The Singer

Chapter Six

“She wants to know what you can do.”

Ava blinked away from the aching memory of her dream the night before. She looked between her translator, the blond girl whose hair Sari had been braiding the previous afternoon, and her tormentor, the fearsome Irina named Mala whom she’d met the first day.

There couldn’t be two more opposite females on the planet. The girl, who had introduced herself as Brooke and sounded American, had the kind of blond hair that almost looked silver. Her eyes were a clear crystal blue, and she couldn’t have been more than twelve. She was slim and tall for her age, but her face still carried the rounded cheeks of youth. Her figure was just starting to develop, but she still sported lean muscle that marked her as an athlete.

“What do you mean ‘what I can do’? Like… my résumé?”

Brooke snorted and looked at Mala, who was running in front of them. Mala’s smooth skin glowed with perspiration, her long legs pumped up the hills and over the meadows as they ran through the countryside. She was dark-skinned and fiercely lovely in a way that made Ava envious. Her skin was the color of rich teak, and her hair was shorn close to her head in a cap that showed off her graceful neck and shoulders. She looked like she could have been featured in a fashion magazine, except for the vicious scar that ran from her jaw, across her neck, and down to her collar. But it was her eyes, twin pools of black fire, that made Ava want to photograph her.

Ava couldn’t help but feel thin and drawn between the two females who were pulsing with life. One young and delicate, the other vibrating with old power, they were opposite in every way the world might see. Yet something intangible bound them together. Brooke had been sent with Ava and Mala as a translator since Ava wasn’t fluent in signing.

“Not like your résumé,” Brooke said.

Mala didn’t even stop, just raised her hand over her shoulder and flipped through signs so fast that Ava could scarcely pick them up. Brooke didn’t seem to have a problem, though.

“She wants to know what sports you played in school. If you’ve taken any martial arts. Things like that.”

“Uh…” Ava tried not to gasp as they jogged. She’d thought she was in shape. She was wrong. “I didn’t really… play sports in… school.”

More signs tossed into the air from Mala.

“She says you’re in good shape for someone who doesn’t play sports.”

“Sure doesn’t feel that way right now.”

Brook laughed. “You’ll get used to it. You’re keeping up and she’s not going easy on us. Mala’s the hardest trainer here.”

“I hike a lot with my job,” Ava said. “Go to remote places like this. And usually I’m carrying a lot of equipment. So it’s probably from that.”

“High altitudes?”

The question had come from Brooke, not Mala, which caused Ava to blink and look over at the girl. “What?”

“Did you hike a lot at high altitudes? That probably helps. Even though there are mountains here, we’re actually not that high up, so the air is thicker.”

“Oh… okay.”

“What places did you go?” The girl’s eyes were alive with curiosity.

Ava managed a weak smile. “Almost everywhere. I’ve been to every continent on earth.”

“Even Antarctica?”

“Yep, even Antarctica.”

That drew a surprised look from Mala, who turned briefly with curious eyes.

Ava continued. “I’d been through most of Europe by the time I was sixteen. School trips. My mom took me places, too. Then, when I got to college, I traveled in South America for a few semesters. I minored in Spanish, so…” She paused to catch her breath. “I took some pictures in Venezuela one summer and my mom showed a friend of hers. She was an editor at a travel magazine, and… she asked to see more.”

“That’s so cool,” Brooke said, her own breath coming harder the longer they jogged. “So you started working for a magazine?”

“I did what you could call freelance work in college. Just for my mom’s friend. Any time I traveled for school, I let her know where I was going, and she’d let me know if she wanted pictures. After I graduated, I was on staff for a while there, then I started doing freelance work again, only this time I got paid more and I got to pick what jobs I wanted.”

Brooke’s blue eyes were wide. “So, are you really rich?”

Ava snorted, wiping the sweat from her forehead. Mala might have been glowing, but Ava was dripping. “Not from my photography work. I make enough to get by on that, but not by much. I have money, but it’s from my father. He’s really rich and he set up a trust fund for me when I was a baby. I got control of it when I was twenty-three. So I can kind of go wherever I want as long as I don’t get too crazy.”

The girl grinned. “Nice.”

Ava attempted a shrug. “I think I’d rather have had my dad than the money. But what are you gonna do?”

“Nothing,” she said flatly. “There’s nothing to do.” Before Ava could question her, Brooke continued. “I don’t have a dad, either.”

Ava remembered Malachi telling her how precious children were to the Irin. “Where is he?”

“I was born in Virginia. My mom and dad… they lived on their own. The closest scribe house was in Arlington, but we never went there. They would have made my dad patrol and fight, and he didn’t want to leave my mom and me. My mom was really paranoid. She lost all her family in the Rending. So we were just living with the humans, trying to blend in.”

“What happened?”

Brooke shrugged. “We don’t know. Not really. You can want to be left alone, but that doesn’t mean it will happen. One night, my dad just didn’t come home. Didn’t call. My mom was frantic. Then later that night, she started crying.” Brooke drifted off, and Ava could see the haunted grief in her eyes. “I was only eight, and I’ve never heard anything like it.”

Mala’s eyes caught Ava’s as they ran, and Ava nodded in silent understanding. Brook’s father had been killed, and her mother only knew when she felt their connection snap. As Ava had known when the knife struck Malachi’s neck. She didn’t want to hear any more, but Brook kept talking.

“My mom woke me up the next morning, and her face was just… wrong. I knew he was dead. We were gone before lunch. We left everything there but some clothes and pictures. We came here.”

“And you never left?”

“We’re safe here.”

“With Sari.”

“Yes,” Brooke said. “Sari makes everyone safe.”

She saw Mala glance at the girl. Grief had joined the fire in her gaze, but she didn’t pause or slow down their run.

Ava had finally reached the endorphin high of running. Her legs felt looser and longer. Her heart pounded. The air was clear and biting, and the breeze felt liquid against her skin. She lifted her head and ran along the path with the two women, one old, the other painfully young, and suddenly she didn’t see their differences. Not a single one. The three ran together, bound by something far beyond the external.

“Hey, Damien.” She pushed the damp hair from her forehead as she walked into the cottage. Damien was sitting in the kitchen area, reading something and taking notes in a big notebook. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you doing scribe stuff.”

He blinked and looked up. “Hmm?”

“You know, scribe stuff. Book stuff? Not like the others.” She pointed to the books and notebook on the table.

“What are you talking about?”

“In Istanbul, it seemed like you were always on the phone or talking with one of the guys in a very solemn voice. Or ordering people around. You did a lot of that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you doing any scribe kind of work.”

His face cleared of confusion, and he shrugged. “When I am a watcher, I have more pressing concerns. I don’t have time to spend with texts. Bringing you here, having this time when I’m not on guard, it’s probably good for me. It’s easy to forget what’s important.”

“Books?”

She saw him run both hands down his forearms. “Yes. Books. Stories. Our families. Our history.” Then his fingers ran over the dagger he wore at his waist. “Those are the reasons for living.”

“And fighting?”

“Yes, and fighting.”

Her sweat was beginning to dry, and the northern air was starting to chill her, so Ava started toward the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Sari has you training with Mala.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yep. She’s… well, so far we’ve just run a lot.”

He nodded, frowning in concentration. “Mala is a fierce fighter. Before the Rending, she often accompanied her mate into battle. She’ll be an excellent physical trainer.”

Ava hesitated but asked anyway. “What happened to her?”

“Her scar?”

“Yes.”

Damien looked hesitant for a moment, but finally he said, “Mala and her mate never had any children, so during the Grigori attacks prior to the Rending, they both fought in the area around Lagos. The humans there…” He shook his head. “Mala and Alexander were fighting, and he was killed in battle. They were overwhelmed.”

Ava’s heart had clenched in her chest. “They killed her mate?”

“Yes. And she killed them, over ten Grigori, according to Zander’s brothers, but not before they clawed out her throat.” He lifted a hand to his throat, curling his fingers like claws as he scraped from his jaw down. “That’s what the Grigori do to Irina in battle. If they take their voice, they can’t work magic. If you silence an Irina, she’s far easier to kill.”

Ava shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold anymore. “And then she came here.”

“Sari and Mala had been friends a long time. I imagine Sari had to convince Mala to come, otherwise, she’d still be out there, hunting. But she’s very protective of her friends. If Sari asked Mala to come and help protect this haven, she’d do it.”

And that was the woman who was going to be her trainer. Fire-eyed Mala with the scarred throat and the battle-hardened muscles. Ava only hoped she didn’t die of exhaustion. Or embarrassment.

“Take your shower.” Damien motioned toward the door. “Astrid asked if you would have lunch with her after you got back. I imagine she’s in the medical clinic I saw near the road.”

“Yes, sir, Captain Watcher, sir.” She mock-saluted and scurried to the bathroom.

“Ha-ha.”

Ava shut the door and pulled off her sweaty shirt, turning to toss it in a small hamper before she froze.

Grief struck at the oddest times. Like a cat, it waited to pounce. She could go about her day, even talk about Malachi, ignoring the black hole that lived inside, then something little would swallow her up.

It was nothing, really. Just a man’s shirt hanging on the towel rod. A shirt like the ones he’d worn. The ones she’d teased him about not putting in the hamper. He left them draped on the clean towels or tossed on the ground. She’d found it irritating.

She pulled it off the towel rack and put it to her face, but it smelled wrong.

Ava buckled as if she’d been punched in the stomach, sliding down to the floor as her back scraped along the counter. A wretched sob tore from her throat, and she heard footsteps pounding.

“Ava?”

She shook her head, gripping Damien’s shirt that smelled wrong. His voice sounded wrong. And his arms felt wrong. She couldn’t stop another sob. Or the next. Or the next.

Damien opened the door. “Oh, sister…”

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

As kind as Damien was, he wasn’t who she wanted to see.

She threw his shirt at him shouted, “It’s not fair!”

“I know,” he whispered, sitting next to her and gathering her in his arms. “I know it’s not.”

“We didn’t have time.” Her body shook with rage and grief. “We should have had time.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t know. Sari may hate you, but she’s still here.” Tears were hot on her face and she hit his shoulders with clenched fists, even as he held her closer. “I just found him. I finally found him. And then he was gone.”

“I’m sorry, Ava.” He held her close. “I miss him too.”

“Everything is wrong. Everything hurts more.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I thought it would be better if I left. If I left Turkey, I thought he’d stay there. But he didn’t.”

“Of course he didn’t.”

“I see him everywhere. He’s everywhere. And he always will be.”

“Ava—”

“And I hate him for that. For leaving me,” she choked out. “And for not leaving me.”

Damien didn’t say anything for a while; he just let her cry. And when the worst of it had passed, Ava whispered, “I know that doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, it does.” He held her close, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. “He would have moved heaven and earth to stay with you, Ava. You know that.”

“But he didn’t, Damien. Of all the things he could do, he couldn’t do that.”

Damien ignored his lunch that was growing cold on the counter. Ava ignored her growling stomach. She sat on the floor of the maple-paneled bathroom with Malachi’s brother and allowed herself to feel more than she had in months. Until finally grief slipped away to hide its face until the next time.

Hours later, Ava finally heeded the call of her rumbling stomach and went to look for Astrid. There was a road leading into the isolated valley, but a visitor clearly needed to know where they were going to find it. Ava had seen a few cars come and go, along with a truck that delivered boxes of supplies on Wednesday morning and took some of the milk and vegetables the haven produced.

In addition to the Irina, there were also a few Irin families. They seemed to keep to themselves, but Ava had seen a few men hanging at the edge of the compound and even a small child. The families lived in a group of cottages half a kilometer or so deeper into the valley and away from the main house and the road. Clearly, protecting them was a priority since Ava had only caught glimpses.

To any visitor driving in, the compound would seem like a commune of sorts, with animals and greenhouses to grow food. Low buildings housed workshops and storage units and a small clinic that Damien said was open to any emergency since Astrid was the only trained doctor for miles around. What the average visitor wouldn’t see was the interior of the brightly painted barn where women fought and parried with sticks, staffs, and knives. The archery range was hidden behind innocuous greenhouse fronts. Ava doubted many would see the cameras so expertly hidden among the buildings or understand them if they did.

Ava saw everything. And far from just being a haven for wounded Irina, she could also see what the Irin scribes hadn’t known.

This was a training center, and it might have been isolated, but it was far from idle.

She knocked on the door marked with a bright red cross. She heard shuffling, then the door opened.

“Welcome,” Astrid said with a smile. “Come in, come in.”

“Thanks.”

If Astrid caught Ava’s swollen eyes, she said nothing.

Astrid’s clinic looked just like a small cottage with a sitting area and kitchen in the main room, then three doors leading off a small hall in the back. Her desk was in a corner of the living area, and a kettle was on the stove. Ava wandered around the room, which was decorated with pictures of women, children, and families.

“I didn’t know there were so many families left,” she said as Astrid went to the kitchen. “How many are there?”

“More in the last few years.”

“I thought most of the Irin and Irina lived apart.”

“Most, but not all. The girls who weren’t mated after the Rending mated quickly, if they were still interested. Many weren’t. But some. So there are still a few families.” The smell of pepper and red meat filled the air. It smelled like Astrid had made chili. “There are more in Vienna since it is the safest Irin city. But even there, Irina live very quietly. A very few live in scribe houses with their mates. Some live in places like this. But most Irina have hidden in the human world.”

“Does the council know about them?”

“They do and they don’t. They know we exist. From the news that leaks out of Vienna, there are as many solutions to the ‘Irina problem’ as there are elders.”

“I can imagine.”

“I doubt that,” Astrid said, but she didn’t seem condescending. Just tired. Her movements were deliberate as she set out the cups for tea. “So, only a few families. And of course, there were some children left.”

“How many—”

“Fifteen… maybe twenty percent of the children survived.”

It seemed impossible that any people could endure so much tragedy.

“Can the Irin survive, Astrid? Really?”

Astrid cocked her head. “Biologically? Yes. There are enough of us to survive. But will we? Who knows? Things are still very fresh for us.”

“But the Rending was two hundred years ago.”

She smiled. “It seems strange to you, I know.”

“More than a little.”

“Life didn’t stop for us, Ava.” Astrid waved her toward the table and Ava sat. “But it did slow down. For many years we all just… waited.”

Astrid’s eyes had drifted off; she stood at the stove, but was looking out the window over the sink.

“For what?” Ava asked.

“I think I spent ten years after Marten died, waiting to wake up and realize it was all a horrible dream. Life seemed to stand still. It was easier for those with children to move on, because children don’t stop growing. But there were so few children left. The villages were destroyed. No one even wanted to try to rebuild. The council was… unbelievable.”

“How?”

“Immediately after the attack, there were some who blamed the Irina for letting their guard down. ‘They should have been more prepared,’ they said.”

Ava gasped. “But—”

“Most who took that view were condemned, of course.” Astrid shook her head. “What a horrendous thing to say! One elder was attacked and killed by scribes from a house near Leon. They’d lost everything. Not a single survivor from their village. It had been burned while the scribes were fighting the Grigori attack in Paris. They blamed the council for ordering them away.”

“What happened?”

Astrid shrugged as she ladled stew into deep bowls and set one in front of Ava. “I don’t know. It wasn’t like now with instant communication. Letters would take weeks or months to arrive. There was so much confusion. Those of us who remained went into hiding. We didn’t know if more attacks were coming. None of us felt safe anymore. Many of the scribes whose mates had survived left with them and hid, even though they abandoned their posts at scribe houses and libraries.”

“They could do that?”

“No. Even now, if they came out of hiding, they would be punished by the council, so it’s not worth it to them to try to reenter Irin society. They’d rather remain with their mates.” Astrid’s eyes glanced toward the window again, and Ava got the distinct impression that more than one of the males she’d seen was a fugitive.

“But not everyone joined their mate,” she said, thinking of Damien and Sari. “Some of the Irina here, they have mates in the outside world, don’t they?”

Astrid nodded as she sat. “Yes. Some do. There are three Irina here who have mates who fight in houses away from here.”

Ava couldn’t imagine Malachi being in the world and not being with her. “How do they… I mean, don’t they need—”

“Contact?” Astrid smiled a little. “Of course they do. Emotionally. Even biologically, Irin and Irina need physical contact. Mates dream walk, of course, but the mated Irina here often leave.”

“And Sari lets them?”

Astrid smiled. “We’re not stuck here. We can go anytime we want. Most of the women with mates meet them when they can get away. They go to the city for a while, or places in the country where they can be alone.”

“And children?”

Astrid shrugged. “I’m sure a scribe would be given leave if his mate was pregnant. Children are rare for us, and Irin men seldom leave their women alone when they are pregnant.”

“So how does nobody know where this place is?”

“Orsala.”

“Who’s Orsala?” Ava asked. “And… does she have tentacles and a great singing voice?”

Astrid threw her head back and laughed. “Singing voice? Yes. Tentacles, no. Orsala is Sari’s grandmother. She’s very old. The oldest singer I know. She’s letting herself age now because her mate was killed during the Rending. But she’s still with us. And Orsala is the one who’ll talk to you before you leave. After you talk to Orsala, Volund himself couldn’t make you give up the name of this place.”

She felt a shiver creep up her spine. “Magic?”

“Strong magic.”

Ava fell exhausted into bed that night, hoping to lose herself in dreams. She suspected she was sleeping too much—and had spoken to enough psychologists to recognize the symptoms of depression—but something drew her. Some instinct tugged her to darkness and rest. She huddled under the thick down blankets and closed her eyes.

She wandered through the forest, but she no longer wept. She waited. He’d said he would be there, and she knew he would come.

“Reshon.”

She turned toward his voice, smiling. “You’re here.”

“I told you I would be.” He approached cautiously, one hand lifting as she drew near. “You’re not crying anymore.”

“I don’t need to.” She took his hand and led him toward a low bed that had appeared at the edge of the clearing, butted up against the hedge he’d torn through. The gash had closed, and now the dark leaves were lush, no longer forbidding. The forest surrounding them was a shield and not a barrier. It hummed with life, and the meadow where they rested was lush with grass and dotted with white flowers that glowed under the half moon.

The two lay down on the bed and he wrapped her in his arms. Her body hummed in awareness as he traced over the marks he’d painted on her neck and shoulders, and everywhere he touched, her skin turned gold.

“You’re not as tired as you were before,” he said.

“No. I’m sleeping better now that you found me.”

“I’m glad.” He nestled his face in her neck and took a deep breath. “I miss your scent.”

“And I miss yours.”

“Jasmine and smoke. We met in the market; it smelled like cloves.”

“I think… I remember that.”

She held on to the arm that banded around her waist. He’d rolled her onto her back and kissed softly along her collar and neck, his mouth lingering on her skin. His tongue tasting. Teasing. She closed her eyes and let her senses take her away, losing herself in the feel of his skin against hers, his energy aligning with her own. She felt calm. Content to her bones. But slowly, with every nip of his teeth against her neck, desire rose.

Her grip on his arm tightened. “I need you.”

“As I need you.”

His arm slid around her waist, and suddenly the clothes she’d felt against her skin and his were gone. In their place, a warm breeze wrapped around them as his mouth met hers. Their tongues touched, and he swallowed the low sigh that came from her throat.

“I missed this,” she whispered. “I missed you so much.”

“So did I. I don’t…” He pulled away for a moment, frowning. “I don’t remember what happened.”

“I don’t either.” Her hand went to his cheek, and she rubbed her thumb against the coarse stubble on his jaw. “Kiss me. It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.”

A slow smile—the one she loved that made his dimple stand out—spread over his face.

“I’m here now,” he whispered. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He murmured it over and over again as he moved over her in the dark. The forest protected them; no danger hovered nearby. Soft night birds called in the trees as they held each other, and that moment was all she knew. They made love under a blanket of stars.

And it was enough.