Free The Singer by Elizabeth Hunter

do. What he’d been born to do was help his mate, who was somewhere in the world, suffering without him. The urge to get up and leave the library was hard to resist.
    “I know you must be feeling stifled,” Rhys said. “Frustrated. But until we have some direction on where to look for Damien and Ava, it’s no use rushing off. We’d be just as well to stay here and try to figure out what you can and can’t do.”
    Malachi pushed the Sumerian manuscript back toward Rhys. “I can read ancient languages and understand them. So useful. What else can I do?”
    Rhys ignored the sarcasm and held up his hand. On the inside of his left wrist was a swirl of ancient letters, almost too small to read across the table. They curled around in a spiral until the words crawled up his forearm, then twisted and wrapped around his arm like a snake.  
    “You can do this.”
    A low hunger started in his belly. Something in the dark corners of his memory told Malachi that this was something he wanted. “ Talesm .”
    “ Talesm .”
    “Our magic.” Malachi rubbed hands over his bare forearms.
    Rhys took a deep breath before he spoke. “Irin have two kinds of magic. Natural magic, which we are born with—the kind that lets you read any language in front of you and see words even after they’ve been erased from the physical eye—and learned magic. Both were gifted to us by our fathers.”
    “The angels?”
    Rhys nodded. “Our books say that when the Forgiven left the earth, the Creator allowed them to hide a shadow of heavenly magic within their children. But not everything. That had been their mistake with their first children. They had given them too much power. So much that some had to be destroyed. Before they left, they divided their magic. To their sons, they gave the gift and power of the written word. To their daughters, the songs of the ancients, along with gifts of healing, foresight, and discernment.”
    Malachi remembered the story on the clay tablet. “The daughters of Leoc?”
    “An old name for those Irina who are gifted—or some say cursed—with visions. Different angels bore different gifts, depending on their role in the heavenly realm. Their children bear a fraction of their fathers’ powers, but it is still formidable. For Irin, we learned over time that we could work magic—control it, mold it for our own uses—through the written word.”
    “And the Grigori?”
    Rhys shook his head. “The Fallen were not gifted as the Forgiven were. Their children are more than human, yes, but they cannot wield magic as we can. A Fallen may loan some magic to a Grigori occasionally, but it is not really theirs. When we Irin tattoo spells on our bodies, we permanently make that magic a part of us.”
    “It’s like armor,” he said.
    “That’s one way of looking at it. We use it to strengthen our bodies. Make ourselves stronger. Increase our longevity. A mature and trained Irin scribe is practically immortal.”
    Malachi rubbed the back of his neck. “But not entirely.”
    “Clearly.”
    Silence fell between them, with nothing but the tick of a mantel clock filling the air. Rhys watched him with some unspoken question burning in his eyes.
    “What?” Malachi finally asked. “Are you tired of telling me all these things? We should take a break. I feel like running.”
    “You generally do after a day cooped up inside. Or when you’re irritated.”
    For some reason, Rhys’s knowledge of his habits irked him. Why did this stranger know more about him than he did?  
    “Will my talesm come back?” he asked. “Or are they lost? Will I have to tattoo them all over again? How long will it take to be strong enough?”
    “We have no idea.” Rhys shrugged a single shoulder. “You need to do basic protection spells, at the very least. Once we find Ava—”
    “And when will that be?”
    “I don’t know.” Rhys’s eyes flashed. “I told you, we don’t know where Damien took her. We’re doing our best, but