The Staff and the Blade: Dreams

Prologue

Author note: This prologue was already posted on my website, so I'm including it here today and then a new chapter will post tomorrow on regular posting day. New readers, I hope you enjoy!

Mine is the fire. Mine is the blood.

Mine, her soft touch and her sharp tongue.

She that wields a strong hand

And a gentle embrace

Is my lover.

My own.

Mine is the need and the desire.

My witness, her song.

Daughter of heaven,

Beloved of my heart.

My Sari.

My own.

—from Damien's Vow

~

Paris, 1314

Smoke curled from the pile of wood stacked at the feet of the condemned. His brother stood, holding an elderly knight, a leader of their order, whose hands were folded in prayer and eyes were lifted to heaven. The old knight didn't know what Damien and Otto were. None of the Templars did. They were knights of Bohemia, sent to serve the Christian God in the holy war. Nameless servants given to a cause greater than themselves.

They were Irin Scribes, sent by their elders to protect those innocents traveling along the roads to the Holy Land. Pilgrims of any religion, his small band had watched over them as they traveled, protecting them from a threat lost in legends. Grigori. Sons of the Fallen. Human legend had given them many names. Succubus. Vampire. Demon. They were the dark sons of angels who took and fed from the vulnerable humans, especially the women and children.

Despite that eternal threat, it wasn't supernatural forces that were killing his brother. The air was acrid with smoke. The crowd jeered as scheming human rulers, fat with gold and titles, watched on.

No, it hadn't taken the sons of the Fallen to claim the silent scribe now standing in the growing flames. Plain human greed had slain him and those comrades he refused to abandon.

Otto. Damien mouthed his brother's name, standing on the edge of the crowd, his drab human clothes and cloak hiding his identity.

The tired scribe shook his head, but kept his eyes on his brother, even as the humans began to cry in fear. Gasped prayers and tearful pleas from the youngest. They were old men and frightened boys. Most of those condemned were innocent of any crime. All were innocent of the crimes they'd been accused of.

Every instinct in Damien cried out to save them.

A hand on his shoulder. "Brother, you agreed."

Stephen, the Watcher of the Irin scribe house in Paris, held him back.

"This is not justice," Damien said through gritted teeth.

"No, Damien, this is human politics."

He clamped down a guttural cry as he saw Otto's head fall, the smoke taking his consciousness before the flames took his body.

"Hold, brother. Give him his peace." Stephen braced both his hands on Damien's shoulders and watched as one by one the humans around Otto also passed into unconsciousness and the flames grew higher. The crowd grew more volatile.