The Obsidian Order Boxed Set

by martinez, katerina

  Not long ago, I’d hated the thought of being brought here, to the black fortress. The idea of having to stay here, the idea of not being able to go back to the place I thought of as home, no matter how much of a shit-hole it was compared to the magic of this place… it had sucked. I couldn’t force her to stay, even though I knew she’d be better off here.

  “Tell you what,” I said, after a moment, “Let’s get you some clothes and get you to a shower. Then I’ll show you to your room and you can spend the night. If tomorrow you still want to go back, I’ll take you back myself. How does that sound?”

  She considered my words for some time, then nodded. “Okay,” she said.

  Nodding, I stood and escorted her out of the dining hall. The guards followed us the whole time, and remained posted outside of the shower room, and then outside of the room she had been allocated. This was all at my request. I didn’t want her leaving in the middle of the night, but I also didn’t want anyone getting near her.

  I was starting to think that this girl was in fact a fiend. Maybe the glamor worked a little more completely around her, or maybe her magic was strong enough that she could totally hide her other nature. What it came down to, was her situation. If she was a fiend, why in the world did they have her chained up?

  On the other hand, she’d have been picked apart and probably eaten if she wasn’t a fiend. That alone made a powerful argument for what lived underneath her glamor. Maybe she couldn’t show her true form. Maybe, like me, she was broken in some way.

  Even though I was exhausted by the end of our talk, I decided to go and find Draven and Scythe. I’d never been down into the dungeons before, but I knew the way. Everybody did. The Order liked to remind people that they weren’t shy of locking people away underground if their rules were broken. Of course, I remembered a time when a prospect committed actual murder during a trial and he hadn’t been locked away underground.

  That could’ve probably avoided a whole bunch of mess, but the Order itself has come a long way since then. I liked to think I’d had a hand in that, but maybe I was overestimating my influence. Time would tell.

  I found another guard posted at the entrance to the dungeons, at the bottom of a long stairwell. He stared at me, then nodded, and stepped aside. It felt good to have a little power, a little authority. It was like an adrenaline rush. When I’d arrived here, I was nobody. Now, things were a little different. I had to remind myself not to let it get to my head.

  Draven was already waiting on the other side of the door when I pulled it open. He turned his black eyes on me, but his face was stone and difficult to read. “What happened?” I asked.

  “Walk with me,” he said.

  Nodding, I fell into step with him. I wasn’t sure what had happened to Scythe, but the coppery smell of blood was in the air and Draven kept flexing his fingers. I wasn’t sure how I felt about torture if that’s what Draven had resorted to, but we were at war. Choices were limited.

  Draven led me through a series of hallways that eventually put us on a path to his tower. I stayed quiet for a time, watching the fortress pass us by. He hadn’t said a word since we’d left the dungeons, and I had a feeling that was because he didn’t want anyone listening to our conversation. I decided to follow suit and keep my mouth shut for the duration.

  By the time we reached Draven’s room, my need to know what the hell had happened down there was reaching critical levels. He shut his door and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Did you talk to the girl?” he asked.

  “I did,” I said.

  He turned around. “And?”

  I took a deep breath, then exhaled. “I think she’s one of them. She’s talented, scrappy, a survivor like me… she also knows about Valoel.”

  “What does she know?”

  “You first. What’s going on? Why are you so silent?”

  Draven clenched his jaw. “Valoel is gathering an army. I don’t know how strong it is exactly, but the fiend seemed to suggest we’re dealing with numbers I never thought were possible.”

  “What kind of numbers?”

  “One hundred, maybe more.”

  My stomach went cold. “How the fuck did he find so many?”

  “I don’t know. My guess is he’s been going all over the country recruiting people to his cause. He must have stolen a teleportation orb from the armory before he made off with the stone, that’s the only way he could be moving around so quickly. What I want to know is how he’s managed to bring them all to his cause, or what his cause even is for that matter.”

  “I can’t tell you what it is he wants, but I think I know how he’s bringing them all on board… it’s the stone. He’s using it to, I don’t know, mind-control them or something.”

  “Mind-control? How do you know about this?”

  “The girl—Six—she told me. She said he’d been around her neighborhood before. She told me she’d heard the voices in her head, and that the voices were telling her to go with him. Six was chained up so she couldn’t go even if she’d wanted to, and she wanted to—the call was tough to resist.”

  Draven shook his head and walked over to his bed. “Dammit. If he’s gathering an army of mind-controlled fiends, it won’t be long until he decides to start attacking the Order.”

  “How do you know that’s what he wants to do?”

  He looked at me, his face grave with concern. “Because I know him well. He knows we’re a threat to his plans, whatever they are. He knows where all the Order’s prospects are kept. Trust me, it won’t be long before he tries to storm our gates.”

  “Can we withstand that kind of attack?”

  “From Valoel’s army? I don’t know. Not without sustaining heavy casualties. But that’s not everything the fiend told me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’d heard whispers that Valoel was getting help from some of the natives, and that’s what made him decide not to join.”

  “Wait… what kind of natives?”

  Draven’s jaw clenched. “Mages.”

  “Don’t you mean witches?”

  “They aren’t called witches, they’re called mages.”

  “Really? Damn. I’ve been calling Bastet a witch for a while… guess she doesn’t care.”

  Bastet was the only mage I knew, but she was one in a city of hundreds—maybe thousands. I didn’t believe she’d be involved with Valoel, although it was possible she knew of someone who was. Mages liked to share knowledge. This much Bastet had told me before. Someone, somewhere, knew something, and I was the only one of us who could go digging.

  “I should talk to Bastet,” I said.

  “No. If Valoel gets wind that you’re out there, he may try and come for you. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if something happened to you.”

  A warm flush filled me, now. It made my head spin. “Draven…” I said, his name spilling from my lips on the back of a sigh.

  He turned his eyes away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

  I shook my head. “Didn’t mean to what?”

  Draven looked at me now. “I overstepped.”

  “Overstepped? How?”

  “You’re my apprentice. I shouldn’t let myself get too… familiar.”

  I walked over to him. “Don’t you think you’re setting too many rules on yourself?”

  “I don’t think there’s such a thing.”

  “You’re such a soldier…” I sighed. “I think we should probably talk about the elephant in the room. It’s been long enough.”

  “And I think we have more pressing issues to deal with.”

  “You can’t avoid it forever.”

  “I don’t plan on it, Seline… but our history isn’t going anywhere. Valoel, however, could be marching on us right now for all we know.”

  I shrugged. “Shouldn’t we raise the alarms, then?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Exactly. I didn’t think you believed Valoel was coming for us right now. Y
ou’re just trying to get out of this conversation, but I want to have it, and I think you do too. What’s stopping you?”

  Draven exhaled deeply and rubbed his brow with the back of his hand. He eventually shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, but I could see the truth.

  He was scared. Scared of this. Scared of whatever we may have been in another life. “History is history,” I said, taking one of his hands. “I’d like to know where we came from, and you’re the only one who can tell me… but I’m more interested in the future.”

  His jaw clenched, but he didn’t retreat as he’d done before. He was too good at hiding behind his work, hiding behind his status as the boss of this whole Order. In here, though, he couldn’t run away, couldn’t hide behind a crisis.

  Except…

  Draven moved toward his bedroom door, lowered his head, and opened it. He turned around to look at me, his eyes grave and serious. “I hear what you’re saying, but I have doubts.”

  “Doubts?” I asked, walking over to him. It looked like he was getting ready to kick me out of his room. “Doubts about what?”

  “About whether or not digging into our past is going to bring us anything good.”

  I shook my head. “You’ve done nothing but resist this so far… why do you keep doing that?”

  “Because, Seline, our houses were at war, and I was a soldier.”

  “So?”

  “Your city… it was destroyed. What if… I…?”

  I moved a little closer to him, close enough to hold his hand. I had to swallow hard to fight my own emotions threatening to bubble up, but I managed, at least for now. He was right. Aaryn had told me about how my city had been destroyed, how my people had been killed. Draven was a soldier for the House of Night, so it was possible he had a role to play in that.

  It was also possible I had a part to play. Even though I couldn’t remember anything about what had happened to me before I fell through the rift, thoughts about my home always came with… guilt, these days. It had started happening after Aaryn had told me of the destruction of my home, so maybe some unconscious memory had been triggered.

  Maybe it was just survivor’s guilt.

  Whatever it was, I hated it. The not knowing, the uncertainty, the doubts. It wasn’t an easy thing to live with, especially when there’s so much else going on around you. I shook my head, took a deep breath, and stared up at his black eyes.

  “Listen… I’m not going to stop trying to convince you,” I said, “I want this. I need this. There’s no guarantee we’ll even unlock any new memories of our pasts even if we do start looking into this. All I need you to do is tell me that you want to do this with me…”

  I watched him as he watched me, and waited for his reply. I could see the cogs working in his head, the answer to my question being carefully formulated. Why? Why the hesitation? I hated it almost as much as I hated the confusion I felt all the time, but I also understood it, so I couldn’t fault him.

  “You are more important to me than you know,” he said, “I don’t think you would ever fully understand, not even if I explained it to you.”

  “How about you just try me?”

  “I want to go down this journey with you. I promise. But right now, there are more difficult things to deal with, and we need to be entirely focused and concentrated. When it’s over, we will do whatever it takes to recover lost memories. I have no doubt with your tenacity, we’ll find something we can use.”

  I pressed my lips into a thin line. “So, not now…”

  “When this is over, I promise.”

  “When this is over…” I echoed, letting my words trail off.

  Nodding, I walked past him and headed out of his room. In my mind this whole thing should’ve gone a little differently, but again, I couldn’t blame him for being hesitant. I’d just need to be patient. And besides, he was right—we did have more important things to deal with.

  It was time to go and find Bastet again.

  The last time I’d seen the crazy witch, she’d helped me out with a little appearance change and had gone batshit crazy over Rey. Thinking back on all of that, it felt like a lifetime ago. So much had happened since then, and I wasn’t sure how much of it Bastet knew.

  The fact that she was a native, though, meant that was a chance she could be connected to the natives Valoel had been winning over. My only problem right now was that I had no idea where she’d gone after what had happened with Abvat and the other Naga. Rey had told me she’d abandoned her apartment and had moved after it had all gone down. That meant he was the only person who could help me find her.

  Unfortunately, Rey and I weren’t on the best of terms.

  “Well, well,” he said. I’d found him sitting at a window overlooking the grounds. The silver tabby had his head between his legs and had been grooming his privates when I found him. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  “Does that work when you say it?” I asked, “I mean, because you’re the cat, right?”

  Rey stared at me, his big blue eyes showing nothing but indifference. He licked his lips, got himself into a more comfortable position, and curled his tail around his front paws. “What do you want, Seline?”

  “I need your help.”

  “Oh, now you need my help? Just a few weeks ago you were scolding me for not helping you deal with the labyrinth problem.”

  “Hey, I was right to yell at you. You could’ve helped.”

  Rey sighed and dipped his head. “We’ve gone over this. I couldn’t have helped, and you know that.” He shook his head. “I’m not going through it again, and I’m also not helping you. So, scram, kid.”

  “I need to find Bastet.”

  He had started grooming his chest, and when he stopped to look at me, his little pink tongue was sticking out of his mouth. He stared at me for a long moment, then narrowed his eyes. “Why?” he asked.

  “Why do I need to give you a reason?”

  “Because you’re asking me for a favor, and before I decide whether I want to help you or not, I need to know more.”

  “Listen to me, you little fur-ball. Bastet was my friend before she was yours, so—”

  “—friend? I thought you considered her more of an acquaintance.”

  I paused and arched my neck back. “How did you…?” I rolled my eyes. “Look, whatever. The point is, you don’t get to just hide her from me. I need her help, she’s literally the only person I think that can help me. It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “I highly doubt that, but why don’t you indulge me? Give me some of the details, and maybe we’ll have a discussion on our hands. Remember what they say about curiosity and cats.”

  “Yeah, it kills them.”

  “Sure, but only the stupid ones. Now… your reason?”

  I sighed. “I think she could help point us in Valoel’s direction.”

  “Valoel… I see. Why do you think she can do that? She’s a crazy cat-lady mage, he’s an Aevian with delusions of grandeur. They hardly seem like they’d be buddies… although that would make for a hilarious rom-com, don’t you think?”

  “It would, and I’d watch the hell out of it, but could we stay on track?”

  Rey rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he sighed.

  “I have reason to believe Valoel has been in contact with some of the natives in New York. I doubt if Bastet is directly one of them but seeing as how she has her ear to the ground, she might know a thing or two about what’s going on. An Aevian in possession of a singing stone like the one Valoel has, running around and talking to mages, that’s something that’s gonna get gossiped about.”

  “Are you sure about that? The mages tend to keep tight lipped about stuff like this. They wisely know that knowledge is power, and they aren’t in the business of giving it away for free. Vampires, on the other hand, they live for gossip. Though I suppose when you’re immortal, there’s little you can do but get invested in the dealings of others. I would know.”

  I paused
. “Are you telling me you’re immortal?”

  “I said nothing of the sort.” He hopped down from the window he’d been sitting on and stretched, arching his back and pointing his tail. "Alright, color me intrigued. I'm inclined to tell you where Bastet is. What’s in it for me?”

  “I don’t have anything for you.”

  Rey started to saunter off, his tail flicking rapidly. “That’s a shame. Come back to me when you do.”

  “Hey! Don’t you show me your ass.”

  He turned his head over his shoulder. “I’ll show it to whoever I please, but I won’t waste my incredibly limited time unless there’s personal gain in it for me.”

  I groaned. “You can come with me.”

  “Come with you? Where? To New York? No thanks.”

  “No? I thought you went there regularly.”

  “I did, but then it got weird. There was this Burmese and this Siamese, both of them wanted a piece of me, and I just… I don’t know, they got too needy. I couldn’t deal.”

  “They’re cats… what are you talking about?”

  Rey turned around and pointed a paw at me. “I’ll have you know, cats are incredibly complex creatures revered by some as Gods. Don’t believe me? Ask the Egyptians. They built statues in our image.”

  “Sure, but they’re still just cats.”

  “You know, you aren’t making your case by insulting an entire species I happen to have a vested interest in.”

  “I shouldn’t have to be making a case at all. I thought you wanted to help me.”

  “And I do, but I’ve offered you too much help already and I’m dangerously close to upsetting the great cosmic balance. Therefore, my kindness now comes at a price.”

  I paused and thought for a moment. “Come with me and I’ll get you anchovies.”

  Rey stared at me. “Do you really think that I… me…” he paused and turned away. “Me… she thinks that I can’t get anchovies whenever I want. She actually thinks that. Me, with all of my powers and abilities.” He turned around again, shaking his head.

  I cocked an eyebrow. “You can’t, can you?” I asked, grinning slightly.