Dragonoak

by Sam Farren

  “And we don't even have to deal with my village,” I said, jerking my thumb towards the valley.

  Good riddance to them, I'd decided. I hoped they'd moved on and found themselves a home free of the stigma a necromancer brought with it.

  Atthis laughed and shook his head at the same time, and leaving the stew in Akela's hands, my father poked his head into the hallway to greet the last of our guests. Atthis and my father nodded their heads politely towards one another, and both paused in the same moment, staring at each other, curious, searching.

  “... Atlas?” Atthis tried, a little hesitant, but my father's eyes lit up, and he rushed forward, clasping his hand.

  “Atthis!” he said. “This really has been a most remarkable day.”

  “I had assumed Northwood to be a common Felheimish name, so I'd never thought... gods, man. How have you been?”

  “Well,” my father said, and Akela stepped out of the kitchen at the good-natured commotion. “I hardly have the makings of a King, but home is home.”

  They were still shaking one another's hands, caught up in something I didn't understand, and when Akela caught my eye, I could only shrug.

  “Um,” she said loudly. “What is happening here?”

  “Atthis here, he's an... not exactly an old friend, but certainly an acquaintance,” my father said, and Atthis nodded his head in enthusiastic agreement. “What has it been—thirty-five years? Back when I was a soldier, I was stationed along the wall, close to what was the southernmost territory. We were keeping watch, more than anything else. Sometimes we shared supplies with the southern soldiers.”

  “I wasn't always a leader,” Atthis clarified. “My mother made sure I served as the other soldiers did.”

  And there I was, thinking the fact that I'd travelled halfway across the world with a King was remarkable, when my father had met him decades before. Deciding it was delightfully absurd, Akela slapped a hand against the door frame and chuckled to herself.

  “Northwoods, if this continues, then tomorrow we are finding out that you are cousins with the King of Felheim, yes, and we are sorting this all out over tea,” she said, and headed back into the kitchen.

  Atthis and my father belatedly remembered to stop shaking hands, and I tugged on my father's sleeve, saying, “How come you never told me that you knew a King before he was a King?”

  “Do you think Michael would have ever shut up about it?” he asked. “By the time he was thirteen he would've been telling the tale as though it was something that happened to him.”

  I bit back a smile, nudging him with my shoulder.

  The four of us sat down to dinner, joined by Kouris before Akela was finished boasting about the stew she felt solely responsible for. With Katja out of sight and mostly out of mind, I sat amongst the people I cared about most, and knew that even if we couldn't save Kastelir, our journey hadn't been wasted.

  CHAPTER XI

  Akela took it upon herself to sort out the sleeping arrangements. Atthis was given Michael's room, Kouris was content to curl up on my floor, and Akela claimed the sofa for herself. Katja, now held in one of the houses I'd spent most of my life passing, was never left alone for more than an hour. If she was subdued, I didn't want to hear about it. All I knew was that either Atthis, Kouris or Akela would head out, the three of them running on some sort of schedule.

  For five days, we acted as though my father's house was the end of our journey. I helped patch the stable roofs over, Kouris took to tending to the chickens, while Akela and my father fussed over who was going to prepare the next meal. They'd taken to attempting to improve Atthis' culinary skills, efforts which had yielded a cake that would've almost been passable, had we not all been familiar with Akela's baking.

  I slept in my old bed, in my old room, and my house was full of more life than it ever had been.

  I was surrounded by people who wanted me around, yet I found myself drifting out into the fields, where the sheep no longer were. We didn't know where we were going, what we ought to do. The only help my father could offer was in letting us know he'd at least heard of a rebellion in Kastelir, when he headed to Birchbridge every other week, and simply strolling into Kastelir without a destination in mind was of no use to us.

  But what did it matter how many days we spent there? We'd been gone for months on end. We weren't going to change anything.

  Kouris came to me, bringing lunch with her, and I laid the food out on a tree stump I used to watch the lambs from.

  “Anything you want to get off your chest, yrval?” she asked, sprawling in the long grass. “Not exactly hard to miss when something's ticking away inside that head of yours.”

  With a shrug that she couldn't see, I propped my chin on my knees.

  “We're not exactly going anywhere in a hurry, are we?” I said. “We were barely off the ship a day before we got here, and now we're staying still again. I just thought, maybe... maybe we could do something else. Go somewhere else. It wouldn't take long to get to Praxis, would it?”

  “Praxis? What's in Praxis?”

  “I don't know,” I replied honestly.

  “Well, that settles it then. Let's be off.”

  Scowling, I reached a hand beneath my collar and tugged the chain from beneath my shirt. The key dangled beneath my fist as I held it above Kouris' forehead, causing her to push herself up onto her elbows.

  “Ah,” she said, understanding. “Claire's key.”

  Hiding it back against my chest, I fixed my eyes on the village, waiting for one of the doors to open. Waiting to see Katja strolling through the streets.

  “She locked some things away, before we met you. Things she said were too important for her to leave behind. I know we're supposed to be going to Kastelir and I know this is out of the way, but...”

  “But they were her things,” Kouris said, when the words didn't come to me. I hummed flatly, and she said, “We'll go, yrval. Won't be taking us too long at all.”

  I didn't head back down to the farmhouse with Kouris. I stayed in the empty fields as night fell, not wondering what was in the bags Claire had locked away, but wondering why I thought any of it should matter. They were relics from a time I hadn't known her, the things she'd gathered before she'd know me. And she'd only known me for months, I thought bitterly. It wouldn't make any difference. It wouldn't matter.

  I tore handfuls of grass out by its root, telling myself that it'd almost been two years. It shouldn't matter, shouldn't weigh on my mind as it did. The chain around my neck grew hot with anger, seeming to burn into my skin for all the spite I tried turning against myself.

  I curled up on the floor with Kouris that night. She was already sleeping by the time I tip-toed up the stairs, and only stirred enough to wrap an arm around me and pull me against her chest. In the morning, she seemed surprised to see me, half-convinced she'd dreamt me curling up against her.

  “Off again already?” my father asked as we packed the food he'd insisted on making us. He hadn't asked us where we were going, whether we thought it was a good idea, and despite the fact that no permanence had been assigned to our current arrangements, all of us acted in a way that almost implied it.

  “We'll barely be gone for more than a few days,” I reassured him. “Kouris runs quicker than any horse, and we're only going to pick something up.”

  I hugged him goodbye and Kouris couldn't resist doing the same. On the way out of the house, we walked into Atthis, back from whatever building Katja was stowed away in. At the very least, Kouris had let him know that we were leaving, and he smiled warmly, saying, “Best of luck, both of you. It'll be a good chance to scout, as well. See what you can learn from the rest of Felheim.”

  For hours, there was nothing worth reporting on. I held Kouris' shoulders loosely as we went, searching for a sign that Felheim had changed, but the only difference resided within me; I wasn't terrified of pane at every turn, this time. We passed Eaglestone and it stood strong, far smaller than I remembered it being, and
along the road, we met nothing more interesting than merchants and travellers who went out of their way to give us a wide-berth.

  We might've had more luck, had we stopped in a town and eavesdropped on the locals, but we took lunch in the shade of an oak tree, both eating in silence. Going to Praxis was, in retrospect, not the best idea. They weren't my things; I had no right to them. I would've asked Kouris to turn back, had I known some way to force the words from my mind and out of my mouth.

  Halfway to Praxis, I'd long since grown tired of green hills, green fields, green trees, and green shrubs creeping onto the dirt path, and Kouris slowing was the only thing that caught my attention. Running alongside the towering wall that divided Felheim and Kastelir was the fastest way to the city, and we'd kept enough distance for the soldiers that milled along the top to pay us no heed, pane and humans indiscernible from a distance, but what Kouris had seen was, apparently, unmissable.

  Her eyes were far better than mine; it took a handful of seconds, and my curiosity was more than sated.

  Part of the wall had been knocked clean through.

  The gap split the wall down to its very foundations, debris scattered as far out as we were. I knew too well that only one thing could cause such destruction, and raising her shoulders, Kouris charged on, not wanting to linger. There was no getting into Kastelir from there. Dozens of workers had been brought in to repair it as quickly as they possibly could, and they were watched over by no fewer than a dozen soldiers.

  “They're losing control of the dragons,” Kouris murmured as the gap in the wall was lost behind us. “Maybe it's worse than all this is making it seem.”

  They were still using the dragons. Kastelir could've turned to ash within weeks, but after all this time, they continued to find uses for them. Whatever this was, it was far from over, and Kastelir needed us – needed me – more than ever. My powers had grown, there was no doubting that, and I wondered how many dragons I could take down before my mind caved in on itself.

  I wondered how much of that would be thanks to Katja.

  Distracted by the wall, I didn't think to look out for Praxis. I'd fixed my eyes fast upon it, scanning for more gaps, but we didn't pass so much as a crack. Soldiers continued to stroll across the top well into the night, what had once been an easy patrol leaving them all on edge, and when morning came, Praxis was suddenly before me.

  I slipped down from Kouris' back, taking the lead. Praxis was no smaller than I remembered it being, but nothing gleamed as it once had. I scowled up at the statues of King Garland and Queen Aren, half-tempted to climb up on their pedestals and let the truth rattle out of me, but I hadn't been able to bring myself to say anything to Kouris in hours.

  There were thoughts in my head, but they were few and hollow. Certainly not worth saying out loud. I listened as we went, scraping together any clues I could, and Kouris' ears perked up, only to droop. Like me, she heard nothing of worth. To hear the citizens of Praxis speak was to believe that nothing worse than a late lunch order had ever unfolded.

  The last time I'd been there, the buildings had all looked the same and I'd followed Claire blindly. Nearly two years on, the buildings all looked the same, and I was trying to find my own way. Having Kouris with me meant that the crowds parted for us, but that was of no use to me when every building I peered into was offering the exact thing I didn't need.

  “Maybe here?” Kouris asked, squinting at the sign above the door.

  It was the right sort of establishment, but I didn't have a key to any of its safes. Frustration made the next hour stretch out into the rest of the day, until finally, we found the right building, not far from where we'd started. I'd spent minutes of my life in there, but the familiarity managed to twist at me, and I worried I wouldn't be able to speak up.

  “Good morning. How might we... w-we...” The man behind the counter started off strong, words deserting him at the sight of Kouris. “How might I be of assistance?”

  If nothing else, he had no intention of dragging things out.

  Nails catching on the clasp, I unhooked the chain from around my neck, and let the key slide onto the counter. Forcing a smile, the man took the key and opened a book larger than any of the ones Reis kept around, searching for the corresponding safe. His finger drifted across the pages as he found himself flicking further and further back, until he found what he was looking for.

  “Ah, yes. Only a few weeks left on this one,” he muttered for his own benefit, folding the book shut and heading into the back. A few guards strolled into view, no doubt wanting to see the pane who'd wandered in, but none of them took a step towards us.

  I glanced at Kouris, nervous, afraid the man would change his mind – we couldn't collect the things, we were already too late – but in a matter of minutes, he was placing the bags on the counter and thanking me for my patronage.

  I drummed my fingers on the edge of the counter, eyes anywhere but the bags. All at once, I realised that getting them back meant letting go of the key, and though I wanted to blurt out that I'd changed my mind, I needed it back, all I could do was dig my nails into the varnished wood.

  I needed it back. I couldn't say why. There was nothing more for it to unlock, but the chain felt useless in my grasp, drained of whatever power it had once possessed. I needed it back and my fingers were starting to glow.

  “I'll be needing to use that safe,” Kouris said, hand on my shoulder, grounding me. “That exact one, if it's all the same to you.”

  I looked down, shoving my hands under the counter.

  “... certainly. And what might you like to store?”

  Kouris hummed thoughtfully, slung her bag off her shoulder, and dropped it down on the counter. The man working there raised an eyebrow, but he wasn't about to question a pane, and he certainly wasn't going to argue with the handful of coins she dropped down next to it.

  The bag was taken, the key put in its place. Hands no longer glowing, I snatched it off the surface, metal edges digging into my fingers as I shakily threaded the chain back through it. No sooner was it back around my neck than I was out of there, bags bundled in my arms, walking, and then running, to the gates leading out of Praxis.

  Kouris took wide strides to keep up with me, and once we were clear of the city, detouring from the busy road frequented by merchants, I leant against a tree and tumbled towards the ground.

  “I'm sorry,” I said miserably, clutching the key. The bags laid in front of me, forgotten. “It's just a key. I shouldn't—it shouldn't matter.”

  “Aye. But it does,” Kouris said, sitting front of me. Legs crossed, she reached under her leathers, and produced a scuffed silver coin between her claws. She held it out and I cupped my hands together, carefully taking it from her, staring down at the tiger embossed on the scarred metal. “This is just a coin. Still, it was the first one minted with that sigil on it, and Kidira put it in my hand herself.

  “Things mean something, yrval, because people mean something.”

  I closed my hand tight around the coin and passed it back to her. She carefully placed it back within her inner pocket, pressing a hand to her chest to ensure it was safely stowed away.

  “But you were with Queen Kidira for years. You were married. I knew Claire for months, and... and it's been two years. It should stop. I should stop...”

  The words were hot on my tongue. It was too much to try saying after holding my silence for the better part of a day.

  “Six years I was with Kidira. Twenty-seven years I was in Canth. Should be long enough to forget about a person, aye?”

  I couldn't answer that. I couldn't imagine how any stretch of time could wear away the impact of someone who'd been so real to me.

  “For a while, it only ever got worse and worse. Some days were rougher than others; some days I saw her face, whether I closed my eyes or kept 'em open,” she went on to say. “It became a constant. Now, I'm not saying I became used to it. It was as raw to me after ten years as it was after ten days, but I'd reac
hed a limit. Accepted she was gone, that I'd never see her again.

  “I thought that'd be it. I'd be done with my suffering and I'd move on. But one day, just like that, I realised that us being apart wasn't a hard lesson I had to learn. There wasn't gonna be an end to it. I missed her then and I miss her now, and there's no getting away from that. No softening it. A lot's changed, and I know she was lost to me decades ago, but I won't ever love anyone else the way I loved her. Time's got nothing to do with it, yrval.”

  I looked away, swallowing the lump in my throat.

  “You shouldn't have left,” I said without a hint of judgement, an ounce of blame.

  I shouldn't have left. I shouldn't have run. Claire shouldn't have gone deeper into Isin.

  She should've run.

  “Wish to the gods I hadn't,” she murmured. “But dying... that does something to you, yrval. I'm grateful for what Iseul did, I really am, but something changed in me.”

  Eyes on the ground, I nodded my head. She was right. Something changed, or something was pulled loose, misplaced; it was hard to move on from that moment.

  What Kouris said had been grim – I wouldn't forget Claire, and I couldn't force myself to stop missing her – but I felt better, in a dull sort of way. If nothing else had come of our conversation, my feelings had been validated.

  I gathered up the bags I'd so carelessly discarded, slinging them over my shoulders and climbing on Kouris' back, ready to travel back in silence.

  As Kouris' feet pounded against the ground, I reminded myself that it hadn't been a wasted journey. We might not have found out as much as Atthis had hoped, but we now knew that Felheim had lost control of at least one dragon; it'd crashed through the wall, and recently, at that. From the hurry they were in to patch it back up, I'd no doubt that there were plenty within Kastelir ready to fight, ready to spill in through the gap.

  I kept my eyes on the wall as we rushed past. We were at the shattered length of the wall sooner than I'd expected us to be, and work hadn't ceased. The more sizeable chunks of debris were in the process of being pulled away, and the workers were further from the wall than they had been. Soldiers on horseback were watching over them, and Kouris sped up at the sight of them without resorting to a full-out sprint.