The Obsidian Tower

by Melissa Caruso

  “If I understand correctly, she’s both herself and a demon.” A strange, wistful smile crept onto his face. “One could argue that whether she still possesses humanity depends on how she makes her choices.”

  I twisted my teacup on its saucer for something to do with my hands. “I don’t know, Bastian. I looked in her eyes for my grandmother, and I found her. But there was something else there, too. She wants to protect Morgrain, but there was this wildness, almost cruelty—I think she would do things now she never would have done before.” I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again. “I don’t know what choices she’ll make. I’m not sure she knows, herself.”

  “Maybe,” Bastian said, his voice husky with more emotion than I expected, “she’s still figuring that out. Maybe she doesn’t know how human she is, either. Maybe what happens now—how we all respond to her, how we talk to her, what choices she’s faced with—will determine the answer to that question.”

  There was a quaver in his voice, and an odd flush had crept up his neck to his cheeks. I’d never seen him so passionate. For some reason, this mattered to him a great deal.

  Curiosity shook me half out of the dark sinking pool I’d been caught in. I knew so little about Bastian—but he seemed to be struggling not to show how agitated this conversation was making him, so I wasn’t sure now was the time to ask.

  “I suppose,” I said slowly, “the question isn’t truly whether she’s technically human. It’s whether she’s a good person.” I thought that over and amended, “Or good enough.”

  Bastian nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. Like that fox chimera—you consider him a friend, don’t you? Even though he’s not human by any definition?”

  He threw out the example as if he’d picked it randomly, but something about the way he waited still and quivering for my reply suggested he cared far more about my answer than he was willing to admit.

  Ah. Suddenly, a dozen small details made sense: Bastian’s odd-colored flushes, his flinches at certain inexplicable moments—the way he waited for my reply so intently now, as if he had a great personal investment in the answer.

  “Of course,” I said. It was a bit more complicated than that with Whisper, but for Bastian’s sake, I let no doubt enter my voice. “The fact that he’s a chimera doesn’t matter. He’s my friend.”

  And I held Bastian’s gaze, willing him to understand.

  His eyes widened, showing whites all the way around. He opened his mouth, then closed it. “Oh! Oh. Ah, well.”

  A blush crept up his neck, and now that I was looking for it, I could tell that it was the wrong color. A shade too purple. And his skin bumped up in its wake, like gooseflesh—or scales.

  “Who did this to you?” I started to reach toward his face but dropped my hand, still not sure when touch was helpful or allowed.

  The fear in his eyes tore at my heart. He’d never been frightened of me, not when I admitted to killing Lamiel or when I unleashed the power of the gate, but he was frightened now. His chest heaved with quick breaths, and the flush didn’t retreat as it always had in the past, but deepened almost to violet.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, inwardly cursing myself. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want to intrude.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, his pulse pounding visibly in his throat. Slowly some of the terror went out of his eyes.

  “It was my sponsor,” he said quietly. “The one who paid for my education.”

  I grimaced. “You’d mentioned he turned out not to be as benevolent as you’d thought, but I had no idea. That’s terrible. He was a Skinwitch?”

  Bastian shook his head. “No. He was a member of the Zenith Society. As was the Skinwitch. When I realized some of the things my mentor was asking me to research weren’t ethical, I refused to help him anymore, and he turned me over to his colleague for his experiments.” He managed to smile, somehow, almost apologetically; that smile felt like a bleeding wound in my chest. “He modified me for stealth. See?”

  He scrunched up his face, and colors swept across his skin in waves, like a shaken sand painting. When they settled, he matched the woody hues of the log-walled room perfectly.

  “That’s impressive.” I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to say, but an awkward compliment seemed better than acting like it was something he should be ashamed of. Graces knew I’d been on the receiving end of that often enough myself. “I’m sorry you went through all that. For what it’s worth, though, I like who you are now. And… you seem happy with the Rookery?”

  “Oh, yes.” He relaxed, and the colors of polished wood drained from his face, returning it to his normal olive shade. “They’re the ones who rescued me and got that branch of the Zenith Society thrown in prison, years ago. They’re my dear friends.”

  “And they know?”

  He waved his hands as if to stop me from doing something dangerous. “Foxglove and Kessa, yes, but Ashe doesn’t! Please don’t tell her. She’s a chimera hunter. She’d probably be fine, but…”

  “I understand.” I grimaced. “Believe me, as someone used to getting mistaken for a Skinwitch and treated accordingly, I do.”

  “So you understand why the question of humanity is so important to me.” A wistfulness softened his eyes. “I have to believe that whether you’re technically completely human doesn’t matter.”

  “You’re human enough,” I said firmly. “More human than the ones who did this to you.”

  He ducked his head. “Maybe the Lady of Owls is human enough, too.”

  “A demon, though…” A shiver ran bone-deep through my whole body, as if I had a high fever. “That’s different than a chimera. Do you truly think one of the Nine Demons can be redeemed?”

  Bastian hesitated, his dark eyes clouded. “I suppose that depends on what they’ve done. Whether they’re the same person now. And what choices they make from this point on.”

  I let out a long breath. Pox. That made sense, but it didn’t make anything simpler. “I need to somehow get my grandmother to make human choices.”

  “Yes,” Bastian agreed, smoothing the cover of his notebook as to soothe it. “Not only for her own sake, but for the future of Eruvia.”

  I struggled to sort out the chaos of my thoughts as I headed to find Odan and talk about setting up for the Rite of Blood and Water. It was all too much; I couldn’t face the emotions that snarled within me whenever I thought about everything that had happened. One by one, I peeled threads from the tangle and stuffed them down somewhere deep inside, to deal with later: Lamiel’s death, the gate, my aunt’s murder, the nations converging on Gloamingard to destroy it, the attempt on my life.

  My grandmother. My stride faltered, and the lurch of grief climbed up my throat and set my eyes to stinging.

  I’d handed control of the domain I protected to the Demon of Discord and more or less destroyed the life of one of the people I loved most in the world. How in the Nine Hells was I supposed to bottle that up and move on?

  I rubbed my eyes with ruthless vigor. I didn’t have time for this. I had to focus on what I could do.

  “Ryxander—Ryx! Wait!”

  It was Severin’s voice, low and urgent. I turned with a strange tingling surge along my nerves to find him hurrying after me, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Voreth’s in an argument with Honored Ardith,” he said. “He’ll realize they’re just riling him up on purpose soon, and then he’ll notice I’m gone. Is there somewhere we can talk where he won’t find us?”

  We were in a place where the Lady of Badgers’ rough log walls overtook the Mantis Lord’s Bone Palace. I stood on the bone side of the division, beneath arching ceiling beams of polished ivory and corner moldings of patterned vertebrae. Severin looked out of place on the warm, homey, simple side, slim and elegant in his long black vestcoat embroidered with a diagonal sweep of abstract feather designs in gold thread.

  Someone had tried to kill me. I shouldn’t talk to anyone in private, let alone the brother of
my mortal enemy—but Severin had saved my life, and the urgency on his face was honest enough.

  My mother always said the Grace of Luck favored those who took risks.

  I slipped my fingers through a gap where a sawn-off log end didn’t quite meet up with the first curving rib of bone. It only took a light tug to swing the entire section of logs open just enough to admit one person at a time.

  “In here,” I told him, and slipped through into a forgotten space of dust and shadows.

  Severin followed without hesitation, and I pulled the hidden door shut behind us.

  The place I took Severin wasn’t some impressive secret chamber, but only a leftover bit of architecture that didn’t fit the Lady of Badgers’ plans, like so many odd places in Gloamingard. Once this had perhaps been the corner of a garden courtyard, but now only a narrow triangular shaft of outdoors remained, floored with moss and weeds. Twilight streamed down from several stories above us, and the air held the biting chill of a place that never saw direct sunlight. The log walls that had been built over the courtyard loomed on two sides; on the third, a fanciful arch bordered with bone-chip mosaics housed the rubble of a broken fountain that had been ruined for centuries. A startled bird crossed the light above, wings fluttering shadows down upon us.

  Severin glanced up, around, and then at me in a kind of wonder. “Can you just open up a door anywhere?”

  I laughed. “In Gloamingard? Not quite, but close enough. What do you want?”

  It sounded too harsh, too businesslike, but I didn’t have the gentleness in me for pleasant chatter right now. And Severin didn’t look as if he wanted to waste any time, either.

  “I have bad news,” he said, his voice low, glancing instinctively around as if he expected Voreth would find us even here. “I found out who my brother’s allies are against you. He’s got one of the Eldest on his side.”

  Hell of Despair. I swayed as if he’d pushed me. “Which one?”

  “The Elk Lord.” Severin’s fingers flicked out from his chest. “Apparently my brother convinced him that his grievance is valid, and he’s concerned about your plans to close the gate.”

  I pulled my braid over my shoulder and began worrying fiercely at its tip. No matter how alarming it might be to imagine the phenomenal power of the Eldest turned against my home, I couldn’t let fear overwhelm me; I had to think. The Elk Lord’s vast domain lay north of Alevar, and old blood ties connected them. But the Eldest usually stayed out of local disputes, and the Elk Lord was a traditionalist and a stickler for protocol.

  “He’s using your brother’s grievance as an excuse,” I guessed. “This is about the gate for him, isn’t it? He’s one of the ones worried that closing it will disrupt the cycle of magic.”

  “It seems likely,” Severin agreed. “You know how he hates change. He’s made it clear he’ll abide by the results of the Rite of Blood and Water, though. If my brother accepts payment for his grievance, the Elk Lord will have no proper cause to attack Morgrain, and he’ll stay out of it.”

  Pox rot everything. I’d just about decided to tell the Shrike Lord to stuff his grievance at the rite this evening; he couldn’t stop us from destroying the gate, and I’d hoped he was bluffing about having an alliance sufficient to back an invasion. If he had one of the Eldest on his side, that was no bluff, and we’d find out all too quickly whether my grandmother’s arrogance about her ability to destroy anyone who trifled with Morgrain was warranted.

  Revealing that she was a demon in the process when she unleashed powers that no Witch Lord should have. Which would turn all of Eruvia immediately against us and undo half the purpose of destroying the gate.

  I pressed a hand to my temple. “This is not what I need right now.”

  “Unfortunately, you and my brother have different priorities.” Severin took a breath. “Now, I have an idea. If you declare that Exalted Karrigan was the one who killed Lamiel, that will at the very least buy us some time.”

  I stared at him, not bothering to hide my disgust. “Truly? You’re suggesting I blame my own departed kin for the death Exalted Lamiel brought on herself?”

  Severin stiffened. “Only in the context of saving your domain from an invasion.”

  The situation might be dire, but there were some lines I couldn’t cross. “I’m not accusing my dead aunt of a murder she didn’t commit.”

  “Then pick someone else!” Severin threw his hands up, apparently as exasperated by me as I was by him. “Pick some local villager who died this week and claim they were a hired assassin! I don’t care. We just need to give him a name. Someone he can’t hurt, because they’re already dead.”

  “It wouldn’t be the truth,” I insisted.

  He stared at me as if I were some strange creature making cries unintelligible to humans. “The truth doesn’t matter. Surely you can see that.”

  “It matters. Consequences might fall on the scapegoat’s family. Their community would know it wasn’t true, and I’d be showing my people that I don’t value their honor. If word got out, no one would trust me to pay grievances fairly.” I shook my head. “Shall I go on?”

  Severin slashed the air with an impatient hand. “That’s all ifs and maybes. We need to give my brother what he wants, or he’ll—”

  “Do we?” I cut in sharply. “Do we really need to appease him?”

  “Yes!” Severin stepped closer to me, his hands lifting as if he wanted to grab my shoulders, but then they dropped to his sides. “You don’t know what he’s like, Ryx.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed, softening my voice. “I don’t. I hope I never find out. And you should never have had to learn.” I held his gaze. In this light, his storm-gray mage mark almost vanished into his dark irises; but it was still there, gleaming faintly like tarnished silver. “That’s why I have to oppose him.”

  Severin winced and looked away, his gaze latching on to the ruined fountain as if it were of intense interest. “You are an incredibly difficult person. I’m trying to help you avert a war.”

  “Are you?” I tilted my head, watching the light stream over his sculpted face. “Everything you’ve suggested seems aimed at soothing your brother’s wrath, which is more likely to save your own skin than prevent a war in the long run.”

  “You’ve caught me,” he said, with forced lightness. “In this case, however, those interests happen to align.”

  I didn’t believe him for a moment. “And if I told you that I’d thought of a way to avoid a war without giving your brother what he wants?” I challenged.

  Severin blinked. “How?”

  By getting the Shrike Lord’s grievance declared invalid. The Elk Lord, cautious and honorable, would never commit himself to a publicly dubious cause. But if Severin would always act as his brother’s dutiful agent, no matter how little he liked to do so, I couldn’t tell him that—it would give him time to prepare to counter me at the rite.

  “Your answer,” I insisted. “Which would you choose, if you could only do one? Satisfy your brother’s wrath, or keep him from invading Morgrain?”

  “I…” Severin looked down at his own hands, curled into fists at his sides. He shook his head. “It’s not that simple. It depends on the situation and the specifics; backing a foolish or shortsighted play accomplishes nothing. Do you have a plan, or are you just throwing out hypothetical questions?”

  “I have a plan,” I admitted. “I can’t promise it’s a good one. And if I told it to you, I’d put you in a position where you’d have to betray either me or the Shrike Lord.”

  Severin’s mouth twisted. “And you don’t trust me.”

  “No. I don’t want to do that to you.” I tried a smile, but it came out too soft, too painful around the edges. Curse him, he kept muddling feelings into my diplomacy. “Let me handle this. I’ll take on the risk of your brother’s wrath myself.”

  Severin let out a bitter sound, halfway between a laugh and a huff of disbelief. “It must be nice. To be so certain you can be brave, and that
it will lead to anything but pain and death.”

  “I’m not sure.” I pushed back loose tendrils of hair from my face, wishing I could as easily clear the cloud of dread that hovered over me. “To be honest, everything I do seems to lead to pain and death more often than not. Sometimes I think Aunt Karrigan was right, and that the world would be better off without me.” Hells, I shouldn’t have said that. He was looking at me so strangely, his face still, his eyes shadowed. I lifted my chin, determined not to flinch away. “But, Severin, I have to keep trying.”

  His brow furrowed. “I don’t understand you at all.”

  He was one of the first people who’d bothered to try. A scalding tightness seized my throat.

  “Oh, I’m easy to understand,” I said. His dark eyes drank me in; I couldn’t look away if I wanted to. “You, on the other hand, wear a lot of masks, Severin of Alevar. I’d love to find out what’s under them. Do you even know yourself?”

  I reached toward his face. I couldn’t quite bring myself to cross the last few inches to the smooth, sharp line of his cheekbone.

  He sucked in a breath as if I’d struck him. The twilight drew a line of shadow down to his jaw from his temple, along his faint old scar.

  “Hells take you,” he muttered.

  I dropped my hand, disappointed.

  He caught it in his cold, lean one and raised my palm to lay it, trembling, against his cheek. So warm.

  “Help me,” he said hoarsely. “Help me find out.”

  His life pulsed miraculously against my fingertips. The thrill that traveled up my arm from where I touched him wasn’t magic, nor was the warmth that flooded me. The jess gleamed on my wrist like a promise.

  “I have the scandalous suspicion,” I breathed, “that beneath them all, you may be a good man.”

  His lips quirked toward a self-mocking smile. “Impossible.”

  Hells, his face was close. His eyes had gone soft and aching. I wanted to show him he was safe, here. That he didn’t have to be vicious to survive, or let his brother shape who he was.