by Ava Kelly
Ever, his instincts tell him.
*
By mid-March and its awaited spring thaw, Orsie has lost six scales—a quarter of his time. Even so, he feels better than he has since Nevmis left him naked and broken on the barren mountaintop. Merchants are already starting to arrive from the east, and Orsie has been asking about their travels. So far, they’re all going to Uvalhort, but one is willing to hire Orsie as a hand on the road until Nok.
“A journey! I wish I could travel.”
Orsie asks why in his mind, but the question is unanswered. It happens often that his thoughts remain unheard, especially when the emotion behind them is weak. So instead, Orsie relays again the excitement that managed to transfer the sense of journey to the whisperer. Sometimes Orsie is successful, other times not so much. The other day, he focused on food, thinking perhaps it might result in some dish particular to a region or kingdom. All the whisperer received was the idea of precious stones. It makes sense that his mind interprets nourishment this way, and it might’ve lead to a real clue if the voice didn’t get muffled every time the whisperer tried to actually name the stones.
“I want to find you,” Orsie mutters, lingering on the thought.
Fear spikes at the back of his head. The whisperer is afraid. Of Orsie? Of being discovered? What is Nevmis doing to this kind soul? If Nevmis is even there, of course. No point to sending back more questions, Orsie knows that by now, so he focuses on reassurance instead. He is strong. With his anaskett back, he’d be able to protect the whisperer; Orsie would keep them safe. He relays these feelings.
“This is really a magic stone.” The words, soft again, swirl with amazement. “Yours.”
Orsie realizes, then, he’s never relayed that clearly. He does so now, with as much force behind the emotion as he can. His. His soul.
“And you’re coming to get it back,” the whisperer concludes. Giddiness follows. “Come faster, then. I can’t leave here, but even if I could, I don’t know where you are. So you need to come to—”
The screech covering the rest of the words is enough to pull a yell out of Orsie before the presence on the other side disappears abruptly. By now, though, he’s sure the whisperer has not stopped talking; it’s only the connection that falls silent. As if something shreds it, then it takes times to recover. The longest Orsie has waited was five days, and each time it returned. He steels himself, forces the desperation off, and goes to tell Hann his goodbyes.
*
This time around, the journey to Nok is without surprises or unwarranted delays. Orsie ventures to the border garrison on Uvalhort’s side and finds that a few soldiers did see a dragon flying by last September. Their recounts put Nevmis’s path east, so Orsie has to brave the Plains. Before they leave him for Uvalhort, the merchant’s men draw him a map, warning him of bandits and hungry perils.
The Plains of Sesgrond is a kingdom of kingdoms. Orsie’s been here before, back when the Plains were divided and warring. Time had laid to rest old grudges and allowed the plainsfolk to work their fields in harmony. The lands are used for farming and cattle, villages sparsely peppering the vast expanses, Sesgrond’s cities few. In between them, long roads wind from fields of grain to patches of woods.
Orsie’s almost at the next village, lying on his blanket under the cloudy sky, hoping it won’t rain yet, when he loses another scale. The whisperer keeps him company, reading stories from a favorite book, and Orsie falls asleep cradled by the gentle presence.
Morning chills him to the bone with pouring rain, but Orsie walks as fast as he can. In his mind, the whisperer is with him, urging him on, and soon Orsie reaches the village where he catches talk of a dragon having passed by toward the east.
The next settlement, a farm out on the northern plains, is too far to reach by nighttime. His cough is back, so Orsie barters with the innkeeper for shelter in exchange for some storytelling. The woman gives in but sends him to the kitchens instead. Orsie wishes he’d never seen how chicken is turned into soup. Even so, cooking is easy, a myriad of short, simple actions that take his mind off the future. He fears the illness returning in full, but a warm meal and a night’s rest have him back on his feet by morning.
He is tired of sickness. The next scale fades somewhere in the vastness of grain fields, and the only thread of reality holding him together is the whisperer.
“Dear one,” he says, “I left the window open, as you like it. The air smells cold, can you feel it?”
Orsie clings to it, to him.
Chapter Five
Solitude
In the past month, Ark has become the generous dragon hunter gracing the valley with his benevolence. The spell affecting everyone continues to confuse Ark. People now seem to recall him, their conversations, his visits, as if they’re somehow allowed to remember this new Ark. This Dragonslayer. After two more unsuccessful attempts to leave the valley, he puts the thought aside for later. Maybe the strength of the magic will lessen in time, maybe depleting the rubies is the key, and for a while, he visits Crinidava quite often, donating rubies to those in need, to the hungry and the cold and the poor. Some lie in order to get gems, others accept with wariness.
Every undeserved demand for rubies darkens his heart, but the relieved smiles keep him doing it. If he were to be honest, he’d admit he does it mostly for his own humanity, something he’s feeling more and more removed from while surrounded by the misleading silence of the castle.
Here, the magic caresses his soul while the accompanying agony eats at his sanity. For a while, the villagers’ grateful faces were the only things breaking the monotony of his long, solitary days.
His actions, however, haven’t been without side effects. Ever since travelers from surrounding places have started pouring in, Ark hasn’t been down to Crinidava. His desire to give is intense, but he has his limits. The fervor of the demands, as if they’re all entitled to the rubies Ark pays for with his sanity, rings too close to Geren and his gruesome avarice. Thus, Ark has stopped, but it has inspired them to do this, instead.
Outside the gates, hooligans holler, asking for rubies. Some of them bang at the wood, others throw stones over the walls.
“Kill them.” The whisper travels through the castle. “Kill them, Arkeva, for us.”
Ark ignores the voice while he prepares a plate for lunch.
“End them all, until only blood and broken bone remains. Please, Arkeva, for us. Protect us.”
“They can’t get in,” Ark mutters, “so shut up.”
“Don’t you want to feel the life drain from their bodies? Don’t you wonder how easy it would be to stab an arrow through their eyeballs?”
Ark huffs as he picks up the plate but finds his bow in his hand instead. “Stop this. Now.”
“Come on, Arkeva, you want to. You want to slice them open, smother them all—”
The air lodges in Ark’s throat, and he struggles against an invisible hold. The constriction moves around his spine, both upward to his head and down his back, making his legs tremble under the weight.
Slaughtered bodies lie around him, blood everywhere, the stench of death stifling in the scorching air.
“Stop!” he screams, then chokes on a sob.
He’s on his knees, dry heaving on the floor of the kitchen until a glass of water appears in front of him. But he pushes it aside before he scrambles to his feet.
He runs and runs until the voice quiets and he can lie his heated forehead against cold stone.
The only place the malice can’t reach him is in the other one’s room, his sad companion. He finds refuge there more often than he steps outside the castle.
*
“Where are you?” Orsie asks again, focusing his thoughts on the feeling of home and his friend.
The whisperer’s place, he needs to know it. Just like the last few times he asked, flashes of distorted images come back, a sense of hurt and fear instead of a location. Orsie sighs. Looks like he’ll have to find his anaskett and his uns
een whisperer by himself.
It’s a man, from what he can tell. Maybe a page or a servant, timorous of his surroundings. Surely, one of Nevmis’s new subjects; there’s no other explanation. Orsie wishes he knew his name, but the same magical barrier is obscuring his identity as well.
With a frown, Orsie continues stirring the stew pots. Claiming to be a cook is working well for him when he needs a place to sleep and supplies for the road. Some recipes are disgusting, and he wrinkles his nose more often than not, but other foods are delicious. Orsie never knew human mouths could taste all these things. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss his dragon form. He’s maybe a week away from Ses, depending on how long he has to stay at this tavern. He wouldn’t have halted at a roadside post station of all places, but an empty belly doesn’t benefit his lingering sickness.
Later, lying in a cot above the stable, he watches the ceiling in the dark room, a sliver of moonlight coming in the small windows. He imagines the view from the whisperer’s large ones, overlooking a snow-covered forest, and a smile forms on his lips. It’s been so long since he’s felt like smiling that the soft laughter forming in his head adds to the comfort. He’s not alone tonight, his mind filled with silly joy, heart pounding in his chest.
His breath quickens, his skin warms, and Orsie squirms against the sheets.
He’s never felt anything similar; is it sickness?
Someone touches him, under his clothes. Not Orsie, but the whisperer, and it turns Orsie’s stomach. He rolls off his cot, falls to his knees on the ground. Wrong, it’s wrong, and he fights against the thoughts, pushing at them until he can breathe.
He curls up against the wall, knees drawn to his chest, head in his hands. Orsie has no claim; he shouldn’t feel this drive to abscond with the whisperer, to shield him from the want of others.
A sound that’s more bark than laugh leaves his lips, and he wipes at his cheeks for a long time. The light falling on the floor moves with the setting of the moon, but Orsie can’t make himself stand. This can’t happen. He doesn’t even know who the whisperer is, yet, Orsie has attached to his kindness.
Dragons are possessive beings when their affinity is welcome. They mate once in their entire life, those of them lucky to find creatures after their own hearts. A dragon’s companion would be just as selfish in keeping their dragon close, keeping them away from the world. It’s what they’d do if devoted to each other—hoard their shared affection.
What is Orsie doing, slipping into this madness that can lead nowhere good? The man has all the right to search for companions wherever he wishes. Orsie’s not there to offer himself. Not even as a voice in the whisperer’s head.
He decides, then, to shut it out. He can’t—he can’t yearn, can’t let this feeling be known. The whisperer deserves to be happy, free of Orsie’s burden.
*
After the incidents outside his gates, Ark shouldn’t be surprised at a visit from the highest-ranking magistrate in Crinidava. Dieri is a small man with a mousy face and eternally wiggling fingers, but he has a reputation of fairness. Many appreciate him, although he does have a tendency of trying to bend circumstances to his favor. It usually results in better lives for the villagers, like that time when Geren lost a bet to him and the entire garrison had to help cut down old trees. Ark doesn’t dislike him, not really, but neither is he inspired to trust the man.
Dieri leaves his group of horses and aides outside the gates and has no problem sitting on the cold stone of the courtyard while he gives Ark the village’s deepest apologies. He treats Ark like offended royalty and lays out the three days of celebration Crinidava will hold in his honor, should he be willing to open his gates.
Ark refuses, and Dieri is more than upset, but an annoyingly long back-and-forth later, it is decided that one night of celebration can be held in tents outside the gates. Afterward, Ark is convinced that the Danvian capacity to feel offended would make for a great contender to the fickle nature of dragons. He snorts at himself, willing to admit the same fault, but the magistrates are being ridiculous with the length to which they need to go to prove the village is not at fault. Thus, there would be no need for Ark to move away and take his rubies with him, though that last part goes unsaid.
Ark would be lying if he said he didn’t bask in the attention. All these people coming and going with gifts and honors drown out the malice and the sadness. He almost forgets it, out here under the clear night sky, between food and sweets, good wine and cheery music.
He’s drawn among the dancers by a young woman with green eyes and dark hair. Her soft touch accompanies her bright smile under the flickering light of the torches, and for a while, he forgets. He sets aside all thoughts of magic, of rubies and yearning. He stops thinking of anything other than how she’d feel, caressed by his crimson sheets.
Next he knows, he’s falling in his bed with her in his arms, laughter loud in the room. Her mirth shines through the kisses, skin warm under his hands as he pushes cloth aside to reveal more and more. He leans back, kneeling on the bed to look at her, and Ark’s about to ask for her name when she points to the side.
“What’s in there?”
The left side door is open. Has been, all this time, a cool breeze sweeping through, along with…along with… Ark stills, jaw trembling under the weight of so much anguish. He’s rarely felt anything coming from his sad companion while outside the room. Only at times of heightened emotion does he catch feelings and sensations traveling through the narrow corridor on low gusts of air.
This is stronger than any other occurrence. Worse. His palms feel dirty where they’ve touched her. He recoils, scrambles off the bed gracelessly, but it’s too late.
Something snaps shut, almost audible, and Ark’s stomach turns. No, this isn’t happening.
“Arkeva,” the malice sings over hateful cackles. “It’s her fault, hers alone. Take her apart, show us her nice warm blood. Maybe he’ll forgive you then.”
“Get out,” Ark grits at the woman.
“But—”
“Out!”
His yell startles her into running, and Ark trusts the castle to guide her out. He stumbles into the dark left side room, kneels.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Please forgive me.”
There’s no answer. Nothing, not even a wisp of presence.
Ark’s jaw clenches as his eyes sting. This is all Dieri’s fault, and he lets anger fill him, just to have something to cling to, anything other than empty silence. He walks outside, not far behind the scared woman, and finds the music gone, eyes watching him warily.
“Be gone and don’t return,” he tells them, right before he wills the gates closed.
The subsequent bang reverberates through the courtyard, and Ark collapses against the wood. He feels too little and too much at the same time, unable to untangle his thoughts from one another.
Dawn finds him still there, resting his forehead on his bent knees.
He wants nothing else to do with the outside world.
A tickle at his ankle finally makes him unwind enough to look. Red ivy stretches everywhere. The vines, grown thick and sturdy, cover the walls and the castle. Leaves sway softly in the wind, mesmerizing, like drops of water, carrying his pain and guilt toward the sky. His eyes sting and overflow.
Ark cries.
The malice laughs, basking in Ark’s misery, drinking his hot tears, night after night.
The other, his cherished one, remains silent.
Gone.
*
A warm May wind blows from the south when Orsie reaches Ses. Sister to Grond, the settlement is so large, it takes an hour to travel from one end to the other on foot. But that means there are many places willing to hire a sickly man. Orsie counts himself lucky to find work at another tavern, especially since quite a few soldiers come by to spend their wages on cheap ale. If anyone knows the gossip of a city, it’s the garrison soldiers, who are often sent high and low, from the palace to the slums, for various tasks and mi
ssions. So far, he hasn’t found anyone who remembers a dragon passing by lately.
Orsie’s days blend one into the other for a little while, the summer progressing steadily toward stifling heat. His next scale goes earlier than expected, the months of mortals no longer neatly aligned with the cycles of rising crescents. It throws Orsie off balance, so he chooses to extend his stay. A small reprieve, a chance to put aside some slivers of gems so he won’t need to stop for work as often during his next journey.
He doesn’t realize how much time has gone until he overhears some customers talking about the new moon passing, about tonight marking another returning crescent. Half of June is already behind him, and Orsie has wasted another scale.
He shares the room above the tavern with the other servant, so he doesn’t return there after the last customer has left. Instead, he walks the narrow streets until he’s in the small square a few houses over, the one where a long bench rounds an ugly statue. But the stone pavement and the silence remind him of his lost home under the darkness of night, so Orsie sits on the bench, clutching at his arm. The skin there has been itching all evening.
He waits for the ache.
Waits with his chest heavier than ever, and he misses it so much.
His dragonsoul.
He knows it’s weakness that drives him, but he needs to know it’s safe. He closes his eyes, opens his mind.
Surprise greets him, and glee, and then a sob that flips Orsie’s stomach. There’s regret, sorrow, a deep-seated misery streaked with painful loneliness. And above all, there’s gratitude, that Orsie’s still here, that he’s alive.
That he’s back.
The thoughts of the whisperer run around in his head, chasing themselves between guilt and promises Orsie can’t hear but understands. He tries, oh how he tries to reassure him. Yet the tumult of the whisperer’s relief and desperation is too strong. For hours, all Orsie can do is respond to the only four words that make any sense as they come to him over and over again.
