The f*******n Obsidian

Chapter 4 The Hidden Rot

Corrupted air hung over the ground where Caleb's party had stood. Inside Kaelen's camp, the wards kept the miasma beyond the tents.

I needed to hear what Caleb said once he thought I was out of reach.

When Caleb grabbed my arm in the great hall, I had brushed memory sand into the gold weave of his pauldron. The old spell would carry his private words back to me.

I returned to Kaelen's tent and placed the obsidian dagger on the wooden table. With my eyes closed, I found the thread tied to the sand and pulled.

The tent blurred. Caleb's command tent took its place.

The High Elder paced beside a cot, his face gray. Elara moaned under a healer's fan.

"She's a monster! A demon!" The Elder pointed toward the cot. "She crippled half a dozen guards with a thought. Look at Elara. The miasma poisoning is deep. We can't stop it!"

Caleb sat in his command chair and polished a gauntlet. "Of course you can't. Elara is useless. That was always the point."

The Elder stopped. "What?"

Caleb checked his reflection in the gauntlet.

"She's the perfect vessel, Elder. Empty. Obedient. The people will see her suffer and call her Aurelia's victim. They'll love her for surviving my jealous monster."

My fingers went numb around the edge of the table. He had planned this before the ceremony.

"What good is a victim when we are all choking to death?" the Elder wailed.

"Don't worry." Caleb lowered his voice. "I'll have Aurelia brought back and taken straight to the dungeons."

He ran a thumb over the edge of the gauntlet.

"We'll break her mind, chain her to the Nexus, and use her as an unconscious filter for the rest of her life. My kingdom will have its living heart. This one won't argue."

He leaned toward the Elder. "She'll purify my air and bless my lands. I'll never see that defiance in her eyes again. Elara, my sweet, controllable Elara, will wear the crown."

The High Elder sank onto the cot beside Elara.

Caleb stood and studied his reflection in his armor. "I should have done this the first time. The pyre wasted a depleted resource. This time, I'll make her value last forever."

*Depleted resource.*

The command tent vanished.

Pine filled my nose again. I was gripping the wooden table so hard that my hands had gone numb.

Caleb had burned me as a depleted resource. Now he meant to harvest the rest.

Kaelen filled the tent entrance. He had stood guard throughout the vision. The new bond between us must have carried some part of it to him, because his hand had closed around his sword hilt.

He came to my side and waited for me to release the table.

"Tell me," he said. "How do you want to crush him?"