The Obsidian Tower

by Melissa Caruso

  The need to help burned like fire in my veins. If Aurelio released my power, I could try to kill all the attacking plants—but I’d be just as likely to kill some of the people packed into the corridor around me. There had to be something I could do, curse it.

  A vine formed into a hard, sharp spear, stabbing at Kessa; before I could so much as move, Ashe sliced it in two, her sword leaving a sizzling trail of smoke in the air behind it.

  The cauterized end of the vine twitched on the ground, and Ashe severed another and another, moving quick as lightning, her eyes almost glowing with intense focus. For a brief moment, hope kindled in my chest; she might be enough.

  But the vines rose up again, green shoots pushing past the blackened ends. My grandmother was a Witch Lord, and not easily thwarted by the rules of nature.

  “Graces preserve us!” Lady Celia cried, clutching a dagger in one hand and a wirework artifice pendant with the other. “Get the Lady of Owls to call them off!”

  “Grandmother, please!” I directed my begging toward the branches that now reached across Aunt Karrigan’s body, growing and spreading like cracks in the ice, tips sharp as sorrow and just as deadly. “It’s me, Ryx! Vikal and I are here, too. And these are your guests, your staff, your friends. You don’t want to hurt us.”

  The branches hesitated.

  My cheeks were hot and stiff with tears; I hadn’t realized I was crying. I reached out, feeling my grandmother’s presence strong around me. A mad, destructive wrath reverberated through the castle like a deep bass note, with the high wild keen of grief layered above it. The vines reared back, leaves hissing, swaying furiously.

  “Come back, Grandmother,” I whispered, stretching toward the nearest branch. “Please. I need you.”

  The ivy reaching from the Great Hall dropped to the floor and recoiled, flowing away like water. The branches coming from up the corridor retreated, too, pulling back into themselves with a groaning of wood.

  She had heard me. She had listened. And now she was leaving again.

  My hand dropped back to my side, empty, something tearing away inside me as if caught on the receding branches.

  It seemed impossible that my aunt hadn’t moved through the whole thing. That she still lay there in her blood, arrows bristling from her, with nothing to say about this disastrous turn of events.

  I slumped against the wall, breathing hard, throat aching, as the corridor erupted into noise around me.

  There was a cup of tea in my hand. I wasn’t certain how it had gotten there.

  I had said something to the crowd, there in the bloody hallway; I didn’t remember what, but it must have sounded authoritative enough, because most of them left. Severin had spoken some word to me in parting, his voice intense and shaken, but my horror-numb brain hadn’t absorbed enough to even know whether his comment was nasty or sympathetic.

  Vikal had stayed, crumpled into a ball and crying like a child, and I’d stood there struggling, unable to find words, unpracticed in gestures of comfort, trying desperately not to look at what was left of my aunt. Finally Odan appeared and sent us both away with the grim, closed expression of a man who had cleaned up dead bodies before. Which he probably had. There was Lamiel, at the very least, and I’d always suspected that not all of the people who’d dropped from my accidental touch as a child had survived.

  I’d wandered back to the Old Great Hall and sat at the empty high table, staring into space. And now there was tea in front of me. Lavender, by the scent of it.

  I blinked at the steam rising from its surface and looked up to find Kessa staring worriedly at me from across the table.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “About your aunt.”

  I shook my head, swathed in a sort of dull horror. “We weren’t close. I don’t think she liked me much.” I wrapped a hand around the teacup to feel its warmth. “She was my father’s sister. We almost understood each other this afternoon. How am I supposed to fix everything that was broken between us if she’s dead?”

  Kessa reached for my hand, tentatively; I snatched it back out of instinct, heart pounding. She held my gaze, her brown eyes deep and soft, and I reached back out and let her fold her warm hands around my cold one.

  “Family is complicated,” she said quietly. “Seasons know I don’t get along with all of mine. But no one should ever have to lose someone they love like that.”

  The intensity in her voice startled me. I looked closer at her face, shaking off the fog on my senses; strain showed around her eyes and mouth.

  “Have you…” I trailed off, unsure how to ask.

  Kessa stared at the steam rising from my cup for a moment. Then she sighed and pulled out a brown glass bottle from beneath her chair, pouring herself a cup of something dark amber and strong enough that I could smell it from across the table.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I said hurriedly.

  She shook her head, a sad half smile brushing her lips brief as a dragonfly’s wings, and took a long swallow. “My brother.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words sat like lead on my tongue, completely inadequate.

  Kessa rubbed her own shoulder, as if it ached. “He’s why I hate the Zenith Society. The wretched stingroaches murdered him after we stumbled across some of their ugly secrets.”

  “Hells. I didn’t know. I’d hate them, too.”

  “Poor Loren. He was such a sweet boy, so excited to be in Raverra with his big sister.” She took another drink. “He didn’t know I was a spy; I was working for our Witch Lord back then, all petty political missions. I’d brought Loren to help with my cover, because family traveling together is always less suspicious. I was…” She trailed off, making a face. “I’m not sure you’d have liked the person I was back then, Ryx.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “If she turned into you, she couldn’t have been too bad.”

  Kessa flashed me a brilliant, heart-stopping smile, but the sadness behind it broke something deep in my chest. Hells, I couldn’t take this.

  “That’s kind, but she was a shallow little wretch, far too impressed with her own cleverness.” Kessa sighed. “Anyway, I came back to our lodgings from a night of triumphant follow-up snooping, all full of what a wonderful spy I was, and found him murdered in his bed.” Another long draft, her throat moving again and again. “So I know there are some things you can’t forget.”

  “Yes,” I said hoarsely. If I closed my eyes, I would see Karrigan’s red-drenched throat, her flat dull eyes. I pulled my hand back from Kessa’s; her touch was too much, too pure. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.” I tried to sound gentle, to make up for taking my hand away.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” she said. “We can just sit here and drink our respective beverages and feel awful together.”

  For a few minutes, we did that. Somehow, it helped, a little.

  “Vikal doesn’t deserve this,” I said after a while. Karrigan and I each had our share of crimes, but Vikal was just a bit of an idiot in the way of the young. “I’m not sure he’s lost anyone before. I want to help him—he’s family—but he, ah, expresses his emotions very differently than I do, and I don’t know how.”

  “Let him talk,” Kessa suggested, putting down her cup with the exaggerated care of the moderately drunk. “If he wants to, that is. Just listen, and let him talk. Or if he doesn’t want to, then do something simple with him, so he’s not alone.”

  I glanced down at my cup. “Like drinking tea.”

  Kessa’s mouth slid toward a smile, and she flicked a nail against her bottle. “Or something, yes.”

  Footsteps echoed in the Old Great Hall. Odan approached, weary lines carved deep into his face. He stopped ten feet away from me, as he always had, and bowed.

  “Exalted Warden,” he reported, his tone crisp as usual. “The Lady of Owls has roused the domain, and the castle is cut off. Wolves and bears prowl outside, and the trees are restless with fury. The guests perceive themselves to be trapped and are distr
essed.”

  I pushed back my chair from the table and rose, as if I were pulling myself up from heavy wet sand. “I’ll talk to them.”

  Kessa frowned. “Good Graces, woman, you need rest. Can’t someone else?”

  I shook my head. “I’m the Warden of Gloamingard. It’s my duty. I don’t have time to mourn.”

  “Ryx. Um. I’m sorry about your aunt.”

  This was exactly what I’d wanted to avoid. I’d ghosted through the walls by my old hidden paths up to my room, and had my dinner brought to me there, though I had no appetite—but Ardith, so good at lurking around in wait for me, had caught me in the halls on my way back from the privy.

  I grunted. I had no words left for my guests. Tomorrow I could deal with them; tomorrow I could get back to all the politics and doom and crisis. Today I was done.

  Ardith shuffled their feet. “Listen, I’m not good at feelings and sympathy and such, but let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  I stopped and turned to face them. Perhaps I had words after all. “Your father must be happy,” I said.

  Ardith blinked. “What?”

  “Lady Celia, too, I’m sure. No more need to worry that she’ll go through with her threats to use the gate.” I couldn’t keep the anger entirely repressed from my voice. I had no reason to think that Ardith was the murderer—but I had no reason to think that they weren’t, either.

  “Oh, Hells. I didn’t kill her, Ryx.” Ardith lifted their hands, hazel eyes widening.

  “And your father? Did he send someone to do it, if he didn’t want to get your hands dirty?” I slashed the air. “Or did one of his allies? You can’t pretend none of them have ever resorted to murder.”

  Ardith grimaced. “You’re not wrong that my father and his friends will breathe a bit easier without Karrigan shouting about unleashing demons on people. Nor will I deny that murder may be in their toolkit. If they were behind this one, though, I don’t know anything about it. I swear to you, it’s the truth.”

  “Tell it to my grandmother,” I said. “I doubt she’ll wait for the next Conclave to claim her grievance.”

  Ardith went pale enough that their freckles stood out like blood against their skin. They glanced warily at the walls, as if the wood might come alive and sprout weapons to attack them—which was a reasonable fear, if they might have anything to do with Karrigan’s death.

  “Look, I only wanted you to know that whoever did it—yes, even if it was my father—that wasn’t right.” Ardith straightened, their voice hardening. “Killing someone is one thing, but that’s not how you do it. Karrigan didn’t deserve that death. So if you need a bit more time, take it. I’ve told my father things are stable here, and that there’s no need to rush to call a Conclave right now, or to take any other kind of action.”

  “And he’ll listen to you?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes.” Ardith didn’t hesitate. “He makes his own choices and lays his own plans, and he doesn’t always tell me about them. But he wouldn’t put me in a position like this and then second-guess me. If I tell him he can wait, he’ll wait—at least a little while.” They grimaced. “But admittedly not for long, so maybe don’t grieve for days and days.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to thank them. Not when they might have been involved, even peripherally, in my aunt’s death. But I gave a mute jerk of a nod before turning to head to my room.

  We gave Aunt Karrigan to the forest at dawn.

  An atheling’s service to the land did not end in death. We covered the bloodstained ruin of her empty shell only with branches, so that the wild creatures of Morgrain could find her mortal flesh and return it to the cycle of life. I laid my own pine branch with a numb, sick feeling; when I lifted my eyes, I found the trees full of owls, awake and staring down with fierce yellow eyes. My grandmother’s presence was heavy around us, watching, mourning, angry.

  Kessa laid a hand on my shoulder as I stepped back to join the somber circle in the forest clearing that had gone still and safe for us to give Karrigan her final farewell. I managed not to flinch this time as she gave me a gentle squeeze and then let go.

  Vikal didn’t meet my eyes as he stepped forward to place his branch. His butterflies lay quiescent on his shoulders, their wings barely stirring. I’d tried to talk to him last night, but he hadn’t answered his door, even though I’d sensed him in there.

  When he took his place again, he lifted his head and stared around at the gathering—mostly long-time castle staff and family. I’d had to explain to Lady Celia that there would be no funeral, no grand ceremony like they would have in Raverra, no influx of family and friends—not even Karrigan’s children and husbands. For Vaskandrans it was the living person who mattered; they would have moved mountains to visit a dying loved one, but the idea of making a journey to take one last look at an empty shell was strange. Aunt Karrigan was already gone; it was too late.

  “We will not forget this grievance,” Vikal declared. His eyes sat in deep black pools of paint, and his mage mark burned all the brighter with his fury. “We will not forgive. We will have our vengeance, if we must take it with tooth and claw.”

  I stirred uneasily. It wasn’t the most diplomatic statement to make during peace negotiations, even if I understood the sentiment. Once again, Vikal lived with all his feelings outside his body, in a way I never could dare to.

  He had a point, though. The truth remained, no matter how hard I tried to avoid looking at it: Aunt Karrigan’s life had been taken. And the person who killed her was probably one of our guests at the castle.

  A hush fell across the clearing. The trees bowed as if a wind swept through them, and the owls spread their wings. I shuddered at the grief and fury boiling under the surface of the land.

  “I should lay another branch for my father,” I murmured, and stooped to pick one up from the waiting pile, wiping my eyes.

  A broad, strong, familiar hand covered mine.

  “No need,” rumbled a voice deep as the roots of an ancient oak tree. “I’ll do it myself.”

  “I can’t believe she’s gone.” My father leaned heavily against a rough pine trunk, as if he might sink into it for comfort.

  “I didn’t think anything could kill her,” I said.

  “Me either. She was too stubborn, too grouchy, too much of a pest.” He rubbed his forehead. “Seasons, I’ll miss her.”

  Everyone else had left, retreating nervously to the castle as the forest started growing restless again once Karrigan’s rite was done. My father and I had wandered into the trees until the sad pile of branches was out of sight.

  His buttery hair fell thick and unkempt to his shoulders, and unaccustomed shadows and lines dragged at the familiar shape of his face. Other than that, he was the same as always: big and square-shouldered, with a deep quiet about him. No matter how anyone raged at him—Karrigan in her moods, or me when I’d gone through a phase of being furious that he’d sent me off to foster at Gloamingard—that silence simply absorbed it all, until you were left feeling foolish and spent.

  “How did you get here so fast?” I asked. “Did Mamma come, too?”

  “No. It’s too dangerous right now.” He shook his head. “The whole domain is seething. And I was on my way before I heard about Karrigan.”

  “Why?” I realized as I said it that one possible reason clasped my wrist in cold metal and tucked my hands instinctively behind my back.

  My father noticed. He gave me a stern look. “That’s not why. But Karrigan told me about your new jewelry.”

  Pox. He was bound to find out eventually, but I’d been hoping to put it off. “I don’t want anyone else to die because of me, Da. And besides, it’s my choice.”

  “Let me see it.” He held out his broad hand.

  Don’t act like you’re ashamed. I reached out a rigid hand to show him, red jewels winking in the complex golden wirework of the jess. It shouldn’t be on an atheling’s wrist, and I knew it.

  My father studied it
a moment, touching the slim twists of metal with a gentle finger. “You’re right. It’s your choice. And if it means you’re not living in fear of killing someone, it’s a good one.”

  Some of the knots in my back eased a little. I leaned experimentally next to him; the pine bark poked rough and surprisingly hard through my vestcoat. I shifted to lean against the familiar, comforting warmth of my father’s broad shoulder instead.

  “Thanks for understanding, Da.”

  “Your mother has a lot of opinions.” He chuckled. “I convinced her to wait a few days to calm down before sharing them with you, but you might get a letter.”

  I grimaced. “I’m sure. But if you didn’t come for the jess or for Karrigan, why are you here?”

  “Because this has gone far enough.” Determination settled in his voice, like a great standing stone set deliberately in a precise spot. “Someone needs to find your grandmother and make her take the domain back in hand.”

  And of course he’d decided it would be him. He was the peacemaker, the truth speaker, the one who soothed tempers and told his siblings when they were out of line. There was so much I wanted to talk about with him—matters of family and politics and the fate of the domain, much of it things he’d spent his life trying to avoid—but he meant to disappear into the wilderness.

  “What does Uncle Tarn think?” I asked.

  “You know him.” My father blew a soft breath between his lips. “He never criticizes our mother. He did ask me to make sure Vikal was all right; he was wondering whether he should come here himself.”

  “No!” I straightened away from the tree. “He needs to stay away. For one thing, we need to preserve the succession. We don’t know why Aunt Karrigan was murdered—if it was because she was threatening the Empire, or if Alevar was taking some sort of twisted vengeance for Lamiel, or if someone is trying to weaken our domain by killing off athelings. For another, this situation is enough of a mess without throwing more family into it.”