“This is beautiful.” She felt his warm skin shiver underneath her fingertips, but she didn’t take her hand away. Like any casual touch from one of the Irin, the contact was calming. “What is this? Is it magic, too?”
“Yes and no.” Rhys cleared his throat. “The writing on my back is the only work I haven’t done myself. My father did it. The names down the center are my family’s. Mother first—”
“Always the mother first,” Evren said. “Because we are protected by Irina magic when we are born.”
Rhys continued. “Then my father’s name. Then my maternal grandparents and then paternal.”
“So it’s like your whole family tree, written on your body. And the design?”
“From my mother.” His voice was quiet. “It was her gift to me.”
Evren said, “An Irin mother always designs something of beauty to add to her son’s talesm when he leaves for his training at thirteen, then his father does the tattoo. It goes on his back, over the heart. To be matched on the front of his chest when he is mated as an adult.” Then Evren’s face fell a little. “Though my son has neither, as he was only a child when his mother died.”
The look of sorrow on Evren’s face was enough to make Ava’s heart weep. His silent voice groaned at the mention of his wife as Ava waited for the words.
Vashamacanem, his soul whispered.
At least, that’s what it sounded like. Ava had come to think of it as the universal mantra of the grieving. She didn’t know what the phrase meant, only that she’d heard the same words from countless people around the globe. Funerals. Hospitals. It was one of the few phrases that was completely universal.
She pulled her hand away from Rhys’s back and squeezed Evren’s hand. “Where is your son? Does he live here, too?”
Evren squeezed her hand back and took a deep breath, forcing a smile. “He lives in Spain now. In a scribe house near Barcelona.”
A young man walked into the library, staring at Ava with the tentative awe she’d come to expect from most of the men. He bent down and whispered to Evren, who nodded and turned to her.
“We will have to take more notes later, Ava. I do apologize, but there is something I must tend to this afternoon.”
“Of course,” she said. “Don’t let me keep you.”
“Is there anything you need before I go? There is an English section in the library. Not large, but there are some books about local history that might interest you.”
Rhys said, “I’ll show her around, Evren.”
“Are you sure? I can find where Malachi—”
“I’m sure Rhys can keep me entertained.” Ava said, winking at the young scribe, then turning to Rhys who offered her a mischievous smile. Evren smiled knowingly as he and the young man turned to go.
When they were alone, Rhys said, “You know, scribe houses are almost as bad as sororities when it comes to gossip.”
“I’m counting on it.”
“Bad, tempting woman, you are.” He shook his head before he pulled on his shirt. “You’re going to get me stabbed. Malachi is not a man accustomed to sharing.”
“Well, then I guess he should be the one to keep me company. And you know about sororities, huh?”
“Sadly not through personal experience.” Rhys grinned. “But modern movies can be quite the education.”
“That was never my scene. Sorry. The popular girls don’t hang out with the crazy ones very often. Unless it’s to make fun of them.”
“Ava, Ava,” he muttered, throwing a casual arm around the back of her chair as they sat next to each other at the library table. “Don’t you know you’re not crazy? You’re special.” She felt him toying with an errant curl. “You’re magic, love. Someday you’ll understand how much.”
A beam of light came through a high window, flooding the room with sudden light and illuminating a mural on the other side of the library. One old man sat in the far corner, staring at the beautiful scene depicting a village bustling with life. In the six days she’d spent in the library, Ava had seen the old man do nothing else. He looked to be in his eighties or nineties, though like all the Irin, she knew he must be far older. Suddenly, she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
“Rhys?”
“Hmm?” He was staring at the mural, too.
“Will you tell me about the Rending?”
“There’s a human saying: You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. We Irin should have that tattooed on our foreheads.”
Rhys led her past the mural, toward a long hall lit with candles. On the dark wall, more images flickered from a mosaic of intricate design, made with shards of glass and pieces of pottery. Bits of stone, both precious and common, interspersed with paint and cloth and plaster. It was a confusing mixture, but as Ava stepped back, the images became clearer. She said nothing, waiting for Rhys to speak.
“It happened in the early 1800s. Things had been turbulent in human years. Wars. Revolutions. Political and social uprising. But for the Irin…” He shrugged and took a step down the hallway. “It had been an oddly peaceful few decades. Time has always moved more slowly for us. We exist among humans, but separate. We had become isolated in our own communities, for the most part. The council decided it was necessary after the madness of the medieval period in Europe.”