OBSIDIAN GUARD BOOK 2

CHAPTER 15 MEETING DAY

POV Lucian

I crouched on the jagged roof of an armory across from the Queen's Tower, my eyes narrowed as I watched the high-security windows. I felt naked. Worse than naked, I felt exposed in a way that made my skin crawl.

The tower wasn't just built from stone; it was laced with suppressive gems that acted like a lead blanket over my weave. I couldn't slip into the shadows or melt into the corners as I had been doing my entire life.

Every time I tried to pull the darkness around me, the threads frayed and dissolved, leaving me far too visible against the black brick.

I had managed to get a glimpse of Gideon two days ago. I'd expected to find him being tortured or pacing like a caged animal in some damp pit. Instead, I'd found him in a suite that looked more like a palace than a cell, having himself a grand old time with his cellmate.

He wasn't in distress. Far from it.

Through the narrow slit of a window, I'd seen him laughing, actually laughing, while that pale-skinned boy, the one he called his "little flower," lounged on a silk divan. Then there was the woman, "Valry."

I'd watched from a distance as she slipped into his room night after night. I couldn't see in the dark, and I couldn't get close through the dampening stone, but I didn't need to.

The way Gideon looked in the daylight, the way he moved... he wasn't an unwilling prisoner. He was a man who had found a new enjoyment, and I was leaving him be for now.

"You're losing your edge, Gid," I muttered to the wind.

"You're falling for the enemy."

But who was I to judge? I'd spent the last forty-eight hours stalking the perimeter, hoping for a lapse in security, any intel that could help Alistair.

The Queen was a ghost. I'd seen her exactly twice: a silhouette in heavy silks standing on a balcony so high it was shrouded in the morning mist.

When she left the tower, it was always in a closed carriage carved with obsidian and adorned with gems, flanked by a dozen Thanes whose protective shields felt like jagged glass if I got too close.

But today was the fourth day. The day of the meeting at the river fork.

Below me, the great obsidian gates of the tower groaned open. The Queen was coming out on horseback, followed by four riders on dark, war-trained horses.

I could feel the energy coming off them even from here, heavy, dense, and suffocating. These were not just guards; these were the Thanes Valeryen was taking to meet Alistaire.

My heart thudded against my ribs, a lonely, frantic sound in the silence of my suppressed power. The Syndicate would be at the fork by now. Alistaire, Jasmine, Vane, Saffron, and Dante.

They were walking into a parley with a woman who had managed to turn our most dangerous brother into a purring housecat in just a few days.

I looked back at the high window of Gideon's cell one last time. He was still in there, tucked away while the world prepared to burn. I desperately wanted to follow, but Alistair's orders were absolute: stay back, watch the "collateral," and if things went wrong, pull Gideon out.

I hated being blind. I hated not being able to eavesdrop. I just hoped the reports I'd sent via runner about the gems and the military movements were enough to keep them alive.

POV Alistair

The bridge at the river fork was a marvel of ancient engineering, but as the mist thickened, it felt more like an altar. I checked my pocket watch.

They were late. In my world, lateness was an insult, a deliberate slap to the face.

Beside me, Jasmine's breathing hitched. She didn't just look annoyed; she looked physically ill. Her face was ashen, her hands trembling as she gripped the stone railing.

"Alistair," she gasped, her voice thin. "My skin... it feels like it's cooling. Almost soothing."

"I feel something too," Saffron whispered. Her hands were shaking as she checked the medical vials on her belt. "My weave... it's going cold. I can't feel life in the herbs anymore. I can't even feel my own essence."

A heavy, suffocating pressure began to roll over us. It was as if the air itself was a sponge, soaking up the magic that made us who we were. Vane let out a low groan, his eyes fluttering as his truth-sight flickered like a dying candle, unable to pierce the gloom.

"Steady," I commanded, though the back of my neck was prickling with sweat.

"Calm down. We read Lucian's reports. We knew the Guard used suppressive minerals. We knew this could happen."

"Not to this level," Dante snarled, his voice cracking. He reached out, trying to manipulate the moisture in the air, but the molecules refused to budge. The fog stayed gray and stagnant.

"I'm useless, Alistair. We're all as weak as non-weavers like this."

Jasmine let out a strange, jagged laugh. She looked down at her hands, her expression a mix of horror and bizarre relief.

"Is this... is this what it feels like?" she whispered.

"To not have to repress it? To not have to hold everything in every second of the day?"

We all looked at her. Jasmine's weave was a curse of constant attraction; she spent every waking second of her life holding back her pheromones so she didn't turn everyone around her into a mindless slave.

"I feel... empty," she continued, her voice trembling. "For the first time, I'm not a magnet. I'm just a woman. It's terrifying. But do I hate it?"

"Focus," I snapped, my voice cutting through their burgeoning panic. I felt the dampening too; my own Sovereignty, the ability to command the will of others, was being pushed back into my skull, trapped behind a wall of lead.

"Look sharp. They aren't just coming. They're here."

I pointed into the swirling gray heart of the bridge.

The sound of hooves didn't come first. The heat did. A wave of dry, volcanic warmth pushed against the mountain chill, smelling of sulfur and ancient earth. Then, five silhouettes materialized from the steam.

They didn't look like people. They looked like statues of moving shadow. The four Thanes wore armor etched with the crest of a crown over their hearts, violet gems embedded in their cuffs glowing with a hungry light.

In the center of the procession, riding a beast that breathed with the heavy rattle of a dragon, was the Queen.

She was unmistakable. She wore a crown adorned with every gem known to our kind, stones meant to amplify, focus, and harvest the power of weavers. A necklace and rings of every variety glittered against her dark attire, but it was her cape that truly unsettled the senses.

It was a heavy, draped void, a piece of the night sky stolen and stitched into a garment. It seemed to swallow all light around it, remaining a black, bottomless abyss even as the morning sun fought to pierce the gloom.

She pulled her mount to a stop, the silence of the dampening field so heavy it made my ears ring. With a subtle nod from her, one of the Thanes waved a hand.

The mist vanished instantly, swept away by a flick of a wrist that didn't even seem to require effort. But as the air cleared, the pressure increased. Our weaves were dampened even further, pinned beneath the weight of her jewelry.

The weight of it was crushing. I clenched my jaw, resisting the urge to shift. Having my weave inaccessible felt like being stripped bare, like standing before a starving beast with no weapon and a mortal heart.

I realized then, with a sinking stone in my gut, that I had walked into a trap of my own making.I had overestimated our capabilities.

The Queen looked down at me from her mount, her eyes unreadable behind the veil of her power.

"King Alistair," she said, her voice like silk over whetstones. "I believe we have much to discuss."