The Heir of the Keep

The final weeks of August brought the hottest, most luminous Mediterranean summer Isle Saint-Obsidian had experienced in a decade. The Aegean Sea was a vast mirror of tranquil sapphire, warm as bathwater along the shallow rocky coves, while schools of silver flying fish leaped through the gentle swells. Along the high ramparts of the keep, the heat shimmered off the black volcanic basalt, but within the thick, ancient walls of…