The Obsidian Tower

by Melissa Caruso

  The doors burst open. Odan stood there, out of breath, clearly having run to arrive ahead of the boots that echoed at a determined pace up the corridor.

  “Announcing the Exalted Atheling Severin of Alevar,” he called hoarsely. “The Shrike Lord’s brother and heir.”

  Then he staggered as a middle-aged man with a pointed beard swept him aside with a polished bone staff. “Make way for the Exalted Atheling!” he called, his voice ringing harshly through the hall.

  “That will do, Voreth,” said a lazy voice behind him. And Severin of Alevar strode into the room.

  Exalted Severin had a presence with edges so sharp he seemed to cut the air around him and leave it in glittering pieces. His shining black hair fell in a sleek tail almost to his waist, with two loose locks framing a fine-boned, golden-brown face. His mage mark gleamed stormy gray in dark eyes hooded with apparent disdain. He still wore black leather riding clothes from the road, and a narrow cape edged with elaborate knotted thorn designs floated from one shoulder. Every eye in the hall fixed on him at once—mine included, whether I liked it or not.

  I rose to welcome him, though my aunt stayed seated, her mage mark smoldering crimson. Severin stopped in the middle of the hall; Voreth, his second with the bone staff, hovered at his shoulder, chin lifted. Voreth’s eyes bore no mark, but he must be a mage to carry himself with such arrogance.

  Severin raised an arm to command attention he already held captive. He did not bow.

  “My brother offers you no greetings, Exalted Athelings of Morgrain,” he called, and his smooth tenor voice chased echoes from the rafters. “He did not send me here to bandy niceties and sip beer in your halls. The Shrike Lord cares for one thing only: vengeance.”

  Well, at least he’d gotten straight to the point. Lady Celia’s eyes widened, shocked at a directness no Raverran diplomat would dream of.

  Karrigan pushed back her chair, the legs scraping against the floor like blunt claws, and rose. If she were my grandmother, the room would have darkened with her anger, and the castle would have shuddered awake at the young atheling’s temerity. While she was no Witch Lord, the cold stare she gave Severin carried force behind it nonetheless.

  “You are here in this house because we invited you to speak of peace. And yet you stand there with war on your tongue.”

  “Exalted Lamiel came in peace,” Severin declared. Which was a dubious claim, but I still felt a pang of guilt. “And now she lies dead, after trusting herself to your hospitality. You have destroyed my brother’s peace. You must make amends before he can respect yours.”

  Unease fluttered in my belly. Lamiel might have brought her own death upon herself, but it had still been my magic that ended her life. And the Shrike Lord’s wrath might be unreasonable, but that made his grief no less real.

  “Do not tell me what I must do here in my family’s castle,” Aunt Karrigan growled, her voice deep and dangerous.

  I straightened my spine and let my own voice ring out to fill the hall. “We respect the Shrike Lord’s grievance, though Exalted Lamiel violated our hospitality.” Severin’s gaze swiveled to lock onto mine; I nearly faltered as his intense gray-ringed stare struck me. I had to hope he wouldn’t think too closely about the difference between respecting the Shrike Lord’s grievance and acknowledging it. “If you’ve come to claim that grievance, we can discuss it while you’re here for the negotiations. If you’ve come to reject repayment and declare war…” Eloquence fled my tongue in the face of such a dire prospect.

  “Then your timing is awkward,” Lady Celia inserted dryly. “Because the Serene Empire sent me to discuss peace, and it will be terribly unfortunate for everyone if the subject of conversation turns to war instead.”

  For a moment, Severin’s lips twitched, and I could have sworn he was on the brink of a wry smile. If so, he suppressed it quickly. “Alevar has no grievance against the Serene Empire, my lady, and I do hope to keep it that way.”

  Then he turned back to my aunt and me, his expression hardening. “Fortunately, my brother in his mercy has allowed me to offer you a peaceful resolution.” Was that a rich undertone of irony on the word mercy, or had I imagined it? “If you will accept this condition, I am to stay and participate in the negotiations as his envoy. If you deny his generous offer, I am to return to Alevar at once to help my brother prepare for war.”

  Dread locked every muscle in my body tight and twisted the key. I could read the same suspense on the faces of my aunt and Aurelio, in Lady Celia’s deceptively relaxed posture, in the wary stillness of the staff and the Rookery at the lower tables. No one wanted to plunge back into the near-constant conflict that had plagued the region before the War of Ashes, but we balanced on a knife’s edge above an abyss of blood.

  “And what is this condition?” I asked. My aunt rolled the claws of her half gloves in a clicking cascade on the table.

  “It’s simple.” Severin spread his arms. “To appease his grievance, the Shrike Lord demands that Exalted Lamiel’s murderer be handed over to him for justice.”

  Hell of Nightmares. I might as well have swallowed a bucket of ice. From what I’d heard, the Shrike Lord’s justice most often involved impalement.

  “Exalted Lamiel died in a magical accident, to be generous to the dead,” my aunt objected. “That’s hardly murder.”

  “No.” Severin’s voice rang sharp and clear to the rafters. “She was a part of my brother’s domain, and echoes of her dying moments resonated in his mind. We don’t know the identity of the killer, but he is quite certain she was murdered.”

  “Your brother is wrong,” Karrigan replied flatly.

  The air between the two mages crackled with unseen power, a pressure building around them as they glared at each other. My evasions were about to escalate out of control here and now. I pressed my palms flat against the table, the truth straining for release behind my teeth.

  Lady Celia lifted a casual hand, like a delicate knife slid between braided layers of conflict. “If I may offer a solution, Exalted Athelings? Would it be fair to say that if, upon investigation, it turns out that Lady Lamiel’s death was in fact a murder, Morgrain will turn over the culprit to the Shrike Lord for justice?”

  “Certainly.” My aunt folded her arms across her chest. “If it was a murder, the killer is yours to do with as you see fit.”

  My fingernails bit into my legs beneath the table. Ash and ruin, she might have just condemned me to death.

  If it got Alevar to the table and secured peace, that might be worth it.

  Foxglove rose from his seat and bowed deeply to both Severin and Aunt Karrigan. “We of the Rookery are expert investigators already looking into the magical accident in question,” he said. “We would consider it an honor—and, indeed, part of our task here—to investigate this matter and attempt to discover the identity of the murderer.”

  Now my family and the Rookery had promised my head to our enemy. Still, I had to hope it would work. Thank the Graces no one was watching me, because I was certain my distress was written clearly on my face.

  No, someone was looking at me—Aurelio, his eyes wide with concern. He glanced away with a grimace, clearly trying not to draw attention to me. I’d have to hope that he truly was the friend I thought him, and that I could trust his discretion.

  “Very well.” Severin gave a slight bow at last, his glorious fall of hair rippling with the motion; my aunt returned the belated courtesy with equal restraint. “The domain of Alevar accepts your offers. And I may now accept your hospitality.”

  A dizzying mix of sickness and relief washed over me. “Welcome to Gloamingard then, Exalted Severin.”

  I knocked at the Rookery guest suite feeling as if the weight of half of Eruvia pressed down on my shoulders. Severin might have agreed to negotiate, but my grandmother was still missing, the Shrike Lord still bent on vengeance, and the Black Tower still breached and probably dangerous. I hadn’t slept since before Lamiel’s fateful visit, and my legs trembled with ex
haustion.

  Kessa flung open the door. She didn’t recoil in alarm on seeing me so close, as one of my own people would have; her fingers didn’t flick in the warding sign. I pressed back against the smooth-worn log wall behind me, wishing the hall were wider.

  “Ah, Exalted—that is, Ryx! The seasons smile on us! We were just about to send someone to ask if you could join us.”

  I had no business feeling this soft warmth at Kessa’s smile. She wanted me here for practical reasons, not personal ones; her lack of fear was dangerous, not endearing. The sparkle in her eyes must be for whatever she was thinking about before I knocked on the door, not for me.

  “Have you figured out what the artifact does?” I asked, trying to sound businesslike.

  Bastian crowded behind Kessa in the doorway; every time I saw him, his hair was more tousled. “No, not quite yet. We may have made another important discovery, though.”

  “Oh?”

  “I have a theory about why the artifact responded to you the way it did, and we were hoping you might let us test it.” Bastian’s brow creased as if his own words worried him. “We may have figured out how your magic works.”

  I stared at him in shock. No one had ever satisfactorily explained my broken magic, not in all my twenty-one years.

  If you understood why something was broken, maybe—just maybe—you could fix it.

  “Why don’t you come in,” he said gravely.

  The Rookery settled themselves around the sitting room of their guest suite with the casual grace of a Raverran noblewoman’s discarded accessories, distributed on furniture and windowsills along with an impressive spread of open books, scattered papers, and a few strange artifice devices coiled with gleaming wire. They’d set me up in a place of safe and splendid isolation by the fire, moving furniture to create a space around me. That had taken some doing, since Odan had put them in the Great Lodge, with its woodsmoke-scented homey comfort; all the chairs were built of massive logs and vein-poppingly heavy.

  “We never did properly introduce ourselves, what with the death and politics and magical explosions,” Foxglove said with a graceful bow. “How much do you know about the Rookery?”

  “Not much,” I admitted, trying to settle myself comfortably despite the racing of my pulse, which had spiked to a near hum at Bastian’s announcement and refused to calm down.

  “We solve magic problems,” Ashe said. “Foxglove will give you a big boring lecture about international politics, but that’s all you need to know.”

  “I’m, uh, interested in that part,” I apologized.

  Ashe grunted with disgust.

  Foxglove ignored her. “After the War of Ashes, everyone wanted some way to prevent future magical catastrophes. The Rookery was the creation of certain powers seeking more cooperation between Vaskandar and the Empire, and it’s been around in one form or another ever since.” He flicked imaginary dust off his cuffs. “There are, after all, a surprising number of ways magic can go wrong, and someone has to deal with it when it does.”

  “Sadly, not all of those ways can be fixed with stabbing,” Ashe sighed.

  Kessa shot her an affectionate glance. “Yes, well, much to Ashe’s dismay, sometimes we clean up diplomatic messes left by magic, too. Settling disagreements over who gets to keep a powerful old artifice device dug up on a border, conducting discreet investigations when a public figure is suspected of unethical magical experiments, that sort of thing. All talking, with no stabbing at all.”

  “Or this investigation into the Black Tower,” I concluded. “What have you learned so far?” Much as I burned to know what they might have guessed about my magic, the tower had to be my first priority.

  “Well,” Bastian said, “the sheer quantity of magical power in that obelisk is frankly terrifying.” He had his little notebook out, running his long fingers down its leather cover as if for comfort. “And I suppose if it’s been sitting there collecting energy for thousands of years, that’s reasonable, but I’m a bit nervous about even a quick pulse of it being released without any idea where it’s going or to what purpose it might be channeled.” He fluttered his fingers in a gesture that could equally have indicated mystery or explosions.

  “Me too,” I agreed, rolling my shoulders uncomfortably at the memory of that power raging through me.

  “We hope to unravel the Black Tower’s mysteries soon,” Foxglove said, “but part of that mystery is why the obelisk reacted only to you. And Bastian has a theory that we need your help to test.”

  “Only if you’re willing,” Bastian added, with a glance at Foxglove. “The tests are completely safe, but it’s your choice.”

  I nodded my assent, trying to keep my face smooth so no one would guess at the pounding of my heart.

  “Excellent. Thank you.” Bastian beamed as if I’d given him a present. “Now, before we get started, for safety purposes, tell me—does anything block your power? Does it travel through cloth, glass, metal? Is it safe to hand you things if we don’t touch you?”

  “I wouldn’t chance it.” I held up a gloved hand. “Some things can muffle my power a bit, slow it down—like my gloves—but nothing stops it.”

  “Even air?” Foxglove asked curiously.

  “Even air.” I shifted uneasily in my chair, warding off bad memories. “When I was a child, I used to wither flowers if I bent close to smell them, but I’ve trained enough at holding it in that the effects don’t reach much past my skin now. You might feel something from a near miss, but it’s not fatal.”

  I expected them to make the warding sign, or at least lean away from me. They were the Rookery, however, and I supposed they’d seen far worse. They just looked interested, as if I were something new and intriguing rather than frightening or shameful. I swallowed a sudden tightness in my throat.

  “Right, then! Let’s see.” Bastian rummaged in a great lumpy satchel by his feet and procured the same strange spectacles he’d donned in the Black Tower. Artifice runes marked the frames, and twists and swirls of beaded wire ringed the lenses, one of which was green and the other red.

  “They call these Verdi’s Glasses,” he explained, settling them reverently over his eyes. “There are only about a dozen pairs in existence, because they require an exceptionally skilled artificer to create. They let you perceive certain flows of magical power.”

  “I see.” I couldn’t hide the nerves that wound my fingers tight together. I might be on the cusp of some kind of definitive answers about my faulty magic at last.

  Bastian fished around in his bag some more and produced a wire-wrapped pocket luminary. He shook it vigorously until it glowed, then held it out toward me.

  “Take it,” he urged, his face behind the glasses excited as if he expected something marvelous to happen.

  I stared at him across the empty space the Rookery had so carefully set up between us. “Bastian,” I reminded him, “I can’t take that from you.”

  “Oh? Oh!” His brows flew up. “Right.” He rose and set it on the mantel, within my reach.

  I pulled off my glove, then carefully picked it up, the glass and beaded wire warm against my skin.

  My fingers tingled, and the light winked out.

  Anxious disappointment twisted my stomach. “Did I break it?”

  “No, no,” Bastian said, seeming delighted. “That’s perfect. Amazing!”

  “Like you thought,” Foxglove said, with satisfaction.

  “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to try something else,” Bastian said to me, his careful diffidence barely covering his eagerness.

  I found myself glancing at Kessa, as the most familiar face in the room; she winked. “All right.”

  Bastian took a candle in a silver holder from the corner of a desk and lit it with a spark from another small artifice device, then set it on the mantel as well.

  “Try putting your finger as close as you can to the flame,” he suggested. “Without burning yourself, of course.”

  Foxglove leaned f
orward as I took up the candle, watching me avidly. Even Ashe kept an eye on me sidelong as she pretended to stare out the window.

  Once the flame steadied, I held a finger near the candle, stopping when I felt its heat. This time, no strange miracle occurred.

  “I’m not certain what this is supposed to prove,” I said.

  “Try closer,” Foxglove urged.

  “Fine.” I moved my finger a little farther toward the flame, wary of pain. Bastian let out a nervous hiss.

  When the fire was close enough that the heat seared my skin and I was sure I’d be pulling my finger away with a burn, the candle suddenly guttered as if in a draft. The flame bent toward my finger, dwindled to a blue nub, and went out entirely. A thin trail of pale smoke rose from a tiny red ember at the tip of the candlewick.

  I hadn’t pinched it, hadn’t breathed on it, hadn’t quite touched it.

  “Ha!” Foxglove crowed. “You were right, Bastian.”

  “I don’t understand.” I tried to keep my voice even.

  “Tell me, Ryx,” Bastian asked, his voice unexpectedly gentle, “do you break things often?”

  “I—yes.” Hells. His theory was that I literally ruined everything. My face heated. “What does that have to do with the obelisk? And why did the flame go out?”

  “It’s nothing to worry about. It just proves my theory.” Bastian removed his glasses and caught my eyes with his earnest brown ones. “Ryx…” He drew a deep breath. “You aren’t a vivomancer.”

  That wasn’t what I’d expected. “Of course I’m a vivomancer. My father is a vivomancer. My grandmother is a vivomancer. My aunt and uncle and cousins are vivomancers. I come from a long line of vivomancers, all the way back to the Sycamore Lord at the founding of Vaskandar.”

  “And you probably were born a vivomancer,” he said. “Something must have happened to damage your magic. When did it start behaving strangely?”

  “It was always this way.” That sounded stubborn even to me. I softened my tone and explained once more; at least no one thought I was a Skinwitch this time. “I was very sick as a baby, just as my mage mark was forming. My parents say I nearly died. After that I never could control my power, no matter how they tried to teach me.”