The Obsidian Tower

by Melissa Caruso

  “Not to worry, Lady… ah…” Curse it, I knew her; she’d visited Morgrain as a diplomat before. I’d helped her and my grandmother draft an agreement allowing imperial trade ships to dock in more of our harbors. “Lady Celia. Welcome to Gloamingard. I have, ah, matters to attend to now, but if you’d like to—”

  My aunt strode through the Door, her fur mantle brushing my shoulder as she swept past me. “You’re trespassing,” she told the envoy, her voice cold as a granite slab. “This part of the castle is forbidden.”

  Lady Celia stiffened.

  Lovely. Karrigan had all the grace of a charging boar. I stepped up beside her before she could further insult the envoy. “Which you couldn’t possibly have known, so that’s all right,” I inserted, before Celia could reply. I attempted a disarming smile, with questionable success.

  “I told her, Exalted Warden,” Kip piped up unhelpfully. “I told her we weren’t allowed in here, but she said she had to see you at once, and Uncle Odan was off getting the Rookery’s special gear settled, and—”

  “Yes, thank you, Kip, that’s enough,” I cut him off, my cheeks burning. “Lady Celia, I must profoundly apologize for our lack of proper welcome at the gate. We’ve had some, ah, unexpected circumstances.”

  “So I gather.” Irony dripped from Celia’s voice. “I’m told the Lady of Owls is absent and the envoy from Alevar is dead, which is rather awkward given that I’ve come hundreds of miles to negotiate with her.”

  “The Shrike Lord is sending a new envoy.” Karrigan flicked aside her concerns with a lazy hand. “I got a bird from Alevar. They should be here tonight.”

  Relief flooded me at this news, mingled with bitterness that Karrigan had known before I did, both there and gone in an instant. The new envoy was more likely to be carrying a declaration of war than a mission of peace. There was no way they would sit meekly at the negotiation table without some kind of reckoning over Lamiel’s death.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Lady Celia said, “but forgive me if this reception doesn’t inspire me with confidence. I’m placing my trust and the Serene Empire’s in Morgrain to be a fair mediator and keep us safe despite the history of war between us. So far the survival rate for envoys in your care is far from reassuring.”

  Karrigan snorted. “Exalted Lamiel died because she went prying in places she didn’t belong. It was her own cursed fault.”

  “What my aunt means,” I said, wishing a plague on Karrigan’s throat to shut her up, “is that this chamber is dangerous, and it was an unfortunate disregard of warnings about that danger that led to Exalted Lamiel’s tragic death in a magical accident.” Couldn’t the Raverrans feel the raw pressure of power scraping across my nerves and see what a bad idea it was to linger here?

  Lady Celia’s eyes strayed past me toward the glimpse of glowing red lines and runes of power beyond, an avid gleam kindling in her eyes. “Truly. We certainly saw an impressive release of power a moment ago.”

  She looked far too interested. I desperately wished she hadn’t seen the inside of the Black Tower; no matter how much the Serene Empire might have gentled over the years, its thirst for magical power remained unquenchable. Foxglove stirred behind me, no doubt wanting to step up and smooth things over, but there was no room for him to get past me safely and no dignified way for him to interject from several feet behind us.

  A new voice spoke up from the others clustered behind Lady Celia: an unexpectedly familiar male tenor. “Speaking as your adviser on magical matters, my lady, it does look highly dangerous. I have no desire to wind up blasted by some oversensitive ward or malfunctioning magical device. Perhaps we’d best retire to those rooms the kind page offered us for now.”

  My eyes flicked sharply to a young man in the scarlet-and-gold uniform of the Falconers. Good Graces, it was him—Aurelio Berelli, the protégé of one of my mother’s colleagues and perhaps the closest thing I had to an old friend. His small, neatly trimmed beard was new since I’d last seen him some three years ago, as was the uniform. The fall of auburn hair over one eye was the same, however, and the sharp, lean lines of his face, and the deep, thoughtful eyes. It was surreal seeing him now, when the solid anchors of my life were being ripped up one by one, as if he came from a past that only existed in stories.

  He hadn’t shown any sign that he knew me. I’d only met him some four or five times, when his mentor visited my mother and brought him along, but I was sure it was him, beard or no. Wasn’t it?

  As I hesitated, he dropped one lid in a slow, subtle wink. A bright, heady warmth rushed up through my core. He remembered. We were still friends.

  “That would be safest,” I agreed, grateful. “I promise I’ll welcome you properly to Gloamingard and offer you hospitality and explanations shortly. But first, by the Nine Graces, let me close this Door.”

  This time, no one disagreed.

  It took everything I had to maintain both polite conversation and a safe distance as I escorted Lady Celia and the Raverran delegation to their rooms, trying not to stare at Aurelio to make sure that yes, it really was him.

  “So unfortunate that the Lady of Owls should be away now,” Lady Celia said, with a hooded glance in my direction. “Whatever could keep her from Gloamingard at a time like this?”

  “She had to deal with a chimera that crossed our border from Alevar.” It wasn’t even a lie.

  “Alevar seems to be causing all manner of trouble for their neighbors.” Lady Celia’s voice took on a certain acidity. “Do you think they’ll still be willing to accept Morgrain as a mediator, between this and Lady Lamiel’s death?”

  She asked the questions I most wished I had answers to myself. “I hope so. I assure you that I’ll do what it takes to bring Alevar to the table.”

  Lady Celia made a noncommittal noise. I supposed the Empire had the least to lose, since its fleet could assault the Alevaran coast without needing to so much as set boots on land. We were the ones sitting directly in the path of any potential Alevaran offensive, and I’d probably just removed any hesitancy the Shrike Lord might have about invading Morgrain to get to the Empire.

  “Does it even make sense for me to remain here, with the Lady of Owls gone and the Alevaran envoy dead?” Lady Celia asked.

  “Of course!” The last thing I needed was for the Raverrans to give up and go home. “As you’ve heard, a new envoy from Alevar is on the way, and I’m sure the Lady of Owls will return soon.” I could be sure of no such thing, with no idea where she’d gone. “And if she’s not, it doesn’t matter; I’m fully prepared and empowered to act as mediator.”

  “In all honesty, I’m almost more comfortable with you mediating alone,” Lady Celia said, dropping her voice. “I know you and respect your work, and your mother served Raverra well for many years. I have confidence that you’ll be fair to the Serene Empire.”

  Unexpected warmth bloomed in my chest at the novel sensation of having my Raverran blood appreciated rather than looked at askance. I smiled. “I’ll do my best, my lady.”

  Gaven had set aside an entire hallway in the New Manor for our Raverran guests; we’d discussed little touches to make them feel at home, from imperial-vinted wine waiting in their rooms to scented baths ready for them on request. Lady Celia seemed quite pleased. It was a relief to see something, at least, going right.

  I showed Aurelio his room last. Once we were alone in the wood-paneled hallway of the New Manor—still called that at a hundred and seventy years old—I turned to him and let my disbelief show at last.

  “Aurelio!”

  “Lady Ryx.” He dipped a bow, smiling warmly. “I hoped you might remember me.”

  “Of course I remember you.” I clamped my mouth shut before I could say How could I forget? By Aurelio’s standards, I was probably a mere acquaintance, one of hundreds.

  I’d met him on a few occasions scattered over several years, when he traveled with his mentor to Vaskandar on diplomatic visits. Aurelio had been the first stranger who’d been intrigued
rather than afraid or disdainful when he learned of my power, showing a rather Raverran interest in all things magical. The last time I’d seen him, we’d spent an afternoon sitting on Gloamingard’s western terrace with a good safe stretch of space between us and talking—him with a bottle of wine and me with a pot of rosehip tea, since I couldn’t risk impairing my judgment or reflexes—waiting for the sun to go down over the hills.

  There had come a moment when I knew that if it weren’t for my broken magic, I would have sidled closer and maybe tried to kiss him. But the moment had passed, leaving a dull ache in my chest like a shard of glass healed into a wound. His mentor’s diplomatic visit ended, and he went back to Raverra, and that was the last I’d seen of him for three years.

  I doubted it meant as much to him as it had to me. But he’d remembered me.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” I said fervently. “Everything’s gone to the Nine Hells, and it’s good to see a familiar face.”

  His expression sobered. “I can imagine. What in the Graces’ names has been going on here? You must be at your wit’s end, with dead envoys and mysterious artifacts—”

  “It’s been twelve hours of complete madness. Hells, I’m not sure it’s even been twelve hours.” I passed a shaking hand across my brow.

  Aurelio’s eyes widened, and he stopped himself in the act of reaching toward me. “Grace of Mercy, your sleeve is all slashed and bloody! I didn’t notice in the red light earlier. Are you all right?”

  His concern fell on me like summer sunlight. No one in Gloamingard besides my grandmother so much as acknowledged it if I was hurt; perhaps because I was a mage, or perhaps because I was cursed, but either way they seemed to assume that pain and injury were meaningless to me.

  “Oh, I’m fine.” I tucked my arm self-consciously behind my back. It still hurt, but it had stopped bleeding long ago, and the wound seemed to be closed beneath my improvised bandages. “It’ll be nearly gone by tomorrow. You know how quickly vivomancers heal.”

  “Still, you should have that looked at.” He shook his head. I didn’t point out the obvious—that no physician could treat me, and I’d always had to tend to my wounds myself. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “Since you mention it…” I hesitated, unsure how much I could presume. “I want to hold these negotiations together, no matter what it takes. Is there anything I should be aware of on the Raverran side, to help make this work?”

  “Lady Celia herself is fairly committed to peace,” he said, stroking his beard in a self-conscious way that made me wonder how long he’d had it. “Her main concern is making certain no Vaskandran would-be Witch Lord tries anything like this again on imperial soil.”

  “You say Lady Celia herself,” I observed. “Are there others who might influence the negotiations who feel differently?” I’d learned from my mother that while the Serene Empire usually presented a united front to outsiders, the quiet political struggles beneath that surface could be fierce and sometimes bloody.

  Aurelio hesitated. “Well, it’s no secret that the Council of Nine is divided on Vaskandran foreign policy. Right now the majority still favor cordial relations, but there’s a significant faction that believes war is inevitable. If not now, over this Windhome Island incident, then soon.”

  “We’ve kept the peace for a hundred and fifty years,” I protested.

  “More or less. There have still been diplomatic incidents like this every few years, and little border skirmishes. The Vaskandrans can’t seem to stop making grabs for imperial land.” He gave a sort of those barbarians grimace that made it clear he didn’t consider me Vaskandran; uncomfortable feelings tumbled one after another into my stomach. “The difference in the past hundred and fifty years has been that there’s an active and concerted effort to work together to resolve those issues. But there’ve been more and more clashes over the past decade or two; the border is heating up. It’s only a matter of time. Or so this faction believes.”

  “So do they want war? Will they try to sabotage the negotiations?” The last thing I needed was people working against me on both sides.

  “No, no.” Aurelio waved the idea off. “They’re not working toward war; they’ve just given up on sustaining peace. Their goal is to make sure Raverra has the edge when the conflict comes, so they’re focused on gathering up all the powerful magic they can find. They may not try to interfere in the negotiations—but I can tell you they’ll be more than a little interested in that artifact in your tower if they hear of it.”

  “Thanks for the context,” I said wearily. “I appreciate it.” This was exactly what I needed: more problems and complications, and more reasons why it was vital not to let these peace talks fail.

  Most likely they already had. Alevar might be sending a new envoy, but getting them to the table would be a feat likely beyond my diplomatic skills. And it sounded as if at least some in the Empire were dubious that we could succeed.

  Everything was sliding straight into the Hell of Nightmares, and I had no idea how to stop it.

  I met with the senior castle staff next, asking them to prepare for the new Alevaran envoy’s arrival, keep everyone away from the Black Tower, and let me know at once if they discovered any clues as to where my grandmother might have gone.

  “What does it mean, that the lady is missing?” Gaven asked, his face pale and his usually cheerful voice unsteady. He had every reason to be concerned; no matter what a Vaskandran’s opinion might be about their own Witch Lord, they were the only thing keeping their people safe from neighboring ones. Many of my grandmother’s peers wouldn’t hesitate to strike if they thought Morgrain undefended.

  “She’s alive,” I assured him.

  “The Lady of Owls has had unexplained absences before,” Odan added, projecting calm assurance. “She doesn’t need to keep us informed of her business. She’ll return soon.”

  I turned to Jannah, the minor Furwitch who handled Gloamingard’s messenger birds—and sometimes its feathery spies as well. “Can you pass me any messages meant for my grandmother until she returns, just as we normally would if she were traveling?”

  Jannah, a bright-eyed and stylish woman in her forties, cocked an eyebrow. “Of course, Exalted Warden. And what do you want me to do if Exalted Karrigan asks for them?”

  I let out a long breath. I still had to reckon with Aunt Karrigan. It was no accident that she’d come running when everything went wrong. My grandmother had three living children: my Uncle Tarn, the eldest, serious and cautious; my father, the middle child, warm-hearted and devoted; and Karrigan, the youngest, full of fire and ambition. My father had no interest in the succession. My grandmother had let it be known she favored Tarn as her heir, but Karrigan never lost an opportunity to attempt to convince her otherwise. Of course Tarn would stay away, obeying my grandmother’s command, the dutiful son, while Karrigan rushed in to seize control, save the day, and prove her worth.

  Right in the middle of my complex and delicate negotiations.

  “My esteemed aunt is not the Warden of Gloamingard,” I said at last.

  Jannah’s eyes twinkled. “Then she shouldn’t read its correspondence without your permission.”

  “I should send messages to my father and uncle and fill them in on what’s happening here.” I ran the smooth bumps of my braid through nervous fingers. I wasn’t looking forward to confessing how fouled up things had gotten on my watch.

  “I’ll have my fastest birds ready to carry them,” Jannah assured me. “And let me know if you’d like any help writing them, Exalted. I’ll be trying out my latest set of Raverran alchemical inks tonight anyway, writing letters to my daughters.”

  “Thank you, but I should probably handle these myself.” I hesitated, almost dreading what I had to ask next. “Speaking of birds… I assume you’ve sent some to try to contact my grandmother?”

  Jannah, nodded, her lips pressed together. Her silence told me all I needed to know about the lack of reply.
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br />   Usually the birds of Morgrain could find my grandmother instinctively, through her link to them and all living things in the domain. If even her birds couldn’t find her, something was very wrong indeed.

  I wanted more than anything to crawl into my room and collapse facedown on my bed until dinner. But there was one more person I had to talk to, if I could find him. I set out searching the shadowy corners and high places of Gloamingard for Whisper.

  He could vanish like smoke in the wind when he wanted to. Sometimes I didn’t see him for weeks; other times I couldn’t turn around without finding him watching me through narrow yellow eyes, tail wrapped neatly around his paws. He’d seemed to take a particular interest in the Black Tower, however, and I suspected his secret purpose touched on it. Perhaps he was some guardian of the Gloaming Lore, or a piece of it himself. I’d seen his face carved out of bone and shaped from wood in odd corners of the castle, his distant stare as ambiguous in art as in life. I was gambling that he’d let me find him, this time.

  Sure enough, I soon discovered him poised on the broad log railing of the second floor balcony that overlooked the Old Great Hall, watching Gaven direct the spreading of fine tablecloths and positioning of oil lamps in preparation for our noble guests. His tail swished thoughtfully back and forth below the railing, like the pendulum of a clock.

  “Hello, Whisper,” I ventured.

  “One thing I will never understand about humans is how bent you seem to be upon your own destruction.” He didn’t bother turning to face me. “Why did you touch the stone a second time?”

  That was a good question, and one I’d asked myself more than once this afternoon. I sighed and sank down to sit cross-legged on the balcony. “Because Grandmother told me to.”