“Yes.” Katalin’s eyes flicked to Damien. “Has my son never told you of Sabet e Kareb?”
The staff and the blade? Yes, that fit the martial dance they’d been greeted with. It was a jaw-dropping display of power and skill that Sari knew was designed to intimidate an opponent. She imagined ancient armies greeted on the field of battle by the whirling staffs and striking blades of the dancers. They probably pissed themselves.
No need to let Katalin know she’d been completely taken aback. “Damien failed to mention how impressive it was in person.”
While Sari knew that Europe, Asia, and Africa had once been controlled by ancient Irin families, she’d had no idea how formal it all was. It reminded her of human nobility. In the northern lands where she’d been born, no such dominance occurred. Power and responsibilities were shared by all the families. Wealth was dispersed and singers of every line were in positions of authority.
Here, she could see the stark delineations. Katalin ruled. Servants bowed. She had no doubt that those servants were singers and scribes who hailed from bloodlines other than Mikael’s. Rěkaves was a palace—a temple—to warriors’ blood.
“Katalin, why did you call us here?” Damien asked again.
Sari could tell by his voice that her mate was losing patience. So, apparently, could Katalin.
“There is a Fallen hunting in Prague,” she said. “I called you here to kill it.”
His eye twitched. “You assume that I can.”
“My son,” she scoffed. “I don’t care what rumors float about. I know you wield a heaven-forged blade, and I know you have it in your possession.”
“Why?”
“Because you are, whether you like it or not, your father’s son.”
Damien said nothing for a few long moments.
“Why don’t you have one of your warriors kill the Fallen?” he asked. “You have the finest warriors of Mikael’s line if what I saw is any indication. And those scribes and singers are only initiates.”
Heaven above. Sari coughed so she didn’t choke on a grape. Those were the initiates?
Katalin raised her chin. “I do have the finest warriors in the world.”
“And Prague is within your domain.”
Her eyes flashed. “It was. Until the petty council demanded my singers retreat from combat.”
“Gabriel’s fist.” Damien rolled his eyes. “Not this again.”
Katalin rose. “They treat Mikael’s daughters as serving girls. They are happy to have any scribe from Mikael’s house, but my singers are shunned? They do not deserve my help! Let their bumbling boys in the scribe house defend the city if they don’t want my help.”
“Still this?” Damien shouted. “That policy died with the Rending. It’s been two hundred years, and you’re still angry.”
Sari bit her tongue. She kind of thought Katalin had a point, but she wasn’t going to say a word.
“I’m unwilling to help them when they try to dictate the terms,” Katalin said. “If they want my help, they can petition me like anyone else. And I will choose who I send, not some blustering bureaucrat in Vienna.”
Sari thought the Irin Council petitioning Katalin was about as likely as Damien learning modern dance. She poured herself another glass of wine.
“So why did you call me here?” he asked. “To hunt this Fallen? If it is within Prague’s territory, then let Prague hunt him.”
“They do not have the skills.”
“Then hunt him yourself, praetora, and forget about your petty rivalry. The death of a Fallen is more important than politics.”
Katalin answered only with silence. Something about her expression must have pricked Damien’s interest because he stepped closer.
“Well, that is unexpected,” he said. “I amend my earlier assessment. You do need my help.”
“Veceslav’s blade is still in the armory.”
“But Father was always stingy about sharing the magic needed to wield it, wasn’t he?”
Katalin’s lip curled. “You know I cannot carry it.”
“No singer can,” Sari said, aware of how much that knowledge must have stung the fiercely independent woman in front of her.
Damien said, “Father did not pass that knowledge to any of the guardians here?”
“No. He taught you. Veceslav was traditional. Some magics were only to be shared by those of our house. It was always assumed that if something happened to him, you would return.”
“He never asked me to do that. Neither did you.”
Katalin lifted her chin. “And if I had?” She glanced at Sari. “Your mate left you, yet you remained with your house.”
Sari set down her wineglass and leaned forward, narrowing her eyes.
“What happened between Sari and me is not your business, praetora,” Damien said. “We are here. We are together. And we will help you kill this angel. That is all you need to know.”
※
“Grigori can wield heavenly blades with no training at all,” Sari said, thinking aloud from the bath as Damien undressed in the attached bedchamber. “Do you think it’s because they’re first generation? Is the potency of their blood what allows it?”
“They can carry them,” Damien said, leaning in the doorway, clad only in his pants. “But they cannot command them. A Grigori using a heaven-forged blade is as effective as any Irin soldier using it untrained. He will lose it as often as he kills with it. And he might just kill himself. The blades… They have a mind of their own.”
Sari laughed. “They’re not sentient.”
“No, but they have… personality.” He frowned. “I don’t know how to explain it. They’re objects of magical power. They have will that has nothing to do with us.”
She flicked water in his direction. “So you say. I cannot refute it.”
“It’s not a gift, you know.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “To carry one.”
“I know.” She took a deep breath. “But it is power.”
Damien frowned. “Why haven’t the Prague scribes called for help from the council?”
“Maybe they have.”
“Then why hasn’t it been answered?”
“Politics? Simple disorganization? You have to admit that council hierarchy broke down after the Battle of Vienna. I think they’re still scrambling to regroup.”
“Perhaps.” Damien didn’t sound convinced.
“You should ask Bruno,” Sari said. “He and Karen still run that safe house on the outskirts of Prague.”
“I’ll call him in the morning.” He didn’t move from the doorway. “There are too many warriors here. I noticed during the Sabet e Kareb.”
“It’s the oldest martial academy in Europe, Damien. I’d expect there to be many warriors here.”
“But there are too many. In times past, a warrior was called from Rěkaves almost as soon as he’d achieved mastery. My father and mother’s students became watchers, Library guards, special hunters. Now I see more lingering in the castle guard than I have ever seen.”
Sari frowned. “Why? Is she out of favor with the council?”
“Yes and no.” He took a deep breath. “Katalin has always had a… tenuous alliance with the Elder Council. They have no power over the praetores of Mikael’s house, and that irks them.”
“The village here, was it unaffected by the Rending?”
Damien nodded. “My mother and father’s warriors never left the valley unguarded. In fact, many of the singers from retreats near Prague fled here for protection. It was one of the few stable places during that period.”
“So Katalin protected her people when the council failed,” Sari said.
“And she never lets them forget it.” Damien rubbed his jaw, and Sari tried not the be distracted by the flex of his biceps. “My mother occupies a position of tremendous political power, but she never becomes directly involved. My father’s mother was much more active politically. Katalin is a warrior first and always. She’s also an aristocrat on
a continent that has eschewed them.”
“She’s out of touch.”
He nodded. “She always has been. But that never affected the students here. Now I fear that it has.”
And that bothered her mate. Sari tucked the idea away to mull over when she wasn’t naked and in the same room as her lover. She lifted one long leg up and hung it over the edge of the tub, drawing his eyes.
Damien walked toward her, unbuckling his pants. “That, my love, is a very large tub.”
She wiggled her toes. “It’s warm too.”
He stripped his pants off and leaned over to kiss her long and hard. Then he climbed in, sloshing water over the aged stone floor.
“You’re making a mess,” she said as he used his teeth against her neck.
“I don’t care.” Damien hooked both hands around her waist and drew her body forward, lifting her breasts out of the water before he put his mouth on them. “After all,” he muttered against her skin, “it’s my castle.”
She let her head fall back and tangled her hands in his hair, content to let him play lord of the bathtub. She had no objections, especially when he was doing marvelous things to her breasts. The tension of the day had left him in a mood. One she was happy to let him work out on her body.
Flipping her over, Damien pulled her to straddle his lap. As she sank down, he grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her mouth to his. He was rougher than usual, his grip harder as he held her hips.
“Damien.” A low groan left Sari’s throat when he tugged her hair, arching her body back before he latched his mouth to the heated flesh of her breast.
“Yes.” He scraped his teeth along Sari’s skin. “My name, reshon.”
“Damien,” she whispered.
“Who is your mate?”
“Damien.”
She could feel the rise of pleasure at his hands. His mouth drove her to the brink of release, and his commanding words undid her. The hand in her hair loosened, and she opened her eyes to meet the tightly leashed violence of his desire.
“Who is your lover?”
“You are,” she said.
“Who do you choose?”
Unable to speak when her body shook with release, she fell forward, bracing herself on his black-inked shoulders and pouring her cries into his kiss.
“Who is your mate, milá?” he asked again, whispering soft kisses against her lips.
“Damien.” Her heart raced, and her body was weak from pleasure. Something had roused in him, a fierce, possessive need to claim her.
He hadn’t finished. Nor, she realized, did he intend to. At least not in the bathtub. Sari clung to his shoulders as he stood, her legs wrapped around him. Damien stepped out of the bathtub, oblivious to the water that splashed across the floor. He made his way to the massive bedchamber warmed by a large stone fireplace. The bed fit the room, a wide four-poster platform with thick velvet curtains and an eiderdown mattress. Damien tossed Sari on the linen sheets before he crawled up her body, the air crackling with barely leashed magic.
He bit the inside of her thigh and muttered, “Again.”
※
Sari and Damien left the castle the next day to drive into Prague. The house Bruno and Karen ran served as a safe haven for traveling Irina and a few scribes they trusted, along with kareshta who needed a temporary place to hide. It lay south of the city in the middle of a dense forest.
The location was ideal. They were close enough to Prague to be easily connected while still isolated enough to be private. Astrid, Sari’s healer in Sarihöfn, was also living there, though she made noises about moving. Candice and Brooke had been living there until Candice accepted a position in Vienna at the Central Archives. The two had moved only six months before.
“Sari!” Karen waved and ran down the porch steps when she saw them. “I can’t believe you finally came to visit me.”
“It hasn’t been that long,” she said as she climbed out of the car. “Has it?”
“Two years,” Karen said. “Before Vienna. Shame on you, sister.”
They embraced. Karen had always been the best of the Irina, in Sari’s opinion. Fierce in her love and stubborn in her protection, she was the ideal mother. Sadly, her only daughter had been killed in the Rending. It was a loss that no one could bear to speak of with either Bruno or Karen.
“Damien!” Karen hugged Damien too. “Bruno will be back in a few minutes. He just went to the market in the village. You’re at Rěkaves?” She put an arm around Sari and led them into the house. “Why on earth are you at Rěkaves? I didn’t know Damien was in contact with his mother.”
“I am,” he said quietly. “Karen, do you know about the Fallen in Prague?”
She fell silent for a moment.
“Has the council finally responded?” she asked. “They sent you? But I thought…”
She didn’t need to finish the question. Bruno was one of the few scribes Damien had trusted with the knowledge that he carried a heavenly weapon again. If Bruno knew, Karen did.
“I have my blade again, sister,” Damien said in a low voice. “But the council does not know it. Katalin called for me.”
“Katalin?” Karen scoffed. “Since when has her royal highness deigned to protect any outside her little valley?”
“She waits for the council’s call,” Sari said.
“She waits for their groveling,” Karen said. “The watcher here sent a petition to Rěkaves months ago after he hadn’t heard back from Vienna. She ignored him. He must not have groveled enough for her liking.”
Had Katalin refused the watcher because she couldn’t be bothered or because she didn’t have a warrior who could wield a black blade, Sari wondered. If it was the latter, Sari could hardly imagine Katalin acknowledging the weakness. Far better to have other Irin leaders think her callous rather than ill-equipped.
Bruno banged in the door a second later, raising his enormous voice to greet their guests. “Look who is here!” he roared. “And me without my ax.”
“I’m glad of that,” Damien said, rising to embrace the giant man. “I get enough threats from my mother. It’s good to see you, Bruno.”
“And you.”
They spent a few minutes chatting about the mundane things of life. Roads and fuel prices. The odd weather that summer and new beers that were available. Mutual friends and new children.
After a few minutes of conversation, Sari decided to change the topic. “Why has the council been slow to respond to the Prague watcher?”
“About the Fallen?” Bruno asked. He and Karen exchanged a look.
“The local watcher is vocal,” Karen said. “Has become a bit of a squeaky wheel.”
“And?” Damien asked.
“And he’s asking for help. Not only with the Fallen, but with the increased Grigori activity in the city.”
“So there is Grigori activity.”
“Yes. But not… typical.”
Sari said, “Is any Grigori typical anymore?”
“A few,” Karen said. “But I know what Bruno is saying. These Grigori are not thieves and murderers, as Volund’s sons were. Neither are they good men or trying to protect anyone but themselves, as Kostas’s men are doing. The council knows about them but has decided it’s more expedient to put out fires instead of looking for the spark that keeps igniting them.”
“And these Grigori don’t seem to kill the humans they take,” Bruno added. “They seduce them, yes, but they have learned to feed without killing. Maybe they fear the scribes and their new mandate?”
“Maybe they fear Kostas,” Damien said. “He’s only a few hours away.”
“True,” Sari said. “Or maybe they’re taking advantage of the situation. For many scribes, offensive action against the Grigori or the Fallen is still foreign. If they can play on that, let it be known that they do not callously kill humans, then they can operate more freely.”
“Whatever their motives,” Damien said, “They are being spawned by one of the Fallen, and
that Fallen is seducing more girls, breeding more children. He has to be stopped.”
“Have there been any kareshta?” Sari said.
“Yes.” Karen’s eyes were sad. “They met with Bruno, but he had to send them away. We didn’t know what else to do. Brooke and Candice were still here, and they freely admitted that their sire was not dead. We could not allow them to stay.”
“It’s a problem everywhere, sister.” Damien squeezed her hand. “Do not let guilt consume you.”
Sari asked Bruno, “Do you know the angel’s name?”
He nodded. “They call him Aurel. He’s not an archangel. I think his power lies in the middle of the range. Definitely no Volund or Jaron, but more than a nuisance. Whoever kills him will have to wield a black blade and be backed by an efficient and competent company of warriors.”
Black blade. Efficient and competent warriors. Sari was beginning to see why Katalin had decided to call Damien.
“Does he have any allegiance?” Damien asked. “Is there anyone he answers to?”
“Svarog,” Karen said.
“I thought Svarog was dead,” Sari said.
“He’s not,” Bruno said. “He was allied with Volund, but according to Max, he backed out of the Battle of Vienna. Left his people and his territory intact.”
“And swept up territories that had once belonged to his rivals,” Karen added. “Svarog is no fool.”
“And this Aurel answers to him?” Sari asked.
“Yes.”
Sari watched her mate, wondering what he was thinking. It was exactly the kind of twisted scenario he tried to avoid. Give him a clear target and a clear objective in battle, and Damien was a golden god of war. Give him value judgments and murky council politics…
“Well,” Damien said quietly. “It appears that I’ll be the one hunting this Aurel. Perhaps Svarog as well. So any information you can give me will be more than welcome.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE following night, Damien returned to Prague, this time on his own. He’d left Sari and his mother alone. Hopefully everyone had all their limbs when he returned.
The Staff and the Blade Page 34
