The Singer

Chapter Three

Cappadocia, Turkey

“I’m a what?”

Malachi was sitting in a room with Rhys and the old man called Evren. Both wore looks of confusion as they tried to ascertain what had happened to Malachi.

“An Irin scribe,” Evren said patiently.

“And the Irin are descended from… angels.”

“We are the race formed when angels fell from heaven and mated with human women. Heroes of old. Some would call us demigods, though we are not. We are half human, half angel. There have been generations of us. A separate people, so to speak. The angelic race.”

“But we’re not angels.”

“No,” Rhys said. “Angels are frightening creatures, and you don’t want to meet them.”

“But…” The memory jolted him. “I think I have met one.”

Eyes darkened to near black, then a glowing gold as the human mask dissolved. Jaron’s shoulders grew wide and thick. His frame lengthened… almost seven feet.

“Yes,” Rhys said, sliding forward in his seat. “You have. Do you remember?”

A faint gold shimmer covered his skin as the mask of the harmless doctor fell away and the heavenly being emerged. His hair grew longer… thick ebony strands brushing past his shoulders. The bronze skin of his torso glowed in the afternoon light, and raised talesm rose like shimmering brands on his skin.

Malachi’s eyes blinked back into focus. “I was with her. I had to protect her, but he didn’t hurt her, and I was confused.”

Rhys narrowed his eyes. “We were all confused. What else do you remember?”

Thousands of you, Scribe. One of her. Remember.

“He told me there were thousands of us and only one of her.” He looked up in confusion. “There’s only one of her? What does that mean?”

“We’ll explain that another time,” Evren said. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes and no. There are pieces I remember. Odd things. I knew I was something different as soon as I woke up. A… scribe, I suppose. I knew my father— Is my family still living?”

Rhys shook his head. “No. You have no siblings and your parents both died many years ago. Ava is your only family other than us.”

Ava. The name fell into his mind and filled it. It brought the memory of air tinged with cloves and roasted hazelnuts.

“Who is she?”

The old man looked at him, pity in his eyes. “She is your mate. You remember nothing of her?”

“My mate?” Not a wife. More than a wife.

“Your mate. Your reshon. It is a sacred union.”

“Reshon?”

“Your souls were created for each other. And when you marked her with magic, they bonded.”

“Where is she?”

Evren and Rhys exchanged a look. Rhys said, “We don’t know, but we’re going to try to find her. We will find her.”

She wasn’t here. He felt as if he were stumbling through the dark, looking for something just out of his reach.

“Malachi,” Evren asked. “When you woke, you were like this?”

Malachi frowned. “I was by the river. There was nothing around. But I followed the water and found the farm.”

“The old retreat,” Evren said. “He woke near the old retreat. I think when he came back, he was reborn in the exact place he was born the first time.”

Rhys said, “You think Ava—”

“It must have been. I don’t know how, but it is the only explanation.”

“No Irina has the power to—”

“No Irina is like Ava. She has no training. She has never been told what she may not do, so who knows what she is capable of?”

Malachi broke into their quiet conversation. “You’re telling me I died?”

Evren and Rhys turned to him.

“I died?” he asked again. “Truly? I died. And I came back to life?”

“What do you remember?”

“Nothing. I remember nothing. Just her voice on the wind and the stars overhead. I’ve been getting flashes here and there, but I don’t remember her. How could I forget her?” He felt torn. Incomplete. And it wasn’t just the memories he was missing. “And you think she did this somehow?”

Evren said, “We don’t know. Not really. But there is no other explanation. Your brothers saw you die. Saw your body turn to dust. Your mate saw you die—felt you die.”

“But why would Ava be able to—”

“She said the words,” Rhys said. “The words she had heard her whole life. From the souls of everyone who mourned. She came to me before she left. Asked me what it meant. Vashama canem. Come back to me.” He turned to Evren. “I had no idea. How could I?”

“There was no way of knowing she could do this, Rhys. No way—”

“Wait!” Malachi felt a chill creep along his skin. “You’re telling me she spoke this command and I answered. Even from beyond death?”

“He’s telling you words have power,” Evren said. “Ava asked you to come back to her. And you did.”

The two men stood across from him, staring. Malachi refused to sit down after being introduced to Max’s twin, Leo. He felt restless. He wanted to do something. Go somewhere. Sitting around a library made his skin itch. Rhys had left, along with Evren. The two men with him claimed to be his friends, but he had no memory of them.

Leo leaned over to Max and asked, “What happened to them?”

Max shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Did he—”

“He died and came back to life, Leo. Who knows what happened to them.”

“Will they come back?”

“How should I know?”

Malachi suppressed the urge to punch them both. “What are you talking about?”

Leo rolled up his sleeves to reveal intricate tattoos all over his arms. “Your talesm. Your spells. Tattoos. You used to be covered with them like us. More than us, because you’re quite a bit older.”

Of course. That was why his arms felt wrong. He’d sensed a lack of… something since he woke. He rubbed his hands over his forearms, wishing he could rub away the unwanted attention. “I don’t know what happened. And you don’t look much younger than me, so how old am I?”

Leo said, “You used to be around four hundred. But do we start over now?” He grinned. “Am I not the youngest anymore?”

Max tapped Leo on the back of the head. “Stop. He’s obviously still Malachi. He’s just different. You’re still the youngest in the house.”

“Damn.”

Malachi looked toward the door. “Where did all the others go?”

Leo said, “Evren sent the scribes in the house searching the archives to see if there are any records of Irin coming back to life after death. Rhys went to search Damien’s phone and credit card records to see if he’s still traceable. I’m guessing he won’t be, but we can hope.”

“And Damien is with…”

“Ava.”

“Yes, Ava.” His woman. His mate.

“It must have been her.” For the first time, Max’s eyes softened as he watched him. “Somehow… We thought we’d lost you, Malachi. I watched you die. Saw the dust rise to heaven when he killed you.”

Leo put his arm around his brother. “There was no question. She felt your loss.”

“Ava was… torn in two when you died,” Max said. “I’ve never seen—I don’t remember the Rending, so I’ve never seen grief like that before.”

Malachi swallowed a groan. She was out there, grieving his loss, and he was unable to comfort her. Even though he couldn’t remember her, Malachi bristled in awareness of her grief. “I need to find her. Why did this man take her from here?”

Rhys opened the door, face grim. “Damien took her away because her power was unpredictable and growing stronger every day.” He glanced at Malachi. “Obviously.”

“You’re saying she didn’t mean to bring me back. This was some kind of mistake?”

“Not a mistake,” Rhys said, his voice breaking. “Never a mistake, brother.”

“Then why—”

“No trained Irina would have done it. They have rules. Boundaries. As we do. Set in place thousands of years ago by the Forgiven when they gave us the gift of magic. To do something like this—to tear a soul from heaven—is… not done. I didn’t even know it was possible.”

“There probably isn’t even a spell for it,” Leo added. “But Ava grew up among humans. She has power, a lot of it—especially since the mating ritual between you two—but she has no idea how to use it.”

“Whatever happened to bring you back was instinctive,” Rhys said. “She’s probably unaware she worked magic at all.”

His heart thudded. “So she doesn’t know I’m alive.”

“I very much doubt it.”

Max asked, “Did you find Damien? Is there any way—”

“Damien and Ava dropped out of sight a few days ago. There’s no telling where they are now. The last point of contact was a car he picked up from the scribe house in Berlin. He didn’t say when he’d be returning it, though he asked the watcher of the house for something with all-wheel drive. There was GPS in the car, but it was disabled outside Hamburg. They haven’t used credit cards, and Ava left her old mobile phone here. The ones they have now are burners. Damien made sure of it.”

Max crossed his arms. “So he’s gone to Sari.”

“It appears so. We knew that was probably where they were going.” Rhys sat on the edge of the sofa, which seemed to give all the men permission to follow his lead. Malachi joined them as they sat.

Leo said, “Which means he’s in Scandinavia somewhere.”

“Wasn’t Sari raised at a retreat near Gothenburg?” Max asked.

“Yes, but her family isn’t from there,” Rhys said. “Her mother was a dissenter and only brought Sari there when she was ready for school.”

Malachi asked, “A dissenter? And who is Sari?”

“Sari is Damien’s mate. Ava will be safe with her.”

“Why?”

Rhys sighed. “This is so strange. You really don’t remember any of this?”

Malachi crossed his arms and shrugged. “Bits and pieces.”

“I just… don’t understand.”

Of course you don’t. You haven’t lost every bloody memory that matters. Malachi pushed back his own annoyance and tried to explain. “Sometimes it’s like being reminded of something. Some of the things you’ve said, I remember immediately. As if I had always known them. Like my talesm.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Almost as soon as Leo mentioned them, I knew what he was talking about.”

“That’s so strange,” Leo said.

“What?”

“The way you’re sitting. You always sit like that. And your expressions. They are exactly the same. Sorry. Not important.”

Max frowned at his cousin, then turned back to Malachi. “Please. Continue.”

“Now I remember them in detail,” Malachi said. “I remember how they felt. I remember… scribing them. Is there any way of knowing whether or not they’ll return?” Hundreds of hours of careful work had vanished from his skin, and he felt the loss of power keenly.

“None,” Rhys said. “Not unless Evren’s scribes find something in the archives that mentions Irin returning from the dead.”

Max was looking at Malachi with narrowed eyes. “The more important question is are they still working? If they’re not, you’re aging right now. Your magic is channeled by your talesm. If they’re gone—”

“You’ll be weak,” Leo’s face was pale. “Unprotected. Like… a human.”

Max said, “Not to mention, you look a bit naked. It’s unnerving.”

Rhys patted Malachi’s shoulder. “At least we know his natural powers are still intact. Language seems to come normally, otherwise he’d not be able to speak Turkish like he did at the gate.”

“I thought I was born here,” Malachi said.

Rhys shrugged. “You’re Irin. The Old Language is our first tongue, the only one we’re born knowing. The humans who found you, did you understand them at first?”

“No. I had to find a newspaper. I could read it. After that… the pieces of the language just seemed to fall into place, and I could understand them.”

“See?” Rhys said to Max. “His natural magic still works, which means he can build his other magic from there. He’ll have to relearn his spells and rescribe his talesm, but he should be able to recover.”

“And who knows?” Leo said. “Maybe when you find Ava, she can help.”

Rhys nodded. “Agreed. The first step is to find Ava and Damien. One, she shouldn’t grieve any longer than necessary. Two, she’s his marked mate. She may be able to heal him.”

“Do you think she could give me back my memories?”

The hollow corners of his mind mocked him. Malachi knew he had lost his past, but he didn’t know where to find it. Or even where to look. Isolated knowledge and bits of the past kept popping up unexpectedly, tucking themselves into pockets in his mind. But with each new revelation, the depth of his loss only became more disturbing.

“She might be able to help,” Max said. “You remembered her? Immediately?”

“No—yes. I remember her voice. Her face.” He grasped at the fragments, as if his very existence depended on holding them. “Hers was the first face I saw in my mind. I saw us here. Together. We were…” He looked around at the curious faces of the men. “None of your business.”

Leo grinned and Max shook his head.

“Still a lucky bastard,” Rhys said. “Even half-alive and naked.”

Rhys led him out of the sitting room where they’d been enjoying the fire, up to a terrace that led to a series of stairs, which twisted and crawled up the hill. The sky was deep blue and the first stars were beginning to shine. Lamplight flickered along the face of the cliffs, and Malachi stopped. Looking up, his eyes hung on the majesty of stars that littered the sky. Pure white against the deep blue and purple night, he blinked and caught a glimpse of a dark sun rising in his mind.

“Malachi?”

He shook off the vision and continued to follow Rhys down a narrow corridor carved into the rocks.

“My rooms are all the way back here?”

“You like your privacy. You always pick rooms that are isolated if you can.”

The green door flashed in Malachi’s mind a second before they turned the corner and saw it.

“This was my room. Was Ava here, too?”

Rhys’s voice was thick. “Yes. She stayed here after you died. Her things are still there. She wanted… Well, she wanted to sleep where you had been.”

His heart tripped as he put a hand on the door and pushed it open. Her scent hit him immediately, and traces of her were scattered around the room. The shoes tucked under the bed. The large suitcase in front of the wardrobe. This was the room he’d seen in his mind. There was the spot on the wall where she’d braced her hand as they made love. He walked around the room, willing more memories to come, but his mind was stubbornly silent.

“These are her things?”

“She needed warm clothes wherever Damien was taking her, so she left her other things here. Said she’d just come back for them. She even left her computer.”

Malachi frowned, picking up a sweater that lay draped across the chair by the door. He held it up to his face and inhaled.

“Did she take her camera?” he asked, his face still buried in her scent.

“You remember.”

Rhys was wearing a huge smile when he looked up.

“What?”

“Her camera. She’s a photographer. Did you remember?”

He walked over to the bed and touched the edge of a pillow. “I don’t know. The question just popped into my head.”

“Hmm.” Rhys watched him taking in the room. “To answer your question, yes, she took her camera. I don’t know why she left her laptop. Maybe where they’re going there’s no Wi-Fi.”

Malachi looked for the small silver laptop and found it on the desk. He walked over and opened it.

“I’m fairly sure it’s password protected,” Rhys said. “So I doubt…”

Malachi let his fingers type without thinking.

F-R-E-A-K

“I hate that password,” he muttered, staring at the picture of him and Ava that popped up as the background.

“How did you know her password?”

“I don’t know.”

The picture had been taken near the ocean in the early evening. Malachi thought it might be near the pier in Kuşadası. There were lanterns floating in the background and the two of them stood smiling with the purple sky behind them. He remembered the faint perfume he could still smell on her sweater.

“Rhys,” he said, trying to mask the tension in his voice. “Can you please—”

“I’ll go,” the other man said quietly. “Let me know if you need anything. I’m down the stairs and to the right. The red door with the lion character on it.”

Malachi hardly heard the door close. He grabbed the laptop and took it to the bed, leaning against pillows tinged with a faint floral scent that might have been her shampoo. He turned his face to the side and inhaled, pressing his cheek where hers might have lain.

He scrolled through her pictures, looking at the stunning images she must have taken in Istanbul. Boats on the water. Children laughing at pigeons. Old men catching fish. He skimmed through her albums from Cappadocia until one miniature caught his eye. The album was entitled “M is a thief.” He clicked on it.

The first pictures were more bedding than anything else. Blurry. Out of focus. He frowned, then let out a choked laugh the farther he clicked through the scene. He’d stolen her camera. She was hiding in the sheets, but she was laughing. He’d managed to capture the top of her head in that shot. Her nose in the other. The edge of her smile as he tickled her ribs. Then…

His breath stopped.

The last picture in the set was off center and crooked. Snapped as he held the camera away from them, capturing their kiss. Her fingers were pressed into his inked shoulders, and his mouth took her swollen lips.

“Ava,” he breathed out, touching the computer screen before it blinked out. Malachi tried to turn it on again, but the battery must have died. He sat up and carefully placed the computer back on the desk, plugging it in before he stripped off his clothes and returned to the bed. He wrapped himself in sheets that he knew smelled of his mate and closed his eyes.

Why couldn’t he remember her?

Malachi felt broken. His memories. His lost talesm. Confusion and weakness. All of it paled in comparison to the gut-deep awareness that his mate was in the world, grieving him, and he could not ease her.

He closed his eyes and searched for her in dreams.

The forest was midnight black, shrouded in a thick fog that curled and twisted around his ankles. The path he followed was not clear; wet branches slapped his face as he stumbled in the dark.

Where was she?

He could hear her in the distance. Her cries ripped through his chest. Every time she grew louder, he was forced to turn again as the path diverted him. The dark maze wove through the forest, teasing him. Frustrating him.

He would not be defeated.

The dark mass rose before him, looming over his head as if trying to block out the stars. Damp branches laced with thorns twisted in on themselves, blocking him from going farther. The maze urged him to turn again, but he stopped. Held his hand up.

Her voice was audible now.

“Please. Please come back.”

With a frustrated roar, he pounded on the thorns. Then he spun around, looking for a way out or around or through. It was a dead end. There was nowhere to turn but away from her again.

But his mate needed him. She called for him, and he’d left her alone too long.

He plunged his hands into the thick brush that separated him from her voice. He ignored the pain as he forced his way forward.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice thick with tears. “I need you.”

He tore at the hedge, ripping away the thorns and branches that tore his skin, ignoring the pain in his chest, ignoring everything except her voice. Finally, his bloody hand reached through and felt the cool air on the other side.

Pale moonlight streamed through the fog as he forced his bleeding body the rest of the way through the brush. There, on the far side of the clearing, he saw her.

Broken and bent with grief, she curled into herself, her arms wrapped around her legs. She wore a pale robe, streaked with mud, which pooled around her feet. She rocked back and forth as he approached. He approached cautiously, kneeling in front of her where she sat. Then he reached out a tentative hand and pushed a damp curl from her face.

She looked up.

“You left me.”

“I found you.”

“Why did it take so long?”

“I was lost.”

Her gold eyes didn’t glow as they should have. They were dull with sorrow. Exhausted with weeping. He could see the tear tracks glittering on her cheeks.

“I found you, reshon.”

She held out her arms like a child asking for comfort. He reached out and picked her up, lifting her from the cold ground and cradling her against his chest. He felt her fingers tracing over his scratched skin.

“What happened to you?”

“I told you. I was lost, but I came back.”

“You found me.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not leaving again?”

“No. I promise.”

“I’m so tired.” She laid her head on his shoulder, and he felt his heart swell with purpose.

“Then rest while I hold you. I promise I won’t let go.”