“These are names of the Irina and children from the retreat nearby,” Rhys whispered. He pointed to one near the top. “This was Evren’s wife.”
Ava stifled a cry. Hundreds of names followed that first one. Column after column of names. Some worn smooth by fingers rubbing over them. Others sharp and jagged, as if the stone still held the anger of two hundred years.
She felt rage bubble up along with a primal grief she could barely comprehend. Words caught in her throat, and her hands clenched, her fingernails digging into her palms till she could feel the skin break and the blood run. She felt powerless. Strangled by her own pain. By Rhys’s pain. By the pain lurking beneath every face she’d seen. She shook with it, knowing she was crying, but the tears weren’t enough.
“Ava?” Rhys’s voice seemed to come from a distance. “Ava, are you all right?”
Don’t speak. Can’t speak. Never speak again.
Shaking her head, Ava pulled her hair and closed her eyes. She dug her fingers into her temple, relieved by the bite of pain. Her tear-filled eyes rose to the wall of names, but there was only silence.
And Ava knew.
These were her people. And they were gone.
“No,” she whispered.
The shivering took over, starting in her chest and spreading to her limbs. Her mind flew in a thousand directions as she closed her eyes again and rocked.
“Ava?”
She felt Rhys’s hand on her shoulder. He tried to put an arm around her, but she shoved him back.
“No!”
“Ava, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
Rhys broke off at the unexpected cry of grief that came from her throat. It was a groan. A shout. It was everything her soul didn’t have the words to express. Ava leaned against the far wall, staring at the mosaic, feeling her legs start to give out. She felt locked in a pain she couldn’t escape.
And then she felt him. Felt him running toward her. Heard his footsteps coming down the hall.
Closer.
“What did you do?” he shouted.
“She asked! Was I not supposed to tell her the truth?”
A shove. A punch. Ava reached out, her eyes still closed, grasping for something she couldn’t name yet.
Hands met hers. Arms encircled her. And the calm followed. The rage fled, and in its wake was a fierce grief for a thousand faces she would never know. A thousand voices she would never hear. Ava held on to Malachi and wept for a loss her mind could barely comprehend. He lifted her and took her away from the hall. Away from the flickering candles and the bloody stones. Ava closed her eyes and let him take her away.
“So many dead.” She closed her eyes and whispered into his skin.
“I know.”
“Women like me. They hated them. They killed them. Because they were afraid.”
They were sitting in a quiet corner of the scribe house, in a room she hadn’t seen before. Low lights flickered from sconces on the wall, and the room was lined with comfortable chairs and sofas. There was another mural on the wall, but this one was a picture of the sky, vividly blue against the light stone walls. Malachi was holding her on his lap, stroking her hair as she burrowed her face into his neck.
“Was your mother killed, too?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “Yes. And my father. He had remained behind at the retreat when the men in our village went to Hamburg to help the guardians. He was killed, too. Almost our entire village was wiped out. I was stationed in another city.”
She fell silent again, focusing on the quiet comfort of his skin against hers. How could a people survive such a loss?
“You lost your wives. Your mothers. Your children.”
“Most of us haven’t even seen an Irina since the Rending.” His voice held suppressed rage. “We are half a people.”
“That’s why you called me a miracle,” she said.
She felt his arms tighten. “Nothing about your family says you can be Irina, but you are. We lost so many, but… I am willing to hold out hope that somehow, if you exist, then others might, too. That our race will survive. We are dying, Ava. We may live forever, but we are dying from the inside. Once there were so many of us. Families. Generations. Now there are almost no children. The Irina who still live hide away, angry with the rest of us for leaving them vulnerable. Enraged at the loss of their sisters and children. And who can blame them?”
“And the Grigori know who I am.”
His arms squeezed a little tighter. “They will not get you. I will not allow it. None of us will.”
She pressed her face into the skin of his neck and breathed deeply, allowing herself the comfort. Allowing herself to dream for a moment that there could be a future for her that didn’t mean loneliness and isolation.
“Ava.” She heard the reservation in Malachi’s voice and felt him begin to draw away. She held his shoulders tightly.
“Just give me a few more minutes.”
His shoulders tensed, then relaxed, and she felt his arms go around her even more tightly, pressing her into his chest as he took a deep breath. His voice was only a soft murmur in her mind, and no other intruded. Malachi began stroking her hair again, tentatively brushing his fingers along her neck and behind her ear.
He finally said, “A few more minutes.”
And just like the moment in the hall, when grief and recognition slammed together, Ava knew. However it had happened, whatever strange twist of fate had caught her… these were her people.