The Silent: Irin Chronicles Book Five(12)

Like Kyra and her sisters, Intira was unaccustomed to any human or Grigori touch. Soul voices were usually stronger with contact, so kareshta learned very early to avoid touching any other being unless absolutely necessary. It was why few of them ever took lovers or mates until some had learned to shield themselves. Kyra used to think she didn’t like to be touched, until one day a tall scribe took her hand and made the voices go away.

Was it Irin magic? Or was it simply Leo?

No one else had ever given her true silence. Then again, Leo was the only scribe she’d ever touched. She’d craved it after a single moment. It was part of the reason she couldn’t allow her fascination with him to grow.

“Let me tell you.”

“It will only make it worse when I leave again.”

“So don’t leave. Stay here.”

“I can’t.”

Intira crouched in front of her. “Kyra, are you feeling well?”

Kyra nodded and took the towel from her face. The bleeding had stopped and Kanchana had drawn a blanket over Prija. They left her in the meditation room they used for instruction. At some point during the day, Prija would wake and slip back to her room or escape into the forest. It was hard to keep track of her, but Niran was adamant. The compound was not a prison. As long as Prija wasn’t hurting anyone, she could come and go as she pleased.

“Come,” Intira said. “Kanchana says the brothers have prepared a meal for us.”

And it was a good thing they had. Kyra’s stomach was rumbling when she rose. Practicing controlled magic burned energy. Fighting off mental attacks from out-of-control kareshta burned even more.





Prija I





She woke alone in the empty cottage.

It was Prija’s preferred way of waking. Alone.

She sat up and looked around at the meditation cottage.

A place of peace and learning, the pale woman had said.

Peace and learning.

Learning was useful. Peace was an illusion. She’d had no peace since Kanok had died.

A playful song danced at the back of her mind. Kanok’s voice. It was the only sound she heard in her mind anymore. The other voices had been snuffed out. The stars were dim. She’d never told her brothers or sisters that fact. But then, Prija didn’t like to speak. She’d avoided it for years.

The only power she had left was like a stone. Once, she’d woven delicate, secret magic. Magic that had frightened her own father. Now she could only throw her power at others, hoping to wound them enough that they’d leave her alone. She kept trying to wound the foreigner, but so far the woman had proven surprisingly resilient.

Moonfaced girl. The first time Prija had seen her, that was what the woman reminded her of. Her skin had a luminous quality that seemed to reflect light like the moon. She had soft edges and a gentle voice.

Prija was not soft. Her fingers were callused from playing her saw sam sai; the three-stringed bowed instrument was her only voice since her father’s death. Her feet were broad and padded from running and climbing through the forest. Her hair was perpetually tangled. She was thin and hard.

She was not like Bun Ma, whose soft face and body reminded Prija of her dead mother. Kanchana wanted to be a warrior. She pretended to be hard, but she was soft inside. Prija sometimes heard her crying at night. And as for Intira, the girl was soft as boiled rice, and Prija would kill to keep her that way. Intira’s mind was like one of the crystal vases Prija had seen once in the village. Cut finely and reflecting a thousand facets, the young girl’s mind was as beautiful as it was complex.

The moonfaced girl was interesting. She was hard but appeared soft. And she was stronger than the others realized. Stronger than any of them thought. If she weren’t, Prija would have knocked her unconscious by now.

Silently, Prija picked herself up off the bamboo floor and walked into the forest. She liked the lessons because they allowed her to spend quiet time with her sisters, but they weren’t useful. Prija already knew how to control her thoughts. It had been an accident, but she knew.

All you had to do to mute the voices around you was to kill your father and destroy most of your mind.





Chapter Four





Leo woke to the smell of lemongrass and coconut drifting through the Bangkok scribe house as the setting sun backlit the bamboo shades that covered his windows. He could hear the bustle of the city below where the vendors at the night markets were setting up stands and preparing food for the crowds that Friday night.

He’d indulged in a short nap before dinner after greeting Dara and her brother Rith when he’d arrived. Alyah showed him to his borrowed room and told him to rest and refresh himself before dinner.

The Bangkok scribe house was a narrow wooden house that stretched five stories up from the street. The painted gates concealed a peaceful garden decorated with lily ponds and a myriad of ladders and stairs leading to rooms surrounding the central courtyard. It was the most immaculate scribe house Leo had ever seen. His room was small and the bed was short, but both were more than adequate. He stayed in far less comfortable lodgings for most of his assignments.

His room was also close to the kitchen. He suspected someone in the Istanbul house had warned them of his appetite.

Oh cue, his stomach grumbled.

He stretched up and forward, reaching for his toes as he flexed his feet. The talesm on his arms appeared to move as his muscles did. The black ink had been patiently scribed over hundreds of years. His longevity spells, halting his age in what humans would guess was his late twenties. Spells for patience and self-control. Spells for clear vision. For empathy—he’d long suspected Chamuel’s blood flowed in his veins. For swiftness in battle and wisdom in strategy. His talesm were as much a part of him as his hands or feet.