Page 3 of The Seeker
“Max? Are you there?”
“I am. According to Sari’s contact, this Irina is definitely still living. And likely somewhere in Louisiana. If we can find her—”
“We might be one step closer to restoring Irina status.”
Max said, “The Irina need to relearn martial magic if they want a chance at regaining their rightful place in Vienna.”
The Rending, the massive global Grigori attack that had killed eighty percent of Irin women and children, hadn’t happened out of nowhere. The Irina had spent centuries focusing on creative, artistic, and scientific magic, letting their focus drift to peaceful pursuits while Irin scribes gained more and more battle prowess. Battle had become men’s work, far beneath more lofty Irina goals. It had left the singers vulnerable to attack.
Two hundred years after the Rending, most surviving Irina were still reluctant to leave the havens where they’d hidden. The Elder Council in Vienna was the governing body of the Irin people, financing the scribe houses and protecting the secrecy of the Irin race in the human world. Since the Rending, the council was made up of old men reluctant to part with their power.
The lack of Irina martial power was a constant and pressing concern for those working toward reform in their world. Though the Irina Council had reformed in Vienna, every day Irina still lived with the threat of Grigori attack looming over them and a lack of confidence from Irin scribes around the world.
Damien, his former watcher in Istanbul, and Sari, Damien’s mate, had taken over the martial training academy in the Czech Republic. They were only one example of reformers desperate to rediscover the once-potent battle spells Irina had sung. Songs that had destroyed angels had been lost to time and the Rending.
Unlike the scribes’ vast libraries and archives, Irina libraries existed only within singers. Librarians were knowledge in human form, walking encyclopedias of magic, able to recall complex spells from memories trained since birth. They did not write magic down, believing that the delivery and emotion behind oral preservation were as essential as the spells themselves.
It was a stubborn ideology that drove Rhys mad.
He was a scribe of Gabriel’s blood, trained to preserve knowledge and copy any manuscript with precision, gifted in tattooing intricate magic on his body. Rhys’s tattoos, histalesm, started on his left wrist, wrapped around his arm and up his shoulder, down his chest, torso, and right arm, covering his body from the tops of his thighs to his neck. Only the space over his heart was bare, waiting for the mating mark he was mostly convinced would never come.
Histalesmwere not only magical armor but personal history. Every scribe was trained to preserve knowledge for future Irin generations in the most efficient and sensible way: writing.
“So this woman”—Rhys adjusted his seat—“the singer we’re looking for. Is she a librarian?”
“She’s more valuable than a librarian.”
“Right.” Rhys rolled his eyes. At this point in their history, there was nothing more valuable than an Irina librarian.
“Rhys, Sari’s contact believes she’s found the Wolf.”
“What wolf?”
“TheWolf.”
Rhys blinked. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“The Wolf and the Serpent were both killed in battle.”
“No. Ulakabiche died in battle, but his sister didn’t. Atawakabiche lives. At least according to Sari’s contact.”
Rhys was skeptical. “And not once in nearly three hundred years has she revealed herself to her sisters?”
Max sighed. “Don’t ask me. You’re the archivist. That’s why Damien sent you on this job instead of me and Renata. Sort out truth from legend, talk to this woman in New Orleans, and find out if the Wolf is still living. She and her brother were the most feared Irin warriors in North America. Atawakabiche’s magic destroyed an archangel without the use of a heavenly blade. If she exists, she could change everything.”
“Who is Sari’s contact?” Rhys asked.
“An Irina named Meera.”
“Meera? Who is she?”
“I don’t know anything about her except that she’ll meet you in New Orleans in three days. Go to Jackson Square on Saturday morning, and she’ll find you.”
Rhys groaned. “She wants to meet me among the heaviest tourist traffic in New Orleans on Saturday morning? Is she serious?”
“I don’t make the decisions here, brother. I’m passing along information. Be there by nine.”
