The Obsidian Order Boxed Set

by martinez, katerina

  “I should tell you,” Valoel said, “Draven and I knew each other… before…”

  That I didn’t expect. “How did you know each other?”

  “The details are still a little murky, but we understand that we served together during the war of the houses.”

  The war that probably destroyed my home. I took a deep breath through the nose, then exhaled. My house had its knights and warriors too, we probably warred with his people too. I didn’t want any animosity between the Aevian houses to get between us, so I bit my tongue and thought about Felice. We came from different houses, but I liked Felice and she liked me. It could be like that with every Aevian I was likely to meet.

  Valoel also didn’t have black hair, so that already gave him a one-up compared to most other people.

  “You were soldiers,” I said, “Figures.”

  “Well, technically I was a writer. Draven was a jeweler. Neither of us wanted to serve, but we were conscripted, just like I imagine you and your house knights were.”

  A jeweler? The pendant I was wearing around my neck suddenly became cold and heavy, like my skin was telling me to notice it. “I wasn’t a knight. At least, I don’t think so. I still haven’t remembered a lot about my past, or our people’s past. It’s frustrating.”

  “Knowing the memories are there, just out of reach. Yes. It took me a long time to start remembering who I was, and only through the appropriate stimulation did I truly begin to understand. I remember being told our memories are like snowballs—first you learn a little, then you learn the rest at a much faster pace. That’s not true. The knowledge breaks through to the surface when it wants to, or maybe when it needs to, if you’re of the kind to have a more… spiritual opinion about the magic of the rifts.”

  “Are you?”

  “I’m a man of science. My language is facts and reason. That’s why I’m here, in fact. It’s why I was unlucky enough to be captured by the Crimson Hunters.”

  We’d made an entire circle of the courtyard by this point, had seen the Aevian statue from all angles. As I watched it from a distance, I noticed a silver tabby perched on top of the Aevian’s wings, its tail hanging lazily to one side. Rey was watching us, and probably listening, too.

  “How’d they catch you?” I asked, “If you don’t mind me asking…”

  “That’s quite alright. I got careless. I first ran into the hunters in Bolivia. They almost captured me there, but I managed to slip away and make it to the US. I thought I’d gotten away from them… I didn’t know they’d marked me. They caught up to me one night while I was asleep.”

  “What did they want with you?”

  “I’ve dedicated myself to studying the rifts ever since I remembered they existed. They wanted my knowledge, my expertise.”

  “Did they also want to find singing stones?”

  “They’d actually found some of their own, of course some of their number had died while trying to retrieve them. They thought I could touch them because I’d spent my time here studying the rifts themselves.”

  “I thought the stones were meant to be rare.”

  “There are many, in fact, and they’re all over the world. Where there are rifts, there are usually stones. The larger the rift, the more powerful the stones that fall from it.”

  Why had I never heard of any of this? Valoel clearly knew a hell of a lot more on the subject than Draven, Crag, or even Aaryn did. Or maybe he was just the only person who had thought me important enough to share this information with.

  “Have you found many stones or rifts before?” I asked.

  “Singing stones? No. Rifts, however, I have seen them in all shapes and sizes. Some are barely large enough for a beetle to slip through, others are large enough that they could swallow entire cities if they were woken up.”

  “Woken up?”

  “The rifts, I’ve found, are always in a state of dormancy. They only awaken when some poor soul is unfortunate enough to slip through one from the other side, but they only open for the briefest of instants. Milliseconds. Then they go dormant again, becoming invisible to everyone’s eyes—even ours, unless you happen to know the right magic. I’d been travelling and tracking the rifts around the world, moving from country to country, trying to compile a map, something that could maybe help me unlock even more secrets. You, however… you could be a key my map is missing.”

  “Me? What do you mean?”

  “I am told you contained a singing stone’s power. That, I find truly fascinating. I would love to pick your brain about how you did that.”

  I shrugged. “I wish I had an answer for that question, but I don’t. I just held it long enough for us to be able to put it somewhere safe.”

  “There must be more to the story than that, surely…”

  “There really isn’t. I don’t know what they are or why I can handle them, but I can.”

  “Them… so you have touched more than one?”

  Dammit. If Draven hadn’t told him about the other stone, I wasn’t about to blurt it out. “No, I meant stone… just stone.”

  Valoel stopped and examined me. “Your hair…” he said, his voice trailing off.

  I raised my eyebrows. “What about it?”

  “It’s… exquisite.”

  “Thanks… I’ve been working on it since I was a little girl… I think.”

  He smiled brightly. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. Hair that glows like that is very rare…”

  “I thought it was something all Aevians from my House had, but it’s the eyes that tell the Houses apart, isn’t it?”

  “Yes… though I suspect…”

  I cocked my head. “Suspect?”

  “I suspect your hair—that purity, the innate magic glow—is more a sign of your lineage than it is of your House.”

  “My lineage…”

  Valoel smiled and rested a warm hand on my cold shoulder. “In this world it’s memory we draw our power from… but back home, it was blood and lineage. Kingdoms had their Kings and Queens and they played their little games, but it is said some were descendants of the Gods themselves. They were the true rulers of our world.”

  We had circled around the courtyard a couple of times, and it was starting to get cold; the buzz from the alcohol had worn off, too.

  “I should probably get back to my friends,” I said.

  “I apologize,” he said, “All this time I feel like I’ve been talking about myself.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ve been asking questions. Of the two of us, I’m the one whose memory needs more work anyway.”

  Valoel removed his hand from my shoulder, then he took my hand and put it to his lips, gently kissing the knuckles. “Thank you for indulging me,” he said. “If I should see you around the fortress again, I would love to continue our conversation.”

  “I guess that means you’ll be staying?” I asked.

  “For a time, at least. I’m sure my services will be useful somewhere or other.”

  “Wait, so, you’re not with the Obsidian Order?”

  “Not quite… why do you ask?”

  “Oh, no reason.”

  Except, there was a reason, and his name was Draven. All the bullshit he’d put his prospects through, all the trials, all the near-death encounters just to earn the right to walk the fortress as a member of the Order, but there’s no trials for this guy? I didn’t think Draven was the kind to play favorites, but he clearly was.

  I took my leave of Valoel, excusing myself from the courtyard and finding my way back to my room. By the time I reached it, Fate was asleep in my bed and Ness was getting ready to turn in. I pulled Felice outside and, staring at her, I took a deep breath.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” Felice asked, “Something happen with prince charming?”

  “We’re gonna stage a protest,” I said.

  “A protest?”

  “Tomorrow. We’re gonna gather all the silver prospects, and we’re gonna protest the shit out o
f that trial. None of us are going through with it. No more prospects have to die.”

  “That’s… insane. They’ll kill us if we don’t go through with it.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  Felice studied me. “I guess you haven’t given me a reason not to yet… but you’ve been drinking a lot tonight, so maybe you’re not thinking straight.”

  “I’ve never been straighter in my entire life.”

  “You realize what you’ve—”

  “—yeah… shut up.”

  My dreams were troubled that night, what few dreams I had. I couldn’t sleep, and the alcohol had nothing to do with it. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Aaryn had told me about my house, I couldn’t get Rey’s warning out of my mind, and I couldn’t help but pour over the many questions I had about Valoel. Just who in the hell was he?

  An old friend of Draven’s, that’s about as much as I knew. The rest were nuances, little details about him that didn’t give me a full enough picture. I was like a squirrel with a nut, nibbling at it over, and over, and over again. So much had happened in such a short span of time—the labyrinth, Draven, Rey, Valoel; and today I’d decided to start some kind of protest.

  Stupid, Seline. How in the hell was I going to pull that off? I had convinced Felice easily enough, but I had no idea how I was going to convince the others. Least of all, Ferrum. This was a guy who lived and breathed to compete, and to put other people down. With me, he had the possibility of doing both at the same time, as much as he wanted to.

  He was going to be the biggest roadblock I would have to overcome today, but he would also be the first domino in the lineup; knock him down, and the others would fall with him. It was gonna take more than me to convince him, though, and more than Felice, too. There were only two people I thought he’d listen to besides himself, and he never went anywhere without them.

  I’d risen at sunup, gotten changed, and headed straight for the galley where I’d helped myself to copious amounts of pancakes covered in bacon syrup. Probably too much, considering today was going to be tough on us. Felice planted her plate on the table and sat across from me, watching me from atop her little mound of fried food.

  “Mornin’,” she said as she bit into a juicy sausage.

  “Morning…” I replied, watching Ferrum and his goons from where I was sitting.

  There were fewer of us in the galley today than there had been yesterday. I remembered more conversation happening, more of a buzz floating through the room. Everyone was excited for the silver trials. It was an adventure, a way to prove your worth. Now there were only fifteen of us left, and no one seemed like they wanted to talk too much.

  “Got a plan?” Felice asked.

  “I’m working on it,” I said.

  “You’d better work fast, they want us in the gym after breakfast.”

  “I know… I’ve been trying to figure something out ever since you left last night, but this is more complicated than I thought.”

  “Did you think staging a protest was going to be easy?”

  “No… last night everything just seemed much clearer.”

  “Last night you’d been drinking. In the morning, we all see just what poor judgment we have when we’re on the bottle.” She finished her sausage and went for another one.

  I scanned the room, watching the prospects eat like it was their last meal. They were all upturned faces and pallid skin, no one wanted to go through with today, but no one had the guts to stand up and say something to Draven and the rest of the Order. It had to be me.

  “Screw it.” I got up and walked across the room to where Ferrum and his two goons, Marv and Dirk were sitting. Their plates were empty, which meant they’d eaten. They were also talking in hushed tones and looking around the room like co-conspirators. When Dirk spotted me, he jabbed Ferrum with his elbow and pointed.

  The last time I’d seen him, he’d literally exploded into a ball of fire. Now he was back to being his usual, red-headed, smug self.

  “Well, well,” he said, “What brings you to our neck of the woods?” he asked.

  “I want—”

  “—forget it, get lost.”

  “You didn’t let me finish.”

  “And I’m not going to. Do you think I want to waste a single breath talking to the likes of you? I want to get on with that trial so I can finally watch your luck run out and see just how spectacularly you can fail.”

  “That’s awesome, very charming. Were you as charming on the other side of the rift? I bet you had tons of friends.”

  “Watch your fucking mouth, freak,” he growled.

  Careful, Seline. Antagonizing them won’t get you what you need.

  “Look… I know we have our differences, but I also know all those people dying yesterday bothered you.”

  “Really? I think I was pretty clear on what I thought. They knew what they were signing up for before they took the silver trials.”

  “Is that how it went for you? Did the Enforcers show up at your place and ask you if you’d like to join the Order, or did they rip you away from whatever comfortable life you’d managed to make for yourself, bring you here, and make you fight for your own survival?”

  Ferrum didn’t seem fazed, but that had struck a chord with Marv, whose eyes were narrowed and fixed on me.

  “So what if we didn’t have a choice?” Ferrum said, “The people that died in that labyrinth were stupid. They could’ve made it to the end, but they made bad choices.”

  “What if I told you that wasn’t totally true?”

  Ferrum scowled. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but if you’ve come here to make it look like I didn’t get into the top five fair and square—”

  “That’s not it. What I’m saying is, what happened yesterday wasn’t normal, and it wasn’t right. Five people was way too many lives lost for a single trial. I’m not saying the trial last night was rigged against us, but I think if we go through with the next one, many more of us will die.”

  “Like I care if you die.”

  “Not me, but what about these two fine gentlemen over here?”

  “They could give a shit, too. Nobody likes you. Pariahs… the only pariah here is you, the Aevian with the broken wings. Oh, boo-hoo, she can’t fly, she can’t do magic. I don’t know where you got that dagger from or how you’re able to do magic with it, I also don’t know how in the hell you made it to the end of the labyrinth, but if today’s trial is gonna be just as lethal, then I for one am happy to go through with it.”

  A pause hung in the air, where Ferrum and I simply glared at each other. There was no reason why he should’ve treated me the way he was treating me, although maybe it had a little to do with the fact that we would usually fight over the top spots in our practice trials. He’d win one, I’d win two. Then I’d win one, he’d win two. I didn’t think he was used to that kind of fierce competition, it was probably a product of his upbringing.

  Spoiled rich kid, figures.

  “I’m not,” Marv said, his voice gruff and deep.

  “What?” Ferrum snapped at him.

  “I don’t wanna die in a trial. That’s not how I die.”

  “No, it isn’t, because you’re not broken, unlike this wretch.”

  “Were the others broken like she is?” Dirk asked, his voice smooth in comparison. “Elroy was an Aevian too, a proud man of the house of Dusk, and unlike she… he was intact.”

  “Elroy was stupid,” Ferrum said, “I’ve told you this. The other people who died were stupid. They made mistakes.”

  “I don’t want a single mistake to be the cause of my death today,” Dirk said, “So, I’m taking his side.”

  “Which means you both side with her,” Ferrum snarled.

  Dirk and Marv gave me their eyes. “On this, at least,” Dirk said.

  Ferrum, incensed, shot bolt upright from his pew and stalked out of the galley on his own, his cheeks glowing bright red as he struggled to contain his anger. Fire elementals.
They were so easy to read.

  “I’m planning on staging a protest,” I said, “I hope I can count on your support.”

  He nodded, but only slightly. Dirk followed. I grinned, turned, and headed back to Felice who had all but finished her plate. “How’d it go?” she asked.

  I jumped on top of the table, adrenaline flooding my system and filling me with courage. “Silver prospects, listen to me,” I called out, and the galley gave me their attention; heads turned, eyes focused, ears perked. “What happened last night was a tragedy, and an avoidable one. No one should’ve had to die, and yet we lost five brothers and sisters, and one more is still in the infirmary. Today’s trial can’t be allowed to go on. Something was wrong with the labyrinth last night, and whatever that wrongness was claimed five lives. I know, because I heard the discussion that happened later between Aaryn and Draven. I don’t know what they have planned for us today, but we can’t go through with it, and if we all stand up together, they can’t make us do it. Who’s with me?”

  Pausing, I surveyed the galley. People were muttering amongst themselves, quietly discussing what I’d just said. I was about to open my mouth, when the door to the galley busted open and Draven strode in with Crag by his side. Silence pushed through the room, along with a cold blast of wind and magic. By the way his piercing gaze fell on me, I could tell, he knew. Ferrum had run off and told on me like the spoiled brat that he was.

  “Seline,” Draven barked, “I need to speak with you. Now.”

  This was the moment. I could drop from my podium and go talk to him, or I could stay exactly where I was and fight even harder. I hated Rey for what he was making me do, I knew this was going to drive a wedge between Draven and I—not that there was a Draven and I to speak of—but Rey had been clear about what would happen to us if we went through the trial today.

  “I guess you know what I’m doing up here?” I asked.

  “I do,” he said, “And I need to speak with you. In private.”

  I absolutely didn’t like the sound of that, not when Crag was carrying so many weapons strapped to his body. From swords, to knives, to pistols and even an assault rifle. This guy was ready to deliver death on the enemies of the Order, and if I wasn’t careful, I would be considered one.