The Obsidian Tower

by Melissa Caruso

  And that threat was a bluff. The last thing I wanted was for my grandmother to have to intervene. Not if it could put her at a disadvantage in a battle with a demon.

  Still, every muscle in my body had gone rigid, anticipating the impact of an arrow strike. My ears strained for the twang of a bowstring, and the breathy tearing of the air that followed. Even with alchemical potions and salves speeding my healing beyond the already quick recovery rate of a vivomancer—or whatever I was—my leg and shoulder still ached, reminding me how close I’d come to dying the last time I planned to meet Severin alone in the middle of the night.

  At long last, footsteps sounded in the main doorway. I twisted nervously at my jess, wishing for a fleeting moment I’d asked Aurelio to release my power, just to be safe.

  Severin stepped into one of the beams of moonlight.

  Severin moved with the hesitant grace of a deer entering a clearing, his head tilted to listen.

  “Exalted Ryxander?” he called softly.

  “Here,” I replied, my voice hoarse with strain.

  He passed between light and shadow, eyes shining in the silvery light. He didn’t seem to be carrying any weapon beyond a dagger at his hip. My heartbeat began to slow from its frenetic ready-to-be-murdered pace to a mere rapidity more appropriate for a midnight meeting with an enemy.

  His gaze marked my cane, and the bandages peeking from under my collar. A sort of grimace stole across his face. “I’m sorry this didn’t work out last time.”

  “Beginning with an understatement, are we, Exalted Atheling?” The blunt words burst out before I could think better of them.

  To my surprise, he laughed. It held a bitter edge, but his amusement seemed genuine. “Would you prefer something more grandiose? Shall I posture in a villainous fashion and make thinly veiled threats against your family?” He shook his head. “Much as I’ve enjoyed our sparring, there’s no audience here to perform for. That’s the entire point.”

  “Do you claim to come offering truth, then?”

  “Truth is perhaps overly ambitious. Certainly something closer to it than the nonsense I have to spout in a more official capacity.” He stepped in closer; I could have reached out and touched his chest. His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “I’ll get to the point. My brother must not have the gate, under any circumstances.”

  All the words and phrases I held prepared in my arsenal for a response failed at once. “What?”

  A self-mocking smile twisted his lips. “Not what you expected? Good. One does have a reputation to maintain.”

  I cleared my throat. “You made it rather clear that the Shrike Lord wanted the gate for himself.”

  “Oh, he does, I assure you. But no matter what else happens here, we can’t let him have it.”

  I’d expected some subterfuge, but this was too much of an about-face. There had to be a catch. “Is this some power play? Next you’ll be telling me that you would be a far more responsible guardian for it.”

  Severin snorted. “A randomly selected Raverran street urchin would be a better guardian. Power seems to bring out my brother’s cruel streak, alas.” He rubbed his temple, a seemingly unconscious gesture; the moonlight picked out a faint scar that ran from under his hairline and down across his cheekbone to his jaw. This close, I could make out more scars across his throat, faint and blurred with time, as if someone had tried to garrote him with a rope of brambles. “Believe me, I’m not here as his envoy out of love for him.”

  Grace of Mercy. And I’d thought my family relations were complicated. “Yet you still demand the gate on his behalf in public,” I said, wary of a trap.

  “I have to. You may have noticed he’s got Voreth attached to me like an extra shadow. If my brother catches me doing anything to thwart him, he’ll…” Severin looked away, the scars jumping on his neck. “Suffice to say that if you think he’ll have mercy on me because I’m family, you don’t know my brother. He’s kind enough to those who serve him, but those who oppose him he crushes utterly.”

  “But you’re his heir,” I objected.

  Severin let out a humorless bark of a laugh. “Only because I swore to him I had no ambition to take the domain for myself, and because I helped him kill our father.”

  I clenched both hands tight on the head of my cane, willing myself not to take a step back, but I couldn’t help leaning away a little. “You what?”

  “Don’t look at me like that. The man was a monster.” When I still couldn’t wrestle my expression away from horror, Severin sighed. “Look, my brother and I were unexpected twins. My father was a firm believer in the old wisdom that a Witch Lord should have only one heir, but our mother wouldn’t let him kill one of us to avert the possibility of a contested domain. The day after our mother died, my father called us into his study and told us that one of us would have to kill the other, and he’d name the survivor his heir. He didn’t care which.”

  I covered my mouth. “All right, you win, that’s horrible,” I said through my fingers.

  “It’s one small example of the encompassing charm and thoughtfulness that defined his life.” Severin shrugged. “I didn’t want to kill my brother, so I convinced him to kill our father instead. Which may seem only tangentially relevant to our discussion, but my point, my lady, is that I am only here speaking to you because I have never challenged my brother. That is the condition for my continued existence.” A shiver traced his shoulders. “I’m taking an enormous risk just talking to you. Please understand the importance of discretion.”

  “I can be discreet.” I still wasn’t certain I believed him. He’d already proven himself well capable of acting a part. It cost me nothing to keep his secret, however, and if he wasn’t lying, it might save his life. “Why are you trusting me with this?”

  Severin hesitated, as if I’d caught him doing something embarrassing. An odd smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Voreth told me you threatened to set your chimeras on him,” he said at last.

  “What? Oh.” That’s right; I’d done that when he hit Kip. Remembered anger lit a coal in my belly. “He deserved it.”

  “I’m sure he did.” Severin made an odd aborted gesture, his hand lifting briefly and dropping back to his side. “I saw how hard you worked to rein in your aunt before she could insult your guests, and all the care you put into things like making certain there were both Vaskandran and Raverran influences at the reception. But you were willing to throw all that diplomatic work away to protect some servant boy.” He shook his head. “It was completely mad. I admired you for it.”

  Heat flushed my neck. “I protect my own.”

  “Suffice to say it gave me hope that you wouldn’t betray me for political expediency.”

  “I won’t,” I promised. Unless you betray me first. “But if you still have to demand the gate on your brother’s behalf at the Rite of Blood and Water, what are you suggesting we do? Simply ensure you fail to acquire it for him? We hope to destroy it within a couple of days, so that shouldn’t be difficult.”

  “That’s well and good if you can do it, but it won’t avoid a war. If I return to Alevar empty-handed after the rite, I can guarantee you he’ll invade your domain.” He hesitated, then reluctantly added, “And things will go rather unpleasantly for me, as well.”

  “If he thinks he can successfully invade Morgrain without an alliance backing him, he’s a fool,” I said sharply.

  “He’s got the alliance already.” Severin’s words sank into me like lead shot. “But I have an idea. I don’t know who actually killed Lamiel. If you know, don’t tell me! Maybe it was someone you can’t turn over, like the Lady of Owls herself.”

  I knew I was utterly failing at keeping my expression neutral, but couldn’t begin to guess exactly what sort of face I was making. It was tight and twisted in all the wrong places, and Graces only knew what he must think. “Exalted—”

  “Wait, hear me out!” He lifted a hand. “If you turn over someone as the culprit—anyone, a criminal
, an enemy, it doesn’t matter—I can take them and leave, my primary task accomplished. My brother will be pleased, and he’ll have no excuse to start a war. His demands will be met, his grievance fulfilled. And he’ll be so busy torturing the poor bastard to death that he’ll forget all about the gate for long enough to give you plenty of time to destroy it.”

  I clenched my hands so hard on my cane that pain stabbed through my shoulder. “I am not going to condemn someone to a horrible death for the sake of political convenience,” I said through my teeth.

  “Not for politics! To save lives.” For a moment I thought he would reach for my hand, pleading, but he checked himself. Instead he caught my eyes; his burned with desperate intensity. “I’m not asking you to sacrifice an innocent. Pick someone who you’d condemn to death anyway.”

  This entire situation was a mess, but I was sure of one thing: I wasn’t going to let someone else die in my stead. “Gloamingard Castle doesn’t have dungeons full of handy condemned criminals. And besides, I won’t throw aside my principles so easily.”

  A wry, sad smile lit unexpectedly on Severin’s face. “Oh, there’s nothing easy about it. I assure you, I’ve lost my principles rather painfully, and over many years.”

  I frowned at him. “Then how can I trust you?”

  “You can’t.” He spread his hands helplessly. “You shouldn’t. And I’m not asking you to. I’m only telling you we have the same problem, and proposing a solution.”

  “We need a different solution,” I said stubbornly.

  “Fine, then. What marvelously principled solution would you propose?”

  He crossed his arms and waited, challenge in his eyes.

  I was half tempted to propose slapping that smirk off his lips. This was no joking matter. But I couldn’t let him see how he upset me, or he might guess why—and while his confidences and proposals were all very well, there was no way I’d trust him with the knowledge that I was the one his brother wanted to kill.

  Before I could come up with a suitably clever reply, something caught my attention in the shadows behind Severin.

  A figure, lean and sharp, with a shock of pale hair. Two blazing orange circles staring out of the darkness at me.

  Grandmother.

  “So this is the one who lured you into a trap last night.” Her words cut through the darkness, low and lethal as an assassin’s knife thrust.

  Severin’s eyes went wide with fear. He turned, slowly, to face her. “Most Exalted,” he said. “I swear to you there was no trap of mine. I was on my way to meet Exalted Ryxander and found her already hurt.”

  My grandmother advanced, slow and certain as death itself. The oppressive wave of her power pushed before her, sweeping over both of us, waking a resonating shiver from the walls, the floor, my own blood and bones.

  “Are you the one who killed my daughter, Shrike boy?” she whispered. Her voice was all edges, a handful of broken glass.

  Severin stepped back, waxy pale. “No, Most Exalted.”

  “Grandmother,” I said, “Exalted Severin helped me last night. He may have saved my life.” I hated to admit it, because it meant a serious debt, a major favor—but I couldn’t leave him to her wrath when he hadn’t earned it.

  Her orange-ringed gaze fell on me. A smile pulled her lips taut, all teeth and menace.

  It wasn’t her smile.

  “I’m not certain I care,” she said. “Someone killed my daughter and hurt my grandchild, and I want blood.”

  “Oh sweet Hells,” Severin breathed, so softly I barely heard him.

  My heart thudded against my breastbone. I stepped in front of him, planting my cane before me as if to mark a line I wouldn’t let her cross.

  Not that I had the power to slow her down, let alone stop her.

  “Grandmother,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and reasonable, “I know you’re fighting your own battle. Leave finding the killer to us for now. Once you’ve won, then you can have your vengeance.”

  “My own battle?” She cocked her head as if listening; it tilted a shade too far. The moonlight caught a wicked gleam in her eyes. “Is that what you think? You misunderstand.”

  All the breath seemed to leave my lungs. I had to speak, had to do something to keep the moment from spiraling into murder, but all I could do was stare in horror as realization seeped into me like cold, dark water.

  “There was never a battle,” she said softly. She came closer still, emerging from a patch of shadow into a brilliant band of silver light. “I braced for one, but it didn’t come. There was no winner, no loser. We’re all in this Hell called life together, Ryx.”

  My skin crawled. This close, I could feel it—the same raw, wild power that had blasted from the gate. It ran beneath my grandmother’s more familiar presence—the whiff of grass and stones and ancient pines, of snow in the high hills and roots growing beneath the earth, of sleek fur and soft feathers and all the furious innocence of living things. This was different: a pure, hot crackling like the heart of lightning.

  There was no dividing line between the two of them. The presences were one.

  She was a demon.

  Without quite taking my eyes off my grandmother, I whispered over my shoulder to Severin: “Get out of here.”

  He didn’t answer, but there came a faint scuffing of moving feet, and his high frightened breathing began to withdraw. Thank the Graces he had the sense not to turn and run; she’d have been on him in an instant, like a pouncing cat. I had to keep my grandmother’s attention until he was out of her sight and hope the demon’s fancy would latch on to something else.

  “What happened to you?” I asked her, not bothering to hide the grief roughening my voice.

  “You let me through the gate.” She bowed to me, stiff and mocking. “I owe you a favor for that.” Her eyes narrowed. “But you also let a demon through into my castle, so it seems you owe me a grievance, and it balances out. You do have a remarkable talent for disaster, Ryx.”

  She’d come close enough that I could have reached out and touched her. Her stance was all wrong, too far on her toes, ready to launch into motion when she should have stood solid and grounded. A wild light gleamed in her eyes.

  Suddenly her brows twitched down in a frown, and she reached toward my shoulder. “You’re hurt.”

  “Of course I am. You saw.” My voice shook. This was a nightmare, too terrible to be real; I’d wake up and find my grandmother whole and herself, sitting by me and offering a cup of lavender tea.

  “Mortal bodies break so easily.” She laid two fingers on my collarbone, gentle as the brush of a bird’s wing. I flinched, but it was the same warm touch I’d always known.

  Magic swarmed into me from her fingers, crawling like a thousand fire ants, and my shoulder and leg blazed with pain.

  I barely choked back a cry. The last thing I needed was Ashe and Foxglove bursting in and attacking my grandmother; she’d kill them both. I swayed on my feet, dizzy from the jolt of energy. My grandmother caught my elbow, steadying me, her hand hard as a claw.

  My wounds were gone. I could put my weight on my leg without so much as a twinge. She’d healed me completely.

  I stared at her in horror. “How…? You’re not a Skinwitch. Your power shouldn’t work on humans.”

  She laughed—a rich, warm chuckle, as if I’d told a fine joke. “Oh, Ryx. Of course I’m not a Skinwitch. Think about it. Why can’t a Greenwitch or a Furwitch use their power on humans?”

  “Because their magic rebels. It recognizes their fellow humanity.” It was my grandmother herself who’d explained this to me, gently, the first time someone accused me of being a Skinwitch, to reassure me it wasn’t true. Her own words spilled out of my mouth, regurgitated in bitter misery from my memory. “You can’t consciously use vivomancy on yourself or any fellow human, because your power instinctively twists away. You can use it unconsciously, however, like when vivomancers heal more quickly.” So you’re not a Skinwitch, Ryx, she’d told me. You don�
�t control your power; that’s why it works on humans. If you ever gain control of it, you won’t be able to kill people with it even if you want to.

  My grandmother wiped the last of the laughter from her eyes. “That’s right. But of course, I’m not really human anymore, am I?” As she lowered her hand, her face hardened, and the sense of palpable menace around her sharpened again. “And so I can cast aside all the petty little things that hold a human back.”

  A yawning black gulf of despair opened beneath me, the edges crumbling under my feet. It would be so easy to fall in, to be overwhelmed, to burst into tears or collapse in a numb pile of shock.

  I couldn’t do that—not now. Morgrain needed me. My grandmother needed me. I was the one person standing here in this terrible moment who had any chance of shaking something good out of it.

  “You’re still human,” I said quietly. “You’re still my grandmother. You wouldn’t want vengeance if you didn’t care about us.”

  “Of course I care.” Her eyes narrowed, and orange fires glowed in them. “But you know better than anyone that sometimes your hand falls ungently on that which you love.”

  Oh Hells. For the first time in my life, a deep, visceral fear of her thrilled through my blood, resonating through the profound link we shared. “You wouldn’t do anything to hurt your family or your domain,” I said, trying to force confidence into my voice. “You will always protect Morgrain.”

  “Oh, I will.” Her voice dripped the promise of blood. She reached out and laid a cold, iron-hard hand on the side of my face. “When I find the one who killed my child, I will turn them inside out and keep them alive while my owls eat their innards.”

  I tried again, desperate. “Morgrain needs you. The truth about the gate is out, and we’re hovering on the brink of war.”

  “Let them bring war.” Her mage mark formed wheels of twisting light in her eyes, burning an afterimage into my brain. “I’ll destroy them so utterly it’ll make the War of Ashes look like a children’s party. If they hurt what I love, I’ll scour them from the face of the earth.”