The Obsidian Tower

by Melissa Caruso

  “Alive,” Kessa said grimly. “She’s lost a lot of blood.”

  Bastian rose unsteadily and staggered in her direction. “I’ve got excellent potions for that. Though between Ashe and Ryx, we’re going through them quickly! If we can get her to actually rest for a few days, she should recover.”

  I dragged myself to my feet and approached Severin. He lay curled on the floor, his lips nearly white, his cheeks sunken. His eyes flickered open, dull and glassy.

  “Unnngh,” he said.

  “Are you all right?” I knelt next to him, not daring to touch him when he looked this bad.

  “I’d like to stop having the energy sucked out of me for a while.” He sat up with an effort, rubbing his temple. “I think I’m all right? It was less horrible than when you did it. Less my life, and more…” He waved a vague hand at his own body. “My strength. I think after some sleep and a few good meals I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s nice to know I have a more unpleasant effect on you than a demon does.” I offered him a hand up, meeting his eyes to make sure he was braced for my touch before he took it.

  “I understand the need to groom each other after a tussle like this,” Whisper said, stretching, “but we should leave now. Neither the Lady of Owls nor the Demon of Discord were ever creatures of surpassing mercy, and if she changes her mind about letting you go, I can’t be bothered to save you.”

  “I need to make sure Odan was able to get everyone out of the castle,” I protested.

  “You can do that from outside,” Foxglove suggested. “Your grandmother will know if you don’t leave, and I’m sure she’s watching you.”

  “Good point,” Kessa said. “I’d really rather not face down another demon today.” She scooped up Ashe’s limp form with surprising strength, cradling her gently against her chest. “Let’s get out of here. We can regroup in the town—with alcohol. So much alcohol.”

  Severin lifted incredulous eyebrows. “We’re going to leave a demon ruling as the Witch Lord of Morgrain?”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Foxglove said grimly. “We’ve warded her off from the gate, and that’s all we can do for now. We can’t fight her, and much as I hate to admit it, there are limits to what one can accomplish with sneaking and diplomacy.”

  “Severin and Kessa,” I said reluctantly, “once we get outside, can you send birds to the other Witch Lords, warning them about my grandmother? There’s no keeping this secret anymore.”

  “We should warn the Serene Empire about that wretch Aurelio as well,” Foxglove added. He shook his head. “We’ve got some hard, dark work ahead of us, but we need to be alive to do it. Let’s go.”

  I’m sorry, Exalted Warden.” Odan drew himself up with serene dignity, as if we stood in the Old Great Hall and not in the dusty yard of an inn at the edge of town. The light of the inn lanterns cast deep shadows across his face. “But I’m going back to the castle.”

  The babble of dozens of voices floating from the warm windows of the inn almost swallowed his words. Odan had assured me that the entire population of Gloamingard Castle crowded inside, here and at another inn down the street; he and Gaven were working on figuring out places for everyone to sleep. I wanted more than anything to step into the sweet golden light of that jam-packed taproom, to feel the heat of all those living bodies and see their familiar faces safe with my own eyes. But I couldn’t. Standing in this inn yard was dangerous enough; I needed to be gone soon, before an accident could happen.

  “I am, too,” I told him, dropping my voice so that Kessa wouldn’t hear as she set up a comfortable bed for Ashe in the back of the Rookery’s wagon nearby. “I’m the Warden of Gloamingard. It’s where I belong.”

  Odan shook his head. “No, Warden. You should go with the Rookery.”

  “I can’t leave Morgrain now,” I protested. “My people need me.”

  He leveled a frank stare at me from beneath the gray bulwarks of his brows. “Exalted Warden. Respectfully, right now, your people need the Rookery.”

  I winced. There was no denying that their talents were more likely to be of help in dealing with a demon Witch Lord than mine were. “Still, for me to run away now, when my duty is to stay and protect—”

  “You misunderstand, Warden. Of course you’ll protect us. Do you think I don’t know you? I’ve helped raise you for seventeen years, since you came to Gloamingard. I know that you’ll do your duty.” His mustache bristled with the force of his words. My eyes stung. “You can only free something from a trap from outside the cage. You are the one best suited to help Morgrain, with the Rookery helping you. I can try to occupy the Lady of Owls and stall, and do what I can to guard the Door.”

  “But if you’re alone in the castle with Grandmother…” I swallowed.

  “The Lady of Owls and I have known each other a long time. I’ll manage.” Unbelievably, Odan smiled, his dark eyes crinkling. “You were always more useful than most of the rest of your family. I have faith in you, Warden. You won’t forget us.”

  “Never,” I agreed. A great yearning to hug him tore through me. Instead I pressed my gloved fist to my chest. “Then I entrust my beloved castle to its most faithful guardian. Take care of Gloamingard.”

  “I will,” he promised.

  I turned away so he wouldn’t see the tears that burned hot tracks down my cheeks.

  Castle Ilseine, just across the border in the imperial client state of Loreice, housed the Rookery’s eastern headquarters—and it was Gloamingard’s opposite in every way. The low, sloping stone walls of its jutting triangular bastions formed a smooth, regular star shape crowning its hilltop, with long cannons lining the walls and precisely carved runes three rows deep beneath them. A courier-lamp spire jutted from the roof of the keep, like a needle aimed at the sky. It was crisp and sensible and orderly, rather than sprawling with chaotic, mismatched layers of history. It was undeniably imperial.

  Its strangeness should have been exciting. I’d always wanted to see the Serene Empire—but not like this.

  Blue-uniformed soldiers had welcomed the Rookery home with an efficient flurry of activity, whisking most of them off to see to their wounds. Foxglove was making reports, his arm in a sling. I’d joined him at first, but when they devolved toward the bureaucratic he’d sent me to my new room in the stone tower at the center of the fortress—a legacy of an older castle, and claimed entirely by the Rookery—to get some rest.

  And here I’d found a certain furry riddle waiting for me, curled in the exact center of my bed, his pointed nose neatly pillowed on his bushy tail. One yellow eye opened in a thin gleaming slit, watching me.

  Of course Whisper was here. Never mind that he hadn’t traveled with us on the road from Gloamingard, or that we were in the middle of a warded and guarded fortress, or that the door had been locked. I was too exhausted to muster even a token crumb of surprise.

  I slumped on the edge of the bed, aching all over, and scratched behind his ears.

  Whisper made a pleased sound. “Ah, yes. Just there.”

  “I miss Gloamingard,” I said softly. It was a longing that cut me deep inside, stabbing at the slightest movement of my thoughts. The castle’s twisting halls and bristling towers, its mad hodgepodge of architectural styles and living trees, its thousand secret places—and most of all, my grandmother’s presence filling it, calm and sure, her unspoken love sustaining me every day.

  “This bed isn’t as comfortable as the ones at home,” Whisper agreed, flexing his claws into it to test the truth of his words. I sat with him for a while in silence, trying to think how to ask the question I’d put off for too long already.

  Except it wasn’t really a question anymore.

  “You’re not just a chimera, are you,” I said at last.

  “I never claimed to be.”

  We’d all assumed, generation after generation, that he was a leftover creation of some previous Witch Lord, haunting the castle to carry out some long-ago mission given him by perhaps the Sycamore Lord
himself. Gloamingard had so many protections woven around the Door; it had only made sense that Whisper was one of them, guarding his own lore and his own secrets.

  It had only recently occurred to me that his connection to the gate might be more direct.

  “My grandmother said you were neutral,” I ventured carefully.

  “I don’t take sides in other people’s squabbles.” Whisper flicked an ear in distaste.

  “Yet you came with me, when we left Morgrain.”

  “The Lady of Owls evicted me,” he said, his tone offended. “It is her territory, and I dislike direct conflict, so I left.”

  “That’s not the only reason, though,” I pressed. “Is it?”

  Whisper’s tail swished across the bedspread. For a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer.

  “I know you want me to help you,” he said at last, his voice gone serious as if he wrapped silk carefully around each precious word. “But terrible as the Dark Days were for humans, I assure you that if the Nine Demons go to war with one another, it will be far, far worse. Your world might not survive it.”

  “And so you stay neutral.”

  “Yes.”

  I fell silent. It sunk in that I was scratching the soft fur of a being of myth and legend. People cursed by him, Vaskandrans told their most bone-chilling campfire stories about him, and the Serene Empire deemed him the embodiment of evil itself.

  A demon.

  My friend.

  “I’m glad you came with me,” I murmured, because I was.

  Maybe my family had been right all these years, when they told me I shouldn’t trust him. Maybe I was damned for liking him. But if he was a scourge of humankind, well, he was remarkably restrained in his intrinsic evil. And he was good company, in his own way.

  “Someone has to keep an eye on you,” he said.

  He closed both of his, signaling an end to his willingness to answer questions.

  That night I lay awake in my strange bed in this strange place, unable to sleep despite the deep exhaustion pulling at every piece of me. The light was wrong, a thin wash of pale haze from luminaries in the fortress courtyard bleeding into the moonlight. The sounds were wrong, with the occasional murmur of distant conversation, the calling of the watch, and the sweet hourly chiming of a mantel clock instead of the whisper of wind through leaves and the hooting of owls. And the world felt dead around me, my atheling’s senses blind outside Morgrain, giving me the impression I lay in a lifeless tomb.

  It was the undigested lump of worry in my stomach, however, that kept me awake. All I could think of were the people I’d left behind: poor Odan, alone in Gloamingard with a demon. Jannah and Gaven and little Kip and all the castle staff, suddenly bereft of their home in a domain at the crux of a crisis the likes of which the world hadn’t seen in four thousand years. My father, too stubborn to stay out of trouble, and my mother, embroiled deep in the problems of a country not her own. All my family, who I’d left to clean up my mess after promising myself over and over that I’d handle it myself—even Vikal, seasons spare him, who deserved a chance to grow into his responsibility. And most of all, the people I was sworn to protect. No matter what Odan had said, I felt like I’d abandoned all of them.

  Something pricked at my senses. A tiny spark of life.

  Tap tap tap, it went at my window.

  I leaped out of bed and rushed to throw open the casement, where a small screech owl waited, its yellow eyes blazing fiercely as my grandmother’s. It dropped a message cylinder with one scaly talon, fluffed its feathers, and sailed off into the night.

  I opened the tiny case with shaking hands, tearing the paper as I worked it out of the tube. This could be from anyone, I reminded myself. All vivomancers sent owls for nighttime messages, for obvious reasons. And my grandmother didn’t need an owl to communicate with me—she could seize control of me from a hundred miles away and make me write her message to myself.

  It wasn’t a comforting thought.

  At last I laid the torn paper on the moonlit windowsill, and a bittersweet rush of relief and longing hit me at the sight of my father’s plain, blocky handwriting.

  Your mother and I are fine.

  Talked to Vikal and got your latest message about Gloamingard. Will stay away.

  Working on getting everyone from the land around the castle moved elsewhere.

  No news yet, but you know your grandmother. She’ll make a move soon.

  Your uncle and I will take care of the domain. You take care of yourself.

  I’ll keep in touch.

  Love, Da

  I pressed the mangled paper flat against my chest, eyes squeezed shut, as if I could push this tiny piece of Morgrain through skin and bone into my heart.

  “Dealing with magical problems in Eruvia is an irregular business,” Foxglove said. He paced the Rookery sitting room—an elegant place very much in the style of the Serene Empire, all velvet curtains and oil paintings and delicate furniture with brocade cushions. Morning light streamed in through the windows. “Some years, there’s not much to do. This is not going to be one of those years.”

  Ashe snorted from where she lounged by the fire. She still looked pale—even more so than usual—but her eyes held an alert spark, and I had no doubt she was ready to stab any demons who needed stabbing. “You could say that.”

  “The Witch Lords will have their Conclave,” Foxglove continued. “The doge and the Council of Nine are closeted in Raverra, attempting to come up with a plan to deal with this situation. Both the Empire and Vaskandar are likely to have missions for us.”

  “And questions,” Bastian added, clutching his little notebook. “So many questions. They woke me up before dawn to get on the courier lamps with the doge.”

  “So much for that trip to the shore I’ve been talking about.” Kessa sighed. She sat by Ashe, running her fingers through the pale tufts of her hair. Ashe didn’t seem to mind at all.

  “My point is that we need all the help we can get.” Foxglove turned to Severin, who perched on the edge of his seat, clearly uncomfortable with all the lavish imperial fabrics and paintings and artifice devices around him. “Do you still want to travel with us on our missions, at least for now?”

  “Yes, if you’ll have me.” Severin flashed a self-mocking smile. “I may not be the best companion, but I have nowhere else to go, and I want to see this through.”

  He tensed, and I could tell he was waiting for a harsh dismissal. Whatever treatment he was used to from living with his brother all these years, a warm welcome was no part of it.

  Kessa whooped and Bastian grinned. Severin’s eyes widened in surprise. I flashed him a broad smile.

  Ashe showed her teeth. “Don’t let it go to your head, mage boy.”

  “You won’t be able to join us officially,” Foxglove warned. “The Rookery has to maintain a careful balance in its membership, to ensure we remain neutral. We got permission to add Ryx because she’s half-Raverran, but the uncontested heir to a Vaskandran domain might be a bit much for our superiors to swallow.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Severin said, still looking bemused. “I like the idea of being unofficial for a change. It sounds relaxing.”

  Foxglove turned to me. “And Ryx. Is it too much to assume you still want to stay with us?”

  “My first and overwhelming priority is helping Morgrain.” My hands tightened in my lap, stretching the leather of my gloves. “I need to deal with my grandmother somehow, and hunt down Aurelio and deal with him, too, and find a way to close off the gate.”

  Kessa chuckled. “You do realize you just listed off our top priorities as well, right?”

  “Well, then it shouldn’t be a problem to stay with the Rookery awhile.” I let my shoulders relax a little. “I can think of no better position from which to try to help my family and the people of Morgrain, and no better company to do it with.”

  Foxglove lifted his glass to me, then nodded to Bastian. “Tell her,” he said.

  Bas
tian reached into a pocket and pulled out something slender and gleaming: the jess Aurelio had given me, which I’d turned in upon our arrival at Castle Ilseine. Its red glass beads winked in the light.

  “The power returned to it once it was out of your possession for a while,” he said. “A jess isn’t normally reusable, but in this case I think it will work.”

  Hope leaped in my chest. “I can have a jess again?”

  “I’ve studied it and consulted with Mews artificers over the courier lamps,” Bastian said. “When you were unleashed, you drained the jess completely. Now that its power has returned, we believe it will be as if it were newly created. You can have it back if you like, but anytime your Falconer unleashes you, you’ll have to take it off and give it at least a day to return to full strength before someone puts it on you again. And each time will be like the first time—you don’t need to have the same Falconer.”

  “Which is good, because we’re certainly not inviting Aurelio back,” Kessa said with a shudder.

  “In fact,” Foxglove said dryly, “I used that unfortunate incident as leverage to get the Mews to agree to a special exception. The Rookery can function as honorary Falconers in your case—so we don’t need to bring another outsider into our councils, or fear another betrayal. If you want this jess, you can have it today.”

  “Yes. I want it.” I couldn’t keep my voice from trembling. Hells, they were going to make me cry, right here in front of everyone. I could touch people again. I wouldn’t have to wall myself away in some isolated tower after all.

  “Then the only question that remains is who you want for your Falconer,” Foxglove said, spreading his arms as if to encompass the entire Rookery. “At least for now. We can switch things around if, say, we need to split up—it’s downright convenient.”

  This was real. They were going to let me stay with them, one of their company, and I wouldn’t have to hide on the fringes anymore. I’d lost my home, at least for now, and that wound wouldn’t stop bleeding until I could return to Morgrain; and whenever I thought of my grandmother, a black wave overwhelmed me. But I still had a place to belong, and people to belong to, in a way I’d never really had at Gloamingard with my own family.