector, helpmeet, mate.

As iron sharpens iron, I will ever be your own.

—Sari’s Song

PROLOGUE

S
ARI
WOKE
screaming.
“Where are the children?”

They were on top of her. Clinging to her legs and throat, their teeth like knives against her skin.

They dissolved in front of her, empty clothes falling to the floor as gold dust rose in the air, mixing with the steam of the ritual bath.

Their blood ran in rivulets between her thighs.

Sari flinched as heavy arms came around her. Darkly inked arms. Familiar arms. She was covered in sweat. She wasn’t sure what was a dream and what was reality. His arms felt real, but so had the children.

So had their teeth.

“Sari.”

“Where are they?” She heard their little voices crying in her mind. “They’re dying.”

“Sari, wake up.”

She closed her eyes and felt something crawling up her legs. The terror closed her throat as her heart took off at a gallop. “They’re killing us!” she choked out, trying to squirm away.

“Sari!” A hand wrapped around her braid and tugged hard. “Wake up.
Now
.”

The pain jolted her out of the dream’s grip. She blinked tears out of her eyes as her breathing slowed and evened.

“I’m with you.” A low voice began a familiar litany. “We are in Cappadocia. You are safe in the scribe house. Your grandmother and Mala are here. There are no children. No Grigori.”

But there was someone missing. “Where is Tala?”

He pressed his forehead to her sweat-soaked temple. “Wake up, Sari,” he whispered in her ear. He shifted until she was lying against his chest. “Please,
milá
. Your
reshon
is here.”

Reshon
. She lifted the shields that guarded her mind and heard him. A voice attuned to hers. His soul rested against hers, bracing her spirit and carrying her when she stumbled.

“Damien?”

He let out a breath. “I’m here, sweet girl.”

Sari said nothing. She turned and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against the mating mark on his chest and anchoring her physical self in his presence. Damien brushed his fingers up and down her back and allowed Sari to hang on to him.

It had been two years since the Battle of Vienna.

Three since the battle in Oslo where she and her sisters had slaughtered their last nest of Grigori.

In the time between, the revelations had come hard and fast. Their sister Ava was not the fallen angel Jaron’s daughter, but she was a granddaughter, descended from one of the hidden stars Sari had seen in Ava’s vision. Thousands of daughters born to the Fallen and abandoned to the human world, killed, or abused by the brothers who should have protected them.

A few rogue Grigori whose sires were dead had been able to break away and protect their sisters, the women who called themselves
kareshta
. The silent ones. Their discovery had rocked the foundations of the Irin world and led to a massive battle that killed four of the Fallen, including Jaron and the hated Volund.

It was a battle that only added to Sari’s nightmares.

Hundreds of dead lived in her mind. Not only those of the Rending, but the broken bodies of the Grigori children who had attacked them in Vienna. It didn’t matter that they were tiny vicious monsters bred to attack the Irina, whose martial magic did not affect children—she dreamed of them all.

Every night she closed her eyes, and they attacked her again. Only this time there was no relief. No magic could shield Sari from her own actions. There would be no rescue from dreams.

Damien held her tightly. “Rest, my love.”

“I won’t be able to sleep anymore.” She sat up and brushed hard at her cheeks, willing the flashes of memory away. “Go back to sleep. You have training with Mala tomorrow. I’ll go to the library.”

“Sari—”

“Please.” She pressed a kiss to his mouth. “Please. I need time alone.”

The memory of the dead was devouring the peace she and Damien had found. Sari knew joy again. She laughed and loved. She knew the touch of her mate and the comfort of her adopted family, many of whom had moved on and started new lives. Many of her sisters had found mates. Borne children. Found purpose and place in the Irin world again.

But her own guilt stalked her in the darkness. Made her rise screaming in the night when she could no longer bear it.

And it was more than the children. Sari also felt the weight of her actions against the Grigori through the years. How many had she killed in her thirst for revenge? Sons of the Fallen who might have only been trying to survive? Some might have left sisters behind.

She had killed without mercy. Hunted relentlessly. Tracked the demons who had killed her sisters and slain their children, believing the lie that history had taught them.

The Grigori were evil.

They hunted without conscience.

All
deserved to die.

But they had been wrong. And the burden of that knowledge was slowly eating Sari alive.

※

Damien couldn’t sleep without Sari beside him. He rose and walked to the ritual room, deciding to add to his morning prayers and meditation since he’d be getting no more rest.

The ritual room in Cappadocia, like everything in the old scribe house, was carved into the soft volcanic cliffs of the region. Hundreds of years before, the first scribes had come and built there, lured by the dry air that was perfect for a library and scriptorium. It had been a center of Irin learning ever since and a haven for travelers.

Evren, the chief archivist, had welcomed Orsala as a friend and colleague, pleased to have such a renowned singer in their company as the Irina gradually rejoined their brothers and mates in Irin politics and society.

Damien and Sari had returned to his watcher’s post in Istanbul, though they were as often in Cappadocia as they were in the city. Orsala didn’t need them close, but Sari had a difficult time adjusting to her grandmother’s absence.

He entered the ritual room and nodded to an older scribe in the corner who was tending the fire. He stood before the main wall and traced his fingers over the inscribed glyphs of the Old Language that had been carved and worn by countless hands. He moved left to right, following the line of the invocation and murmuring prayers for peace and blessing for his family. His mate. His mother. His father who had died in battle.

Gathering a slate, paper, and quill, Damien knelt in front of the fire and began to write a favorite passage from the Epic of Kairav, the tale of a warrior scribe’s journey to return to his mate. It had been a favorite of his when he was a child and one of the first long passages he’d learned to copy.

A movement in the corner caught his eye. Damien turned to see a scribe kneeling and joining him before the fire. There was something about the man that was so familiar he couldn’t help but stare.

Smiling, the man said, “We have met before, brother.”

“Indeed, I think we must have, but I cannot remember when.”

“I am somewhat changed since the last time you saw me,” the man said. He wasn’t tall, but he had a warrior’s build. He was dark-haired and deeply tan. His
talesm
had the style of local writing, and Damien suspected that Cappadocia, if not home for him, was very close to it.

The memory hit him.

“You are Evren’s son,” Damien said. “The Rafaene scribe who helped my brother and me in Vienna.”

“I am.” The man’s smile grew. “My name is Bernal. It is good to see you again, brother.”

“Your time as a Rafaene has come to an end?” Rafaene scribes were mainly warriors of Rafael’s line. As healers, they suffered more than most from their actions in war. They were permitted to take regular respites, but for seven years at the most.

“I cut my time short,” Bernal said. “I felt needed in other ways.”

Damien couldn’t help but remember his mate’s screams that night. “There is much need for healing within our people.”

“There is.”

He said nothing more. Sari’s wounds were private.

“Tell me,” Bernal said. “Did you achieve your objective in Vienna?”

Damien’s purported mission had been to break into Mikael’s armory and retrieve weapons for his men to fight against the Fallen. His true objective, however, had been to retrieve his own heaven-forged blade. With rising angelic activity and so many power vacuums after the death of Jaron and Volund, Damien wanted the knife back. What he didn’t want was for the council to know he had it.

“I did,” he said. “Your actions helped greatly in our battle against the Fallen and the Grigori that day.”

Bernal smiled as if he knew he wasn’t being given the whole story. That was fine with Damien. He had no need to spill secrets to anyone but Sari and wasn’t concerned if the scribe knew it.

He rose and nodded to Bernal. “Perhaps I will see you in the meeting hall, brother. Right now I must go to my mate.”

Damien burned the passage he’d transcribed in the ritual fire and watched the smoke rise through the carved-stone chimney in the center of the room.

Though she reside across oceans,

I will return to her.

Though my love may scorn me

And my men flee

Still I will journey on.

For my home is with my beloved