by Ava Kelly
In only a few moments, the courtyard is entered by some of the higher-ranking soldiers of the garrison, let in by—
“Dekin?”
“I tried stopping him,” Dekin says, but his gaze is hungry instead of apologetic.
Ark cannot believe his own eyes and ears. He’s having another nightmare, surely. He thought Dekin was just minding to his own greed. Two of the burlier riders approach Ark, hovering around, while Geren paces the yard. The other five are trying to open doors to no avail. Not even putting their shoulders into it makes them budge. Ark almost smirks.
“What the hell do you want,” he hisses at Geren.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Geren says with fake innocence. “What everybody wants. A good life.”
“Good lives come from good deeds, not stealing.”
“No, we’re merely taking back what we deserve,” a lieutenant adds from the side.
“You deserve nothing.”
“What do you take us for? Idiots?” Geren grits, earning agreements from the others. “Did you think you could find a treasure and keep it to yourself? Give us little trinkets like we’re your peasants?”
Ark clenches his jaw. He takes a step away, but a heavy hand grabs his shoulder and Ark stops, trying to reassess his route of escape. If he rounds the corner to the left, he can slip through the window there, which he’s sure will close behind him. Probably.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Geren continues. “We’ve been looking for you and your dragon treasure, and Dekin here was kind enough to help us. Surely you must’ve had more than fistfuls in your pockets. I’d hate to think you killed an entire dragon for so little.”
A growl escapes Ark’s throat before he can stop it.
“Flitz is a murderer, eh? The bastard of Baurin whores—”
Ark shouts, elbows the rider holding him, and flicks his knife at Geren. He misses his target, which only serves to annoy Geren more. One of his more zealous lieutenants lands a punch on Ark’s middle, causing his legs to bend under him, and he falls to his knees.
“Can’t even hit me yourself. Afraid you might hurt your hand?” Ark spits, something red already flowing out of the corner of his mouth.
The words fare better than his knife, touching one of Geren’s sore spots, because Geren walks over and kicks Ark in his side. The result is a pain so sharp, it makes his head spin. Ark wraps his arms around his chest, breaths aching and shallow.
“Take what you can find,” Geren orders. “We need a battering ram for the doors.” He bends over Ark. “This is not over. We’ll be back and everything here will be ours. So you better bug off by then, nitwit.”
Shaking, Ark curls on the cold pavement. The loud bang of the gates closing jolts through him, but now he’s sure he’s alone. With great effort, he drags himself toward the door, then inside before collapsing against a column.
“All they care about is riches; just make them forget about me,” Ark whispers, consciousness slipping from his grasp. “Make them forget.”
*
Orsie’s descent is arduous despite the thinning layers of snow. He’s coughing and shivering again by the time he steps onto the road leading into Haumir. Tightening his grip around the threadbare blanket, Orsie pauses in front of the boulder he marked a month ago. He runs his fingers over the grooves, the difference between then and now dire. Another bout of coughs shakes him. Hoarfrost covers the rock and the road, and a sharp chill permeates the air. Winter is coming to the hills and the wind blows stronger here, adding to Orsie’s affliction.
He trudges toward the village where he hopes to find shelter and warmth and something other than old biscuits or apples. Orsie barely makes it to the inn, dizziness stronger with each step. He vaguely remembers collapsing at the entrance, a warm bed, a doctor.
A few days later, the returning fever breaks. Another day after that, he can move on his own, albeit with difficulty given the soreness in his body.
The evening finds Orsie under the glower of Hann, his burly innkeeper, as he stands in the doorway of the room.
“You need to pay if you want to stay here,” he says, and Orsie almost hangs his head.
Instead, he lifts his chin, a lingering cough escaping his lips. “I gave you a gem.” It was his last one, a small piece of onyx.
“Had to give it to the doctor.”
“But I’m still sick,” Orsie mutters, voice hoarse.
Hann narrows his eyes, but then he lets out a long sigh. “Ag’s doctors are wretched,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t let you stay. A paying traveler needs the room.”
Orsie inhales, trying to steady his heartbeat. Where would he go if Hann throws him out? In the doorway, Hann fidgets.
“How many days do you need?” he asks, and when Orsie blinks at him in surprise, adds, “You paid generously before, so I’m willing to make some concessions. How much longer are you staying?”
“Oh.” Orsie’s shoulders slump. “Not long, I just need supplies and I’ll be on my way. Say, did you happen to see a red dragon flying by?”
Hann now raises an eyebrow at him before throwing a thumb over his shoulder. “Some kids kept spinning tall tales about one that flew toward Nok a couple of weeks ago.” He scratches his beard, considering. “Was it real?”
“Yes,” Orsie says. “I need to find it.”
A slow grin makes its way on Hann’s face. “So you’re an adventurer, eh?”
Orsie half shrugs. One could say he is.
“What’s your name, then?” Hann continues. “Have I heard of your deeds?”
Orsie opens his mouth, ready to say Havesskadi, but the name stops in his throat. He isn’t Havesskadi. No, he is small and frail now, more like a hatchling, and although dragons don’t usually reveal their birth names, it is the one that leaves his lips. “I’m Orsie. I’m nobody.”
“But you have tales of quests and faraway places, don’t you?”
It’s all Orsie has, and he nods.
Hann’s grin grows wider as he walks closer, clasps Orsie’s shoulders. “I have a deal, then.”
It turns out Hann’s deal requires Orsie to entertain his ill wife, Lia, with stories. She’s fading, he can see it on her face, so he lingers for a few extra days. Hann appreciates it more than Orsie thought because he fills his backpack with lasting food and even gifts him a thick blanket.
*
The road west out of Haumir meanders between stony hills until it splits, one path climbing north into the mountains, the other along the Ahrissals. From there, it heads toward the sea, lining their most western peak and surrounding its steep slopes from the north. The road south, however, heads to the village of Nok, where it forks in three; east into the Plains, west into Uvalhort, and south into Danv.
Nevmis flew southeast, by what Orsie could gather from the children that saw her. He won’t know until he reaches Nok. He can’t tell if Nevmis is heading down toward the fire lakes, or east to the desert. Either journey would be a long one on Orsie’s human legs, but he has to start somewhere. The emptiness inside him is slowly spreading until he can almost feel it gripping at his limbs. There are moments, clear and raw, where his loss is thick enough to feel like water. It presses against him on all sides, pushes at Orsie to go and find the missing piece of himself. Now.
Nok is eight days away on foot, but despite his hurry, Orsie is slower than he thought he’d be. He rests often, legs sluggish at times. His eyes aren’t helping him at night either, so he’s forced to make camp at early sunset. Well, if a blanket can be called camp. There aren’t even enough trees to provide firewood, so Orsie eats his meager ration and wraps himself in the blanket Hann gifted.
A freezing storm catches Orsie by surprise on the third night, soon after he lays his head down. They happen in late October around these parts, and this one slashes sleet down on him. The cold bits of ice melt soon after hitting his skin, but it doesn’t hurt any less, not under the naked sky. By morning, the sickness has taken hold again. He growls a
t the sky and hits the ground with his trembling fist, his anger doing nothing to hold the wetness in his eyes at bay. But that just serves to scrape his knuckles and add to the soreness of his body. Orsie is again reminded, with stark clarity, of the frailty of his condition, this helplessness that holds him back while his drive to find the anaskett pulls him forward. It tears at him without mercy.
Shaking, feverish, in pain, Orsie can’t continue. With the growing ache in his chest, he turns back toward Haumir.
Chapter Four
A Gentle Whisper
Hann opens his door to him again, feeds him a hot broth near the fire.
“I can work,” Orsie tells him, thankfully without another cough, and Hann eyes him critically for long moments.
“You don’t have to. One of the help left, so his room is free,” he finally says. “You can stay there for more stories.”
Jumping to his feet fast enough to make himself dizzy, Orsie grins. “Thank you.”
Hann mutters under his breath about strange free lodgers but it’s obvious he doesn’t mean it.
That night another scale vanishes from Orsie’s arm, the one on the other shoulder, and he spends the long hours until morning with his face pushed against his pillow. He repeats to himself that it isn’t real until he can almost believe it. In the daylight, he blames his drawn figure on the cough still shaking him.
As winter settles in, Orsie avoids both the workers and the guests. He spends his mornings with Lia, who is enchanted by his tales and not aware of herself enough to repeat them to others. Talking to her, however, doesn’t help the frigid desperation that takes hold of Orsie’s insides. He needs to leave, but now the roads are closed and he won’t make it, not on foot. His third scale goes with the same denial.
At the beginning of December, Lia passes. It darkens the livelihood of the inn, and Orsie finds himself helping where he can. He doesn’t really talk to others, but this time they aren’t very chatty either.
He’s fetching bread for the tavern when a proposition happens again.
“Are you sure you don’t want to?”
Orsie frowns, taking a step back. First the scullery maid, now the baker’s apprentice.
“I’m sure,” he says.
The youth sighs, shuffling his feet. “Your loss.”
He doesn’t ask again, but he keeps stealing glances at Orsie as they load the cart. Orsie doesn’t understand what is so appealing about himself. In fact, nobody has ever been alluring enough to make Orsie want to roll all over them. It’s not in a dragon’s nature. Touch is precious and will be spared only for those who’ve earned it. Orsie is no different. Like his kin, he chooses carefully whom to share his intimacy with, and it certainly doesn’t involve the sort of undertakings the apprentice is suggesting. However, he can’t explain all of this, not right now, so he allows himself to be curious. Perhaps this time, he’ll understand what draws others to such endeavors.
“Why would you want to lie with me?”
The man looks at him with raised eyebrows and waves at Orsie from head to feet. “As you are? Who wouldn’t want to? Actually, if I were you, I’d be wary of being stolen.” His words are somber, like he’s seen it happen before.
“I’ll be vigilant,” Orsie says with a grimace. Like hope, it seems wretchedness springs eternal; the world does need its balance after all.
The apprentice steps back into the store, and Orsie catches his reflection in the small glass windows. He looks like a young human and will continue to do so until twenty-four rising crescents have passed. He is not, however, any sort of enticing. His teeth are dull, his eyes less brilliant than they used to be. He misses his jaws, his wings, his claws. With a headshake at himself, he rounds the cart to push it toward the inn.
December is nearing its end and Orsie’s been feeling more sure on his own two feet. The feverish nights are rarer, the coughs fewer. He’s still weak, can’t travel to the outskirts of the village without needing to pause halfway, but things are looking up. He never expected that losing his anaskett would make him susceptible to human afflictions. He’s seen children run around with the same sickness, coughs and disgustingly clogged noses, even fevers. They all recover much faster than Orsie. Hann pays the doctor for him, but the illness is dismissed as a natural occurrence. He’s waved off with assurances that he’s young and will recover on his own. Orsie’s not so sure. The continuing thrum of pain in his lungs is not a good sign, not when he has a long road ahead.
*
Ark groans, rubbing at the back of his neck. The pain is worse than usual, flashes searing behind his eyes, only to dissipate in smoldering ashes. It feels like his head is burning from the inside, a weight pressing from all sides.
He runs out the door and throws himself onto the snow covering the inner courtyard in a thick white blanket.
Someone laughs and someone else is angry, but Ark is alone, shuddering until numb cold is all that’s left.
The sky darkens and lightens and darkens again. Everything is infected with misery. He crawls toward the source of the pain, fingers barely holding on to tilting stone, sending him stumbling against walls. The stairs are sharp, hot humidity parching his throat in the dead of winter, even with his mouth full of snow. He crawls lower, endlessly too far away, too close. It hurts to go near, but the pain of separation is greater, its whisper scraping at the core of his being.
Ark can’t hold his eyelids open, but he can’t close them either.
From where he’s lying on his side on the cold stone floor, he can see it on its pedestal.
His.
Ark gasps awake, flailing between the sheets. The ache in his head seems to have spread to his shoulders, and Ark stretches them before he climbs out of the bed.
He recognizes one of the staircases in his nightmare, he’s seen it once in his meandering. It’s in the north wing, and Ark grabs a slice of bread from the kitchen table before he hurries into the large hall. Ever since that dreaded day, he hasn’t stepped foot outside, no matter how quiet the castle is. It’s gotten easier every day, especially since the snowfall of mid-December that closed off the narrow road leading to the village. Meanwhile, Ark has been slowly exploring the castle. It’s still fickle, keeping some doors locked, and if there is a dragon here, Ark hasn’t seen it. The dreams, however, are becoming darker, longer. More painful.
The northern door, the only one unadorned in this place, hangs open today, inviting. Something pulls Ark forward, just as another something is holding him back, but perhaps the answer to his headaches is in there and he can find a reason for the nightmares or why the castle chose him.
The north part of the castle stretches long and straight in front of his eyes. The corridor he follows has windows on the left, overlooking the outer courtyard, and empty rooms to the right. It ends in nothing but a wall, so Ark climbs the staircase on his left. On the next floor, the rooms are much the same, their doors open. Ark walks inside one of them and loses himself for a moment in the scenery. Outside the large windows overlooking the forest, the snow sparkles in the midday sunlight, covering the forest in a white glow. Inside his mind, another flash of slumbering fire reminds him of the ache, and Ark forces himself to move on to the next floor. At its end though, right where the other two corridors end in walls, a staircase spirals down. He hasn’t been through there before.
Ark finds a sleeping chamber, walls painted scarlet, with a large bed in the middle, its crimson covers dusty. The drapes are drawn shut, and Ark opens them to let in more light and take a better look around.
A dresser sits against the far wall, the only piece of furniture apart from the bed and its nightstands. On each side of the dresser, there are two doors, partly open, painted in the same color as the walls. If closed, they wouldn’t be obvious. Secret passageways, perhaps?
Ark stands there, heart stuck in his throat, apprehension gripping at his being. For some reason, this feels more monumental than touching it.
He looks at his fingertips.
> He doesn’t remember touching—
“Arkeva?”
“Yes?”
“Come here.”
He steps toward the right, where there are no windows and the corner bathes the door in shadows.
“Come to me, Arkeva.”
“Yes,” he breathes. “I’m coming.”
Something tries to stop him, but he has to go. He has to answer the call.
*
Ark glares at the right side door as he sits on the bed. Another sleepless night. His headache is gone, but this incessant nagging is not helping his mood.
“Would you shut up already,” Ark grits. “If you don’t, I’ll go in there”—he points at the left side one—“and we both know how much you don’t want me to.”
Laughter echoes from the corridor, and Ark shoves the covers aside.
“Fine, see how you like it.”
A shout follows, but Ark resolutely does not listen. Enough is enough. Now he knows there is no dragon in this castle, aside from this wretched thing that taunts Ark like he’s a toy.
The left door opens into another narrow corridor. At its end, a room spreads out, wide and dark, unlike on the other side, where the corridor turns into a staircase descending below the ground. Wary, he walks to the curtains on the left, searching for an opening, and draws them open all the way, revealing tall glass windows. The sky is clear tonight, moonlight abundant as he turns around only to be met with—
Sadness.
So much of it, nearly inconsolable.
He rushes over, desperate to soothe, to comfort, to protect.
*
It happens just before midnight, after his skin has been aching all afternoon. The scale fades with Orsie curled in a ball on his small bed. It’s the end of December, and he’s still in Haumir, at the inn. He’s grateful Hann is letting him stay, even with the sickness in his bones, but he can’t push away the distress. Can’t make his body travel.
Some days, he thinks he won’t ever recover his magic.
