Zenith Tower (The Star-Marked #2)

Astra

The bridge held.

The stone stayed beneath our feet, and none of us dropped into the black water below. I kept walking. Caspian’s hand stayed in mine, cold at the knuckles and warm at the palm. Behind us, Kieran’s breathing came ragged but controlled. Hale’s boots followed half a step behind, steady and unhurried.

Nobody spoke. Talking wouldn’t get us across any faster.

I watched the boards pass beneath my boots rather than look down. The black water was so still it looked solid, and so deep my eyes couldn’t find the bottom. I fixed my gaze on the next board and kept moving.

The tower emerged from the dark a piece at a time. Windowless. Pale stone the color of old teeth. Water ran in channels at its base, lit from underneath by something that wasn’t fire and wasn’t quite light either. The glow traveled up the walls in slow ribbons and faded into the stone above.

The closer we came, the less it resembled Zenith Hall. The Hall announced itself with black stone and long shadows. The tower was quieter and harder to read.

Only then did I realize no road reached this place.

I thought about the roads I knew: the cart track into the village where I’d grown up and the long paved approach to Zenith Hall.

At least those roads suggested you could leave the way you’d come.

Here there was only the bridge, the tunnel, and a door with no handle.

At the foot of the bridge, the woman was still waiting.

She hadn’t moved since she’d said my mother’s name. She watched us come the rest of the way. Her coat was the same pale stone-gray as the tower behind her, cut close and unornamented. She wore no Council pin or insignia I recognized.

“Four,” she said when we were close enough. Not a question.

“Four,” Caswell said behind us. I hadn’t realized he’d followed us all the way onto the bridge, lamp still in hand, its light thin and steady over the black water. He set it on the stone rail. “Transfer complete.”

The woman didn’t look at him. She looked at me, then at the place on my wrist where the three lines lay beneath my sleeve. They were dry, their colors hidden, and she couldn’t possibly see them through the fabric. She stared anyway. I stopped myself from pulling my sleeve lower.

“You’ll want to know what happens now,” she said.

“Among other things.”

Her mouth twitched. “You’ll be told what you need to know.”

“By whom?”

“Me, for now.”

Kieran gave a strained laugh. “You sound like Quill,” he said under his breath.

The woman looked at him. Her gaze paused on his pallor and Hale’s arm locked around his ribs before returning to me.

“You are under review,” she said to all of us. “You are not guests. You are not prisoners, if the distinction matters to you. Review has no fixed term. It ends when the Council says it does.”

“How long does that usually take?” I asked.

“There is no usual.”

“So it could be forever.”

“It could.”

Behind her, silver water moved through the channels at the tower’s base.

I thought of the arrow scratched into the tunnel wall behind us, pointing up.

I thought of the initials cut into that stone, dated five days after their twin on a bench in the west antechamber.

The school had decided by then that the girl carving them didn’t exist. She’d carved them anyway.

If Delphine Moreau was still somewhere in this mountain, I intended to be the reason she came out of it.

I hadn’t said that thought aloud. I wasn’t going to start in front of a woman who had already shown too much interest in my wrist.

“Do you have a name?” I asked instead.

“Yes.”

“Are you planning to share it?”

“Not today. For now, you can follow me.”

She turned before I could press her and started toward the tower’s entrance: a plain stone arch with no carving, hinges, or visible door. Caswell picked the lamp back up, and we followed.

Kieran stumbled on the last few steps before the arch. Hale adjusted his grip around Kieran’s ribs. “Nearly there,” he said, too low for the woman ahead to hear.

“Define there,” Kieran said. His voice was thin, but he still sounded amused.

“Inside,” Hale said. “Somewhere you can sit down.”

“Sold.”

Hale kept his eyes on the ground ahead, watching where Kieran placed his feet.

The water channels ran along the base of the tower and disappeared around the curve of the wall. Caspian squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.

At the arch, Caswell stopped. He set the lamp on the stone, said something to the woman too low for me to catch, and turned back toward the bridge. His charge ended where the Tower began.

We passed beneath the arch, and the bridge vanished from view.

Inside, the air smelled nothing like the Hall. There was no old wax, no stone and sweat, no lilies going soft under a formal’s candles. The tower smelled of damp stone and cold minerals. The ceiling rose beyond the reach of the water-light, too high for me to see.

The corridor ahead ran straight and pale, lined with doors that had no handles. My footsteps sounded too loud against the stone, even with the others walking beside me. I matched my breathing to Caspian’s, slow and even, the way I did before a combat assessment. Following his rhythm steadied me.

The door closed behind us without a sound. I looked back. A slab of stone that size should have made some noise, but I hadn’t heard it move.