The Storm

by Elizabeth Hunter

  Artis raised his eyebrows. “You have a sharp tongue.”

  “And?”

  “Keep a whetstone handy. You’ll need a sharp tongue with Maxim.”

  Renata laughed, and Kyra couldn’t hide her smile. Renata reached for Artis’s empty plate. “I’ll get you more.” She rose and left the room.

  “I’m not hungry,” he said. “But I do enjoy being fussed over.”

  “Shall I get you more milk?” Kyra rose, but Artis grabbed her wrist. It startled Kyra, and she felt a jolt of energy move from her skin to his. “Artis?”

  He released her immediately. “So much power,” he said, flexing his hand. “Do you burn him when he touches you, daughter of the Fallen?”

  Kyra bit back her first response. He was an old man, set in his ways. “I would never hurt Leo. He is the other part of me.”

  Artis raised his eyes. “You have gold eyes like my Evelina. Even brighter than hers.”

  “She had Leoc’s blood?” Ava had told her only those with Leoc’s blood retained the amber gold color of angelic eyes.

  Artis’s eyes narrowed. “She had a touch.”

  It was more than a touch. Kyra said, “You said she was a baker.”

  “She was a baker because she wanted to be a baker. But she saw things too. Her parents didn’t want her leaving the village, so they didn’t force her into seer training.”

  “But is that why she was killed? Because she was a seer?”

  Artis drew back. “They were all killed. Not for any reason. Simply to break us, I think.”

  She could see him drawing into himself. He turned his face back into the sun that filled the corner of the room and closed his eyes. She felt the weight of his grief like an old wound. It no longer bled, it ached, begging to be relieved.

  A week. If that. Kyra had seen those weary eyes before.

  Artis would be gone within a week.

  Renata couldn’t find Max in the house, so she went out to the woods and followed the trail that led down to the sea. She stepped on the worn path, letting the breeze surround her, and followed it down a small hill toward the sound of water and seagulls.

  When the sun touched her skin, she could feel the summer warmth, but more often she walked in the crisp cool of the pines. She hadn’t found any occupied houses for miles. There seemed to be a few vacation homes along this stretch of the coast, but they were all empty.

  Forest gave way to rolling dunes covered in grass and low green shrubs. Max sat on a rise of sand, his hands braced behind him, staring at the tide washing out. The ocean was grey that afternoon. In the distance, the deeper blue of the water gave way to a bright, cloud-spotted sky.

  She walked behind her mate and sat down, stretching her legs on either side and wrapping her arms around his back. Max leaned into her, loosely holding her hands over his heart.

  Renata leaned down and whispered, “Did all the butter-churning wear you out? I promise I’ll be more gentle next time.”

  Max’s chest rumbled with a laugh. “Woman…” He sighed. “You give me peace.”

  “I love you.” It still thrilled her every time she said it. She pressed her cheek to his temple and let him lean on her, borrowing her strength.

  They’d made love silently the night before. Quiet tenderness as she wrapped her arm around his shoulders and pressed her lips to his neck. They had eased each other into release, falling asleep with arms and legs entwined, holding on to each other even as they slept.

  Max was so brash. So confident. But not in Dunte. Not in the shadow of his uncle and grandfather, who lived with the ghosts of their people.

  “Artis is fading,” Renata said. “Kyra said it will be a week at most.”

  “And when he dies,” Max said, “Leo will be the last of my family.”

  “Peter?”

  “Is not my blood,” he said. “Has never been my blood. He barely tolerated me when I was a child. I don’t know why. Then again, he’s not much friendlier to Leo.”

  “Your father’s people?”

  “I don’t know who they are. My father’s name was Ivo and he was from Normandy, but that’s all I know.”

  “Have you looked?”

  “Yes. There are very few records. It doesn’t matter. Even if I found them, they aren’t my family. Only Leo is.”

  “And me.”

  He hooked his arms around her knees and pulled her closer. Renata leaned into his back and rested her head on his shoulder.

  “You are my heart and soul,” he said. “But no one will ever know me like Leo. No one else knows what it was like to grow up as we did, strangers in our own house, a shadow hanging over us. Why did we survive when our mothers and the rest of the village didn’t? Who saved us? We’ll probably never know.”

  “Kareshta?”

  “I told you, I remember a boy.”

  “But,” she reminded him gently, “you were a baby—truly an infant—when the Rending happened. Perhaps your memory—”

  “It’s real,” Max said. “He was real. And the wolves. Wolves have a scent, and it’s different from dogs. I recognized it as soon as I smelled it as an adult. I was in the woods in Russia and I smelled wolves, and I knew. I knew because he kept them in the house.”

  Renata said nothing more. Max was as stubborn as she was. It was ridiculous to argue with him about something that had happened over two hundred years ago. It didn’t matter. He’d lost his mother and father before he could remember them. He was losing his grandfather now.

  “You’re sad,” she said.

  “Yes. And… angry.”

  “Why?”

  He ran his hands up and down her arms, stroking from her wrists to the tender skin at the curve of her elbow. “Why did he only send for us now? I sent him a letter when we mated. Leo sent his father a letter when he mated with Kyra. He’s sent Artis a letter every time we’ve moved posts. There was never a response. But now he calls us back for this? To watch him die?”

  “There are songs,” Renata said. “Songs for the dying. For those who are ready to return to our fathers. Think about how many scribes have lived without those songs at the end of their lives. For thousands of years they have been part of our passage, but so many missed them. Perhaps Artis overcame his fear of the past so he could leave the earth as his ancestors did.”

  “Artis isn’t afraid of anything.” Max’s voice hardened. “But I do think you’re right. He didn’t send for me and Leo. He sent for you. For Kyra.”

  “Max, that’s not what I meant.”

  “No? It makes sense.” He closed his eyes and lay back, settling into the curve of her body. “If I were him, I’d call for you too. You’re a much prettier view.”

  “Max—”

  “Can we not talk about it?” He closed his eyes and turned them toward the sun. “For a while, can we just be?”

  She took a deep breath and hugged him tighter. “Yes.”

  Kyra walked up the stairs, carrying a tray of bread and meat she’d bought in the village the day before. She could hear the rhythmic ticking of a grandfather clock in the hall and muttering from the bedroom she and Leo shared. She tapped on the bottom of the door with her foot.

  “What?” Leo called. He sounded cross.

  “It’s me. I brought some food.” Leo hadn’t come into the house for lunch. He’d been trimming hooves with his father that morning, then helping with the afternoon milking, then working on an outdoor water tap Artis had mentioned was leaking.

  He opened the door with a frown and a smudge of dirt across his forehead. “Kyra, you shouldn’t be…” He grabbed the tray. “Everything up here is a mess.”

  “You need to eat something.”

  “I’m not very hungry.” He set the tray in the window seat and turned back around. “Sorry.”

  She stepped into the bedroom to see boxes stacked in the corner and odds and ends spread on the floor. There were books, a painted shield, and a wooden sword. A pine box was cracked open with sea glass spilling out. Papers an
d more books. A few clothes and an instrument that looked like a round guitar.

  So many small swords. It appeared as if wooden swords and daggers were the only toys allowed.

  Leo shoved some of them to the side as he walked back to the door. “Be careful.”

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Since my father refuses to say more than a dozen words to me, I thought I’d go through the things I had in storage here. I have some things…” He glanced at her. Glanced at his feet. “Some things I thought we might want for… the future.”

  Kyra sat on the edge of the bed and watched him shove the clutter into semiorganized piles. His eyes were sad even though he tried to put on a cheerful face. Her mate was confused. For the thousandth time, she wished she could do more to comfort him. Ava was teaching her the songs she would need for the mating ritual, but it had been a slow process. Until then, there was no magical comfort she could offer.

  “Did you tell your grandfather?” she asked.

  Leo paused what he was doing and walked over. He knelt at her feet and spread her knees so he could lean into her. “No. I thought about it. But I haven’t told anyone, not even Max.” He spread his hand over her belly and kissed the space between her breasts. “You said you weren’t sure you wanted them to know.”

  “Only at the beginning, but we’re past the most uncertain time. It’s your family. It’s up to you. Would the idea of a great-grandchild be a comfort to Artis or a burden? He is dying; I’m sure of it. Even his soul-voice is quiet.”

  “Children were never very interesting to my grandfather,” Leo said. “We were annoyances until we could hold a sword and help on the farm. So I don’t think he would care either way.”

  “I think you’re not giving him enough credit.”

  “Trust me, I am. Artis isn’t a soft man. He talks more than Peter, but he didn’t kiss our bruises when we were children. Usually he was the one administering them.”

  “What?”

  “With a sword.” He kicked his foot out at a stack of wooden swords. “Usually with the back of a sword. Or an ax. He preferred fighting with an ax.” Leo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know what kind of father I will be, Kyra. I will have to ask Malachi many questions. He had an excellent father.”

  Kyra’s heart was full to bursting. The fact that Leo doubted what kind of father he would be tore her heart in two.

  “You will be the best father.” She ran her fingers through Leo’s thick blond hair as he laid his head in her lap. “Even better than Malachi. I do not know a more caring, gentle, and thoughtful man in the world.”

  “Do you think so?” He arched into her hand. “What if I close up like Peter? Maybe he was a good father before my mother died. Do you think Artis was a good father?”

  “I know he loved your mother and your aunt very much.”

  Leo looked up at her. “Did he talk about them?”

  “A little. He said your mother and Peter decided to get married even though Peter hardly spoke. He didn’t even know they liked each other.”

  Leo said, “That sounds right for my father.”

  “And that Max’s parents, Stasya and Ivo, were wildly in love and wildly suited and wildly…”

  “Wild?” Leo said. “Well, that explains Max.”

  “And that they were reshon. Like us.”

  A slow smile spread over Leo’s face, and he slid his arms around her bottom. He opened his mouth and sank his teeth into the soft flesh of her thigh. He reached down to her ankles and tickled the skin there before he lifted her long skirt, shoving it up to reveal her legs. “You’re wearing too many clothes, mate of mine.”

  She whispered, “Artis is downstairs.”

  “Is he sleeping?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Don’t be shy.” Leo stood and went to latch the hook on the door. Then he walked back to the bed and lifted her, tossing her higher on the pillows. “Didn’t you say I needed to eat something?”

  She felt her face heat up. Would she ever become accustomed to his teasing? “This wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  “No, but you have to admit”—he stripped off his shirt and reached for her skirt—“my idea is much, much better.”

  Chapter Four

  They’d been in Dunte for three days when Max felt it pressing closer. There was a presence in the woods. An energy. He walked toward the path, only to hear Artis call his name.

  “Maxim!” The old man was sitting in the garden near the wood-fired oven where Kyra had set bread to rise. “What are you doing?”

  Trying to figure out what is stalking us.

  No, better not to bother Artis with it. The old man had softened, that Renata had been right about, but not by much. Max usually saw his grandfather staring into the distance, sometimes leaning toward something, as if there was music in another room he couldn’t quite hear.

  “Just taking a walk,” he said. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  “Fine.” The old man brought a steaming mug to his mouth. “Just fine.”

  Max had never been in the presence of an Irin scribe or singer who was peacefully passing into the heavens. He didn’t know if it was normal for them to look so healthy. Artis was as formidable as Max remembered, if slightly more distractible. Throughout Max’s childhood, it had been Artis who had corralled them and made them practice their letters and books. It had been Artis who had taught them their music lessons. Artis had made them pick up their first sword.

  Never turn your back on an enemy.

  Plan your path through a room as soon as you enter.

  Always have a way out.

  Don’t watch an opponent’s feet, watch their eyes.

  With Grigori, you must always fight to kill, for they will kill you.

  They will kill you. They will kill your cousin. They will kill us.

  A thousand lessons of war but none about family or friendship. Max didn’t know how to relate to his grandfather in any familiar way. He strolled over to Artis. “What did you do with your ax?”

  “Do you want it?” Artis asked. “It’s in the armory.”

  The armory was a reinforced section of the barn, unassuming unless you were looking for it. It looked like a storage room unless you knew what lever to pull.

  “I don’t want it,” Max said. “There is little use for war-axes these days. They’re a bit conspicuous in urban environments.”

  Artis shrugged. “Well, now you know why I’m ready to die.”

  A rebellious shout tried to work its way out of Max’s throat. “Why don’t you care?”

  “If you lost your Renata, you wouldn’t be asking me that question.”

  Max knew he was right. He was just angry about it. “Then tell me why you called us here.”

  “Because you didn’t return on your own.” Artis frowned. “We waited for months for you to bring your mates to meet us. You never did.”

  “Why would we come where we are not welcome?”

  “What are you talking about?” the old man scoffed. “This is your home. You think you need an invitation to come home? I didn’t raise you to be stupid, Maxim.”

  “You didn’t raise me to be anything. You trained a little soldier. That’s all we ever were to you.”

  Artis’s face froze.

  “Be honest in your death, even if you never spoke the truth in life.” Max stepped closer. “You wish we’d died with our mothers because then you could have mourned in peace. Or killed yourself and gone to be with them. But no, you had two small children to care for—children you didn’t want—and you had to raise them. Well, you did. You raised us to be soldiers, and the world put us to use. Why do you expect us to be something we’re not?”

  “You have mates now,” Artis said. “You should understand.”

  “Understand what?” Max threw up his hands. “That we were enough to stay alive for but not enough to love?” He pointed at the house and dropped his voice. “Kyra is with child. Did yo
u know that? They think we don’t know. They haven’t told anyone, but Renata knew the day Kyra did. And instead of being filled with joy at such a blessing, Leo worries. I can see it in his face. He worries he won’t be a good father because he didn’t learn from his own family.” Max rapped his chest with his fist. “Do you know how angry that makes me?”

  Artis said nothing.

  Max continued. “That man is the kindest person I have ever known in my life, and I’m not saying that because he’s my cousin. He is the most purely good person I have ever met. And he is worried about loving his own child because of you and Peter.”

  Artis’s face fell. “We did our duty. We gave you—”

  “Nothing,” Max spit out. “You trained soldiers, but you gave us nothing else. Why would we come here and bring the ones we love to a place of duty and pain? You resented us, and we felt it every moment of our childhoods.”

  Some unknown emotion flickered in Artis’s eyes, but he quickly snuffed it out. “Do you want my ax or not?”

  “I don’t want your ax.”

  “Fine.” Artis stood. “But you should take your father’s sword from the armory before you go. I doubt you’ll be coming back when I’m dead.”

  Max started. “You have my father’s sword?”

  “Someone in the Riga house found it and sent pictures to Peter. He kept it for you. It’s clean and oiled. Peter made a new scabbard for it, but you don’t have to keep it. It might not be to your taste.”

  “Fine.” He glanced at the woods. “I need to go.” He started down the path, only to stop when he heard Artis’s voice.

  “There’s something in the woods.”

  Max stopped and turned. “What do you feel?”

  “I feel… age. If that makes sense. Something immense and old.”

  “Malevolent?”

  “No.” The old man shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  It was the same feeling Max had. He didn’t know what it meant, but he was going to find out.

  Peter was standing in front of the forge when Leo walked in. His father’s body was dripping with sweat from the fire as he held a bent horseshoe with heavy tongs. The metal glowed red-hot before Peter pulled it out and turned, placing it on the anvil.