Peter knew Leo was there. He knew the moment anyone set foot in his shop. He didn’t look up or acknowledge him in any way. The smith grabbed a hammer hanging from a wooden rack and beat on the shoe, shaping it so it could be useful again.
That’s what my childhood was.
Heat followed by shaping. Max and Leo were pushed to the maximum of their endurance and then pushed again. The scribes who trained them in Riga only taught them when they were at the end of their endurance. When they were malleable. Especially Max. Max had been more rebellious than Leo.
Leo had always wanted to please. He would have taken instruction just to make his father happy, but that wasn’t how it was done.
Once upon a time, when their world was not filled with raw, wounded soldiers, Leo and Max would have gone to a proper scribe academy at age thirteen. They would have learned every facet of Irin life, from preserving manuscripts to magic useful for the family. They would have been taught the customs and spells to care for a mate and children, along with those for fighting, weapons, and building talesm. They would have had a true education from elders and soldiers and fathers and healers.
Instead, they’d been thrown into the fire and shaped to be weapons.
You’re going to be a father.
Leo had frozen. He didn’t know what to do. He was still trying to understand what it meant to be a mate; he didn’t know anything about being a father. Then the look in Kyra’s eyes had gutted him.
You don’t want—
I do. I didn’t expect it so soon. Most Irin don’t conceive—
Without magic. I know. The same thing happened to Ava and Malachi. I know we weren’t trying, but—
Kyra, I am happy. I promise I am.
What he didn’t tell her was how scared he was. How the thought of a small, vulnerable child in their world made him freeze. It was hard enough being an uncle to Malachi’s children. His own and Kyra’s? Terrifying.
Leo sat on a pine stump his father used for shaping metal. There were hammered divots in the top. It wasn’t the stump his father had used when he was a child. Pine didn’t last long, and Leo had been alive for over two hundred years. He’d spent the first sixty training with his father, his grandfather, and the scribes in Riga before being presented to the Watchers’ Council as a full-fledged warrior. The council traditionally didn’t take scribes trained for less than a hundred years.
They’d taken Leo and Max at sixty.
Leo knew war. He knew fighting. He knew nothing about children.
Some nights in Istanbul, dark dreams would taunt him—dreams of screaming and fire—and he would wake up covered with sweat. He’d go to the courtyard, waiting under Matti and Geron’s window, tracing talesm on his temples until he could hear every heartbeat in the house. Until he could hear their inhalations and snores. He would listen for a few minutes—wait for the pounding in his chest to pass—before he could go back to sleep.
They were so small and vulnerable.
The child in Kyra, his child, was even smaller. Only a few months old, it was barely the size of an apricot. Kyra had told him that. She had looked it up online, excited about when she would be able to hear the baby and what the baby’s mind would sound like, and all Leo could think about was how would he be able to sleep knowing that his mate carried new life and he could not guard her every moment of the day.
And then he wondered how he could possibly be the kind of father his child would need when he knew nothing about having a family.
He watched his father quench the horseshoe and hang it on a bar near the forge. Peter hung the hammer and put the tongs on a rack. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt that fully covered him. Scars and burns on talesm were regrettable and often damaged the magical armor their tattoos provided. Wearing protective clothing, even in the heat, was practical.
Peter was nothing if not practical.
“Did you want me?” Leo asked the silent man. “When my mother became pregnant, was it an accident or was it purposeful?”
Peter frowned. “Why would you ask that?”
“Did you want me?”
He pulled off the heavy leather gloves that covered his forearms. “We petitioned Uriel with songs and prayers for three years before your mother became pregnant.”
“So you wanted me.”
“I answered you.”
Leo crossed his arms. The fire was still going, and trails of sweat dripped down the center of his back. “Kyra is expecting a child.”
Peter, as Leo had done, froze. His eyes went wide and darted to the door. “Who is with her?”
“Renata.”
Peter’s posture relaxed, but only a little. “You should not have flown in an airplane to get here,” he said.
“The healer assured her it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“You should drive back.” His eyes kept going to the door.
“She’s safe here,” Leo said. “Do you think she isn’t? Are there Grigori in the village I should know about?”
His father’s spine straightened and he pulled his shoulders back. “No.”
“There are no Grigori?”
“Why are you trying to provoke me, Leontios?”
“I don’t know.” He took a deep breath. “No, I do know. I’m angry.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t understand you. And I should know what to do for her, what to do for this child. But I know none of those things because you weren’t a father to me.”
Peter started organizing the shop. Tongs on one wall. Hammers on another. Forging hammers. Chasing hammers. “I do not know what you want from me.”
“I don’t know either. Maybe nothing. Maybe some sign that…” Leo didn’t hope Peter would fill the gap in conversation. “Will you at least tell me about my mother?”
Peter dropped the tongs he’d picked up. They clattered to the stones that covered the smithy, and the violent noise filled the space between father and son.
Leo had never once asked his father about his mother. Some childish instinct had warned against it. From the desolate, dead look in Peter’s eyes, Leo knew that instinct had been correct.
Peter’s eyes stayed on the floor, staring at the tongs he’d dropped. “I killed them all. The Grigori who came to the farm. They were still in the house.” It sounded as if a voice were speaking from the grave. “I killed them all, but I couldn’t find you. There was only dust.”
From the little bit Artis had told Leo and Max, he knew their parents had shared a farm outside Vilnius in Lithuania. Peter had been away, trading in the city. For years, everyone had thought Peter was dead because he’d disappeared after the Rending. There was no reason for Peter to have believed Max and Leo had survived. Irin bodies dissolved at death. They left no trace but a fine gold dust.
Leo’s father was utterly still, a towering bulk of muscle and talesm with hair only slightly greyed at the temples. He was a powerful man, but in that moment, Leo thought if he touched him—if he even came near—Peter would crumble.
“I went… a bit mad when I lost Lauma.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “When I lost you.”
“You didn’t lose me.”
Peter looked up to meet Leo’s eyes. “I did.”
Leo felt his throat tighten, because he realized his father was right. In that shattered moment, Peter had lost everything. Even though his son had survived, he didn’t know it. He hadn’t known it for seven long years.
“You got me back,” Leo said softly. “Wasn’t there any joy in that?”
“There was fear. I was a monster when I returned. The others didn’t trust me. And you were…” Peter looked away. “You look like her. Your eyes.”
Seven years had passed before Peter returned to find Artis. In that time, he’d scribed talesm down both legs and gained scars he never explained. Some of the magic had been covered over, creating thick black bands of ink over Peter’s body.
Blood magic, some had whispered. Black magic. Forbidden.
&nbs
p; According to the other scribes, Peter had followed no accepted code when he wreaked vengeance on those who had killed his family. He was mad. Dangerous.
“You didn’t trust yourself around us,” Leo said.
Peter shook his head and picked up the tongs. He set them back on the table. The forge burned behind him, throwing dark shadows despite the sun shining outside.
“I’m sorry I look like her.”
“No.” Peter cleared his throat. “Your eyes are what made me sane again.”
The quiet confession broke Leo’s heart even as it soothed the wound he’d carried since childhood.
“Those things you fear,” Peter said. “Do not fear them. You have Lauma’s heart. I have seen how you are with your mate. You know how to love.”
His father reached into a quenching basin and picked up a dagger black from the fire. He carefully set it in a wooden brace and began to gather the polishing compounds and files he would need to finish the blade.
The conversation was over. It was the longest one they’d ever had.
Max spent all day in the woods, walking old paths, surrounded by the sights and scents of childhood. He didn’t find anything malevolent. He didn’t find anything at all except an unexpected sense of peace.
It hadn’t been all bad.
Memories washed through him as he wandered in the woods. Memories of long summers and warm fires in the winter. Catching fish and shooting arrows. Though they’d never had love or affection growing up, Max had always felt safe. And he had Leo. Leo loved him. Leo was his brighter, happier half. Leo wasn’t an orphan like Max. Or at least not technically.
Max was surprised by how light his heart felt when he walked to the water. He saw Leo in the distance, sitting on the same rise where he and Renata had watched the ocean the first day they arrived.
He sat down next to his cousin and mirrored Leo, legs propped up and arms wrapped loosely around his knees. His cousin was staring at the ocean. The tide was coming in, teasing the shorebirds with spray and scattering the gulls that hopped around the rocks.
“Kyra is with child,” Leo said into the wind.
“I know.”
“I suspected you did.”
“Everything is well?”
“Yes. She’s very healthy. She spoke to Orsala in Cappadocia and a human doctor in Istanbul. She’s gaining weight, but she needed to. The doctor said she was too thin.”
“Good.”
They stared in silence at the waves for a few minutes. “Orsala said that mixed Irin and Grigori couples are more likely to have children,” Leo said. “That’s why—”
“Ava and Malachi were surprised by the twins?”
“Yes.”
Max said, “So was this a surprise?”
“Yes.”
He threw his arm around Leo. “Blessings on you and your mate, brother. I would rejoice in any of my brothers expecting a child, but yours is a double blessing. A triple one. I am so happy for you.”
Leo turned to Max, and his eyes were shining. “Will you write your blessing and ward on the baby when it comes? I know your father’s blessing lies on me. And my father’s on you. We’re only cousins—”
“We’re brothers,” Max said. “And I will protect your child as I would my own. I will write my ward on the baby, Leo. And I’ll love him. Or her. Maybe you’ll get lucky like Malachi and get one of each.”
Leo finally smiled. “There is only one heartbeat. I can hear it.”
The quiet joy on his brother’s face soothed Max’s heart. “Can you?”
Leo nodded. “Sometimes at night I wake up and… I’m afraid. But the past few weeks, I’ve been able to hear the heartbeat if I focus. It lets me sleep again.”
“That’s good.”
“And Kyra amazes me. She is so calm. She called her brother last week, and she said Kostas was crying over the phone. Happiness. He no longer wants to kill me most days.”
“Greeks are more emotional than we stoic Baltic men.” Max nudged his shoulder. “It’s better, I think, to be like that.”
Leo nodded. “I told my father.”
“What did he say?” Max paused. “Wrong question. Did he say anything at all?”
“He did.” Leo glanced over his shoulder toward the farm in the distance. “He was afraid for us. Worried about Kyra’s safety. I think I might finally… not understand him. Or maybe I understand him a little. And maybe that’s all I need.”
Max wanted to shout that Leo deserved a father who loved him and showed it, but that wasn’t what Leo needed. His issues with Peter were his own, and Max had no illusions that change would come quickly. If Leo felt more at ease with his father, that was all Max could hope for.
“I’m glad,” he said. “You’re going to make a wonderful father, Leo.”
“Do you think so?” Insecurity was written all over his face.
“I know you will. You’ve always taken care of me, and I’m not nearly as cute as your baby will be.”
Leo smiled. “I think it will look like Kyra. Grigori genes are strong.”
You’re strong. So much stronger than me to remain open and accepting of others and expect so little for yourself. Max felt a fierce wave of love for his brother. “Your child will have so many people who love him, Leo. So many. It won’t be like it was with us. I promise you that.”
“I know.” Leo brushed the back of his hand over his eyes. “I know that, but thank you for telling me.”
Max sat quietly for a few moments until he felt it again. There was a presence in the woods. An energy that felt foreign. It wasn’t Grigori. It wasn’t one of the Fallen. It wasn’t…
“Do you feel it?” Leo asked quietly. “In the woods?”
“Do you know what it is?”
“I’ve been thinking… it is Death.” Leo took a deep breath. “Like in Vienna.”
“Yes.” Max tried to remember what the angel of death had felt like, but his memories of that day were jumbled. “I think you’re right.”
Leo nodded. “This feels a little bit like that.”
“So not a bad thing?”
“No. Artis is ready.”
“I can’t imagine welcoming death. Can you?”
“Of course not,” Leo said. “We’ve just begun to live.”
They sat by the water until the sun went down. They didn’t speak anymore, but if there was one lesson Max had learned from his grandfather and his uncle, it was this: some moments were beyond words.
Chapter Five
“What is it?” Kyra asked. “Is it for the kitchen?”
The basket was tangled with ropes and looked like it was made from the grasses by the beach. Parts of it were worn with age, and parts of it were green from repair.
“No.” Artis picked up the hook and lifted it. “It’s a cradle.”
Of course it was. Kyra felt a smile spreading on her lips. “A basket cradle.”
Sturdy rope suspended the finely woven basket, and colorful strings and trinkets were hung on the outside and the base. It was oblong and quite long, large enough for a toddler.
“I don’t know what you use in the south, but we liked these kind of cradles when we had babies,” Artis said. “You could put a hook anywhere in the house but also take it outside and hang it from a tree. They’re light because the basket is made from grass, not branches. One of the women in the village patched the places that were weak. It’s watertight too, as long as you let the grasses swell up before you put the baby in. Evelina used one like this and tied the ropes to the rocks by the stream. The water put the girls to sleep.”
“So clever.”
“You’ll be able to use it for your baby. If you want it.”
Kyra swallowed hard. “I love it. Thank you, Artis.” She fingered the colorful strings stacked with beads. There were tiny bells and decorative metal pieces hanging all around the basket. When the wind blew, they would act like little wind chimes, tinkling in the breeze. “I will enjoy taking it out to the garden, and I’ll mak
e sure Leo puts a hook from the ceiling in the house.”
“This was his mother’s.”
“Then I like it even more.” Kyra smiled at Artis, and the old man almost—almost!—smiled back.
“It’s sturdy.” He lowered the cradle to the floor and bundled the ropes inside. “We had big babies, Evelina and me.”
“I consider myself warned.”
When Leo had told his grandfather that Kyra was having a baby, the old man hadn’t said much. But he’d nodded and rocked in the old chair by the fire, and Kyra didn’t think she was imagining the emotion in his eyes.
Peaceful. He looked peaceful.
He’d spent the next two days opening cedar trunks with Leo and Max, pulling out old things that had belonged to their family. A set of silver spoons. Blankets knitted by Evelina and her mother. Wooden cups and small toys that had belonged to Lauma and Stasya. Artis had kept it all hidden away.
Renata and Kyra had sorted through the treasures, putting some things back in storage and packing others. The basket cradle, Kyra definitely wanted to take.
“Leo is talking about driving back,” Kyra said. “We can’t take all these things on the plane.”
“You shouldn’t be flying,” Artis said. “A car would be better.”
“It’s three days of driving. Probably four or five.”
“What is a few days?” Artis shrugged. “You have time.”
“I suppose you’re right.” She put a hand on his forearm.
At Renata’s suggestion, she was trying to touch Artis more. Irin scribes and singers needed contact with each other. They were not designed to be a solitary race. It was possible it had been over two hundred years since an Irina had laid hands on either Peter or Artis, which would leave the men so severely out of balance it was detrimental to their health. Just like she needed Leo to ground her energy, Leo needed her to balance and lift him.
“Can you feel what is in the woods?” Artis asked her. “Do you fear it?”
“Fear it?” Kyra shook her head. “If it is Azril, he is familiar to me.”
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