I staggered to my feet, turning my half-blind eyes from the light. “Graces help us, it’s still not closing! Kessa, what do we do?”
She stood riveted halfway to the door, her eyes fixed on the gate, tears on her cheeks reflecting the white glare. Both hands pressed to her mouth, and her whole body trembled.
“Ryx,” she moaned. “Help me.”
“What?” I started toward her, blinking away the insistent afterimage of the vertical line burned into my eyeballs. “Kessa, are you all right?”
She gave a sudden, sharp gasp and flung her arms wide, head tipped back, as if she might embrace the Black Tower itself. For a moment, I thought the sheer force of magic flowing from the gate had caught her, like a twig in the current, and might bear her away. I almost reached for her, but stopped myself.
“Kessa!”
Suddenly she relaxed, furling her fingers and unfurling them again, looking around her in apparent wonder. A terrible smile spread over her face, wild and cruel, stretching the sweet shape of her mouth in all the wrong directions.
It was not a human smile, by any definition.
You’re not Kessa,” I whispered.
“Mmm,” she agreed, rolling her shoulders as if settling a new coat. “Not for much longer, anyway. It’ll take me a few minutes to finish killing her.”
“Let her go!” I wanted to lunge at her, grab her, shake Kessa’s own expression back onto that horridly grinning face—but I didn’t dare touch her. Panic beat dark, frantic wings in my chest. “Get out of her right now, demon!”
The thing wearing Kessa blinked. “But you gave me this body as a gift. Did you not?” She stretched luxuriously, as if reveling in the feeling of having flesh. “You opened the gate for me, and there it was, waiting. I must thank you.”
“She’s not a gift!” I screamed it so loudly the power around us eddied invisibly with the force of my words, setting the floor to vibrating beneath me. “She’s my friend!”
The demon laughed. It sounded nothing like Kessa’s own musical laugh; it was all sharp broken pieces, like shaking a bag full of shattered glass.
“Then you should be more careful with your belongings,” she said. “This body is mine now. Or will be in a moment, when I finish destroying your friend’s spirit.” Her eyes danced, drinking up my anguish as if it were delicious.
I was out of time. I couldn’t hesitate, couldn’t balk, or Kessa would be gone forever. I could take a terrible chance and risk killing her, or I could let her die for certain.
My fear vanished, replaced by a rage cold as obsidian and vast as the Black Tower itself.
“No,” I said, my voice coming from deep in my chest. The suffocating heat around us seemed to emanate not from the gate, but from the wrath burning within me; the glaring light of the Nine Hells at my back cast my long stark shadow before me. “I won’t let you.”
I reached out, grabbed her hand, and pulled.
“What—” She staggered into me, unsure of her balance in the unfamiliar body. I wrapped my arms around her in a tight hug, clasping her against my thundering heart, her hair tickling my nose.
What hummed beneath my touch was not the usual tingling rush of warmth, the soft unweaving sigh of a life dissolving into me. It was a rough crackle of energy, an electric surge of raw power, more like what I’d felt when I touched the gate. It writhed within my arms, struggling not to be drawn out of Kessa’s body; it was like holding a bolt of lightning.
Please let this work. Kessa, please don’t die.
“What are you doing?” she cried, stiffening and writhing in my arms. “Let me go!”
“Let Kessa go first,” I hissed through my teeth.
Demons are creatures of pure energy, Whisper had said. And Bastian had told me, You simply disrupt the energy of everything you touch, sometimes to the point of dissolution.
I could only pray to the Graces that I wouldn’t kill Kessa, or wind up possessed myself.
“You dare! Do you know who I am? Do you—” The demon sucked in a sharp gasp, going rigid against me. “You! I know what you are.”
The hot, fierce power I’d clasped to me slipped up and out between my arms, tearing out of my grasp, leaving a trail of searing pain along my nerves. Kessa’s body went suddenly limp, deadweight collapsing in my embrace like a puppet with the strings cut.
I flung myself away from her on a white-hot surge of fear, letting her tumble heavily to the hard floor. Her head struck the black stone, and she lay sprawled in a senseless tangle of limbs and skirts and streaming black hair.
He eyes were closed. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
I dropped to my knees at her side, a whimper wrenched from my throat. Graces help me, had I killed her? I couldn’t touch her to check, couldn’t help her, could only kneel here making sounds of wordless animal grief, the harsh glare of the Nine Hells pouring over me.
She wasn’t moving. Her chest didn’t rise and fall.
I had no time to be broken. Bastian was a scholar, an alchemist, and halfway a physician; if anyone could help her, he could.
I staggered to my feet and ran for the door, half blind with tears, leaving Kessa’s body on the Black Tower floor.
I ran as if the floor crumbled behind my heels into a bottomless abyss. As if ravens stabbed and pecked at my back, piercing through my rib cage to find my heart. I had to outpace my own thoughts, so that the full consequences of Kessa lying still and pale in the harsh white light of the Nine Hells wouldn’t catch up to me.
I needed to find the Rookery. They’d probably never speak to me again after this, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting help for Kessa if there was any chance it wasn’t too late.
I burst into the Bone Atrium and skidded to a stop as Ashe ran in through another door, the rest of the Rookery at her heels, leading them toward the Black Tower. Surprise flashed across her face.
“Ryx! Where’s Kessa? Did you—”
“Hurry!” I gasped, doubling over. “Help Kessa! She’s in the Black Tower!”
Ashe looked shocked. “You left her there?!”
“I…” There was no time. “I think I might have killed her.” My voice stretched high and nearly hysterical, as something awful clawed its way up the back of my throat.
Foxglove swore and burst immediately into a run. Bastian barely spared me one wide-eyed glance full of shock and hurt and incomprehension before following him; it twisted like a knife between my ribs.
The look Ashe gave me burned with a wild, terrified, animal fury that teetered past the edge of madness.
“If she’s dead,” she hissed, “I’ll kill you.”
And she sprinted after the others.
I turned to follow them, dread at what I would find squeezing my chest, legs shaking. But before I could take a step, a voice rang out behind me.
“Exalted Ryxander! Stop where you are.”
Voreth. Of course he caught up to me now, when I least wanted to do this. I swiveled to face him, my heart pounding.
He came striding toward me, his staff clacking on the floor. Black stripes of shadow slid across him as he passed beneath the slanting lances of bone that still crossed the atrium, stabbing down from the walls and ceiling. Behind him came half a dozen guards wearing Alevar colors.
And Aurelio, a bitter smile on his face, hands stuffed in his coat pockets.
“This isn’t a good time, Voreth,” I snapped. “I need to attend to an emergency.”
“I overheard your little announcement.” His lip pulled up into a sneer. “You murdered one of the Rookery. Much like you did Exalted Lamiel.”
The soldiers started to fan out in a wary arc, moving toward me. All my own guards and chimeras were stationed around the old stone keep, halfway across the castle, by my own orders; my staff and other guests would all be at dinner at this hour. There was no one in shouting distance who could defend me.
I knew I should be worried, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I only wanted to resolve
this quickly so I could follow the Rookery and find out what had happened to Kessa. And the demon, holy Graces, I’d let another demon through.
“We can have this argument later,” I snapped, moving toward the doorway the Rookery had taken. “Something went wrong with the gate, and there’s another demon on the loose. I have to—”
“I told you,” Aurelio interrupted, with heated vindication. “I warned you not to try to destroy it without studying it completely first. Now you see you should have listened to me.”
“Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it, Exalted Atheling,” Voreth said, pacing closer to me. “You see, I’ve just learned you were lying to us all along, and that you killed Exalted Lamiel yourself. And now I’ve come to finally collect the murderer your aunt promised to deliver.”
“Later,” I snarled, and spun toward the door. I didn’t have time for this.
Something hard swept my legs out from under me, and I crashed to the floor. I rolled onto my back, cursing—only to find Voreth’s bone staff leveled at my throat, the tip sharpened by his magic to a spear’s point.
“Now,” he said softly.
Sheer frustrated fury boiled up in me. “You selfish idiot! Lives are at stake!”
“That’s unfortunate,” Voreth said, “but my lord’s orders have priority.”
Aurelio laid a hand on Voreth’s arm. “You promised I could talk to her a moment first.”
Voreth eyed Aurelio narrowly, but withdrew his staff. “I did.”
I scrambled to my feet, half of a mind to make a run for it, but Voreth’s soldiers had formed a loose ring around me. This was sheer folly, attacking me in my own castle—except that my grandmother was gone, my aunt was dead, and I had no way to call for help except with my own mortal voice. “Talk quickly,” I snapped.
Voreth moved back to give us a semblance of privacy, but it was only a pretense, since Aurelio stayed prudently out of easy lunging range.
“I can still get you out of this, Ryx, if you’re willing to cooperate.” His voice was so low I could barely hear him.
“Out of what?” I asked furiously. “Being attacked in my own home?”
“Listen, I don’t want you to get hurt.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I never did. It was all I could manage to get the order for your death rescinded; Lord Urso said I was letting my feelings get in the way of the mission. But I could spare you again, no matter what he says, if you help me in return.”
“What order for my death?” Nothing he was saying made sense, especially when all I could think about was Kessa and the demon who might still be out there. But something about his tone snagged my attention, and his words penetrated at last, like cold rain soaking through my clothes.
“Grace of Mercy,” I whispered. “You’re the one who tried to kill me.”
He winced. “I didn’t want to. I had my orders from Lord Urso, for the good of the Empire, and what could I do? I had to betray someone—either you, or my father and my mentor. And I like you, Ryx, but they’re my father and my mentor.”
I stared at him. There were no words for the contempt and fury churning in my stomach.
“I’m glad I failed,” he said. “I’m not sure I could do it again, to be honest.”
Red rage unfurled ragged wings in my chest. “You’re the one who murdered Aunt Karrigan.”
“To save Eruvia!” he hissed. “I’m sorry, Ryx, I truly am, but it’s a gate to the Hells. We can’t trust anyone else with control of it. Certainly not a Witch Lord, or a Witch Lord’s heir.”
“And you think I’d help you seize control of it?” My mouth was too dry to spit at him, but my lips peeled back from my teeth in a snarl. “Never. Not even to save my life.”
Aurelio sighed. “I’m sorry to hear you say that.”
Something sharp jabbed into my shoulder from behind. Curse it, I was so angry at Aurelio that I’d lost track of Voreth. I started to whirl on him, a strangely fresh scent flooding my senses—peppermint?
Darkness swooped across my mind like a dropped curtain, and I felt myself falling.
Voices sounded around me: low, rough, frustrated. Smooth wood slid beneath my back and legs, and my wrists ached—they were dragging me by someone’s belt across the floor. I struggled to rise, but everything was still slow and groggy, as if my mind and body were drowning in molasses.
“How is she waking up already?!” That was Voreth, incredulous.
“Her freakish magic.” Aurelio’s voice. He was still here. “Looks like it unravels alchemy in about a minute or two.”
I forced my eyes open. They wouldn’t focus, but the vague blur of colors around me suggested the New Manor, near the Birch Gate. They were hauling me off to the Shrike Lord before anyone noticed, without waiting for Severin’s approval or to see what was happening with the gate.
No. Panic flooded my veins like a jolt of lightning. I couldn’t leave now. I had to go to Kessa. I had to make sure the gate could be destroyed. I had to warn the Rookery about the demon, and keep it from taking anyone else in the castle.
“You’re making a mistake,” I groaned. It came out slurred and muddled.
I tried to stagger to my feet. The strap on my wrists jerked, throwing me to the floor instead. I got my hands under me, ignoring the bruises, ready to push off and rise again. “Listen—”
Voreth’s bone staff cracked hard across the back of my head, and I cried out, my face hitting the floor.
“You’re as likely to kill her as knock her out that way,” Aurelio said sharply.
“How am I supposed to keep her down, then?” Voreth demanded.
Pain stabbing through my head, I rolled onto my shoulder, levering myself up. “Listen to me,” I tried again, desperate. “I need to know—”
Aurelio bent over me, his face attentive, as if he would hear me.
Something sharp pricked the lump of muscle between my shoulder and neck.
“We’ll just have to keep trying, I guess.” The words tumbled down a dark hole after me as I slipped back into unconsciousness.
There came a patchwork time of brief urgent glimpses: rough jabs of Voreth’s staff, hard floors, arguing voices. It couldn’t have been long, but with fear and desperation surging through me against the smothering sleep potion, every second stretched into an endless, agonizing struggle.
“Take the rest of the vial. I’ve got to see what’s happening at the gate.” Aurelio. Curse him. I reached for him with a numb, shaking hand, furious enough to kill, but with a sharp jab in my arm, I was gone again.
The scents of hay and horses, the jingle of harness, the cold clasp of metal on my wrists. No. The demon. I have to warn everyone about the demon.
“Hurry, before Exalted Severin returns with some foolish delay.”
The creak of wheels, the scent of dust and pine, the clatter of hooves. Cold. Everything was cold, and bruises ached all over my body. Kessa.
“Straight down the middle of the road. Put one wheel in the forest, and if the Lady of Owls notices we’ve got her granddaughter in chains, we’re all dead.”
Hells, they were getting away from the castle. I struggled toward consciousness, like a swimmer rising toward the shimmering mirror light at the top of the water.
“… some kind of monster,” an unfamiliar voice whispered. “Watch.”
Something light and soft fell onto my face. A leaf. With a faint rustling crackle, it shriveled to a crisp against my skin.
“That’s horrible,” another voice murmured, with sickened awe.
“Right. And you heard what happened to Joss when he put the chains on. For blood’s sake, don’t touch her.”
I heaved myself up in a panicked lurch, blinking sense out of light and shadow, the leaf fluttering down from my face. There came a great scramble of motion away from me.
They’d chained me in an open wagon bed, my hands behind my back. Two soldiers cringed at the far end of the wagon, faces pale with terror, leveling flintlock pistols at me. Moonlight filtered through t
he canopy of branches reaching over the road, and the warmer illumination of a pair of lanterns set shadows flaring across the guards’ faces with the bouncing of the wagon. My head pounded, and dozens of minor cuts and bruises nagged at my attention as well, but all I could think of was what might be happening at the castle.
Hell of Nightmares. This couldn’t be real. Not now. Fear tasted coppery in the back of my throat.
“I need to get back to Gloamingard at once,” I blurted, my voice coming out high and strained. I tried to scramble up to my knees, but the chains yanked at my wrists, secured to the wagon.
“I’m afraid you’re in no position to dictate orders, Exalted Ryxander.” Voreth’s voice floated out of the darkness, and he rode up beside the wagon, lip curled in a smile. “Besides, it seems to me that your help with the gate has consistently made matters worse. Gloamingard is far better off without you.”
The truth of it struck me like a falling tree. I sank against the hard wagon boards, aching all through.
“Truly, the Shrike Lord will be doing Morgrain a service by killing you,” Voreth went on, his tone amused. “I’d heard you were an embarrassment to your family, but you’re more of a curse.”
I couldn’t muster a retort; he had a point.
And given that no one seemed to have come after me, my family and the Rookery might well agree with him.
I just had to make it to the forest, not ten feet away over the side of the wagon. On the road itself, ancient and powerful commands bound into the land by generations of Witch Lords ensured the safety of travelers. But so long as we were still in Morgrain, if I could make it so much as one step off the road, the trees and all the beasts of the wood should protect me from recapture.
I worked my wrists in their chains, without lifting my forehead from where I’d laid it in apparent despair on my knees. I could probably slither out if I wasn’t afraid to lose a bit of skin in the process. The pistols were the issue. Even if I killed the guards in the wagon before leaping out—which I wasn’t certain I was willing to do; they were just following orders—there were four more guards, all watching for trouble and ready to shoot me. The trees might keep them from following me into the woods, but they couldn’t stop me from dying with a musket ball in my back. And I couldn’t help anyone at Gloamingard if I were dead.
The Obsidian Tower Page 37