The Obsidian Tower

by Melissa Caruso

  He took half a step toward me, fury in his eyes, but I lifted my empty hands. “Aurelio, stop! I don’t want to kill you.”

  He stopped. “I trusted you,” he spat. “I thought you were my friend. How could you do this to me? If I fail Lord Urso, my father and I are finished!”

  “For Graces’ sake, losing your patron can’t balance the scales with enabling the return of the Dark Days!” I didn’t bother to strip the frustration from my voice. “Lord Urso isn’t the ultimate arbiter of all fortune. You’ll manage without him.”

  “No. You don’t understand.” Aurelio’s face crumpled into despair. “The things my father’s done for him—the things I’ve done for him—it’s not just a matter of being poor again. He could put us in prison, or worse.” A hard resolve entered the shadow-dappled lines of his face. “It’s not too late. You can still help us.”

  I didn’t like the new tone in his voice. Calmer, more controlled, almost cruel. “The only thing I’m helping with tonight is securing the future of Eruvia.”

  “Precisely. They still need you to destroy the gate. And you won’t help them do it.” He visibly mastered himself, smoothing the anger from his features, though hurt lingered in his eyes. “Because if you do try to help them destroy it—or if you tell anyone I’m with the Zenith Society, or do anything but cooperate with us fully—I’ll tell Voreth who really killed Lamiel.”

  Defiant words withered in my lungs. Telling Severin in private was one thing; we could plan how to proceed together. Telling Voreth now would ensure a swift reaction from the Shrike Lord, unmitigated by Severin’s interference. He might demand my head, send assassins, or accuse me of being a Skinwitch and get the Conclave involved—any of which could delay our destruction of the gate, not to mention get me killed. I glared at Aurelio in silent fury.

  “Now, be smart,” he said, his tone calm and reasonable once more. “This isn’t a hard choice. All you have to do is come up with some reason why you can’t drain the gate. Then you can tell Severin whatever lies you were planning, keep your secret, and keep your jess as well. Otherwise…” He shook his head. “I doubt the Shrike Lord will be merciful.”

  “You can go to the Nine Hells,” I growled. “Aurelio, curse it, you’re talking about killing me.”

  For a long moment, he was silent. Then he sighed, letting loose a breath as if he never expected to see it again. “I suppose I am. And I’m not proud of it. But I do what I have to, Ryx.” His voice sharpened. “And you did lie to me. We were supposed to be partners. Well, the Falcon may have the power, but the Falconer holds the jess.” He offered me a stiff, mocking bow. “Report back to me in an hour, and we’ll talk about next steps.”

  For a moment, I considered slapping him. Just one smack across his face, and he’d die regretting he’d threatened me; my secret would be safe. It was no less than he was threatening to do to me.

  If I did, I’d be a murderer in truth.

  I dug my nails into my palms and let him walk away.

  The faint whisper of a footstep in the grass and a brushing rustle of leaves warned me of someone’s approach. I whirled barely in time, yanking myself back from Kessa’s reaching hand.

  “Don’t!” I cried.

  She froze, surprise turning to alarm on her face. I scrambled back out of her reach, heart beating wild against my sternum, grass withering beneath my footsteps.

  “I’m not safe to touch.” I lowered my voice, hoping to hide the tremor in it. “I had to trick Aurelio into releasing me.”

  Kessa’s brows dipped together. “What? Why?”

  I glanced around the orchard, my breath still coming fast. The diplomats had gathered into a knot of grave discussion; the Rookery had drawn together around Bastian and his notebook, clearly making plans. Kessa must have come to get me. Aurelio was talking to the Raverran delegation, all smiles, no doubt confident in my silence given the terrible threat he held over my head.

  That stingroach. I pulled my gloves from my pocket, brushing against the inert wire of the jess, and yanked them on over rage-stiff fingers. The leather molded to my hands, familiar as an old curse.

  “I need to talk to the Rookery,” I said grimly. “In private. Right now.”

  “We don’t have much time.” I paced a short arc before the fireplace in the Rookery guest quarters, careful to keep several feet between me and the others. “Aurelio will realize I’m not submitting to his blackmail when I don’t show up in an hour—less, now—and he’ll reveal that I’m the one who killed Lamiel. And that will set off an immediate political disaster between Morgrain and Alevar, which will almost certainly interfere with our ability to destroy the gate.”

  Kessa shook her head, stunned. “I can’t believe Aurelio is a member of the Zenith Society. I liked that wretched pustule.”

  “I can kill him right now,” Ashe offered, grasping her sword hilt. “Won’t take me five minutes.”

  “That would be murder,” Bastian pointed out.

  Ashe nodded. “Correct.”

  “Let’s not get distracted,” Foxglove said dryly. “We can deal with Aurelio after the gate. We’re on a time limit; we have to do this now.”

  “Now?” Bastian flipped furiously through his notebook. “You mean, right this moment?”

  “Yes. As soon as we can be ready. Even if we find some way to delay Aurelio, our political consensus could fall apart at any moment, and there are too many people who might be able to stop us if we don’t get this done before they can react.”

  Kessa raised her brows at Foxglove. “Are you certain you’re up for a disenchantment of this scale? Forgive me, but you don’t even have the mage mark.”

  “If Ryx can drain the gate completely, it shouldn’t matter how powerful he is,” Bastian said. “There’ll be no resistance. He can sever all the key points in the patterns so the power can’t flow through them anymore. Then we can work on obliterating enough of the carvings that it can’t be reestablished.”

  “Do we know where all those key points are?” Foxglove asked Bastian, peering over his shoulder at his notes. “I’ve been focusing on the politics rather than the magical analysis.”

  “Nearly.” Bastian flipped through pages of his notebook with a worried frown. “I need a bit more time.”

  “How long?” Foxglove asked.

  Bastian bit his lip. “Half an hour, maybe?”

  Foxglove gave a curt nod. “All right. We can’t wait, because Aurelio will try to stop us the moment he realizes what we’re doing.”

  “I can make sure he doesn’t,” Ashe offered.

  “He’s an officer of the imperial Falconers, with powerful friends in the Serene Empire,” Bastian objected. “We don’t have the authority to do anything to him.”

  “We could apologize later,” Ashe suggested.

  “Let’s not start any diplomatic incidents until after we get this gate closed,” Foxglove said.

  “What about Ryx?” Kessa asked, her brows drawn together in concern. “If we’re destroying the gate, Aurelio will be desperate—he’ll have no reason to hold back. He’s bound to play his cards and tell her secret, and Voreth will demand her head in a pretty box to bring back to his master.”

  “I’ll tell Severin first and hope he can hold Voreth off,” I said. I didn’t want to think about it right now; my stomach clenched up into a queasy ball when I did. “I made a vow, after all, and I’ve put off that reckoning long enough. Let’s get my part with the gate done quickly, so that whatever happens, you can still destroy it.”

  Kessa looked for a moment as if she might argue. But Foxglove put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. “Ryx is right, Kessa. That’s a whole different round of the game. Gate first, political fight later.”

  Kessa nodded reluctantly, giving me a worried look.

  A wave of overwhelming, bittersweet joy rolled through me. Foxglove was trusting me with an important task. Kessa cared what happened to me. Ashe and Bastian didn’t question whether I could do my part; they were co
ntent to rely on me. I was one of them.

  They were my friends. This was what I’d always yearned for, without ever quite knowing what I wanted.

  And I’d found it now, when I stood on the brink of losing everything.

  Foxglove gave a sharp nod. “Right, then. Bastian, you and I will get our disenchantment ready as quickly as we can. Ryx, you go drain the gate before anything can stop you, so it’ll be ready the moment we are.”

  I nodded, trying to look competent and confident, and not at all as if I were completely terrified of touching that obelisk again. I couldn’t make myself speak.

  “Kessa, you go with Ryx, and be ready to stall anyone who tries to interfere. Charm them into submission. Ashe, guard Kessa and Ryx. If anything goes awry—the gate isn’t draining, Ardith sticks their nose in, Aurelio figures out what you’re doing—come get the rest of us.”

  “If Aurelio tries to stop us, can I—”

  “Rule Three,” Kessa interrupted.

  Ashe sighed. “Fine. I’ll just hamstring him or something. Killjoy.”

  “All right.” Foxglove rubbed his hands together, eyes gleaming, as if this were some exciting challenge and not a horrific nightmare with the potential to plunge all of Eruvia into the Dark Days once more if we made a mistake. “Let’s do this.”

  We were about to enter the Hall of Chimes on the way to the old stone keep when Severin called after me down the corridor.

  “Ryx! Ah, that is, Exalted Ryxander.”

  I turned, ignoring a knowing leer from Ashe, apprehension lurching in my gut. Severin hurried toward me quite alone, with no sign of his usual sneering shadow.

  He caught up, out of breath. “I got away from Voreth for a moment and came to find you. Can we talk?”

  I glanced at Kessa and Ashe; Kessa nodded and retreated down the hall, tugging Ashe with her. Bones clattered and tinkled gently above them, following their movements.

  I wasn’t ready for this. But then, I’d probably never be ready for this.

  “Here for your promised payment?” I asked.

  “No!” He reached out toward me as if he might grab my shoulder; his hand hung uncertainly in the air a moment, then dropped to his side. “Please tell me you have a clever and devious plan to fulfill that vow. Please tell me you’re not going to do something stupid.”

  “That depends on how you define clever and stupid.” I grimaced. “Anyway, it’s not so bad. I only have to tell you how she died. I didn’t agree to turn anyone over.”

  “That won’t matter to my brother. He won’t wait.” Severin brushed the loose locks of hair back from his face in frustration. “He might even come kill whoever it is in person, and with your grandmother busy with that demon, there’s no one here who could stop him.”

  The last thing we needed was my demon grandmother fighting a Witch Lord in Gloamingard while we tried to destroy the gate. “We’ll find a way to weasel out of telling him,” I said.

  Severin shook his head. “That’s easier said than done. Do you actually have a name of someone involved in her death? Or did you just make that up?”

  I took a deep breath. “It’s me, Severin. Lamiel grabbed me to get past the wards around the gate. I couldn’t dodge her quickly enough, and she died.”

  His eyes went wide and white-edged. He shook his head mutely, staring at me.

  “I didn’t murder her,” I said quietly. “But my magic killed her.”

  Severin pressed a hand to his temple. “No, no, this is terrible. It can’t be you.”

  I spread my hands. “I’ve got no one else, Severin.”

  “We have to think of some way around this.”

  Kessa was waving me onward, making urgent faces. And she wasn’t wrong. Once Aurelio told Voreth the truth, I’d get sucked into a political disaster, like it or not. My part in destroying the gate had to be done by then.

  “We will,” I assured Severin.

  I turned to go, but he reached after me. “Wait!”

  I dodged, swearing. “Aurelio deactivated my jess! You can’t touch me unless you brace yourself against the pull of my magic, or you’ll die like Lamiel did.”

  He kept his hand extended. “I’m braced,” he said softly.

  On a wild impulse I reached out, ignoring his hand, and laid my fingertips on his chest. For one, two, three beats of his heart, his pulse warmed my fingers through his vestcoat.

  “I have to go,” I said. “They can’t destroy the gate without me, and we need to get this done before someone tries to stop us. Keep thinking of a way out of this mess, and I will, too.”

  Pulling my hand away felt as miserable as if I’d plunged it into ice water. I turned, cradling the lingering warmth on my fingertips, and hurried after Ashe and Kessa. Severin’s eyes on my back burned as if the stormy rings of his mage mark seared my skin.

  I’d wanted never to cross the threshold of the Black Tower again. And yet here I was once more.

  The red glare seared its way into the back of my eyeballs, runes and patterns burning into me. The throb of power in the air resonated horribly with the blood pulsing in my own veins. The tower watched me, alert, waiting, its vast presence looming over me. The air was so thick with menace and magic it was hard to breathe.

  I stood before the stark black obelisk, just outside the final protective ring, my nerves jangling like a pocketful of dropped coins on a marble floor. Run away, every instinct screamed. Run, before it’s too late.

  “You can do this, Ryx,” Kessa said softly from behind me. “Or at least, I hope you can, because I certainly can’t.”

  I let out a strangled laugh. “I don’t know if I can. I’ve never tried to do anything like it before.” Not to mention that now that I was here in the flesh, standing before the gate with the oppressive weight of its power crushing down on me, the last thing I wanted in the whole world was to touch it again.

  “I have faith in you.” Kessa gave me a smile no less warm for the strain around the edges. “And more to the point, Bastian thinks you can do it. He’s usually right about this sort of thing.”

  “We don’t have time for you to doubt yourself,” Ashe said bluntly, her eye on the door. “We need your part in this done before Aurelio drags you up in front of Voreth and tries to get you packed off to Alevar for a convenient gruesome execution.”

  “Ashe,” Kessa said reprovingly. “Have some compassion.”

  “I never said we’d let him.” She patted Answer’s hilt.

  “No, you’re right. We don’t have time.” I drew in a deep breath of hot air; it had a metallic tang, sour in the back of my throat. “Stand back. I’m doing this.”

  Before I could think better of it, I stepped forward and—being careful to avoid the circular seal—laid my palm directly on the groove that ran down the center of the great black stone.

  Heat blasted my face. The gate blazed to life, the groove lit to incandescence under my palm. Power rolled through me in a vast, shuddering wave, searing my nerves like lightning. A deep sound shook the tower, an unheard note vibrating every bone in my body and the stones beneath my feet, as if the ancient rocky hills themselves all uttered one low, long note together.

  It was somehow worse, infinitely worse, knowing this light and heat and power came straight from the Nine Hells. I was touching the Hells themselves, drowning in their agonizing light. It glowed through my hand, showing the bones, as if my fragile mortal flesh was brittle paper on the verge of catching fire.

  “Blood of the Eldest,” Ashe swore.

  “It’s open,” I gasped. “Kessa! Should I stop?”

  “Bastian warned us this might happen.” Her voice sounded strangely distant behind me. “Keep draining it! We have to depower the gate before the seal fails completely!”

  Any second now the horrifying white radiance would dim, the heat would fade, the violent tide of power coursing through and past and around me would thin out. I bit back a scream at the great swelling roar of magic that seemed on the verge of shattering me to piec
es, the sickening rush of overwhelming force that filled the Black Tower in a flood of raw, blistering light. Only a little longer. Just endure it a moment longer.

  But the pain didn’t stop. The noise didn’t quiet, drowning out the prayer to the Graces that died on my tongue. The light blasted through my closed lids, and nothing could block the great resonating hum that threatened to shake apart my very bones.

  Yes, whispered a voice like claws dragged through gravel. A little wider…

  My eyes flew open. All I could see was an agony of white brilliance.

  “This isn’t right!” I cried. “It’s not closing!”

  Ashe swore. “I’ll go get Bastian and Foxglove.”

  I tried to pull my hand away, but my palm stuck to the gate as if the black stone were some great magnet, the power coursing through it binding us together. “Hurry!” I screamed, in a panic now. “I can’t stop!”

  “She’s on her way.” Kessa’s voice came from directly behind me, strong and calm, though surely that must be a mask she wore to reassure me. “Do you want me to try to help?”

  “No! If you touch me, you’ll die!” I grabbed my own wrist, tears drying at the corners of my eyes in the heat rolling off the stone. I couldn’t even see my hand with all the light pouring through it. “Stay away! I need room.”

  “Got it,” Kessa said, her voice coming from farther away. This time, she couldn’t quite hide the edge of fear in it.

  I hurled myself backward at the floor, as hard as I could, throwing the full weight of my body against whatever seal bound me to the stone.

  Pain tore through my hand and up my arm. I slammed into the stone floor, falling across the blazing red circle of protective runes. A tingling rush ran through me, and the warding circle sputtered out.

  I couldn’t feel my hand, save for a buzzing ache, but it had come free. Relief washed through me like cool water.

  But the line down the center of the obelisk still blazed, bright and terrible. My skin dried and cracked with the heat pouring from the stone. And an endless wave of power crashed unabated through the chamber, threatening to obliterate me with its sheer force.