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.”