The Secret

by Elizabeth Hunter

Sari’s yearning was an aching thing beside her.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Did you bring any children?” Lexi said.

  “I’m sorry,” Sari said softly. “I don’t have any children.”

  “Oh.” The girl’s disappointment was clear. “Miss Helen’s son comes to play sometimes, but he’s so much older than me. Mama”—she turned in her mother’s arms—“I want to see a baby. Does anyone have a baby I can play with?”

  Constance ran a hand over her daughter’s hair. “I’m sorry, Lexi. No babies are visiting today.”

  Lexi turned and confided to Ava, “I have lots of dollies, but babies are better, aren’t they?”

  Ava leaned forward, transfixed. “I suppose so.”

  “Go with Anna,” Constance said. “We need to talk about grown-up things for a little longer.”

  “Okay.” Lexi scrambled to the floor. “But come back if you have babies!” she called out as she left the room.

  Silence followed her exit.

  “There are still so few,” Vania whispered.

  “I understand,” Sari said.

  “I highly doubt that,” Helen said.

  Sari’s voice was hoarse when she spoke again. “I was pregnant when our retreat was attacked,” she said. “My mate was hundreds of miles away. I had… I’d lent him my power so he could fight in Paris. When the attack came, I was injured. My body could not—”

  “They killed my son in front of my eyes,” Constance said in an icy voice. “The Grigori animal sliced his throat in front of me and he bled over my kitchen floor while his friend held me down, choked my voice silent, and raped me. Thomas was seven years old, and the last thing he saw was animals raping his mother. Do you understand that?”

  Ava’s body was frozen in horror.

  Vania reached for her friend’s hand.

  No one spoke.

  “I only survived the Rending because of my mate. And Jerome was near death when he found me. He said the prayers for our son alone because no one else was left, and my voice was so damaged, I could not sing. I said nothing for twenty years. Nothing.”

  Sari closed her eyes. “Constance—”

  “If I can save any mother from seeing that—save any child by rebuilding the retreats. Make them stronger. Make them safer—”

  “There is no such thing as total safety,” Sari said. “We both know that. We have to be stronger. We have to defend our children. Defend ourselves.”

  “We aren’t capable of it. Are you so proud that you cannot acknowledge the truth? We are not as strong as the scribes.”

  “Our power is different, not less.”

  “Don’t you understand?” Constance stood. “Nothing can bring them back. No revenge will ever be enough. No blood can repay what we’ve lost. Don’t you think I’ve wanted to hunt the animals who killed my son?” Her voice rose. “I could stop their hearts in their chests and pull the blood from their veins. I am a singer of Rafael’s line. I could do those things and more. But that will not bring Thomas back.”

  Renata said, “You should be able to hunt them if you want. You have the right.”

  Constance shook her head. “Alexis is a miracle. We never thought…” She dragged in a breath and put a hand over her belly. “No one thought I’d be able to conceive another child.”

  Sari stood to face her. “And I may never have the opportunity to be a mother again. But if I do, I don’t want my daughter growing up in fear.”

  “Your mate is a legend. Damien of Bohemia was a Templar knight, for heaven’s sake! Don’t you trust him to protect you?”

  “It’s not about trust,” Renata said from the back of the room. “It’s about using our own power. It’s our job to protect them too.”

  Constance shook her head. “We are not meant for such things. We have a greater purpose. It is our job to rebuild our race. There is magic—healing magic—we can use to increase fertility. To build our families again. I’ve spent the past hundred years—”

  “But that’s our whole job?” Ava asked. “Having children to rebuild the Irin race?”

  Vania narrowed her eyes. “You know nothing. I don’t know where you come from, but every true Irina in this room would consider it a blessing to be able to bear a child. We’re not like the humans.”

  Ava looked at the other singer. “I’m not saying motherhood isn’t amazing, but that’s it? That’s all you do?”

  “You’re ignorant,” Helen said. “I have heard the rumors. You grew up among humans. Be quiet and let others speak.”

  Ava rose to her feet. “I’m ignorant?”

  Sari put her hand on Ava’s arm. “We’re done here. Orsala was right. I understand your position. I don’t agree with it, but I understand. You deserve to have your voice heard too.”

  Renata’s voice was an ice-cold blade. “Even if she’s a fool?”

  Constance lifted her chin. “Think that if it makes you feel superior. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not the only Irina who believes compulsion is the best way to save our people.”

  “I know,” Sari said. “And as much as I disagree with you, I hope the Irina council speaks for you too.”

  “We have no council. We need none.”

  “That,” Sari said as she walked to the door, “is truly ignorant. I’ll tell you the same thing I told your mate. It’s time. The elder singers are returning, whether you want them to or not.”

  “Then prepare yourself,” Constance said. “The Irina of Vienna will not bow to your wishes. If you reform the council, you and your grandmother won’t get puppets.”

  “Good.” Sari opened the door. “We don’t want them.”

  IV.

  THE MAN WORE AN IMPECCABLE three-piece suit when he entered the church. His dark hair was cut in the current fashion, and his silk tie was knotted firmly against his throat. After setting down his briefcase at the edge of one pew, he sat next to the ash-blond man in an overcoat who stared at the priest starting the evening mass.

  “Where is he?” Barak muttered.

  “Playing games.”

  Vasu entered from the back of the church, not dressed as a human businessman as the other two were, but looking more like one of the artists or musicians crowding the pedestrian street outside. His hair was pulled back in a knot, and he wore a rough beard that tangled in the scarf wrapped around his neck. He sat next to Barak, his physical body making audible noise his brothers avoided.

  Jaron and Barak both turned their heads to their brother.

  “What are you doing?” they asked as one.

  Vasu shrugged. An irritating human habit he’d decided to adopt. “It amuses me.”

  “You did not ask my permission to track the girl.”

  “I’m not tracking. I’m watching.”

  “Enough.” Barak’s voice cut through their quiet argument. “Is he near? I’ve shielded myself so thoroughly in this city I’m having difficulty hearing at a distance.”

  “Is it still so important your children think you’re dead?” Vasu asked.

  “My reappearance at this stage would alter their actions. I want to see where things lead.”

  “I’ve shown you,” Jaron said.

  “Nevertheless.” Barak watched a human mother and small child as they made their way up the center aisle. The child was small. He was fussing in the incense-laden air and his eyes were running. “Where is he, brother?”

  “Hungary.”

  “Is Svarog in play?”

  “He will be,” Jaron said. “He has created too many vulnerabilities. Volund will use it to sway him to his cause.”

  “We shall see,” Vasu said cryptically.

  Barak asked, “What do you know?”

  “Know? Nothing. But I have my suspicions.” Vasu sat up straighter. “Grimold was never a surprise. He has long been Volund’s puppet. But the status quo has been beneficial to Svarog.”

  “It has,” Barak said. “But he knows he will not sway Volund from his path. He may decide backing him
will serve his long-term interests.”

  “That makes little sense,” Vasu said, “considering the probable actions of the scribes. This city is complacent, but not without strong magic. There are more mature Irin here now than there have ever been, and Mikhael’s armory is here, along with their Library. The Irin blend in with the humans now. They control wealth and power. And their magic has been honed since Volund’s last attack.”

  Barak said, “But they are still without their mates. Most of them are only a fraction of who they could be. And if the Grigora secret comes to light, the Irin will be on the offensive again. Their power will multiply with every mating. They will have purpose again, and a scribe with purpose is a dangerous thing. Volund knows he must strike now.”

  “The Irin council is not the primary problem,” Jaron said, “It is no longer just the scribes we must anticipate. That much is easy. Their council is utterly predictable.”

  “The singers have returned,” Barak and Vasu said together.

  “And more are coming.”

  There was a new light in Vasu’s eyes. “The songs have returned to Vienna.”

  Jaron longed for them. Not the echo of beauty in the Irina voices, but the true songs. He could still hear them, carrying across a crystal sea, rising into the endless sky where he had lived. Surrounding the throne. Jaron had once lived with their beauty in his veins. Their words remained embedded in his very skin.

  Every moment. Every step he’d taken since the birth of his daughter had been with this purpose in mind.

  He’d forgotten once.

  But then his daughter sang to him, and Jaron had remembered beauty.

  And he would have it back.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I FEEL LIKE WE NEED to tell them.” Ava was lying beside Malachi, enjoying the low morning light as they lingered in bed. He played with the ends of her hair, which were still scented with almonds and amber from the ritual baths the day before.

  Malachi had barely been able to contain himself when he’d seen her enter the library with her sisters. Though she was slight, power had radiated from her. He’d heard the curious whispers in the scribe’s gallery where he and Damien had watched Sari’s powerful address.

  “Who is she?”

  “Such golden eyes…”

  “Whose line?”

  “…already mated? With whom?”

  Malachi had wanted to crow, Mine! She is mine. Pride swelled from his chest as she held her head up against the curious stares.

  Damien had stood solid and fearsome in the gallery as he watched his mate. Watched the elders near her with his hawklike stare. The soft scribes of Vienna had given the old warrior a wide berth when his talesm began to glow.

  Such strong magic. There were few matings as powerful as Damien and Sari’s left among the Irin. Every scribe in the gallery was in awe.

  Malachi knew that, as the years passed, he and Ava would become stronger. Trials. Battles. Their power would grow until seeing the magic of one was the same as witnessing both.

  He hungered for it. And her.

  The echo of the Irina’s desks hadn’t even died before he was bolting from the gallery, but Damien stopped him on the stairs. Their mates were meeting with the Irina of Vienna, and Malachi would have to wait.

  “Tell who about what?” he murmured, still half-asleep. He’d sated his appetite for Ava late into the night, intoxicated by the lingering magic on her skin and the scent of her hair.

  “I think we need to tell our friends about my grandmother.”

  “Are you sure?” It was a sensitive subject, and though Malachi worried about Volund’s ability to track Ava, he also had confidence in Jaron’s protection.

  “I don’t feel like it’s my story to tell,” Ava said. “I feel like I’d be telling her secret. But I think the others need to know.”

  “How about this?” He rolled to his side and propped himself up on his elbow so he could see her face. “Talk to Orsala. Tell her. She will know if it is something that needs to be shared with the others.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “I’m brimming with them.”

  She smiled and pushed his shoulder. “That was your idea yesterday, wasn’t it? For Sari to create a scene.”

  “I think Sari likes creating scenes. And all the quiet machinations there annoyed me.” He rolled to his back and pulled her onto his chest. “Where is the passion in our race?” he asked. “Where is the purpose? We have lost the fire of our mission. Become consumed with ancient lines and intricate interpretations. That is not what we were meant for.”

  “I thought the scribes’ purpose was to preserve knowledge.”

  “It is. But I felt no love for it in that room. It was all routine and ceremony. No heart. No heat. And we are supposed to use that knowledge to fight the Fallen. To protect humanity. To help them. We cannot protect them if we can’t see past our own walls.”

  “And the singers—”

  “The moment the singers withdrew their magic from the human race, we put up walls. We let the fear of loss consume us. And in letting that fear rule us, we abandoned our purpose. We must change.”

  “Look at you.” She smiled down at him. “A visionary.”

  “I came back for a reason, Ava. The two of us… we are meant for a purpose.”

  “The kareshta?”

  “Part of breaking down walls is finding these women you’ve seen in Jaron’s vision. We find them, we kill the Fallen who fathered them, and they will be free.”

  An odd expression crossed her face.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I think I’d better cancel that beach shoot in Spain. I don’t think taking pictures of girls in bikinis is quite as important as saving the world.”

  He threw his head back and laughed.

  “And we need to complete the mating ritual. I’ll talk to Orsala about that too.”

  Malachi stopped laughing. “No.”

  SHE was angry with him, but he could live with that. What he couldn’t live with was Ava with even a fraction less power. Eventually, yes. When the current battle was past. When they’d gone back to Istanbul and were able to rest. Then she could complete her half of the ritual.

  “I cannot believe you’re being so stubborn about this.” She railed at him as they entered Damien and Sari’s home. “Why do you even get a vote? This is my magic.”

  “Well, since I’m the one who has to tattoo the mark for it to be permanent,” he said flippantly, “then I suppose you have no choice.”

  “I can always start singing when you’re asleep. I’d be halfway through by the time you woke up, and you know you’d go along with it.”

  He stopped so abruptly she ran into his back. Malachi spun and gripped her shoulders.

  “Don’t try to manipulate me. If you did that—if you denied me even a moment of hearing your mating song—I don’t know if I could forgive you, Ava.”

  She flushed. “Malachi—”

  “Don’t make threats about something that important. I would never do that to you.”

  He could see angry tears in the corner of her eyes, but she blinked them back. “But you’d deny me taking that step? Deny my own promise to you?”

  “You know why.”

  “Because it’s not safe? News flash: We’re in a millennia-long war that shows no signs of dying down. There will never be a time when it’s totally safe.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Rhys said from the doorway of the library.

  Malachi said, “Shut up, Rhys.”

  “You’re the ones making a racket in the hallway when I’m just trying to work.” He shot a charming smile at Malachi’s mate. “Hello, Ava, you smell amazing. The ritual baths suit you.”

  She smiled back. “Thank you.”

  He put a hand over his heart. “I would never deny your mark. Malachi is an idiot.”

  Malachi leaned against the wall. “I have now detailed fifty-seven specific and effective ways of killing you, Rhy
s. Would you like me to start listing them?”

  “No need. I’m fairly sure your mate is thinking up a comparable list for you right now.”

  Orsala shouted from inside the library. “You’re like children! Bicker bicker bicker.”

  Ava said, “I keep telling them—”

  “You’re as bad as the rest of them, Ava.”

  Malachi, Rhys, and Ava wandered into the library where Orsala was reading a scroll.

  “Don’t threaten your mate,” she chided without looking up. “You would be furious if he did that to you. Rhys, stop antagonizing your brother. Malachi, stop being a stubborn know-it-all. I may have liked you better when you didn’t remember anything.”

  Rhys knocked Malachi’s skull with a fist. “There’s still plenty of patchy spaces up here, Orsala.”

  Malachi punched him in the shoulder. Hard.

  Ava wandered over to the old singer. “I’m sorry. He’s driving me a little crazy this morning.”

  “That’s their job, dear. Sari’s grandfather was a menace.” She looked up with a smile. “And yet we love them. What are you doing this morning?”

  Malachi sat next to Ava and threw an arm around her shoulders. “We were hoping to speak with you privately, as a matter of fact.”

  Orsala’s keen eyes grew even sharper. “Does this have something to do with your grandmother?”

  Ava nodded.

  “I knew it.” Orsala said, “Rhys, that trip you were going to make to the archives. Do it now.”

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  Muttering about bossy women, the other scribe left the room and shut the door.

  “Before we start with anything else,” Orsala said, “Ava and Rhys are both correct, Malachi. You need to complete the ritual. Now is as safe a time as any. There is little Grigori activity in the city, and Ava has become known to the Irin hierarchy. Rumors about her history are starting to circulate. She is quite obviously mated, but for the two of you to reach your full potential together, you need to be marked. It might also hasten the return of your power, which we need.”

  He looked down at his chest. “She sings to me. It’s helping.”