Page 90 of The Seeker
Meera knew the subject had been officially changed. “It was good. I was wondering—”
“What does your mate want from me?” Ata didn’t look up as she asked. She kept methodically transferring the powder into the jar. “He is being very patient, but I can tell he wants something.”
“Yes.” Meera had decided to stop correcting Ata regarding the status and her and Rhys’s relationship. Ata ignored any protestations about Rhys and Meera not being mated anyway. “I’ve told you I want to record your language, but he has a different goal.”
“What is it?”
Meera debated whether to reveal Rhys’s plans but decided that for the Wolf, frankness was a better tactic than subterfuge. “Rhys wants to know your martial magic.”
“And you?”
“I want to know how you found peace.”
Ata raised an eyebrow.
“You and your brother achieved peace in this land. Lasting peace for over five hundred years. At no other time in Irin history has that been accomplished. How did you do it?”
Ata shook her head. “You’re not going to like the answer.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“We made them afraid,” Ata said. “Very, very afraid.”
The singer was right. Meera didn’t like that answer. “How?”
Ata frowned and dragged her foot though the dust. “What happened to the Irina on the other side of the ocean? Why don’t you have warriors anymore?”
“We do have warriors. My mother is a warrior. But… the Irina across the ocean—and the modern Irina here—don’t have battle spells anymore. Most Irina warriors died out or were killed in the Rending. The majority are scholars and healers now. Scientists and businesswomen. But fighting has been taken over by the scribes.”
Ata shrugged. “That makes sense since modern Irin are stupid.”
Meera blinked. “I’d like to think not all of us are stupid.”
“You are thesomasikara, so of course you are not stupid. You carry the memories of our people, so you have their wisdom. But most modern scribes and singers?” She shrugged. “I have watched them. I think they are stupid.”
Was that why she was determined to die? So she could avoid the stupidity of modern life? “Why do you think so?”
“Modern Irin have become like the humans, fighting for unimportant things. They create laws and rules to fight the sons of the Fallen, who are animals meant to be driven from the earth. Grigori don’t deserve laws. They deserve death.”
Meera’s mouth fell open. “That’s… I mean… Do you know that there are free Grigori—Grigori whose angelic fathers are dead—who are trying to live in peace with us? At peace with humans? That there are female Grigori who have no magic and no ability to shut out the voices of humanity? Some of their brothers have become our allies. Some of the women have actually mated with Irin scribes.”
Ata’s face was blank. She stared across the village, watching Rhys go up and down the ladder. Without another word, she stood and walked away.
Meera let out a long breath. “So I’m going to guess shedidn’tknow that.”
Meera layin bed that night next to Rhys. They’d been exhausted the night before after finding Ata’s mound, but now her mind was spinning. Ata’s isolation. Her determination. The magic she held without any desire to share it.
“How do you speak to someone who withdrew from the world over two hundred years ago?” Rhys mused. “Closer to three hundred. She’s completely disconnected from society. She feels no responsibility to it.”
“I was thinking the same thing. The humans and then the Grigori took everything from her. No other Irin came to help her people.”
“They were isolated. The council didn’t even know—”
“She doesn’t care about that.” Meera rolled on her side. “She doesn’t feel a larger responsibility except to the memory of her people. She’s ready to die.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand giving up like that.”
“Maybe she doesn’t see it as giving up. Maybe she sees it as simply following the path all her people have traveled ahead of her. How would you feel if you were the last of your people? If all that was left of your language was your own memories? Think about it, Rhys. That’s a profound level of loneliness.”
