The Staff and the Blade

by Elizabeth Hunter

  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 p
urported 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

  And my soul will have no other.

  My home is in my lover’s arms.

  With her, I find rest.

  ※

  Damien left the ritual room and found Sari in the library as the blue light shone through the high windows of the room. She sat on the ground in the corner of a hallway, her back against one wall, staring at a tiled mosaic one of the Greek scribes had created two hundred years before from the shattered remains of his village. It told the story of the Rending in vivid detail. Shards of pottery and broken staffs made up much of the material used. A piece of a doll’s face. A delicate earring. Charred wood and broken glass were mixed with the tile.

  Damien sat next to Sari and took her hand. She squeezed his but said nothing. He often found her here, but it wasn’t anger he saw on her face that morning. Only deep sadness.

  “Why do you come here?” he asked.

  “To remember.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “To try to remember the rage.”

  Damien said nothing.

  “But I can’t,” she continued. “Not anymore. Perhaps rage and guilt don’t make easy companions.”

  “You protected your sisters,” Damien said for the thousandth time. “Likely saved countless human lives by—”

  “Not without cost.” She took a deep breath. “Not without innocents lost, my love. We both know it is not possible.”

  “What must I say to you?” He tipped her chin toward him and forced her eyes away from the mural. “I know this guilt. It’s the guilt of every honorable warrior after a battle. Innocents are killed, no matter how much we try to avoid it, because evil hides behind the good.”

  Her eyes blinked back tears. “I envy your hierarchy now. Did you know that? There is comfort in knowing you were following orders. Obeying protocol.”

  “So others can bear the blame?” Damien pulled back. “Obeying orders is no excuse for dishonor. The Irin Council must take responsibility for its actions. And lack of them.”

  “But don’t you see, Damien? We made our own rules. Or had none.” She swallowed hard. “We had no mandate to follow. We had no excuse.”

  “You did what you thought you had to in order to survive.”

  “I see their faces.” She covered her eyes. “Every night. When will they go away?”

  Never. Damien didn’t want to say it, but he still saw them. Still saw innocents’ blood staining the streets of Antartus. Still saw the red spray across a field of silk flowers. The blank eyes of Grigori children who had known no other life than being slaves of the Fallen.

  “We go forward,” Damien whispered. “We give the dead their peace. The dead do not care that we mourn them. They do not care that we rack our bodies in grief. We move forward, Sari. That is how we honor them. We live. We survive. And we change our world so that future generations do not have to make the decisions we did. We change this world so that our children may have peace.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  SARI was ready to murder. “You said that Konrad would oppose the measure.”

  “He was planning on it.” Gabriel leaned back in his chair in the library of Damien and Sari’s town house in Vienna. “But new information revealed to the council has put him in a difficult position. And I can’t say I disagree with him.”

  Gabriel was her brother—would always remain her brother—but he was also chief secretary to the elder scribe Konrad, one of the most powerful and influential leaders in Vienna.

  And he was pissing her off.

  “What new information?” Sari asked.

  “A new report from the watcher in Hamburg came in. He can’t ignore it, Sari. Two scribes mated to kareshta within months of their appearance at the scribe house? These women know no magic. They have no training or education. What is their status?”

  Damn eager scribes. Couldn’t they have practiced a little more patience? “The kareshta are… mated to Irin scribes. Why should their status be any different than any other Irina?”

  “You know why. These unions are one-sided. The women have no idea of their responsibilities as mates. They have no idea about our world or our traditions. They might be true unions of the heart or these women might be desperate. No one would blame them. But they could also be a security risk, and you know it.”

  Because unless their angelic fathers were dead, any offspring of the Fallen, Grigori or kareshta, was little more than a slave to their sire. Free will was not an option. Most Fallen ignored their female progeny, but there were some cunning enough to use their daughters as spies.

  “Gabriel, we have debated for months,” Sari said. “The Irina Council is opposed to forcing the kareshta into any kind of registry. The council does not have the right to—”

  “The Irina Council is not unanimous. And most acknowledge that the scribes’ council has the right to police their houses,” Gabriel said.

  “They only belong to the elder scribes because they kicked the Irina out!” Sari replied, her temper rising. “They are not their houses any more than the Library is their Library.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Language matters, Gabriel. Words matter. You, of all people, should acknowledge it.”

  He looked away, knowing she was right.

  Sari had no patience for the doublespeak of politics. She wasn’t an elder and had no desire to be, but she had become the de facto representative of the haven guardians around the world, most of whom still distrusted the Irin and Irina Councils. Almost all of the Irina havens were still operating, allowing her sisters a safe place as the political landscape constantly shifted. Sari was there to make sure that their interests were acknowledged. She was a leader, but she was not a politician.

  “I’m not disagreeing with you,” Gabriel said. “But women and children are appearing out of nowhere. We have no history for them. Some have no human documentation at all. They were born in seclusion, and most of their mothers are dead. The majority have no idea which of the Fallen sired them. There are reasons this is necessary, Sari.”

  “They are not cattle,” she hissed. “Not livestock to be tagged and herded.”

  “No one will be treating them as such!”

  “You say that now,” Sari said. “But what of the time when sympathy for their plight wears thin, Gabriel? What will happen when a daughter of the Fallen wants to disappear? What if she grows tired of our world? What might happen if a scribe and his kareshta mate need to go into hiding? Registries last forever. Pictures last forever. We no longer live in a world where information disappears.”

  “The Rending will not be repeated.” Gabriel’s eyes were black flames. “But not everyone is a warrior, sister. They are asking for protection. For shelter. Would you have us bare our necks to the shadows?”

  “And would you have me bow to the whims of old men who would lock me away f
or my own good?” Sari countered. “These women don’t know enough to make any choice yet. They need safety and knowledge before they can make any decision.”

  Gabriel tugged at the back of his hair, his usually unflappable demeanor tested by Sari’s stubbornness. “Heaven knows you won’t stop teaching them magic, no matter how the council protests.”

  “They need to be able to protect themselves. And the havens do not answer to the council.”

  “And so we put ancient knowledge in the hands of our sworn enemies!” he shouted, rising to his feet. “Women who could be spies. Women who could be feeding knowledge to the Fallen. We hand them this power and hope for the best?”

  “All we’re teaching them is how to block the voices,” she said. “Protect themselves as well as they can.”

  “Are you that foolish, Sari?”

  She rose to meet his anger. “You think I don’t know the risks?”

  “I think you see every lost sister as your own!” Gabriel’s face was flushed. “And they’re not, Sari. They are not Tala. Not Abra. Or Diana or any of the countless others we lost. These women are the offspring of very powerful enemies. And we have no idea where they come from or where their loyalties lie. Even Kostas’s faction is not so forgiving as you.”

  “Kostas is a paranoid rogue Grigori who sees angelic infiltration everywhere. He won’t even accept children unless he knows their sires are dead by his own hand.”

  “And he’s probably smarter than we are,” Gabriel said.

  “They’re children.”

  “I know,” Gabriel said, stepping closer. His voice dropped. “But they’re not our children.”

  The truth sat heavy in her gut.

  “You and I know better,” Gabriel continued, “than to assume innocence just because a face is young.”

  Her eyes met his. “Then what do we do? They need to belong to someone.”

  “I don’t know.” He let out a long breath. “Some days I don’t think I know anything anymore. But Sari, compromise must happen.”

  “I do not see a compromise on this issue,” she said. “The kareshta do not belong in your record rooms on some kind of secret list.”