The Obsidian Order Boxed Set

by martinez, katerina

  Fate took a step toward me. The mist shifted around her body like it was responding to her, like it belonged to her. “You matter, Seline… you matter more than you give yourself credit for. Nobody is leaving you behind. You’re my sister. I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  “Fate…” I didn’t know what to say to that.

  “I’m sorry… I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you. I was trying to be sensitive, but I wanted to say something so bad. I found out where I came from, I know who my people are—I know why I kept seeing that same mountain in my dreams. That was where I used to live. Why wouldn’t I want to share this part of me with you?”

  I reached out and hugged her tightly, pulling her close to me like my life depended on it. She smelled different, somehow. Like the mist itself. Maybe it was the wings. Ness cleared her throat, and I turned my head to look at her.

  “Hey, so, um,” she stammered, “Not to break this beautiful moment up, but there are, uh, things out there that wanna kill us? We should probably…”

  “Oh, right,” I said, “Yeah, we should move.” I turned to Fate. “Do you know the way out of here?”

  “Just so happens, I do,” she said, smiling brightly, “How do you think I found you?”

  “Lead the way,” I said, gesturing toward the door the soldiers had poured in from.

  Fate turned and started running, her misty kithe disappearing into her back. The mist itself, however, remained, and seemed to follow her as she ran. I called out to Ness, and she moved after us too.

  We moved through hallways briskly, keeping our eyes open for fallen prospects or blood, but the Black Fortress’ walls were black. There was no blood that I’d been able to spot, no trails to follow, and no dead prospects, either. Where had they all gone?

  Eaten, came the thought. One I’d been trying to avoid. Eaten by the labyrinth. I didn’t know that’s what it had done, or that it was even anything it could do, but the thought invaded my mind all the same. Unbidden. Unwelcomed. Unsettling.

  I concentrated on keeping my eyes on Fate as we moved briskly through the halls. The mist trailing behind her lingered even after we moved through it, like breadcrumbs—breadcrumbs the labyrinth couldn’t erase. That was how she’d weaved through the fortress’ twisting halls without getting lost; she could stop and turn around, or at least know where she’d been.

  Ahead of us was the door to the courtyard and the fallen Aevian statue. From there, Fate would be able to take to the skies and escape its grip—I’d watched Aaryn and Draven fly above it, and they hadn’t been gobbled up like Elroy had. The hallway we were in was all wrong; there was an opening just ahead of the door that didn’t belong.

  I passed an opening before reaching the door to the courtyard, and a cool breath of air touched my skin, rooting me to the spot. I turned, slowly, and stared at a set of descending stairs I immediately recognized. The stairs to the vault. Crag had brought me down here a few days ago. He’d shown me where they’d kept the golden singing stone. I had touched it, my lunae kithe—wings of light—had appeared again, and I could’ve sworn I’d briefly glimpsed the other side of the rifts.

  I was insane, obviously. There was every possible chance I’d just hallucinated everything I’d seen, or that it had been little more than a fragment of a memory. It had the properties of a ghost within a dream, slippery and ephemeral. I didn’t know if I could trust what I had seen. I knew I could trust my memory of that door being closed, though, and of all the many locks that had kept it so.

  It wasn’t closed right now, which meant someone was down there.

  “Seline!” Fate called out to me. She was waiting by the door.

  I turned to look at her. “Take Ness to safety,” I said, “You have to fly and find Aaryn outside. She’ll lead you to safety.”

  “We all need to get to safety, now come on!”

  I glanced at the door to the vault one more time. Something wasn’t right. It was dark down there, the shadows deep and dangerous. I wanted to call down, but instinct held my lips tightly shut. Panic gripped the back of my throat as the thought of descending into that dark cavern entered my thoughts.

  I had to. Didn’t I?

  “Just go,” I said to Fate. “Go, before the labyrinth changes its mind.”

  “Are you seriously staying?” Fate asked.

  “I have to. If you find Draven, or Crag, or Aaryn, tell them the vault is open and I’m going in.”

  “Seline! Don’t do something fucking stupid!”

  I was already heading down the stairs, against my better instincts, ignoring that sinking feeling in my stomach. I had a choice, sure. I could’ve gone with Fate. I was only a prospect. But this was the right choice to make. I had to go down there, because there was no one else here who could. The stones were in there, and now that I’d been reminded of that fact, another thought clicked into place like the last piece of a gruesome jigsaw puzzle.

  This is the stone’s doing.

  We’d had the golden stone for over a month, and nothing bad had happened around the fortress. We’d been in possession of the second stone for only a few days, though, and things have been weird ever since then. It was like there’d been an escalation of events that had led to this point, with all of the fortress’ magical systems going crazy.

  If the fortress had been infected, then the stone we had recovered from Norway was the source. That was why Clarence had sounded demonic earlier on. It was the reason why Siren had gone all banshee on us. It was the reason the labyrinth was killing people. That was what the stone wanted.

  I reached the door, and beyond the threshold no light could reach. It was dark as pitch in there, but some points of light did exist. Hundreds of tiny, glittering shards watched me like eyes from the deepest recesses of the vault. I didn’t know what they were. Magic items, I assumed. But they were inert, unmoving, and not threatening—at least, I hoped they weren’t.

  A groan raced across my skin, and I jumped, startled. My foot hooked on something solid and I toppled over what felt like a boulder. I crashed to the floor on my arm, but quickly scrambled to get back to my feet.

  “Seline?” a deep voice struggled.

  “Holy shit… Crag?”

  “I’m hurt,” he groaned.

  I rushed to his side, feeling for his arm in the dark. “Lune,” I whispered, and my dagger began to glow with soft, golden light, just enough to illuminate the side of Crag’s formidable body—and the blood pouring from his stomach.

  “Shit… Crag, what happened?” I asked.

  “Jumped,” he struggled, “Gonna die in here.”

  “You’re not dying. Stick your hand on the wound and press down hard.”

  “You need to… go… danger… still here.”

  “Still here? Who’s still here?”

  “Dr… Dr… Draven.”

  My heart leapt into my throat. “Draven?” My voice was a hoarse whisper. “What are you talking about?”

  “Draven… in there… stone…”

  Crag pointed, and I followed his finger with my eyes. I couldn’t see the other side of the vault, but I had an idea where he was pointing. I turned to look at Crag again, placed my hand against his bleeding stomach, and whispered the Aevian word for heal. “Vigo…” I said, and the palm of my hand erupted with golden light. Faint trails of gold moved across his body, focusing on the injury in his side.

  It was closing, I could tell, but my magic puttered quickly. I wasn’t strong enough to heal the damage that had been dealt to him. “Do you think you can move?” I asked.

  Crag sighed. “Don’t know…” he said, “But you have to run. Now. We all do.”

  I got up. “You do that,” I said, “And make sure you get as many people as you can. I’ve gotta talk to Draven.”

  “No, don’t… you can’t. He’ll kill you.”

  “Not if I kill him first.”

  I marched across the vault, my dagger tipped forward, the light spell struggling to keep the darkness away. Ahead of
me I saw the doors to both of the vault rooms that contained stones. Both were shut, no signs of entry—not from outside, anyway. I couldn’t hear either singing stone, but that didn’t mean they were gone. Their effect on me was different than it was on others.

  Voices.

  I’d gotten close enough to be able to hear something happening on the other side of one of the vault doors. There, behind the massive locks and protective spells securing the door in front of me, was the violent singing stone. And someone was in there with it.

  I hurried to the other door and tried to push it open, but a magical charge zapped my hand as I made contact with it. “Fuck,” I cursed, cradling my singed skin. “Of course, it’s magically locked. Idiot.”

  “You are an idiot,” Crag said, the sound of his voice making my skin jump. “And too stubborn for your own good.”

  “What the hell?” I said, stepping aside. He was limping and in bad shape, but he was standing.

  Crag pressed his hand against the door. A magic glow radiated from under his palm, and then the door unlocked, the massive bolts giving way. The door opened. “Make it quick,” he grunted. “If anyone comes out of that other door, I’ll shout… or I’ll be dead. Either way, be quick.”

  I nodded, turned my eyes into the hallway Crag had just unlocked, and saw the golden stone. It spun slowly on its axis, suspended in midair, a faint light around it. I dashed toward it, and when I reached it, I grabbed the stone and plucked it out of the air.

  Immediately the stone’s power filled me, a buzzing sensation rippling through my body. Gritting my teeth, I tried to force my conscious mind not to leave this place, not to take me away. I needed to be able to think in the present, but I also needed the stone’s power.

  It was like trying to contain a hurricane inside of myself. I could feel my bones, my muscles, and my nerves all energized by the stone’s magic. Somehow, I knew what it wanted to do—it wanted to show me, to let me see the other side. To prove to me that it could do that, through me. The stone was alive and capable of thinking, of wanting.

  I shut my eyes against the torrent of magic ripping through me and thought long and hard about the stone in the other room. I thought about the labyrinth and how it had already killed people, and would kill more if it wasn’t stopped. I was reasoning with a stone, trying to make it understand what I had seen and what I needed in the hopes that it would keep me here.

  The buzzing inside of me lessened just enough that I could feel my feet firmly placed against the stone floor. I opened my eyes, and the entire chamber was filled with golden light—light emanating from my kithe. I rolled my shoulders, and two huge, glittering, magic wings curled around me. Their outlines burned like the sun, but the wings were ephemeral and not quite there.

  I tried to touch one, and my hand went through it.

  They were like phantoms, ghosts; and yet, I had never felt more powerful in my entire life. I was like a lightning rod for magic, absorbing it from the very air around me and using it through my spectral kithe. The stone hummed in my hand, its magic throbbing, pulsing in harmony with my breathing.

  Then I heard someone clapping.

  “Well done,” a voice called out from behind me.

  I spun around, and at the door where Crag should’ve been was a man wreathed in shadow. Even with the light emanating from my kithe, I couldn’t see his face—though it sounded like Draven.

  “Draven?” I said, clutching both the stone and my dagger tightly. “What have you done?”

  “So, it’s true… I had to see for myself.”

  “See what? This doesn’t make any sense!”

  “Forgive me. Maybe this will help.” Draven allowed the shadows to slip from around his body, revealing the man beneath the cowl. It was Valoel. His long, grey hair drank the light from my wings and shone like a halo around his head. He smiled, his pearly white teeth sparkling. “I am truly sorry for the deception,” Valoel said, “But I needed to be sure.”

  “You,” I snarled, pointing my dagger at him. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? The same thing you are.”

  Valoel extended his hand toward me and opened his palm. There, sitting comfortably, was the black stone we had fought so hard to retrieve. I could hear it whispering now, that harsh voice lashing the back of my mind, hurling profanities and obscenities at me. Even from here I could see the damage the stone was doing to his skin. The stone’s power carved cuts and lesions into his hand and face, but they each quickly healed, and he seemed unaffected by the pain.

  “How are you…” I started to say, but my voice trailed off.

  “So many questions,” he said, “I bet you are filled with them. Let me assure you, I am also. I had always known I could handle the stone as I have handled others in the past, but when Draven told me about you… I have never met another like me, and yet I knew there had to be. Somewhere.”

  “You lied to us.”

  “Well, yes, I did. Draven was so excited to know one of his friends had survived, he was easy to manipulate. But I do not wish to lie to you, Seline. You are special. We both are.”

  “What are you talking about? And where’s Crag?”

  Valoel coughed, then in Crag’s voice said, “Help me, I’m dying.”

  “That was you? But how could you open these doors?”

  He angled his head to the side. “I think you underestimate just how deep Draven’s guilt runs,” he said, in his own voice. “He blames himself for the death of his men; myself included. Once I’d gotten into his good graces, gaining access to the fortress wasn’t difficult. This labyrinth has made a bit of a mess of things, though, hasn’t it? Finding my way out hasn’t been the easiest of jobs. These doors turn in on themselves.”

  Valoel paused and examined me. “You are really quite remarkable, do you know that?” He paused again. “Do you want to know why that is happening?”

  “That?” I asked.

  He pointed at my wings. “That. Your wings. I can tell you what’s wrong, I can tell you who you are, who I am, and why our destinies are entwined.”

  “Why would I believe a word you say?”

  “Because so far, I’m the only person you’ve met in this fortress who hasn’t lied to you.”

  My chest tightened, and my breathing grew shallow, but I couldn’t let him see it. I took a deep breath to calm myself, staring at him all the while. Behind me, and around me, my kithe shuddered, releasing motes of glittering, golden light into the air. I clenched my jaw.

  “You’re lying right now,” I said, “I have something you want, and you’re going to say whatever you want to get it.”

  “On the contrary. That is not why I’m here. What I’m holding in my hand is vastly more powerful than what you’re holding in yours. You can keep that one.”

  “You’ve already told me you’ve manipulated Draven, why suddenly would you decide not to manipulate me?”

  Valoel cocked his head. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  He took a step toward me, and I mirrored it with a step back. A smile swept across his lips. “My dear, you are much, much more than you realize. Soon you’ll find out that you are leagues apart from the people around you, and more powerful than you could imagine. I can show you, I can tell you things to unlock the side of you that others would prefer to keep submerged beneath your broken mind. But you have had these thoughts before, haven’t you? Doubts about Draven and the Order?”

  I hated that he wasn’t wrong. The Order had no way of knowing who moved through its halls until their true nature and identities were revealed to them. They used their trials and their tiered prospect system to make prospects get to that point, but if they ever found someone who turned out to be more powerful than them, what would they do?

  I’d considered the idea that they were, somehow, keeping us from discovering our true selves. Aaryn had been sitting on information about my home that she had been keeping from me from the beginning. Drave
n, too, had been privy to the same information, and neither of them had chosen to share it with me.

  So, again, he was right about my having been lied to. Score two for the creepy know it all. And now he was offering up the answer to the question about my kithe, the reason why they didn’t work. He clearly knew things about me that I didn’t know, maybe he even knew things about me the others didn’t know, too. But I was all too aware what the price of those answers would be. What was more important; having answers, or making sure that bastard didn’t make off with the stone?

  I’d already let one snake take a stone from me without a fight; I wasn’t about to let history repeat itself, no matter the cost.

  I gripped the stone tightly in my hand and felt its magic pulse against my fingers, like a heartbeat. “Give me the stone,” I said.

  Valoel’s black eyes narrowed. “I take it you’ve made a choice?” he asked. “Seline, you hold inside of yourself such incredible power. Come with me, let’s explore it together. Let’s make our names matter. Let’s go home, sister.”

  I lowered my head. “S-sister?” I asked.

  He held the stone up toward me. I glanced at mine. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  I shook my head. “You’ll say anything to get what you want. I’m not letting you get it.” I raised my dagger toward his hand and screamed. “Devio!”

  My body ignited as magic coursed through me; skin and nerves equally electrified by the rush. It was as if his hand had been struck by an impossible force. It wound back, and he staggered with the strength of the impact, but he didn’t drop the stone. Instead, he turned and started running.

  I gave chase, running as fast as I could. My kithe remained, bringing light to the darkness around me, and in the shifting depth of the room I caught sight of Valoel’s wings spreading amidst the shadows. He leapt into the air and soared toward the exit. I kept running, sprinting toward him, knowing full my ghostly kithe would not help me fly.

  I lined the tip of my dagger up as I ran. “Veshrim! I yelled, and a burst of golden light erupted from the tip of the blade and raced toward Valoel, forcing him to break his path. He swooped to the right, diving away from the door and the way out. If I could reach it before him, I could lock him in the vault.