Dragonoak

by Sam Farren

  “Y-yes, Your Majesty,” I managed, intent on remaining truthful. “I thought I might eventually ask a favour, after I'd found some way to help you. It wouldn't be much, I promise. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to speak out of turn.”

  “No, no. Don't stare at the ground like that. I'm not angry. It's somewhat refreshing, actually. I'm used to dealing with simpering fools who waste endless hours on flattery, only to ask for this bit of land, another dozen soldiers, just a little more gold. Rowan, you are a Daughter of Isjin, and I've nothing but respect for you. I've nothing but respect for anyone deserving of it, and so long as you prove yourself worthy, you'll always have a place within my palace. But do you see this and these?” Queen Nasrin paused, picking up stacks of paper in each hand, not waiting for my confirmation. “These are small favours being asked of me from dozens of cities and towns. Small favours add up until I am drowning in them, and my country is already in a state of disrepair. Can you believe that we had golden statues of the gods lining the gardens? I had them melted down, of course, sold them with the frames my family's portraits once hung in, along with the art itself, but that barely goes any way at all to fixing Canth's problems.

  “So you see, I cannot afford to be in your debt, and you're mistaken on one important point: I wasn't the one who invited you here.”

  “... you weren't?” I asked, voice barely rising above the embarrassment I felt.

  “Oh, I sanctioned it, put my seal on the letter and whatnot. I am forever doing that woman favours, I swear, but it wasn't my doing, I'm afraid,” Queen Nasrin said, falling back against the pillows lining the chaise lounge. “Not that I object to you being here. Not in the least. Nobody turns away a necromancer, after all.”

  “Then who invited me here?”

  “Atalanta? Take her to the temple, would you,” Queen Nasrin said, “I wasn't trying to avoid company when I said I was busy, Rowan. I would like to talk to you, regardless of the fact that it wasn't my idea to bring you here. If you'd join me for dinner one evening...”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” I managed, letting Atalanta usher me out of the room.

  Varn followed, taking over from the guard previously stationed there, and leant against the wall, snorting out a laugh. Ignoring her, I hurried after Atalanta, preferring it when my face had burnt white, not red. I'd messed up. I'd let Kouris think I could do this, yet I hadn't managed to hold a single conversation with Queen Nasrin.

  “Here we are,” Atlanta said, stopping in front of yet another plain looking door. “I'll be out here, should you need anything.”

  Beyond caring about anything other than the mistakes I'd just made, I stepped into a temple that wasn't anything like any I'd ever visited before. The small room was dim and windowless, lit only by red candles melting into the floor; it wasn't built to be a temple. If I had to guess, it had likely once been used as a storage closet or pantry.

  Unlike the forgotten temple I'd trekked to, there wasn't anything carved into the walls, no mosaics lining the floor or murals to compliment the candles. I thought the room empty, until I turned and suffered my heart being forced into my throat.

  A great beast stood over me, taller than any pane. Light lapped at its feet, throwing its shadow against the ceiling, and I stepped back, certain it was going to lash out at me, though I soon realised it was only a statue.

  It didn't have wings, but feathers spread from its wrist to its elbow, growing out of its shoulder blades. The face was twisted, sharp teeth jutting over a wide mouth, eyes concealed beneath a blindfold. It had horns, not like a pane or a dragon's; they didn't curve back. Rather, they reminded me of flat-topped anchors, with the ring embedded into the skull.

  The creature wasn't like anything I'd seen before, when I tried taking it in as a whole. But when I leaned close and examined small parts of it, I saw nothing to unsettle me. Its legs were like great trunks with vines creeping around them, and flesh grew from the bark, until all looked smooth and soft, though it was made from stone. It was as though the whole world had been twisted into one magnificent, grotesque form, and I stepped closer, far from afraid. I reached out a hand, and pressed it to the back of the long, spindly fingers. The wax there was still warm, and a sense of calm that hadn't crept near me in weeks took hold of me.

  “Beautiful, isn't she?” a voice asked from behind me.

  I hadn't heard the door open, hadn't heard anyone come in, but I didn't start. Fingers still hooked around the statue's, I turned, met by a flurry of red fabric and eyes I'd seen before; eyes I knew.

  “You're... you're from the temple,” I said, and the woman bowed her head, smiling.

  “In the same way that you are also from the temple,” she said in a low hum. “I was merely visiting the temple, just as you were. I had hoped to find a relic of the past and little more.”

  The woman stepped around me, and though no breeze could make its way into the room and the candles didn't flicker, something rushed through me. It was a quiet, pulsing warmth that helped me to stand a little straighter, made me feel braver than I believed I was.

  Taking the candles cradled in the sleeve of her thin cloak, the woman placed them along the statue's arms, where the previous ones had burnt to the wick, and lit them one by one, using the candle that had yet to die out. She worked around me, humming softly as she went, and though we'd met once before and it couldn't have been a coincidence that we were both there, she made no attempt to explain herself.

  I found that I didn't mind. For the moment, simply being around her was enough; I was content with not understanding what had unfolded. It was as if I was the only one there in the room, though I was aware I wasn't alone.

  “Please, Aejin,” she said softly, drifting away from the statue and sitting on a low bench opposite it. “Sit with me. Talk with me. Tell me your name, if you would.”

  I followed in her example without needing to take in her words. Sat next to her, I stared down at my hands, lest I become lost in her eyes.

  “Rowan,” I eventually said, voice very far away indeed. “My name is Rowan Northwood.”

  “Rowan. Rowan Northwood,” the woman repeated, making the words sound older than they had any right to, than I had any concept of; she murmured my name as though speaking of a ruined city. “It isn't a Myrosi name—oh, but your blood flows from there. Your ancestors must've lost their names, centuries after they lost their Everlasting Kingdom.”

  The woman was talking to herself as much as she was talking to me, reminding herself of something. Her skin was the same colour as mine, and I supposed she knew her own heritage well. Nothing in the way she mused out loud unsettled me.

  “And how old are you, Rowan, Aejin?”

  I didn't ask her why she kept calling me Aejin, though the word meant nothing to me. Not in Mesomium, not in Canthian. Not even in Svargan. Reaching out, the woman covered my hands with hers, causing me to reflexively look up. Once my eyes were on hers, I couldn't look away.

  “Twenty-five,” I whispered, thinking it sounded right.

  “Only twenty-five,” she said, eyes desperately searching my face for something. The light of sorrow covered her face, and she said, “It can be difficult to tell. Harder to guess. We rarely reflect what we have been through, but... you were brand-new, Aejin, when I saw you last. How quickly that has changed.”

  “We?” I asked, voice straining in my throat. “Then you're... ?”

  She placed her fingertips along the line of my jaw, leaning in so close that I saw myself reflected in her eyes; saw that I burnt as her eyes did, trails of white rising from my unsteady gaze.

  “Do you not feel it?” she asked, knowing that I did. “It is... as though I am able to trust myself once more. It is not often that I come across other necromancers, but when I do, it is as though there is music in the world once more. The silence fades, and I am distracted from what the empty ground wordlessly screams. I am glad that you came, Aejin. I am glad that I know you.”

  “Who are you?” I asked, fingers wr
apping around her wrists, skin warmer than the wax had been.

  “I have been many things to many people. I do not remember all of the names I have been blessed with,” she said, smiling distantly. “But my mother, while she was in the world, she called me Kondo-Kana. And this name I cannot forget.”

  CHAPTER VII

  Denial came and did what little it could.

  If the woman in front of me was as old as the Kondo-Kana whispered of in myth, surely I would have felt it. My reasoning soon slipped away from me: Bosma was older than anything else, and nothing resounded through the ground that I didn't feel within the young souls that wandered across its surface.

  Power flowed through her as it now raged within me, on display for all the world to see, and I heard the disquiet of everyone I'd ever met, everyone I'd healed or passed on the street, scream out at me in a voiceless, deafening roar. It wasn't that those people were missing pieces; that wasn't what made them different from me, what stopped them from being able to save themselves. Rather, I was lumbered with one piece too many, and it wasn't until I was sitting in front of this woman, in front of Kondo-Kana, that I understood how that part fit into me.

  I pulled her hand from my face, turning it in my own. Bright skin pressed against dull. I didn't know what to say to her, didn't feel as though I had to say anything. What words could pass my lips that she hadn't heard a hundred times before? I would be nothing but a fading echo of all those that had lived long before Isin rose and fell, before Felheim was conceived of.

  “The statue,” I began, eyes fixed on Kondo-Kana as though she was the sculpture I spoke of. “Who is it? What is it?”

  “It is Isjin,” Kondo-Kana said fondly, taking no delight in my ignorance. She only smiled at the opportunity presented to her, the chance to speak of her creator. “Humans as a whole have the troubling habit of believing that this world was created for them; that the gods shaped Bosma that they might rule over it. Everything should be theirs. The gods are theirs, or so they think. But Isjin, she is not a human god. She is not a phoenix god, or a pane god. She is the god of all things, and all things are of her dream. It was not merely humans she uplifted, did you know?

  “Kanos was a dragon, feeding the sun with his breath. Indos, she was a pane, and Raath, they were a phoenix. But humans, they forget. They make sure they do. They carve statues as they see fit, statues to make themselves comfortable; statues to blind themselves to the beauty of the gods. Isjin looked like this. I think, I hope. It is hard to remember.”

  “Did you... meet her?” I asked, terrified that Kondo-Kana would hear how incredulous I sounded. Looking at the statue and hearing her speak, I realised that I hadn't been searching for a reason to pray, in all the time I'd spent in temples; I'd been seeking out some sort of proof, for I didn't believe Isjin could be anything more than a story.

  “No, Aejin,” she said. “Not even I am that old. But in the greatest temple in all of Myros, there was a statue commissioned by a man who held onto memories of her. I doubt I have done it justice, after all these centuries, yet...”

  “I like it. It's better than anything else I've seen,” I reassured her. “... why do you keep calling me that? What does it mean? You said something like it in the temple—Aejin yaka Aejin.”

  “Aejin yu ka Aejin,” she corrected me. “Necromancer is a heavy word, created by people who are not as we are. Light from my light. It is what we called ourselves, in the Everlasting Kingdom. It is what I would call the sons and daughters and children of Isjin.”

  “Oh, that's...” I liked the sound of it. Eyes drifting closed, I repeated the words over and over in my mind. I wasn't scared of Kondo-Kana, though I thought that perhaps I should be angry with her; she was the one spoken of in legend, the one responsible for the Bloodless Lands, for driving us out of Myros and turning people against necromancers; the one who'd caused us to abandon the gods she so solemnly spoke of.

  And yet...

  “Now, now, Aejin,” she said, “This world is still so new to you. Do not deprive yourself of sleep.”

  Mumbling nonsense, I let my body go slack against her, head in her lap. With her fingers trailing through my hair and a long-forgotten song on her lips, I fell into a sleep as deep as the ocean, dreams keeping their distance from me.

  *

  I awoke to find that Kondo-Kana's cloak had been made into a make-shift pillow for me.

  She was knelt in the corner, placing new candles into the pools of dried wax, and seemed to realise I'd woken before I did. Standing over me, she said, “You are just in time, Rowan. Nasrin wishes for you to join her at dinner.”

  “It's dinner time already?” I said, stretching my arms above my head as I sat up.

  I hadn't expected Queen Nasrin to remember that she'd mentioned inviting me to dinner, let alone go through with it, but I was eager to join her. There wasn't any way my second impression could be worse than my first.

  “It has been dinner time over and over,” Kondo-Kana said, smiling when I stared at her blankly. “You slept for three days, Aejin.”

  “What?”

  The words to tell her how wrong she was rested on the tip of my tongue, but I bit them back. It didn't feel as though she was wrong; had she told me I'd slept for three weeks, I might've believed that too. I was refreshed in a way I hadn't been in months, and I got to my feet, brushing it off. If I needed to sleep for three days, then I needed to sleep for three days. There was no getting around it.

  Picking the cloak up off the bench, Kondo-Kana swathed it around herself and led me to the dining room. It was a far cry from the banquet hall in Isin's castle, and reminded me more of my kitchen back in the farmhouse. A table big enough for six took up most of the floor space, and a single servant was in attendance. She placed the bowls of food in the centre of the table, plates hanging precariously off the edges, and Queen Nasrin, lost in a letter, shooed her away when she tried dishing up the food.

  “Nasrin,” Kondo-Kana said, gliding into the seat opposite her. “You have company.”

  “Rowan. Ah.” With a smile, Queen Nasrin folded the letter in two and beckoned me over. “Do take a seat. Nice to see that you're up and about, finally. I tried to call on you several times, but this one—” She paused to point accusingly at Kondo-Kana with her chopsticks. “—insisted that no one was to wake you. Not even a Queen.”

  Propping her chin up in her palm, Kondo-Kana said, “It is of no concern. I have slept for centuries at a time and always awoken to find Bosma much the same.”

  “Hm,” Queen Nasrin said, raising her brow. “But I am glad you're done with your little nap, Rowan. I believe I may have spoken in haste the first time we met.”

  Queen Nasrin shot Kondo-Kana a side-long glance that wiped away much of the smirk on her face, and I said, “Oh, really... ?”

  The food was no more exciting than the dishes I'd make back at the hut, and Queen Nasrin busied herself with ladling out great spoonfuls of rice, meat and vegetables onto my plate and hers, while Kondo-Kana merely watched it all unfold. I'd no doubt whatsoever that Queen Nasrin would've cooked the food for herself, had she been able to scrape together an extra hour in the day.

  “Really indeed. I'd hate to make any promises before I knew what it was you wanted, though,” Queen Nasrin said, pouring a glass of water for all three of us. “If you'd be so kind as to enlighten me...”

  Kondo-Kana brought her drink to her lips, looking between the two of us as though she'd heard it all before.

  “I'm, um. I'm from Felheim, as you probably figured out from that conversation I had with Varn,” I began, picking my words slowly, knowing this was the last chance I was going to get. “All I'm asking is for a way home. No ship can make it to Felheim, not without your authority, and... and I live with Queen Kouris and King Atthis, so—”

  “No,” Queen Nasrin said, cutting me off. She shook her head, swallowing her food before continuing. “Rowan, you are a necromancer. In your own right, you are worth more than any King or Queen. A
nd that's assuming I believe you. Do you know how many people have come to me, claiming to be royalty or nobility from Kastelir, ever since whatever happened there happened? Do not hide behind people who cannot prove their worth as you can.”

  I put my chopsticks down, not wanting her to see how my hands were trembling, but before I had the chance to correct myself, she said, “... wasn't Queen Kouris killed decades ago? In the war, or some such? Hardly the most believable of stories, Rowan.”

  I chewed slowly on the chunk of pork in my mouth, looking between Queen Nasrin and Kondo-Kana, and couldn't keep my first thought to myself.

  “We're sitting at a table with Kondo-Kana – the Kondo-Kana – and you still doubt what I'm saying?”

  Queen Nasrin took no offence at my observation. With a laugh, she said, “Very well. I concede your point. If Kana sits at my dinner table, then Queen Kouris may well reside with you. In Port Mahon, isn't it? Ah, I know all about Port Mahon. Its problems are much my own, I'm afraid. Why is it, I wonder, that a necromancer such as yourself would go to such lengths to hide their gifts? You ought to have been helping the people, Rowan. Acting as a beacon of hope while their brothers wage petty, destructive war against them. Why would you shirk such responsibility?”

  My face grew warm, hands clammy, and Kondo-Kana clicked her tongue, saying, “Do not be cruel, Nasrin. Let the girl eat in peace.” Her words weren't enough to save me. Queen Nasrin had set down her chopsticks and was waiting patiently for my reply.

  “I used to help people. I used to work as a healer in my village. People would come from miles and miles around to see me, and the village elder would take most of the payment for himself. For the village, he always said. But I didn't mind, because I was helping people. And then one day, one day a boy had died and his parents were sobbing, so I did what I had to. I brought him back to life. After that, no one would talk to me. I wasn't allowed in the village, and I spent months terrified that they were going to march into my house and drag me away, and...