The Staff and the Blade by Elizabeth Hunter

“What do you need, milá?”

  “I’m so tired.”

  “What do you need?”

  “You,” she whispered. “I need you.”

  “I’m here.” He pulled her back until her eyes met his. “Command me, love. Tell me what you need and I will give it to you.” Damien smiled. “I will fly to the gates of heaven if you wish it.”

  “Don’t leave me.”

  He stilled. “I will never leave you. I never have.”

  Her startling blue eyes showed confusion. “But you did.”

  “Never.” He held her gaze. “I am here. I am waiting for you, Sari. All you have to do is come to me.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “It won’t be enough.”

  “Sari?”

  “There is a hole in me. A hollow well I fear is endless. If I came to you, would it be filled? Or would the emptiness only hurt us both?”

  “It is not endless, milá. I felt this once too.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I kissed you.” He touched her lips with his own. Touched them and left them there. “I loved you, and my proud girl scared the emptiness away.”

  “That’s too simple.”

  “It’s a start.” He took her mouth in a longer kiss. “We have to start somewhere.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “SO the humans thought you were mentally ill, did they?”

  “What were they supposed to think when a little girl told them she heard voices no one else heard?”

  At least this Ava had backbone. She would need it. Her heart ached for Ava, but Sari didn’t see friends in strangers. And this girl, even mated and marked by an Irin warrior, gave off an energy Sari had never felt before.

  One of the first magics the newly hunted Irina developed after the Rending was the ability to conceal their energy. The Irin could sense them, but so could the Grigori. They were soul conduits, hearing the voices of humanity and picking up their energy. In Irin communities, they had thrived with regular contact from their brothers, mates, and sons. Mixed with the human population, they attracted too much attention, grew too manic.

  Learning how to conceal and then channel that energy had been the driving focus of the first haven Sari had lived in, the one Gabriel and her grandmother had established in Switzerland. Orsala had gathered some of the oldest singers in Europe with the express purpose of finding magic that could hide their abilities and conceal them from Irin, Grigori, and human senses. They had succeeded, then they had quietly spread their knowledge to the survivors. Over time the Irina became ghosts and legends. For Sari, cloaking her magic had become as automatic as shutting out soul-voices.

  But this girl, Ava, had no defenses. The energy that poured off her was dark and tangled. Grief, obviously, but there was something else. She was ready to run. What Sari needed to know was why.

  Karen set down lunch, and Sari said, “Eat, sister.”

  No reaction.

  Astrid said, “Please, Ava. Stay and eat with us.”

  “Fine.” Her voice was stiff with suppressed anger.

  Sari ignored her and murmured a prayer of thanksgiving for the meal.

  Deciding to try a new tack, she said, “I’m glad Damien brought you here. It is not good that you were in the world for so long on your own. You could have easily hurt someone, including yourself. Not to mention, I’m amazed you’re not locked up somewhere, rocking in a corner.”

  “I’m rich enough to avoid padded rooms,” Ava said. “So that helps.”

  “I imagine it does.”

  What on earth had brought her to Damien? But it hadn’t been Damien, had it? It had been Malachi, a scribe in Damien’s house. It had been love. She remembered herself as a young woman. Would anything have been able to keep her away from Damien? Probably not.

  Sari continued, “And then you had to go and stumble into my mate’s scribe house.”

  “He wasn’t very happy to have me.”

  Oh, I bet your appearance tossed him sidewise. Oddly enough, this made Sari like the girl more.

  “He’s a suspicious old man.” And a proud one. “The Creator has plans he doesn’t always share with his scribes, no matter what they’d like to think. The folly of men is pride.”

  Astrid said, “And the folly of women is resentment, sister.”

  “I didn’t ask you, Astrid.”

  Resentment? Why shouldn’t she be resentful? Was it folly to guard your heart?

  Ava spoke again. “I think Malachi said something similar once. About Damien being a stubborn old man. But… he’s still a good man. I can tell.”

  Astrid caught her eye.

  I told you so, the meddling healer seemed to say. I’ve told you for years that your mate is a good man and you’re lucky to have him, no matter his failings.

  Sari narrowed her eyes at her old friend. Shut up.

  Astrid said, “It’s good that he brought you to us. We can begin your training immediately.”

  “And what kind of training will that be?”

  Magic. Hand-to-hand combat. Magic. Wrestling. Knife fighting. Archery. Magic. Staff fighting. Sword training, if the girl had any talent for it. But mostly magic. Sari didn’t let an Irina live in her haven without knowing how to defend herself and those she might need to protect.

  But no need to make the human girl panic.

  “A very thorough training. My grandmother will enjoy meeting such a mysterious Irina.”

  Ava didn’t look pleased. “Oh. Goody.”

  ※

  She found him sparring with Mala on the edge of the trees. They were darting in and out of the forest, hacking at each other with sabers, and they were not going easy. Mala had two bleeding cuts on her arm and appeared to be limping. Damien had a slash across his abdomen and another on his thigh.

  And he was loving it.

  There were few swordsmen who could match him, but Mala had been trained by her mate, Alexander, who’d been in the same order as Damien during the Crusades. Her fighting style was nearly identical, and Sari could tell both her mate and her friend were enjoying themselves despite the blood.

  For the moment, her anger evaporated and she savored watching him. Damien in motion was a pure and violent grace. Like the eagle over the fjord, he glided and struck with equal skill. Centuries of training and a millennia of blood. His family had bred Mikael’s line for war, and her mate was the epitome of their success.

  He was muscular, but lean enough to be quick. Tall, but balanced. Though they were covered, she knew the lines of his talesm stretched up his left arm, over his chest, and down his right side, covering his arm, shoulder, and torso. The family marks his father had scribed down his back were as fierce and fine as the mating mark Damien had tattooed over his own heart.

  Mine is the fire. Mine is the blood.

  Mine, her soft touch and her sharp tongue.

  When he saw Sari standing on the edge of the forest, he held up a hand and Mala stepped back, sword pointed down.

  Damien turned to her. “Is it urgent?”

  “I can wait for Mala to finish you off.”

  Mala signed behind Damien’s back. No, sister, that’s your job.

  Sari signed back. Tart.

  Frustrated much?

  Unaware of the teasing behind him, Damien stripped off his drenched shirt, and Sari was forced to conceal her reaction. Nothing in the world compared to Damien in the flesh. He’d always run hot, and she’d always enjoyed seeing him sweat. He wiped the dampness and blood from his face.

  Mala signed, Roll your tongue back in, or take him home and work out some of the bitchiness.

  Sari said, “Is he tiring you out, Mala? Finished so soon? Maybe I need a new weapons mistress.”

  Damien turned and frowned. “What?”

  I’m tired of both of you, Mala signed, laughing. I’m finished fighting for today. Damien, talk to your mate. Or toss her skirts up. It’ll make both of you more pleasant to be around.

  “I don’t wear skirts anymore,” Sari shout
ed as Mala walked toward the barn.

  Damien leaned against the trunk of a linden tree, his shirt still dangling from his fingers. “Not that I don’t appreciate the view of your thighs, but I do miss your skirts.” He eyed her legs. “Opportunities always seemed to present themselves when you were wearing them.”

  “You must be forgetting corsets. They were in fashion once too.”

  “You hated corsets and avoided them as much as you could.”

  “I believe you told me once they were tools of the Fallen, designed to make the daughters of heaven weak and breathless.”

  “They are,” Damien said. “They also made access to your breasts more difficult. That may have been part of my hatred.”

  It was habit to tease him, even after all these years. In all their centuries apart, she missed the ease and pleasure of his company as much as anything else.

  “What did you bring me, Damien?”

  He shoved away from the tree and walked toward her, his steps sure and his skin still gleaming in the afternoon light. His talesm were black against tanned skin. His muscles rippled as he moved over the rough ground. Every instinct in her reached for him, drawn to his voice, his scent, his taste. She crossed her arms over her chest to keep from grabbing him and following Mala’s suggestion.

  Damien stopped in front of her. His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips.

  “Me,” he said. “I brought you me.”

  Sweet heaven, she could almost taste his mouth on hers.

  “I’m talking about the girl.”

  “I know. She’s wounded. Grieving. Bereft of her reshon. Unsure of her place in the world without her other half.”

  I brought you me.

  She closed her eyes, and he gripped her chin.

  “No,” he bit out. “Not anymore.”

  Her eyes flew open before they narrowed. “You are not the watcher here.”

  “Don’t close your eyes to me. You can’t pretend I’m a dream.”

  “You said you would wait for me.”

  “I have waited. I’ve waited centuries.” He stepped closer, until she could feel the heat from his skin. “Do you think I’m forcing myself on you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not. I’m just crawling out of the box you forced me into. You’re not allowed to close your eyes to me anymore. Not allowed to forget us. Not allowed to pretend we don’t exist.”

  “Nothing could make me or any other singer forget the scribes exist.”

  “I am not talking about the damn scribes, Sari!”

  Shocked silent by his anger, she didn’t say a word.

  “I am talking about us,” he continued. “Stop pretending we aren’t wounded. Fight with me, damn you. Kiss me. Hit me. Shout at me. Do something. But stop living this half life. Stop pretending we both died along with our child.”

  She struck him. Her fist shot out and struck his jaw before she let out a horrified gasp.

  “I’m sorry!” she cried. “I’m sorry, Damien—”

  He grabbed her and kissed her, taking her mouth with a hunger born of anger and pain. She could taste the grief on his lips, along with the coppery bite of blood where her fist had struck. His fingers tangled in the knot of her hair, tearing it loose and twisting it around his hand as he drew her in.

  She was frozen in his arms. Aching to reach out and grab him. Battling the need to run away.

  Reshon, his voice whispered in her head. Come back to me.

  He slowed, easing Sari from anger to longing, teasing her mouth with soft bites on her lower lip before he drew away and tucked her face into his neck. He laid his rough cheek against her temple.

  “Sari, Sari, Sari.” He whispered her name like a prayer.

  “I’m sorry I hit you,” she choked out.

  “I told you to.”

  “We weren’t sparring.”

  “Were we sparring the other day in the meadow?”

  No. She’d been venting her rage then too. She might have used staffs instead of fists, but she had attacked him before she kissed him.

  “Be angry with me,” he continued. “I can bear your anger. Heaven knows, I deserve it. But I can’t bear your silence.”

  “What have you done, Damien?”

  What are you doing to me? She couldn’t face his grief and her own. If she allowed herself to think about the past, the grief would swallow her again.

  She took a steadying breath and stepped back. “We need to talk about this girl you brought to me.”

  “Ava.”

  “Yes, Ava.”

  “I did come here because of her. But not only because of her.”

  She focused on the part she could deal with at the moment. “She’s dangerous.”

  He touched his ear. “I know.”

  And he did know. Damien had told her how Ava’s scream when her mate died had caused his ears to bleed and almost put another of his brothers into a coma.

  “She’s powerful, but it’s more than that,” Sari said. “Her power is… different.”

  “I can’t sense it as you do.”

  “It feels different. Trust me.”

  Damien frowned and nodded over to a group of large rocks where someone had built a fire pit. They sat across from each other and stretched out their legs, toes almost touching.

  Almost, but not quite.

  “There has been movement among the Fallen,” he started. “Jaron has left Istanbul.”

  “What does that have to do with Ava?”

  Jaron was one of the more moderate of the Fallen. If one could call any Fallen moderate. But while the ancient angel was unspeakably powerful, he mostly ignored the human and Irin worlds. He didn’t create vast, silent armies of Grigori offspring. He didn’t actively hunt Irina. According to Damien and her grandmother, Jaron had parked himself in Istanbul centuries before and watched the world flow by.

  “Jaron has some connection to Ava. An interest in her. We’re not sure why.”

  “A connection?”

  “He sent her a vision before he left.”

  “So she’s a seer?”

  “Possibly.” He glanced up, and she knew he was thinking about Tala. “But her visions are not… normal.”

  “Are any visions normal?”

  “You tell me.”

  Ignoring a question that would lead too close to an open wound, she redirected him back to the angels. “Why did Jaron leave Istanbul? Especially if he’s interested in the girl.”

  “Because Volund wanted the city.”

  Volund. The very name pitched her stomach. Over decades, Irina intelligence had learned through interrogation and often torture that the Rending had been masterminded by Volund, an archangel who scared even other angels. His appetite for human lovers was voracious. His legions of offspring were some of the most violent and hungry. Volund was a monster who wanted nothing less than the total destruction of the Irin race. That was why he’d targeted Irin women and children.

  “So Volund holds Istanbul now.”

  “His sons killed Ava’s mate. But not Ava. Her voice was too powerful.”

  A dark thought twisted at the back of her mind. “Is her father Grigori?”

  It was possible for Grigori to have children with human women. It usually didn’t end well, but sometimes both mother and child survived. Oddly enough, some of the most gifted human artists and geniuses over the centuries were Grigori offspring. It was, in Sari’s opinion, the only redeeming feature of their race. Occasionally, their angelic blood showed true and created something beautiful.

  “I thought she must be Grigori offspring initially, but I don’t think so. Her father is a high-profile musician. He has relationships with women and doesn’t kill them. And he’s involved in her life. Not deeply, but they do have a relationship.”

  Which would never happen with a Grigori, because they were monsters.

  “How do we know he’s truly her father? There’s something…”

  “Strange?”

  “Old.” It
felt right when she said it. “She feels old. Perhaps not a Grigori. Her father could be Irin. A very ancient scribe. Something like that.”

  Damien’s jaw tightened. “Her mother is human.”

  Sari looked up. “So?”

  He folded his arms and shook his head. “I’m not saying that an Irin male has never had an attraction to a human woman. We are not saints. I know it’s possible, but—”

  “Not possible, Damien. Probable. Likely even, since the Rending. It’s not as if the scribes have many options for partners, do they?”

  “An Irin scribe is not going to take advantage of a human woman just because—”

  “Who says he’d be taking advantage?” Sari said. “There is a singer here whose partner is human. Orsala doesn’t like it, but there’s no denying their feelings. She’s not taking advantage of him.”

  “It’s not about feelings! I’m talking about biology. Irin scribes are not like singers. We cannot touch humans. We will hurt them.”

  “It’s taboo,” Sari said. “Not magic. You know how I feel about this. The fact that touching humans is taboo does not mean it’s a biological impossibility. Grigori don’t kill women on immediate contact. Biologically, they’re—”

  “The same as scribes?” he erupted. “No, they are not.”

  Sari set her jaw. “If Grigori can have human children, then so can Irin. It’s possible, Damien. And it might explain Ava.”

  “No scribe would do this.” He crossed his arms. “Maybe it’s biologically possible, but it would not happen, Sari.”

  “Why? Because you wouldn’t touch a human? Because you’d never allow any of your men to do it?” She snorted. “Are you still so naive, Damien?”

  His eyebrows flew up. “You’re calling me naive?”

  “Yes.” She leaned forward. “You may be older than me, but you’re still the noble Irin warrior of ages past. This world is not black and white. It never has been.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “You think every scribe has a conscience and a code of honor because you do.”

  He looked away from her.

  “Not every scribe is noble. Not every Irin wants the Irina back. Not every one of your brothers would sacrifice himself to protect me or any of my sisters.”