Chapter 8 The Obisidian

It is calling,” she whispered, her voice shaking so hard her teeth clicked together. “Darius, the baby… it feels like something is pulling it from inside the dark.”

Elara sat up from the straw by the dying fire, letting out a sharp groan as she dragged her hand across her bloody side. Her silver-rimmed eyes went wide in the dim light, her lips parting as she stared at the open passage. “The seal is completely gone. My order spent years looking for this door, and it opens now because your blood is awake, Commander. The mountain recognizes the line.”

Darius took a slow step toward the entrance of the passage, his boots making no sound on the wet gravel. The air pouring out of the hole did not smell like the damp fog of the gray hills outside. It was thick with the scent of old wood, dried lavender, and rusted iron, like a tomb that had been locked away for a hundred winters. He looked into the blackness, his solid ink eyes adjusting instantly to the dark. The hallway was narrow, its walls carved so smoothly they felt like glass.

“Stay here with her,” Darius said, his voice carrying that heavy, layered double echo that made the small stones on the floor vibrate. He didn't look back at Elara. “If anything comes through the front cleft, use the silver runes to block the entrance.”

“I am coming with you,” Lira said, her voice rising with a sudden, quiet strength that surprised him. She let go of his tunic and stepped up beside him, her small boots sliding through the straw. She looked up into his black eyes, her face pale but her jaw set tight. “I am not staying out here in the dark while you walk into another trap, Darius. If the baby is part of this, then I am part of it too.”

Darius stared at her for a long second. He wanted to tell her to stay safe by the spring, but the look in her eyes told him she would only follow him if he refused. He lowered his sword slightly but kept his fingers tight around the hilt. He reached out with his left hand, hesitating for a fraction of a second before his cold, gray fingers wrapped gently around her small wrist. She flinched from the icy touch of his flesh, but she did not pull away.

They stepped together through the stone frame, leaving Elara by the dying embers of the sage fire.

The narrow hallway went down into the heart of the mountain, the floor sloping sharply beneath their feet. There were no torches on the walls, but a faint, purple mist hung in the air, glowing just enough for them to see the ancient writing carved into the rock above their heads. The words were written in the old language of the northern clans—the same language the high priest had used right before Darius broke his neck.

As they walked deeper, the black lines on Lira’s stomach began to grow warmer, their purple glow shining through the fabric of her white dress like a small lantern. The child inside her was perfectly still now, no longer rolling against her ribs, as if it were listening to the silence of the mountain.

“My father never spoke of this place,” Darius muttered, his double voice scraping against the smooth walls. “He told me we were just farmers before he took the king’s shield.”

“He lied to protect you,” a dry, raspy voice echoed from the end of the passage.

Darius lifted his blade instantly, his body shifting to cover Lira as they burst into a large, circular chamber. The room was lined with twelve tall stone chairs carved straight out of the bedrock. In the center of the space sat a massive table made of solid black iron, and resting upon the metal surface was a single, heavy wooden box bound with thick bands of tarnished silver.

Sitting in the largest chair at the back of the room was a creature that looked like a corpse dried out by the mountain wind. His skin was the color of charcoal, tight against his cheekbones, and his long clothes were made of tattered black wool that dragged through the gray dust of the floor. His eyes were identical to Darius's—solid, ink-black stones that held no white parts and no light.

“Who are you?” Darius demanded, his voice shaking the loose dust from the iron table.

The old man didn't move his hands from the arms of the chair. His fingers were long and thin, his fingernails resembling sharp, black talons that clicked against the stone. “I am Vane. The last keeper of the box. Your father was supposed to take my place forty years ago, but he chose to run to the valleys and put on a white shirt. He thought if he bled for Eldric's father, the kingdom would forget what his family did to the throne.”

Darius took a heavy step forward, his boot crunching on a small rock. “My father died of the winter fever in the vanguard. The king gave him the land in the west for his loyalty.”

Vane let out a short, dry sound that sounded like two rough stones rubbing together in the dark. “Eldric’s mages did not use fever, boy. They used silver needles. They spent three weeks draining your father’s veins into the palace wells to strengthen the city walls against the northern clans. He died empty, like a dry well, while you were out learning how to swing a steel sword for the family that murdered him.”

The words struck Darius’s chest like a physical blow. The rage that had been sleeping under his skin since they left the capital exploded outward. A thick wave of solid darkness rushed across the floor stones, cracking the ancient rock beneath Vane’s chair and blowing out the purple mist.

“They told me he was a hero,” Darius growled, the double voice splitting into three distinct echoes that shook the room.

“The king gave you a lie to keep you from looking too closely at your own shadow,” Vane said, his black eyes fixed on Darius’s face, entirely unaffected by the display of power. “And now you have done exactly what he feared you would do. You opened the well. You took the dark into your veins to save a girl who looks at you like you are a monster.”

Lira stepped out from behind Darius, her hand pressing against the black lines on her stomach. She looked at Vane, her voice clear despite her shaking shoulders. “He is not a monster. He saved my life.”

“He is a king without a crown,” Vane said, pointing his sharp black finger toward her belly. “The child you carry belongs to this room now. The high mages know the seal has broken. They are already gathering ten thousand spears at the foot of these gray hills. They do not want your husband’s head anymore, girl. They want that seed before it learns how to speak to the smoke.”

Darius looked at the silver-bound box on the iron table. The red string of light in his vision ended right at the tarnished silver latch. “What is inside?”

“The journal of the first king,” Vane said, slowly rising from his stone chair. He was tall, his body thin as a shadow, his tattered cloak sweeping the dust. “The old words that teach a man how to command the void without letting it eat his memories of the sun. If you open it, Darius, you accept the war. You will never sleep in a quiet house. You will be the demon they write about in the church books.”

Darius did not hesitate. He dropped Marek’s steel sword onto the stones with a loud clang, reaching out with both hands toward the silver box. “Eldric took my honor. He made my wife fear my touch. I have nothing left to lose but the smoke.”

He wrapped his black, blistered fingers around the silver band and pulled.

The heavy lock shattered under his grip, the silver turning to liquid gray metal that ran down his fingers like hot wax. The wooden lid swung open on its own, and a sudden, blinding blast of purple fire shot up toward the high ceiling. At the bottom of the box lay a thick book bound in rough leather, and beside it sat a long, heavy dagger made of pure obsidian stone, its jagged edge so sharp it seemed to cut the light around it.