The Staff and the Blade: Irin Chronicles Book Four by Elizabeth Hunter Read Free Book Online Page B

without preamble. “Would you like to know of it?”
    “Yes. But I want to know it from her.”
    He nodded. “Yet she is not here. I am.”
    Sari paused. “You have been to Spain.”
    “I have been many places,” he said quietly. “Spain is one of them.”
    Sari did want to learn of Tala’s new home from her own sister, but no letters had yet reached her. She ached for knowledge of the strange world her twin now lived in.
    “What is it like?”
    A slow, fond smile spread across Damien’s face. “Warm.”
    “Warm?”
    “In the summer, almost too warm. The earth bakes as if the sun was its oven, and the dust can spread everywhere. Sometimes weeks or months will go by with no rain.”
    “No rain at all?”
    “None.” He pulled out his leather journal. “But the summer is also when the grapes grow sweetest and the orange trees blossom.”
    “Oranges?” Sari was entranced. She’d heard of the sweet fruit that grew in warm countries but had never tasted it or smelled its blossom. She’d only seen pictures in books.
    “The wind is filled with the scent of them,” Damien continued. “Some days it feels as if the sweetness coats your skin because the air is so laden.”
    He opened his journal and paged to the front. Sari tried not to crane her neck when she looked. Each page was filled with intricate drawings and words in a flowing script she recognized from his tattoos. Coins and scraps of paper were tucked into the seams along with some leaves and faded blooms. He found the page he was looking for and turned it toward her, lifting a pressed flower from the book.
    “Here.” He held it out. “This is what the blossoms look like. They’re pure white on the tree.”
    Sari took the delicate flower and held it to her nose, but no hint of scent remained. Still, she examined it, noting the size and shape of the petals. The leaf. The stem. “Do you have others?”
    “Other flowers?”
    She nodded, eying his journal. “How many places have you been?”
    The flicker of a shadow in his eyes. “Many places.”
    “So you said.”
    He took the dried bloom from her hand and folded it carefully in the paper before he placed it back in the book. He said nothing for minutes, so Sari went back to eating her breakfast and tried to ignore her burning curiosity.
    “The world is full of beautiful, wild places,” Damien finally said softly. “Sadly, it’s also full of violence and danger.”
    She set down her bowl. “Which is greater, the beauty or the violence?”
    He shook his head. “It’s not that simple. Sometimes the beauty is violent. And sometimes the violent is beautiful.”
    Sari understood him. “An eagle hunting the fjords is beautiful.”
    “But does the fish he snatches think so?” He gave her the edge of a smile.
    “So you were the eagle?”
    “Sometimes.” He closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “But so was I the fish.”
    Sari couldn’t help herself. “How old are you? Where do you come from? The writing in your journal, what language is that?”
    “Slavic mostly. Some Latin. I spoke both as a boy.”
    “Slavic?”
    “I was born in a place called Bohemia. Do you know it?”
    Sari shook her head, and Damien opened his journal to another page where a map had been drawn. Damien pointed to the top left. “Here are the northern lands where you are from.”
    “I recognize them.”
    His finger inched down. “And here is Orkney.”
    “Yes.”
    He trailed his finger down and over a large peninsula in the south. “And here is Spain, where your sister lives now.”
    “I cannot imagine the journey.” Sari watched his finger trace up and over to settle in the heart of the map. The center.
    “This is Vienna, where the elders preside.”
    “I know. My grandmother is an elder singer, though she does not reside in the city more than a few months at a time.”
    He inched his finger to the side. “And this is Bohemia, where my family is from.”
    Sari looked at the map. There were far more