Page 23 of The Storm
“Our time in Vienna,” he asked quietly, “was that the first time?”
She frowned. “What?”
“Was that the first time since the Rending that you’d shared a home with someone?”
She stiffened and tried to walk past him. “That wasn’t a home. It was a rented flat we shared while we were working.”
He caught her arm. “We slept in the same bed at night. We cooked and ate together. We hung our laundry and bitched about who needed to clean the bathroom. We laughed and fell asleep in front of the television.”
“That isn’t—”
“It was a home. Our home. Or at least the beginnings of one.”
Renata said nothing. She didn’t even look at him.
“You keep coming back here, don’t you? Every Midwinter, you come. You keep looking for the same feeling you lost, but you won’t find it because it was never the building. It wasn’t these caves, even with all the history and love and magic I can feel lingering here.”
He drew her closer, linking their hands together. Renata’s face was blank, but she wasn’t running away. Not yet.
Max lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Home is what we could have together, but you’re too afraid to build it.”
She wrenched her hand out of his grasp and left him in the tunnel.
Max let her go.
* * *
He exploredevery nook and cranny of the library, studying the intricate carvings along the wall and the lists of singers and scribes whose names were carved into the walls. Next to the alcove was a list of the chief Irina archivists, ending with the nameHeidi von Meren. In the reading room, the list of librarians ended with the nameGiorgio di Lanzo. Were they Renata’s parents? Max guessed they were, but there was no way to be certain. If the Rending hadn’t happened, would Renata’s name have followed Heidi’s?
I was a little girl who sang songs about history and magic and thought they meant something.
Renata had been an archivist like her mother. She’d spent her whole life learning about Irin history and magic and could likely recite massive volumes of Irina history purely from memory. Prior to the Rending, she would have been a powerful and influential woman, valued anywhere in the Irin world for her magical skill and knowledge. Archivists were the kind of Irina who occupied the elders’ seats in Vienna. They were influential and feared.
But Renata lived in hiding, venting her rage on the Grigori who had stolen her life.
Stolen her love.
His name was Balien of Damascus. He was a great man. A warrior… a knight of Jerusalem, a Rafaene scribe, and myreshon.
Who was Balien of Damascus, and why hadn’t he protected this library? An Irin warrior with extensive training could fight off a dozen armed Grigori and not sustain injury. And why hadn’t he mated with Renata as soon as he knew she was hisreshon? The only mark she wore was a single sign on her forehead.
If Renata wanted to be his mate, Max would abandon his own brothers to claim her.
He returned to the passageway leading to the classrooms where the children had fled. In the last classroom on the left, he found where they must have died. Max set his lamp in front of the longest wall and sat on a bench carved into the rock, staring at a lush scene painted on the limestone.
Mala.
Max remembered his cousin mentioning that the fearsome warrior was also an artist, but he’d never seen her work. Despite the darkness in the caves, the scene glowed with vivid joy. Children of every color and age ran toward a golden mountain, surrounded by animals. Elephants and lions guarded their path as birds sang in the trees overhead. Monkeys clutched flowers and ate vibrant purple fruit. Sheep and antelope lay sleeping at the feet of the lions while cattle grazed on the hills in the distance.
It was a scene of paradise and joy. Laughter instead of tears. A scene designed for loved ones to stop and linger and remember beauty. Renata, frozen in grief, had probably never seen it.
But someone had. Because in this room—and several of the others—there wasn’t a spot of dust on the table, and the lamp held a fresh beeswax candle. Childish drawings sat on a low school desk, and the smell of fresh bread lingered in the air.
Someone was living in the caves, and judging by the smell of bread, they hadn’t been gone long.
Chapter Five
Did you ever let yourself grieve?
