The Staff and the Blade: Irin Chronicles Book Four (17 page)

“I remember.”

Sari went to Tala and scooted her sister forward until she could sit behind her and draw her head back. Tala sighed and rested her head on Sari’s shoulder as she had when they were girls.

“Cloth?”

“On my neck.”

“Your temples?”

“Like spikes.”

Sari placed the cool cloth around Tala’s neck and began to rub her temples as she hummed a healing song their mother had sung when the visions first started to wake in Tala at age twelve. She finished one song as Gabriel and the brothers cleaned the room, then segued into another as the tension started to leach out of her sister.

They were alone when Tala let out a long sigh. “It’s the same vision. Over and over.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” She shifted in Sari’s arms. “Maybe.”

“The same vision. That’s significant, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Time?”

“It’s past. I wake up in the forest near home. It’s present. I see the war. Whatever battles we’ve most recently heard of, I’m seeing them. But it’s the future that scares me.”

Sari combed her fingers though Tala’s long hair. “War is always a frightening time. And this war has come on the heels of revolution.”

“It’s not the war, it’s the silence,” Tala murmured.

“The silence?”

Sari could tell that Tala was drifting off. “No one is there. All the children…”

The hairs rose on the back of Sari’s neck. “What about the children?”

“Gone.” Tala turned her face to Sari’s shoulder. “They’re all gone.”

Her sister’s shoulders relaxed into an exhausted sleep, but Sari’s eyes rose to the doorway. Damien had roused himself, his hair and nightclothes were rumpled, but his eyes were narrowed and keen. He watched Tala as she slept, his eagle eyes distant. Sari could almost see the thoughts shifting in his mind.

He was the blood of Mikael’s line.

Sari looked down at the pale woman in her arms. Her sister had never been a warrior but had seen visions of death and violence when her cheeks still carried the roundness of youth.

Tala was Damien’s sister, but she was also his seer. Part of the reason the council had transferred him to Paris was because they needed his expertise. Meager their possessions might have been, but among them was wrapped the black knife that had killed the angel in Scotland and brought her mate back onto a warrior’s path.

When she looked back up, Damien was watching her.
 

“We’ll talk in the morning.”

Sari wrapped her arms more tightly around Tala and nodded before he walked away.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

I
F
there was one thing that Damien hadn’t missed during his time of isolation in Orkney, it was record keeping and correspondence. The Irin could be a singularly pedantic race. They loved their records and journals, letters and ledgers. As a scribe, Damien knew he should love them too. But while translation and research filled something in his soul, the rote transmission of information did not.

And damn if there wasn’t an abundance of information in Paris.

“As you can see”—Gabriel shuffled through piles of papers on Damien’s desk—“Ensel decided that many of these needed to be answered by the new watcher, not the old.”

Damien lifted an eyebrow. “A bill for the stonemason he hired needed to be paid by me?”

“Let us say that he was not pleased to be leaving this post.”

“He had been here for seventy years.”

“And he enjoyed the lights of Paris.” Gabriel tossed another letter on the pile. “His transfer to Kiev was not something he anticipated.”

“His mate?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Many a watcher has a mate who is an asset to the house. Who are, in fact, essential to its health.”

“And there are some who are not.”

“Patricia will not be missed by either the scribes of the house or their families. She was the one who urged Ensel to move the house singers from Paris to the retreat not long after they came.”

Damien steepled his fingers. “Why?”

“She said for their safety. Abra—who was the healer here—will tell you Patricia was a jealous woman who always resented that she and Ensel were not
reshon
. She was insecure in their union.”

Damien snorted. “Ridiculous. You and Tala are not, and I have rarely seen two people more suited for each other.”

A smile touched the corners of Gabriel’s lips. “Thank you, brother.”

“Do you think we could get a reversal from Vienna?”

Gabriel’s eyebrows rose. “About the singers in the retreat?”

“Yes.”

“Doubtful. The council has become intractable in the matter. Exceptions such as mates and seers like Tala are one thing, but a baker, an archivist, or a seamstress? What need is there for them to be in a scribe house instead of a guarded retreat?”

“A healer then,” Damien said. “None of the scribes here is a trained healer.”

“We didn’t need to be with Abra around. But then Patricia…”

“Enough,” Damien said. “Do you think she would come back?”

“Abra? Farrin is here. Of course she would.”

Farrin, the healer’s mate, was a capable scribe who served as the weapons master of the house. Damien had already met and spoken with the man. He liked his brusque demeanor and quiet steadiness. Abra was a small singer from North Africa who had mated with Farrin when he was learning to forge blades in Spain.

“There is no excuse for not having a healer in the scribe house. Frankly, I think it was foolish to move her to the retreat, but I don’t know if the village can spare her at this point.”

Gabriel scratched his chin. “There is a family with child at the moment, but it is their second. They may not need a healer so close if the singer has had an easy birth in the past.”

“Ask. And Abra should have an apprentice anyway. Suggest it to her as a way to lighten the load. If none is available in the village, call one from the nearest Irina training house.”

“The closest house is in Brittany.”

“That will work; just get me a healer.”

He shuffled through more bills regarding the house and a few that were legitimate items for him to deal with as the new watcher. Correspondence from nearby houses in Lyon and Brussels. A transfer request from one of the scribes in order to be closer to a sister who had lost her mate. A request for seclusion in a Rafaene house for another scribe. The list of tasks went on and on. He would spend weeks just answering letters.

“Are we going to request permission?” Gabriel said.

“For what?”

“For moving Abra back to the house if she is able to come.”

Damien scowled. “Who would we ask?”

“The council.”

“The council has no need to dictate how I run my scribe house,” Damien said. “They moved me here and I will run it as I see fit.”

Gabriel snorted.

“What?”

“Tala said that you and Sari are equally ill-tempered when others question you. No, I told her, Damien is a quiet, steady sort. He’s not a troublemaker.”

He had to smile. “If you thought that, then I’m doing my job correctly. Once I’ve gone through these papers, I’ll expect a report from you too.”

Gabriel had been assigned to the Paris scribe house because Tala was there. Seers and their mates were never separated. Luckily, the geographic position gave the mapmaker access to an extensive network of contacts from his days as an explorer. Damien was thrilled to have such a skilled spy working with him. The Spaniard could slip in and out of conversations with ease, lulling most Irin into thinking he was merely an academic. Those who discounted him did so at their peril.

A tapping sounded at the door, and Tala poked her head in. “A moment of your time, Watcher?”

Wondering if this had anything to do with the vision she’d suffered the night before, Damien nodded.

Gabriel rose and walked to the door. Kissing both his mate’s cheeks, he said, “Am I being banished,
amor
?”

Sari’s face broke into the smile of a well-loved woman. “Only for a little while.”

Gabriel whispered something in her ear that made Tala’s cheeks flush, then turned to Damien. “I’ll send a message to Abra about moving back.”

Tala’s face lit. “Is Abra moving back?”

“We can hope.” He brushed a hand over her cheek and left, closing the door behind him.

Damien waited for Tala to sit before he spoke. “Does this have to do with your vision?”

“Yes,” Tala said, a hint of steel in her soft golden eyes. “But before I tell you, you must promise me that you will
not
tell Gabriel.”

※

“You’re certain it’s his voice?” Damien asked after Tala had related her dream. “His specifically?”

“Yes.”

“Is that common?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I have ever heard his voice in a vision before. Usually they are very… vague. I rarely recognize exact details. But this was definitely his voice.”

Damien flipped a dagger end over end, thinking. “Just at the end.”

“Yes.”

“In the new house. The mansion.”

“Yes.”

“But the battle changes?”

Tala nodded. “None of the other elements change but the battle. I don’t see the reports in detail, but it sounds as if whatever battle is happening most recently is what I’m seeing. The uniforms change, but other than that…” She shrugged helplessly. “I’m not a strategist, so I could not tell you more than that.”

“If that is the part changing, then it seems the least important.” He kept flipping the dagger. “The beginning is in your home. Familiar, but not familiar.”

“The empty clothes,” Tala said.

“And the Salamanca house…”

“Again, something from my past. Familiar, but not familiar.”

“The past cannot change,” Damien said. “The present—the battle you walk through—is constantly changing.”

“And the mansion?”

He scowled. “I can’t help but think of this house. It’s new. In the same style—”

“But it is
not
this house. Nothing about it is the same. The exterior. The interior. The house in the dream was far more fashionable. Like those in Saint Germain. Large and airy with many windows.”

“Is it a real house or a representation?”

“I have no way of knowing that,” Tala said. “Experience tells me it could be either. It doesn’t feel as if anyone lives there. It feels…”

“What?”

“Empty and crowded at the same time.”

Damien gave her an incredulous look as Tala threw up her hands.

“I know! This is the way things appear in my head. I know it doesn’t make sense to others.”

“The house is empty but crowded.” Damien paused. “Silent, but you hear voices. Including Gabriel’s shouting
no
.”

“Yes.” She twisted the handkerchief on her lap. “It is.”

Damien took a deep breath. “It goes against my instincts not to tell your mate these things, sister.”

“I do not command you any more than you command me.” Tala’s face was pinched. “But please don’t. He would go looking for it.”

“And what if he did? Your mate is a formidable scribe.” Something in Damien’s stomach tugged at him. “Are you telling me everything?”

“As much as I can remember.”

She was lying. Damien recognized the steady look that Sari sometimes gave when she was deceiving people. He recognized it, though his mate had never used it on him. He decided to keep quiet. For now.

“If you see this house, you will tell me,” he said. “And if anything about the dream changes, you will keep me informed.”

Tension eased from her shoulders. “Of course, Watcher.”

“You’re my sister, but you are also my seer. And you and I both know that seers are targeted by the Grigori. I have too much respect for you to set a guard on you, but I’d appreciate if you were cautious. If you’re uncertain about anything, take Sari with you.”

Tala smiled. “She would like to lock me in a retreat for my own good.”

“Lock a singer up for her own safety?” Damien raised an eyebrow. “Where would she get that idea?”

“I can’t imagine,” Tala said. “But do not fear for me. I know my sister and I know my own strengths. I am no fighter. Sari, however, is as fierce as most of the scribes here.”

“No, she’s fiercer.”

“I
love
you for her.” Tala’s voice softened. “I always worried that we would find our mates and one of us would dislike the other’s. But I don’t. I think you’re perfect together.”

“That’s because you haven’t seen us fight,” he said. “Once you live with us for a time, you won’t like me so well. Of course, you might not like your sister as much either.”

Tala laughed. “I’ll take my chances.”

※