Dragonoak

by Sam Farren

  Atthis cleared his throat and looked away while Kondo-Kana paused to contemplate what was before her, and the Queen nodded to herself, fingers pressed to her lips.

  “That's Gavern,” she murmured, and then looked between Kouris, Atthis and myself, as though searching for the correct way to react. “I didn't think you'd actually do it. This is—this is good.”

  “I hear you're a woman of your word,” Kouris said, stepping forward. She scooped Gavern's head up in a palm and carefully wrapped the strips of cloth back around it. “You've done a lot of good for Canth, but you know that. Twenty-four years I lived in Canth while your father was on the throne, and the country did nothing but tear itself apart. I like to think this here will be helping you as much as it helps us.”

  “Of course,” Queen Nasrin said, quickly coming back to herself. She proved not to be too squeamish to take the head. “Of course. Rowan tells me that you're Queen Kouris, and your companion is none other than King Atthis. Both presumed dead, one more recently than the other. For all the proof I have, you could be the Queen of Myros or my cook's favourite butcher. Regardless, a ship sets sail for Ironash at dawn, weather permitting. I hope to hear favourable reports of Kastelir in the years to come, as I expect you will hear of Canth.”

  Nothing more was said. Queen Nasrin dismissed us with a look, and Atthis and Kouris concluded the meeting with respectful, practised bows. I backed out of the room, watching Queen Nasrin stare down at what remained of Gavern with a curled lip, and closed the door on the price we'd had to pay as though it would help me forget it.

  In the hallway, Varn let her composure slide and congratulated me by way of punching me in the shoulder. Atalanta came over and shook my hand, assuring me that I'd done a terribly good job, really, considering that even Varn hadn't been able to take Gavern down; it was the start of better things for all of Canth, she said.

  But nothing anyone said reached further than my ears. I was already adrift at sea, salt on my skin, wind howling through me, straining to see the land creeping over the horizon; straining to understand what awaited us in my own country, one I'd long since betrayed, and a land razed to ash by dragons and resurrected by those who spread suffering to make saviours of themselves.

  PART II

  CHAPTER X

  The Uncharted Sea was far from uncharted.

  In Canthian, it was known as the Wide Waters, and had been crossed by pirates and traders alike for centuries. It was only within the last forty years that the Felheimish had made an earnest effort to do more than chase pirates away, and though trade routes had been establish in order to better pay off Canth's debt, a new name had yet to stick.

  Still, the Uncharted Sea and the Wide Waters both spoke volumes. Eight weeks stood between us and Felheim. From the deck, all I saw around us was sea and sky, and we only ever seemed to chase the latter away. The captain, a good natured man in his sixties, assured us that he'd followed the stars across the Wide Waters enough times to be able to reach Asar once they burnt out.

  For all but a few scattered days of the journey, we were made to stay beneath deck. The fewer questions asked about us the better. To the crew, we were cargo. Our help wasn't needed because there ought to have been none to give; we were something to be stowed away and forgotten.

  Our cabin was cramped, comprised of nothing but hard, narrow bunks. Kouris was relegated to the floor, and our time was passed staring up at the slither of light that made its way in through the hatch, days slowly but surely cooling off. During storms, the hatch would be sealed shut, turning the air thick and stale, and the bitterwillow hung around the ship to keep sickness at bay did little to console anyone.

  The journey was spent sleeping for the sake of something to do, practising Svargan with Kouris though I had nothing worth saying, and poring over The Sky Beneath The Sun, committing every image to memory, pretending that I could read the words to myself. There was one advantage to the endless journey: I learnt to keep my light within myself.

  I drew it in and let it glow, exhaling as though breathing life into a fire, and could make my fingertips burn without setting my eyes ablaze.

  On the rare occasion we'd be let out – twice a week, at the very most, and always at night – I'd stare at the sky and into the sea, certain that it was all going to slip from our grasp at any moment. Either the Felheimish would find some reason not to let us make port and turn us around, or a storm the ship couldn't survive would head straight for us.

  I almost began to believe that I didn't want to get back to Asar.

  The journey to Canth had caused my stomach to turn, and I'd believed I'd never grow accustomed to the rocking of the waves. There was a different sort of discomfort present, this time. Katja had been given more space and less freedom than us; the brig was hers, and I could feel her through the walls.

  Some days, she'd whine and shriek, demanding to be let go, but for weeks at a time she remained silent. That was the worst of it. I knew when she was awake, when she was sleeping. I knew when she thought of me, for my stomach twisted and clenched.

  It was too late to leave her behind, and I hated myself for not having condemned her to a jail cell for all time, letting the Wide Waters keep us apart.

  The day we reached Asar was like the dozens that had come before it. We were given a breakfast of the same sort of bland, dull food that the sailors themselves were subjected to, forever grumbling about the fresh fruit they were transporting, and I stared up at the ceiling, mulling over all the things I'd yet to say about Felheim and Kastelir. When we first boarded the ship, I'd expected to spend weeks fine-tuning plans, but the moment we'd been shown to the cabin, all desire to talk had drained from everyone.

  I didn't realise we were close to Asar. From what I could tell, we'd either been on the sea for a week or a year, and the only hope I had was of getting to go out on deck soon. But when every sailor on the ship suddenly had work to attend to, boots thudding on the deck, voices raised, we sat up and took notice.

  We glanced between each other as though one of us knew more than the rest, and slowly, the sound of something other than sailors and the sea reached us. I rushed towards the hatch, moving with enough force to make up for the eight weeks I'd spent idle, and stared up at the sky to see birds gliding overhead. They squawked as they circled the port that had to be Ironash, it had to, and I strained to pick out words over the buzz of the town. It wasn't until we were there, inches from the land, that I finally realised I couldn't go back.

  We had to get into Felheim. Even if it meant pushing our way past the sailors, swimming to the shore and outrunning all those that gave chase.

  “Ah, Northwood,” Akela said, clicking her tongue. “It seems that you are getting excited enough for all of us, yes?”

  I followed her gaze and found my fingers sparking with light. Hands balled into fists, I took deep breaths, telling myself that it was going to be alright, it was going to be alright: and it was.

  The captain knelt over the hatch, beckoning us up with a tilt of his head. My feet almost slipped off the rungs, body trembling, and Kouris caught me with a laugh, easing me up into the cool coastal air. It was mid-spring, but after Canth, I found myself shivering in lieu of trembling.

  Kouris stretched out, finally able to return to her full height, and Atthis shook the captain's hand, thanking him for all that he'd done.

  “Just doing as the Queen asks of me,” he said, “You'd best be making your way out of here in a hurry, though. We'll be bringing the, ah. Our other passenger up, just as soon as we're unloaded.”

  I rushed off the boat as though a stray breeze might send us back to Canth, feeling the flagstones under my bare feet. I was home, but that wouldn't sink in until I stumbled across something I recognised. I'd never been to Ironash. It was just another port to me, albeit a port full of so much Mesomium being thrown around that it made my head pound. The air was choked with the sounds I wasn't used to, as though the language was no longer my own.

  “Here we a
re,” Atthis said, trying not to flinch when Akela slapped his back. “One step closer to Kastelir.”

  The four of us stood by the dock, biting back grins, acting as though we hadn't seen each other in months. The strain of the journey caught up with me all at once, and the thought of setting foot on a ship again made me ache to the marrow. I couldn't stop staring up at the sky, taking in how green Felheim was, even within a town. The wind rushed through me and Kouris wrapped a cloak around my shoulders, letting me lean against her.

  All of us had so much we suddenly wanted to say, but we all knew that the moment the words left our mouths, we'd realise what it meant to be four people out of a town of thousands; four people in a kingdom of millions, somehow expected to fix all of this.

  I kept my eyes on the ship, unblinking. I wouldn't let Katja out of my sight for a second. If I could endure the feel of her through the walls for months then I could certainly set eyes on her, and as we waited, I saw what they were unloading.

  Crates of spices and Canthian fruits, kept ripe with strips of bitterwillow. That's what had brought us all the way back. The sort of thing that sold for coppers at market, always flooding our kitchen table.

  “Rowan, if you'd like to go on ahead...” Atthis said, but my eyes were already fixed on Katja.

  I didn't know where we were headed, and I certainly wasn't going to let her see me flee at the sight of her.

  I couldn't comment on Katja's appearance. Being at sea for so long hadn't done any of us any favours, but I knew that warm water wasn't going to wash the look off her face and a change of clothes weren't going to rid her of the tension rippling through her.

  “Uncle,” Katja said, “Kouris, Akela.”

  Everyone stared at her, barely nodding their heads in acknowledgement, and I saw how little there was to her. How she was only one person, barely bigger than I was, and how there was so much more anger within me than there was worth within her.

  “We'll get cleaned up and have something to eat, shall we?” Atthis asked when Katja continued to stare down at the ground. “Reis gave me plenty of gold for the journey.”

  Food was the last thing on my mind with so much to take in around me. It wasn't until I was back in Felheim, in the customs of my old life, that I appreciated how different Canth had been. Felheimish soldiers strolled through the town and no one gave them a second look. I couldn't tell if ships had always scattered the horizon, but all those who made port had their credentials checked by soldiers stationed there.

  Beyond that, there were no signs of the unrest in Kastelir. I could almost convince myself that it hadn't happened; we'd seen the worst of it and ran before the ground could cool off.

  “Food of actual colours! Now, that is sounding amazing,” Akela said, leading the way.

  I spared one last glance towards the ship that had brought us there, frowning at the sailor with his eyes fixed on us.

  We took rooms at the first inn we came across. The lack of pirates lingering in corridors confused me, and I glanced around for a danger that wasn't present, convinced that no one in the town could intimidate me. Dropping my things on my bed and resisting the temptation to do the same with my body, I headed straight for the basin, cleaned myself off, and changed into fresh clothes. The moment I started scrubbing at my face, some of my old self came filtering back, as though I was finally possessing my own bones again.

  We were back in Felheim. I'd got us there, and I wasn't going to wake at any moment and find myself pressed against a hard bunk, corners splintering. I allowed myself to smile, and headed down to dinner with no fear of the company.

  Atthis hadn't been exaggerating when he said Reis had left him with plenty of gold. He'd taken a private room at a restaurant beneath the inn and had ordered what looked to be everything on the menu, plus whatever the cooks could come up with on their feet. I didn't know where to start, where to let my gaze linger. Everything was so colourful, the greens of lettuce clashing with the reds of tomatoes, dark brown meat swimming in darker gravy, all the things we'd forced ourselves to forget on the journey over.

  “This, everything you are seeing on the table, yes, it is making it all worth it,” Akela said, scooping a mountain of potatoes onto her plate before she'd taken a seat, “If I am rewarded with a feast like this, I am happily sailing beyond Canth. Ah! I am thinking I am never seeing another stew in my life, but look. It is the most beautiful thing you're ever seeing, yes?”

  “You were never this excited when I made stew,” Atthis said, cutting the meat and placing slabs the size of roof tiles on my plate.

  “You cannot be blaming me,” Akela said gracefully through a mouthful of food, “You are a much better King than a cook, surely you are realising this.”

  I smiled, took my place next to Kouris, and didn't watch the way Katja leant over her plate, cutting her meat into tiny, even squares.

  “I supposed we'd best be coming up with some sort of plan,” Kouris said, helping herself to the raw meat, “At the rate Akela here is going we're gonna be done with dinner in half an hour.”

  Akela grinned, asparagus hanging from the corner of her mouth, and I grabbed the glass of wine that'd been poured for me so enthusiastically that it almost sloshed into my lap.

  “There's much we have to find out,” Atthis agreed, “The situation in Kastelir, for a start. Where the rebellion is based. How we might cross into the country.”

  Knocking a fist against her chest to force down the chunk of meat she'd torn off with her teeth, Akela demanded everyone's attention and said, “What, you are saying that we are not simply walking into Kastelir and saying, hm, we are not liking what you are doing with the place, and we are taking it back now?”

  “... might actually work if you do it,” Kouris said.

  The room set aside for us wasn't large and we kept our voices down, when speaking of Kastelir. It would've come across as nonsense to anyone eavesdropping, but we were unduly cautious. No one would've recognised us, and in the grand scheme of things, we meant nothing; but we had to find a way to use that to our advantage.

  It wasn't difficult to convince myself that Katja wasn't there, or that she didn't matter. What I felt for Kouris, Akela and Atthis negated any fear or anger I might've lost myself to, and she sat with her shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on the food she wasn't eating. I doubted she heard anything any of us were saying.

  “You know,” I began, and they did know. Our first stop on our journey was obvious, but I hadn't allowed myself to say it out loud until we were back on solid ground. “I was thinking that we could—”

  “What were you thinking?” Katja asked, gaze shooting up. She tilted her head to the side, fingers wrapped around her cutlery. “That we might march into Kastelir and you would find Claire there, waiting for y—”

  Every dish on the table rattled as I brought my fist down against it.

  Even Katja started in her seat. The others had been on the verge of silencing her, but the words rushed back inside them at the sight of me meeting her gaze, teeth grit.

  I wasn't going to listen to her. Wasn't going to let her words twist inside of me, forcing their way into my thoughts, pushing out what little comfort remained to me.

  “I'll kill you,” I said slowly, not understanding how much I meant it until the words crept out of me. “If you say another word to me, or about me – if you ever say her name again – I'll kill you again. And again. And I won't even use my powers to do it.”

  Katja recoiled, awed that I'd had the audacity to say such a thing to her, but it worked. She didn't say anything more to me, couldn't set her eyes on me.

  “Uncle!” she whispered, certain he would do something for her.

  “Quiet, Kouris,” he hissed back, helping himself to another glass of wine.

  I'd scared her. I'd forced her to go back to staring at her plate, lest I catch her eye, but I didn't feel good about it. I hadn't won anything. All I'd done was put myself on her level, spouting threats that terrified me because they hadn't
felt empty. Everything I'd eaten stuck to the bottom of my stomach, caught in my throat, and I wished, more than anything, that she'd never twisted the faith I'd once had in myself.

  “What were you going to say?” Kouris asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

  I glanced away from the knife trembling in my grasp, saw that her eyes were on me, as well as Atthis and Akela's, and took another mouthful of the wine.

  “My father. I want to go see him, and... and I know he'd be happy to have you all stay with us,” I said, drowning out the voice in the back of my head that said I'd been gone for too long, that he'd be angry at me for running away. “It'll be a good place to stop, for a while. To make plans. Our gold isn't going to last forever.”

  “Excellent,” Atthis said, moving to squeeze my hand and then thinking better of it. “You said your village isn't far from here; twenty or so miles from the coast? We could leave here in the morning and be at your house in time for dinner.”

  I smiled, mood shifting into something brighter, doing all I could to claw at the guilt that said I shouldn't have calmed myself so quickly.

  “When I left my village, it was because they'd done all they could to chase me out, without actually chasing me out. Because they were scared. And now, now I'm going back with a pane, a King and Akela,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek. “I don't know what they'll think, but I hope they think Kouris is going to eat them.”

  Laughing, Kouris shredded a steak between her fangs, and said, “I'll give 'em my best grin. Maybe lick my lips a bit.”

  We ate until our stomachs ached, and Akela kept on eating. Katja seemed to wilt in her seat, drawing away from us bit-by-bit, until she was but a ghost, long-since faded from the conversation, from our thoughts. I folded my hands across my stomach, leant back and closed my eyes, and allowed myself to soak in how wonderful having a mattress beneath me would be.