Page 69 of The Scribe (Irin Chronicles 1)

Chapter Twelve

Four days later, Ava was still thinking about Rhys’s words.

We will find a way to let you unlock your power, Ava. I promise.

Power. They told her the manic energy that had stalked her wasn’t illness or mania, it was power. For someone who had spent her life skirting around the edges of insanity, it was hard to fathom.

Excitable.

Emotional.

High-strung.

Hyperactive.

Troubled…

The descriptions from friends and doctors had slowly devolved as she’d gotten older. They’d gone from amusement to awkwardness. And though her mother had always cushioned the blow, Ava had known from the time she was a child that there was something different about her. Something that wasn’t good. Something that made her “too much” to deal with. Carl had only confirmed it when she’d reached her teens. His constant stream of classes and camps and internships may have given her a résumé most twenty-somethings would kill for, but Ava knew it had little to do with concern. She was a problem, one he preferred to farm out.

“Evren?” She turned to the old scribe sitting across the table from her.

“Yes, my dear?”

“Would you say that I’m… normal? For an Irina?”

Evren gave her a slow smile. “But what is normal? For any man or woman?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean.” He put down the pencil he’d been taking notes with and folded his hand. “You are who you were meant to be, Ava. I see nothing damaged or wrong with you. How you came to be who you are?” Evren lifted his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “Who can say? In Irin history, there is no incidence of any Irina being born in a human family. But you are here now. You are among your people. You are a wonder to us, not an oddity.”

“My whole life, I’ve never fit in.”

“Of course you haven’t,” he said. “I’m sure in the human world, you would stand out. Here? You are normal. You remind me very much of a girl I grew up with. She was so curious.” A dimple touched Evren’s cheek. “She was the favorite of our teachers in the village.”

Ava was quiet for a long time, staring at the high, glowing windows of the library. When she finally spoke, she spoke softly.

“I thought I was crazy for a long time. My whole life, really. It’s hard to leave that behind, even with all of you telling me that I’m not.”

“Why?”

“Don’t get me wrong.” She shook her head. “I know it should be a relief. But there’s a part of me that still doesn’t believe it. A part that thinks I’m locked in a room somewhere because my delusions have finally taken over. The voices have finally won, and this is all a kind of dream that my mind is using to cope.”

Evren opened his mouth, then closed it. Finally, he said, “I think…”

Pain bloomed in her knee when he kicked it under the table. Ava’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“Ow! What the heck, Evren?”

He shrugged again. “That wouldn’t hurt in a dream, so you’re not dreaming.”

She was speechless.

“What?” he asked. “You want me to come up with some deep, philosophical answer? You’re not crazy. You’re part of a race that is descended from the offspring of angels and human women. Is this so hard to believe? Look at your legends and myths. There are bits of truth all over. Pieces of the story that have been told for thousands of years. Wise women. Oracles. Heroes of ancient times. We’ve always been here. You just thought the stories were nothing more than stories. So your doctors hear you tell them about whispers, and they call you crazy. A thousand years ago, they might have called you a witch or an oracle.” Evren curled his lip in disgust and turned back to his books. “Modern humans learn much, but they forget even more.”

“Okay,” she said. “Got it. Not crazy.”

“It’s insulting for you to say it.”

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