by Ava Kelly
Just then, he sees it. A cabin, where the path slinks upward to end on the other side of the ravine. A fenced pen spreads next to it, so perhaps this is a shepherd’s summer cabin. Orsie hurries. Even if nobody’s there, it would still be shelter from the tightening wind and snowfall.
Inside, he only finds a table and a straw bed with a threadbare blanket, but cut wood is stacked to the side of a fireplace. As he starts a fire with trembling fingers, snapping at the flint for a long while before it sparks, Orsie thinks this is as good as it will get. However, another search reveals a wooden chest hidden under the table and inside, a stash of biscuits. They’re dry and horrible, but he needs to eat, and there are only three apples left in the backpack. By the time he finishes melting snow in the tin mug he finds inside the chest, Orsie is drained.
He doesn’t really remember how long he lies there wrapped in the blanket, shivering and drenched in sweat. He thinks he sees Mother, guiding his hand to add logs to the fire. At times he sees Nevmis out of the corner of his eye, preparing to slice at him. The windows lighten and darken and lighten again, but maybe more time passes. Orsie’s not sure, his eyelids fluttering open and closed in between bouts of chills and flashes of heat.
When he wakes up, really wakes, he’s so thirsty he almost doesn’t wait for the melted snow to warm. He adds more wood to the fire, laying out his clothes to dry. The cabin is cold, but not so much to cause shivers. Just enough that he is reminded of the coolness of his lost home. The sliver of moon is visible from between the clouds for a change, casting its light through the window, mingling with the warmth of the fire. He stretches his arms in front of him, gaze skipping over each scale, from wrist to—
Seeing the empty space on his right shoulder is akin to falling into a bottomless void. He missed losing a scale. How could he miss it? His eyes go to the moon outside, its shape just shy past the rising crescent. It’s too early. He’s not even off the mountain yet.
Crying hurts, but he can’t stifle the wracking sobs shaking his entire body. He’s a young dragon, but still centuries old, much older than most creatures, and he’s never felt this sort of hopelessness in his life. Not even when Mother passed. His teeth clatter as he huddles under the blanket, the stale smell of the cabin stinging even through his stuffy nose. The fire burns out in the cold night, and Orsie can do nothing but clutch at his upper arm, willing it to come back.
His scale.
His life.
Two days pass before he manages to get himself back together. His body betrays his impatience by making him stumble with every step, the thin blanket wrapped tightly around him as he sets toward the hills again. It helps that more and more beaten paths stretch from the cabin.
Grief throbs within, unquenchable and unrelenting, and he’s never going to get rid of it unless he finds his anaskett. It’s this that drives him on, through the pain and the misery of sickness.
*
Ark has spent the last couple of hours ineffectively trying to convince soldiers and travelers alike that he is not a dragonslayer and he did not just murder a dragon. No, Ark remembers it clearly, the arrow could barely even reach the unintended target, let alone make the creature pause in its flight. His protests fall on deaf ears and eager spirits as praise accompanies him all the way back into the village.
Half the garrison is waiting when he gets there, not nearly as inconspicuous as they want to appear. Geren stands at the entrance to the main hall, other soldiers giving him a wide berth. He must be in a worse mood than earlier. Ark could ignore him or not, but he doesn’t think either option will do him any good. Geren has a glint in his eyes. Ark takes a couple of steps closer, still far enough that it doesn’t feel like a surrender.
“Slaying dragons while employed by the king,” Geren comments, loud enough to be heard by others scattered in the courtyard, and raises a hand to show a sheet of paper. “That breaks several laws.”
Ark clenches his jaw, but he stands right where he is. If Geren wants to make it a spectacle, who is Ark to deny it? He knows, immediately, that the list Geren put together won’t be untrue, because Danv has some peculiar and obscure legislation dealing specifically with dragons.
“First,” Geren reads, “failure to report contact with a dragon. Second, creating conflict with a dragon that may cause damage to the area in retribution. Third, failing to secure donations to the magistrate’s offices of the settlement most in peril from the flimsiness of the dragon. Fourth…”
Ark stops listening as realization dawns. Geren just wants money. Ark confirms it as Geren flips the sheet and proceeds to recite a long list of fines. Unexpectedly, they amount to the exact sum of his mothers’ endowments. By the time Geren is finished, Ark doesn’t care about that anymore. He already has all the rubies he needs to reach the Sal’s northern shores.
They stand there watching each other for too long, enough time that Geren grows irritated with Ark’s apparent compliance. The way Geren taps his foot tells Ark he’s about to get mad.
“You performed military actions while not under direct command of your superiors. It is strictly forbidden to engage in acts of war outside the scope of your duties.”
“It’s my free day,” Ark says.
“Exactly,” Geren returns, and Ark grits his teeth, anger already swelling inside. “Therefore, Arkeva Flitz, as of today, you are discharged from your post within this establishment and stripped of your rank and endowment wages. Get out of my garrison.”
There must be something visible on Ark’s face because Geren now grins, wide and full of satisfaction. It takes all the restraint Ark has not to march over there, but disgust washes over him. It’s enough to turn his feet toward the barracks.
*
Muttering a curse, Ark loads his mothers’ traveling coffers with books and clothes and weapons, carefully arranged around the urn holding them. There are memories in there, too, meager things that are worthless to others.
Long after the mightnight toll, he finally locks the heavy coffers. He carries them one after the other through the door, then down the hallway of the barrack. Ark might be strong, but he can’t lift both at once. He’s almost outside when Dekin reaches him.
“You’re leaving,” Dekin says.
Ark nods, then shrugs uncertainly. He doesn’t really want to go like a criminal in the middle of the night, but he has no choice. He lets himself stare for a while at the still-open door to the room where he was raised. This had been home; no longer.
“Did you really slay a dragon?”
“No,” Ark says, weary of the repeated question.
Dekin lifts an eyebrow, unbelieving, but doesn’t contradict Ark. He’s the only one left who had known Ark’s mothers; he wasn’t the kindest man Ark had ever met, not even the smartest. At least he made it to an old age, which is not something most warriors can brag about, so it doesn’t take Ark long to decide to help him.
He fishes two stones out of his pocket, then places them in Dekin’s hand.
“Here, buy yourself some land for a hut. This should be enough to keep you fed too.”
Dekin turns wide eyes at him, mouth opening and closing.
“You did sl—”
A noise interrupts him, and they turn. One of the riders is looking at them, from right outside the door, a calculated gaze shifting between the rubies and Ark’s face. Her father is sick; Ark knows because nobody pays him enough attention to stop talking when he’s around. With a sigh, he retrieves another gem and flicks it at the rider.
She catches it, surprised, with a breathy “Really?”
Ark nods, which earns him a grin and a sloppy salute, right before she saunters off.
“I have to go,” he tells Dekin. “Be well.”
He goes back to moving his coffers across the courtyard, pondering how to convince the night guards to open the gates for him, when racket spills out of the officers’ barracks along with the captain and his lieutenants.
“Hold it right there,” Geren shouts.
/> Ark would like not to, but his luggage is heavy and the gates are still closed, so he turns around instead, crossing his arms.
“Make up your mind already,” he spits.
“Oh,” Geren says, waving a hand, “you still have to go, but it has come to my attention that your apparent lack of finances is false. Under the regulations of discharge, this makes you indebted to the garrison for lodging, training, and food, sixteen years’ worth.”
Ark is baffled. “I served for that.”
Someone jibes about Ark serving only his cowardice, but Geren remains almost bored as he stands there, chest puffed with too much stupidity and too little dignity.
“Laws of lodging say I can seize all possessions until the debt is settled,” Geren rattles.
More of the soldiers are starting to emerge into the dark courtyard, drawn by the ruckus, whispering snippets of rumors among them. Ark is tired of them, of Geren. He just wants to take his possessions and go. The shortest way out of this is to appease Geren’s avarice, so Ark empties his pockets on the ground.
“I’d be better off tossing rubies to fatten pigs,” Ark can’t stop himself from muttering, and he immediately knows it’s the wrong thing to say because Geren’s face reddens as it does when he loses a sparring match. He always loses, but that’s beside the point.
Geren isn’t the only one glaring, but Ark ignores the others, and a long moment stretches while he holds Geren’s stare. Ark won’t back down.
“It’s not enough.”
“What?”
“Out with him! I’ll be holding on to those,” Geren says, pointing at Ark’s coffers, “until you pay for the room.”
Next thing he knows, Ark is pushed onto the dirt road and he has to struggle for balance. “Wait!”
Ark rushes toward the gates, but they close before he can slip through. The wood is rough, splintery, wrong. No, his gates are smooth and protective instead of an obstacle.
Where is he—
He needs to go home.
*
Moonlight still casts a cold glow over the forest by the time Ark’s awareness returns. He sits cross-legged on the stone pavement in the middle of his courtyard, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. He can’t say when he started feeling that the castle is his, yet a surety in the belief sends a satisfied shiver through his limbs. For some reason, this magical place has chosen him, and Ark is honored, he really is, but he can’t help a bit of lingering dejection at the thought. The castle also made him lose all he had left from them.
Actually, no. Geren’s greed and Ark’s big mouth are at fault here.
Rubies roll toward him out of nowhere, seemingly springing from bare stone. Ark shakes his head.
“He’ll just ask for more,” he mutters, closing his eyes.
Moments pass, long and slow, before a loud clatter startles him. On the ground, arrows surround him, beautifully crafted with sharp tips and masterful fletching. Ark admires one as he twirls it between his fingers. He’s tempted, so very much, to put one of these through Geren’s eye, but Ark is no murderer.
One by one, the arrows fade away until Ark is again sitting among rubies. He runs his palms over the small, rugged stones. Well, he could try to buy his coffers back, since the castle is offering. He wonders vaguely what price he will have to pay for this magic, but pushes the thought aside. His mothers’ ashes are irreplaceable.
Dawn lights the sky over the walls and the treetops, and Ark rubs a hand over his face. So much has happened in a single day, some parts of which he still can’t explain. He feels drained, so instead of heading back out, he decides to try one of the doors leading inside. He needs rest before he can put up with Geren again.
He knocks, waits, knocks again. Nothing stirs, but the next time he touches the wood, the door slides open as if no latch has ever held it in place.
As he walks inside, torches come to life on their own, their light slowly revealing a grand hall. Ark shivers. The air is warmer than outside, and his steps echo against the bare walls and tall columns supporting the high ceiling. Other doors lead farther into the castle but only one is ajar, light spilling in from behind, but when he nears it, the corridor is in darkness while the spot of brightness seems to have moved to its far end. With a swallow against his dry throat, Ark advances carefully.
He finds a warm kitchen, water and food already on the table, a fire burning in the hearth. Soon, Ark falls asleep on the low bench lining one of the walls.
Ark wakes to the pleasant realization that his back is not as sore as he’d expect from lying for hours on hard wood. Another meal waits for him, and this time Ark is more wary of who might’ve put it there while he slept, but his stomach’s grumble is too loud to be ignored. Weakness lingers in his bones, an effect of the past day, the kind that needs nourishment and rest before it’s banished. So he eats, then sets through the castle.
His head is much clearer as he tries to make sense of the recent events. A dragon flew by, but then it was suddenly gone and this castle appeared out of nowhere. Ark knows the forest, and he’s convinced the structure wasn’t here last month when he came around these parts. He can’t completely dismiss the possibility that a wizard is around, but he has to wonder. Could this be the dragon’s castle?
He walks all the spaces he’s allowed to enter, after he discovers some doors are locked or simply won’t budge. He doesn’t force his way through. If there’s a host, they are not showing themselves to Ark. Up over the kitchen, he finds a row of rooms resembling servant quarters but uninhabited. Ark claims one for himself. Its window overlooks the mountain slopes on the opposite side from the gates, right over an inner courtyard patterned with stone benches. It’s unusual to have two yards, as though the castle has two faces. There isn’t much Ark can do right now but accept the obvious kindness of the castle toward him. He tells it as much, then shakes his head at himself.
*
Ark slips out of bed and stretches with a long yawn. So far, the castle continues to appear uninhabited, yet meals are being cooked and fires are lit. He tries burning a piece of paper and finds with great surprise that the flames are cold—there, providing warmth, without being actually real. The walls are solid, however, and the food wholesome. The magic keeps raising goose bumps all over his skin, but it’s also soothing, in a way. After a few days here, it feels like the castle cares for him, a feeling Ark hasn’t had in a very long time.
“Good morning, castle,” he says before he grabs his tunic.
The place might provide for Ark’s needs, but one thing he hasn’t managed to get so far are clothes. Odd. He needs a coat, though, so he sets off toward the village. If he’s lucky, the seamstress might already have a few waiting and that would mean Ark can be gone before anyone sees him. He hasn’t come up with a plan to retrieve his belongings yet, so he doesn’t want to run into Geren unprepared.
Right where the narrow forest path meets the larger road leading to the village, Ark stumbles onto Dekin, sitting with his coffers next to a fire. It looks like he’s been there in the cold for a couple of days already.
“Arkeva,” Dekin says, rising to his feet.
“What are you doing out here?”
Dekin dusts off the front of his coat. “It’s unfair what the captain did. I stole your things from him, but I didn’t know how to find you. Last place someone saw you was here, so I figured I’d wait,” he finishes with a sheepish shrug.
Ark raises an eyebrow, unbelieving. Dekin’s too old to be spending his nights on bare ground, especially after carrying such a heavy burden.
“How’d you get those here?” Ark asks, tipping his chin at the coffers.
Dekin waves a hand, muttering something about the stable boys.
“What do you want in exchange?” He’s pretty sure Dekin hasn’t done this out of pure goodness, but Ark isn’t opposed to paying for his efforts.
“Nothing,” Dekin says, coming closer, as if to clap his hand on Ark’s shoulder, and Ark slides away. The answer is u
nlike him.
“No rubies?” he asks.
“You gave me enough.” He looks sincere, and Ark wants to believe him, to believe he still has at least one friend.
“Thank you,” he says.
Dekin nods at him, then at the coffers. “Let me help you with those. Where have you been living?”
“You’ll see.”
Ark leads Dekin to the castle. He wants to give Dekin some more rubies before sending him on his way. Maybe he can convince Dekin to leave the garrison altogether. Geren’s an awful influence.
“Do we take these inside?” Dekin asks, looking impressed at the courtyard and already stepping toward a door.
Ark shakes his head. “No, I can do it. Thank you for the help.”
“Kicking me out already?” Dekin jokes, a smile on his lips, rubbing his cold hands together.
Something in Dekin’s stance, some sort of desire hidden within Dekin’s gaze makes Ark bristle at the thought. Suddenly, Dekin is an unwanted intrusion. The castle chose Ark, after all.
“You can’t stay here,” Ark tells him, decision to turn Dekin away made just as his words leave his lips. “But I will bring you some ale. Wait here.”
“Come now.” Dekin’s already at one of the doors, pulling on the knob. “Show me the treasure,” he says sweetly, too gentle and coercing.
Apprehension runs down Ark’s spine only to settle in a heavy knot in his stomach. With a grimace, he points at the gates. “Get out.”
Dekin tuts. “I came here to make sure you have a place to sleep, and you won’t even let me inside? Geren was right about you.”
“About what?”
“You’re greedy, boy.”
Ark fishes a few stones from his pocket and hands them over. “Here, get out.”
Thankfully, he goes, but the whole thing leaves a bad taste in Ark’s mouth.
A quarter of an hour later, after Ark has taken the coffers inside and is on his way to close the gates, he hears noise coming up the road.
