The Obsidian Tower

by Melissa Caruso

  “Maybe not this exact sort of thing.” Kessa offered a rueful smile. “No one has had to deal with a demon in four thousand years, and I have to admit I’m flat-out terrified. Still, your grandmother was right to call us; if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time with the Rookery, it’s that we always find a way in the end.”

  “But there may not be a way to restore my grandmother,” I said, hating to voice the quiet truth that had been gnawing a black hole in my chest. “If she’s merged with the demon, I’m not sure that can be undone.” I looked up at Whisper, questioning.

  His tail tip flicked once, twice, then settled around his paws.

  “Everyone changes,” he said at last. “Change is the essence of life. And once you’ve changed, nothing can make you again what you were before.”

  That meant no. I swallowed a small noise before it could claw its way up out of my aching throat.

  Bastian’s face twisted with a pain that I neither expected nor understood. Then Ashe let out a long, rough sigh, as if she hated to do this.

  “Once,” she said softly, “long ago, there was a girl who cut out her heart.”

  Everyone turned to look at her. Ashe stared into the fire, seemingly oblivious to the attention, and kept talking in a quiet, mesmerizing voice. “She was a killer, and her heart got in the way of her work. So she left it on the floor behind her.” The firelight flickered warm fingers across Ashe’s face, lingering in her eyes. “Her work came easier after that, but she forgot why it mattered. She carried on, empty and hollow and slowly dying from the inside out, all without a heart.”

  Foxglove closed his eyes and rubbed his temple, as if remembering an old pain. Kessa stared at Ashe, rapt, her eyes soft and distant, black hair falling like night itself around her face.

  “Go on,” I whispered.

  “She would have gotten herself killed, sooner or later,” Ashe continued. “Probably sooner, because anyone who’ll cut her own heart out takes pretty poor care of herself. But along came someone behind her, all unexpected—a wise and kind girl. And the kind girl was carrying a jar.”

  An odd little smile quirked Bastian’s lips, and he glanced from Ashe to Kessa and back again.

  “She handed the killer the jar,” Ashe said, so softly. “And she said, ‘You dropped this.’ The killer opened the jar up. And you know what she found there, don’t you?”

  “Her heart,” I breathed.

  Ashe nodded, still studiously watching the fire. “She’d kept it safe. And the killer stared into that jar for a long time. At last, she picked her heart up and put it back in the empty hollow in her chest.”

  “What’s your point?” Foxglove asked, his voice too harsh, breaking the spell.

  Ashe shrugged. “If I have to say the point of the story, it’ll sound stupid. That’s why we make stories. So we can say things without sounding like idiots.”

  “I get it,” I said roughly. If my grandmother had lost who she was, or where she drew lines, or what mattered, it was up to those who loved her to give it all back—if we could. I glanced up at Whisper. “How much of her is my grandmother, and how much is the demon?”

  Whisper’s gleaming yellow eyes narrowed. “I couldn’t begin to guess. I haven’t had any direct interaction with her since the gate opened; she’s been avoiding me. And it’s not as if this has happened so often that we have a deep understanding of how it works.”

  He sounded annoyed enough that I believed him. Which meant it was up to me to find out.

  I took a deep breath to steady the squirming and fluttering that persisted in my stomach. “All right. I’ll try to lure her out to speak to me again, so I can get a sense of who she is now. How much she’s still herself, and what her goals and plans are.”

  “And try to remind her that she loves you and Morgrain,” Kessa suggested. “Or anything else you think might help her decide that she wants humanity alive and more or less intact.”

  Whisper’s ears flicked back in disgust. “If we’ve come to the point in the conversation where you’re attempting to save humanity with the power of love, it’s time for me to depart.”

  “Not really,” I said, embarrassed. “We’re talking about strengthening the parts of her that are my grandmother, so that she’s more herself and less the demon.”

  His tail swished. “Utter foolishness. I came here to keep you from jumping to certain unfortunate conclusions. I see you found others far more ridiculous, and I will leave you to it.”

  He leaped down from the mantel and prowled into the patch of shadow from which he’d come. We all watched him go, but I doubted anyone in the room could pinpoint the moment when the dark space beneath the table no longer contained a chimera.

  I tried to pull the scattered mess of my thoughts together. “All right. This makes it even more important that we destroy the gate as soon as possible. Do we have a plan for how to do so yet?”

  “Bearing in mind that I haven’t been able to translate all of the runes and symbols on the obelisk, so my understanding may not be completely correct…” Bastian flipped through his notebook, frowning at his diagrams. “Aside from the many layers of wards in the Black Tower, the enchantment seems to have two main pieces. The stone itself opens and closes an aperture of sorts to the Nine Hells—that line down the middle that glowed so brightly when Ryx touched it—in a reasonably controlled fashion. And the seal carved across it is like a lock on the door, holding it shut.”

  “Can we leave the seal intact, but disenchant the gate?” Foxglove asked, leaning over his shoulder.

  Bastian tapped one of the diagrams of the obelisk’s runes. “This part here is the problem. There’s a whole section of the gate enchantment dedicated to protection against tampering of any kind. If we try to perform a disenchantment, or to alter the artifice designs so it doesn’t work anymore, the protections will kill us. They’re cleverly designed and quite powerful.”

  Foxglove’s eyes lifted to mine, lighting with a sudden spark. “We could use Ryx.”

  “You don’t use people, Foxglove, remember?” Kessa chided him. “We’ve been over this.”

  My heart lurched unpleasantly at the thought of unsealing my magic. But we had much graver concerns now. “I’d be happy to lend my power, if it would let us destroy the gate.”

  Bastian peered at his notes. “I think so. The protections are wound deeply into the gate enchantment itself; if you touched the gate, you’d be draining the power of the gate and the protections at once.”

  “I’d want to be careful not to deplete the seal again, though.” I shuddered at the memory of the terrible white light, all the more sickening now that I knew it had come from the Hells themselves.

  “There’s some danger that you’d get the seal as well,” Bastian said, looking between his notebook and the diagrams on the table. “The enchantments are all connected. That should be moot, however, since if you’ve taken the power from the gate, it can’t open regardless. It’s not impossible that there’d be a brief moment when the way was at least partly open if the seal drains faster than the gate itself does, though.”

  We all exchanged worried glances. My skin prickled thinking about the potential consequences if anything went wrong. If I couldn’t be trusted in my own kitchens, how could we contemplate letting me tamper with the artifact that had triggered the Dark Days themselves?

  Foxglove started pacing. “Is it worth the risk? What do you think, rooks?”

  “Do we have another way to destroy it?” I asked.

  Bastian hesitated, then shook his head. “Maybe with more time. But not by tomorrow night. It’ll be hard enough preparing the disenchantment itself by then, without having to come up with a way around the protections.”

  “I don’t think we have more time.” I bit my lip. If the Shrike Lord already had his alliance in place, he’d have no reason not to invade immediately after the Rite of Blood and Water—unless I found some way to satisfy his grievance. Those Raverran warships would arrive off our coast soo
n, and once they did, the aggressive faction would only need to gain a momentary upper hand to start laying waste to Morgrain. And the Eldest could decide to intervene at any time; they wouldn’t need to bring armies. They could walk up to Gloamingard themselves and take the gate, and no one could stop them.

  Except possibly my grandmother.

  “What will we do,” I said slowly, “if my grandmother decides not to let us destroy the gate?”

  Ashe let out a long breath. “Normally here’s where I’d offer to stab her for you. And that offer stands, mind you, but I’m not sure it would do much.”

  Bastian rolled his pencil between his fingers, frowning thoughtfully, as if this were some problem his professors had set him and not a matter of the survival of humanity. “I think we want to use the wards. The ones that keep out everyone but your family. They’re quite powerful—probably designed to stop demons, now that I think of it—and Foxglove could modify them to keep out your grandmother as well fairly easily. We’d only need a bit of her hair, or something of that sort.”

  “I can get you some from her brush,” I offered.

  “All right.” Foxglove rubbed his hands together. “We’ve got until tomorrow evening to get this disenchantment together. Ryx, I’m counting on you to get the nations of Eruvia to hold off on unleashing destruction upon us in the meantime.”

  “That’s all going to depend on the results of the Rite of Blood and Water,” I said uneasily. “The Vaskandrans will abide by the rite, and the Empire—well, they’ll probably at least wait until after the rite to see who their enemies and allies are before doing anything.”

  “I have faith in you,” Foxglove said, with a glib confidence I wished I could believe in.

  “Wait.” Bastian lifted a hand, a worried frown drawing his brows together. “There’s one more problem. If Ryx unleashes her power, it’ll likely drain her jess, too. We don’t know when or even if it’ll work again—and if it doesn’t, the Serene Empire may not be willing to give her another.”

  Everyone turned to look at me. Kessa came and put a hand on my shoulder, her eyes grave.

  “That’s a lot for us to ask, and frankly I feel like a stingroach for doing it,” she said. Her warm, gentle touch was an active reminder of everything I had to lose. “You don’t have to take the risk if you don’t want to.”

  Hell of Nightmares. It had been one thing to live my life needing to avoid touch and stay away from people when that was all I knew. I’d developed strategies to deal with it and tried not to dwell on what I was missing. Going back to that life after my brief, sweet taste of human contact would be like being thrust back out into a snowstorm after only a few moments inside by a warm fire.

  It would be a cold I was used to, at least, if a bitter one.

  “I’ll do it.”

  It was hard to meet the eyes of my guests at breakfast, over platters of sausage and eggs and brown bread hot from the ovens. Surely the truth would somehow show on my face—the horrible secret that it was too late to keep demons from coming through to Eruvia, and some sort of reckoning with the Nine Hells was already upon us.

  All the work I’d done to try to preserve the peace wouldn’t matter. As soon as word got out about my grandmother, all of Eruvia would unite against us. Morgrain’s best chance at survival was the protective wrath of a demon, and no amount of tattered hope for my grandmother’s humanity could cast that as anything but a catastrophe.

  Voreth’s sharp voice cut through the gloomy haze of my thoughts. “One wonders, Exalted Ryxander, about the state of the roads.”

  I blinked at him, a bit of smoked sausage still impaled on the end of my fork. “The roads.”

  “Yes.” His tone grew acid. “The roads out of Gloamingard. I’m told that the land is still roused in anger, and anyone not from Morgrain stepping so much as an inch off the roads is in danger for their lives. Are we your guests, or your prisoners? It seems every corner of this castle hides a new abuse of hospitality!”

  I set my knife down, slowly. I might not have my grandmother’s ability to darken the skies with leaning branches when she was angry, or the thunderous magical presence the rest of my family could muster, but I was done humoring him.

  “Hospitality,” I said quietly. “It’s interesting you should bring that up, Honored Voreth.”

  Ardith grinned and leaned back in their chair as if getting ready to watch a show. Voreth, perhaps used to less subtle signs of danger from his lord, took in a sneering breath to reply.

  I didn’t let him. “Because you are my guests,” I said, raising my voice. “Every one of you at this table. And yet one of you sought my death.” Abrupt silence fell. Aurelio froze with his cup halfway to his lips; Lady Celia set down her fork.

  I knew I should stop, but I couldn’t. My voice grew sharper, colder, a sword blade sliding up under Voreth’s chin. “One of you, sitting right here at my table, eating my bread and drinking my tea, is responsible for the murder of my aunt.”

  Suddenly, no one could meet my eyes. Every one of them looked guilty as a dog in the midden heap. I leaned on the table, palms flat against the wood.

  “Morgrain hasn’t forgotten,” I said, anger expanding my voice to fill the Old Great Hall, “and neither have I. We will bring that murderer to my grandmother’s justice, I assure you all.” I spread my arms, taking in the bountiful breakfast laid out on the table. “But here I am, hosting you as graciously as ever, even though I know that one of you is my enemy. Because, Honored Voreth, I am the Warden of Morgrain, and I have a duty to my land and my people. I can set aside my personal grievances until we settle the greater issue of the gate, which threatens the peace of the entire region.” I offered the entire table a short, stiff bow. “I’m sorry if you find it difficult to do the same.”

  With outward calm, I went back to eating my breakfast.

  Seasons, that felt good. This must be how my family felt all the time: unafraid to take an entire room of important people to task, secure in the knowledge of their power. I had no such certainty, and my position was more than a little precarious, but curse me if it wasn’t incredibly freeing to decide that just for this one moment, I didn’t care.

  Despite my outburst, everyone lingered after breakfast. Lady Celia and Aurelio talked seriously with Foxglove and Bastian about the gate, while Kessa struck up a conversation with Voreth about the Graces only knew what; I had to stay, as host, and be a diplomat again.

  Severin approached me, his face guarded as a locked door. Hells, how much had he heard when I talked to my grandmother last night? I ran memory through my fingers, desperately trying to sift out what he might know.

  “Exalted Ryxander,” he greeted me. “It appears I have to manage without Honored Voreth’s counsel for a few minutes. I find myself deeply bereft.” His eyes flicked to where Voreth spoke to Kessa, gesturing agitatedly with his bone staff. Kessa listened with every appearance of rapt attention; I wondered if she were distracting him on purpose. “Perhaps I could console myself with a few moments of your conversation.”

  “I’ll do my best to comfort you in this difficult hour.” My mouth tugged toward a smile despite the seriousness of the situation. Still, my heart thumped faster as we moved away from the table, out of range of potential eavesdroppers; if he knew my grandmother was a demon, any hopes I might have of wringing peace out of the Rite of Blood and Water were dashed.

  “I see you’ve given up playing it diplomatically safe,” he murmured, his voice pitched low beneath the echoing voices in the hall. He stood close to keep his words from carrying—so close I couldn’t help but remember the feel of his hand on my back when we danced. I wasn’t used to staring into faces from this close range, and damn him, he had truly fine cheekbones.

  “There’s no sense playing it safe when times are so dangerous,” I replied, striving to keep my voice even.

  “That’s an understatement.” Severin glanced over his shoulder at Voreth, halfway across the room. “I take it by the fact that I wasn’t
killed in my bed last night that you persuaded the Lady of Owls of my innocence.”

  “‘Innocence’ is a strong term,” I said tartly.

  “Perhaps. You’re hardly guiltless yourself. And your grandmother seemed to be positively itching to do some murder,” Severin replied.

  Itching to do some murder was far better than a demon. He must not have heard anything. My shoulders began to relax.

  “Given that she seems not to like me,” he continued, “I’m eager to help you find your attacker—to save my own skin, if nothing else.”

  “So that you can direct the blame where you see fit?” I asked him pointedly.

  He glanced away. “I may not know you all that well,” he said, his voice oddly husky, “but dragging you around while you were trying to bleed to death all over me made a certain impression. Believe it or not, I feel irrationally invested in finding the killer and keeping you alive. Contrariness, I suppose.”

  He swallowed; the morning sun shone golden on the curve of his throat. Seasons spare me. It was so easy to argue with him, and so hard not to feel dizzily drawn to him at the same time.

  I bowed my head. “I do owe you a debt for helping me.”

  “That’s not why…” He broke off, sighing. “Suffice to say I want to give you what information I have, since I’d rather not become the target of the ire of a vengeance-crazed Witch Lord.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “I hope you’re aware of the irony of you saying that to me.”

  “Appreciating the irony around me is the only way I make it through most days.” He flashed a grin, but then his tone sobered. “I can tell you that the assassin wasn’t sent by Alevar.”

  “Would you know if they had been?” I let my skepticism bleed through. “It seems to me you aren’t the one in control of the Alevaran delegation.”

  Severin winced. “All right, I’m sure Voreth has orders I don’t know about. But he’s been speculating that the same person killed Lamiel and Exalted Karrigan, and he wouldn’t believe that if he were behind your aunt’s killing himself. You can rule us out.”