by Sam Farren
That I had to leave.
It was ten o'clock when I stood at the tower doors. Sen would've come and gone with dinner by now, and Claire would be up in her room. Not sleeping. Reading, maybe. However she passed the long hours when work no longer consumed her. Expecting resistance, I tried the handle and the door swung open easily.
I ducked my head in and found Claire sat behind her desk. One temple was rested against her palm as she scrawled furiously across a map, murmuring something under her breath. She didn't hear me when I closed the door behind myself, and I look slow steps towards her, wondering why her head kept slipping from the heel of her palm.
“Claire... ?”
Her head snapped up, and instead of belatedly realising that she ought to have been paying attention to her surroundings, she narrowed her gaze and pulled her eye patch up. It became caught in her hair and she shook it off her fingers once it was free, leaning back in her seat and blinking up at me as though I couldn't possibly be there.
“I, ah. My leg, my leg was hurting...” Claire said slowly, clearly, answering a question only she'd heard. “It was hurting, so I—well. It doesn't hurt anymore.”
She placed her quill down too hard and it slid off the table. A second after it hit the floor she scrunched up her face, moved as though to lean to the side, and I darted forward to pick it up for her. I placed it by the inkwell and she watched me intently, then abruptly turned her head, a hundred miles away from me.
“Are you alright, Claire?” I asked softly, kneeling at her side.
Claire turned away, exhaling heavily through her nose.
“Am I alright...” she mumbled, bringing up what remained of her right hand, pressing a finger to her cheek. “Am I...”
I wasn't oblivious to what was happening. I could smell spirits in the air and on her breath, and Claire's leg – the injured one – was trembling beneath the desk.
“Shall I get Sen?” I asked, completely at a loss for what to do.
Claire murmured something about hummingbirds, and her head tilted forwards.
I backed out of the tower slowly, but once I was outside, I set off at a sprint. The pane district wasn't easy to miss; the cabins were at least twice as big as any others in Orinhal, and the humans were in the habit of ensuring newcomers knew where not to go. I rushed from cabin to cabin, glanced at the sigils, and pounded on the door with a hummingbird hanging above it.
Akela answered, not Sen.
“Northwood! I am not expecting you, not at this hour. Come in, come in. We are drinking tea! You are knowing that Sen has many birds, yes, because I—”
“Sorry, I need to talk to...” Sen poked her head out of the kitchen and I caught her eye, saying, “Sen, can you come with me? Please.”
I didn't have to ask twice. Sen pushed past Akela, and set off at a pace I couldn't match. Akela looked at me, puzzled, and I shrugged, as though it was nothing.
“Well. I suppose I am keeping an eye on the birds,” Akela said, waving as I rushed after Sen.
By the time I reached the tower, Sen was already knelt by Claire's side. Claire was slouching with her elbow against the arm of her chair, face buried in her hand, muffling her words. Sen was endlessly patient but nothing short of pained to see Claire like that, and I hovered in the doorway, watching as Sen hooked her fingers around Claire's arm and Claire batted her away.
“Marshal, please. Y-you should get to bed,” Sen said gently, and Claire turned to her, teeth bared, looking as though she might snap at her, or worse.
All of that anger drained from her the moment she met Sen's eyes, and I swallowed a lump in my throat as Claire too did. Reaching out, she wrapped her fingers around Sen's horn, not objecting when Sen put an arm around her waist and helped her to her feet.
“Oh, Sen...” Claire said softly, resting her head against her chest. “One day you shall leave me too, shan't you?”
“D-don't talk like that Marshal,” Sen replied, leading her towards the stairs. “You'll feel better once you've slept, I'm sure...”
Sen glanced over at me from the foot of the stairs, and tried to smile.
I closed the door behind me, knowing I'd only be in the way. Claire had Sen, the farm didn't need me and Ghost didn't want me around; perhaps I'd be better off in Kyrindval, with the pane and my brother.
I crawled back into bed, nails diug into the back of my wrist beneath the covers, and when sleep came to me, it came in uneven, jittery spurts. A restless hour of sleep felt like a day's worth of dreaming, until I attempted to get up, causing exhaustion to reclaim me. The sun rose and still I didn't move. The thought of Kouris arriving soon was the only thing keeping me afloat, and even that one glimmer of hope turned sour whenever it occurred to me that she should've arrived already, that she should've made it to Orinhal yesterday or the day before.
I wasted the day away, not wanting to see anyone, not wanting to do anything. Akela offered me lunch and I did nothing but grunt, and the next time she came into the room, long hours later, I rolled onto my side, back to her.
“I am understanding that this is not a good day, yes, but you are wanting to get out of bed now, little Northwood. Kouris, she is arriving!” Akela declared.
I bolted upright, apathy rushing out of me before I had the chance to be sceptical.
“What? Really?” I asked regardless, and Akela grinned.
“I am speaking to her by the gate! Hah, she is not believing how we are getting here. Her face, hopefully she is still making it for you to see. Go, go! I am thinking you are missing her, yes?”
I didn't have to be told twice. It was harder to be afraid when Kouris was with me, and surely she'd have room for me in a cabin of her own, out in the pane district. I rushed through Orinhal, regretting having declined Akela's offer of lunch, but not about to waste any time searching for anything in the kitchen. It wasn't hard to find her. She'd headed into the centre of town, rising above the masses milling around the tower, and my heart pounded in my chest at the sight of her.
I couldn't stop grinning. It didn't matter that someone murmured necromancer as I pushed past them.
“Kouris!” I called out, giving her fair warning before I crashed into her.
I hit her chest, and before I could wrap my arms around her, her hands were on my shoulders, easing me back.
Kouris stared down at me, eyes blazing, as though more than a handful of days had come between us. Everything I'd had to say went quiet, and her gaze burrowed into me as though I understood what was roiling through her mind.
“What did you do?” she asked accusingly, desperately.
“What did I... what do you mean?”
“The dragon, yrval. Akela told me what you did to it.”
She'd leant in close to hiss her words out in a whisper, and they grazed across my skin. Carefully knocking her hands back, I stepped away from her, arms around myself.
“I-I helped him. He'd been killed, and I wanted to give him another chance to—”
“How? How could you do that?” Kouris asked, anger simmering into hurt. “This has all happened before. Fifteen hundred years ago. I shouldn't have to be telling you that, yrval. You know what they did, how that hurt the pane.”
I opened my mouth but no sound came out. Of course I knew the stories of necromancers raising pane and dragons for their armies – Kondo-Kana had told me as much herself – but this wasn't like that. I'd wanted to help Oak, not hurt others. I'd given him back the life stolen from him and patched him up as best I could; never had I thought to use him.
“It's not like that...” I managed.
“Not like that? Yrval, what are people going to be thinking if they see that dragon? Do you really think that the humans weren't blaming the pane for what happened, when the dragons first came down? Do you really think they're not gonna use this as some kinda proof, that things aren't gonna get worse for us?”
In all the time I'd known her, Kouris had never thought any different of me because of my necromancy, and yet there
she was, so wholly disappointed in me that she may as well have taken her claws to my chest and cracked my ribs open. I hadn't planned any of this, hadn't wanted to cause any more problems for the pane; it'd just happened, and she had to understand that.
“Kouris! I was only helping him. You should've seen him. He was a fhord, but he was so, so young, and they'd put a spear in his side. I didn't know what else to do.”
“You should've left him there,” Kouris growled, voice rising. "Let him rest with some dignity."
People were starting to pay attention to us, and not purely because of what we were. A gap formed in the crowd. The people were intent on giving a pane her space, but it wasn't hard to tell that we were arguing about something worth listening in on. The braver of them edged closer while others stared plainly at us, and all I wanted was to be gone, far from here and back in Canth.
“I couldn't. I wasn't thinking, I—”
“You have to be thinking with power like that,” Kouris said in a low rumble, and the devastation I felt at being confronted by her faded to anger in less than a second. She didn't care who heard us. She was so wrapped up in what I'd done that she was acting as though we were still in Mahon, as though she could say anything around anyone. “I'd thought you'd know better than this. I thought you'd know how this would hurt the pane.”
I couldn't comprehend why she was saying these things to me. What did she want of me? Did she expect me to find Oak and return him fully to death once more? The only thing clear to me was that all the time we'd known one another, all the months we'd lived to together, added up to nothing; she couldn't overlook this single thing.
“How I've hurt the pane?” I snapped at her, hands balled into fists. I was more upset than I was afraid, and couldn't think clearly enough to measure my words. “What about you, Kouris? You killed. You gave the whole of Asar all the proof they needed to turn against the pane! You're not... you're not even one of them, not really. You live and work and sleep with humans. You don't look after the dragons, and you don't get to tell me that I've done something wrong.”
It was too much. Even as I spoke the words, I knew they were too much; that I couldn't take them back. Kouris' eyes went wide and her face paled, but it wasn't me she was looking at. The tower doors were open, and Claire had stepped out to see what the growing turmoil was about. Ash followed her out and Sen stood behind them, holding the door open.
“Oh, yrval...” she murmured, not taking her eyes off Claire as her ears fell.
She reached for me, only now willing to offer me comfort, finally realising that I'd needed her more than ever these past few days. I flinched at her touch, causing her to draw her hand back.
“Leave,” I said bluntly, and the worst thing was that she did.
I set off in the opposite direction, determined to lose myself in the crowd. I made it five paces before charging into someone, and the crowd seemed to spread out and try to confine me all at once. I was pushed from one person to the next amidst a rising murmur of necromancer, necromancer, torn apart by a sea of bodies until Claire slammed the tip of her cane against the ground and said, “Enough.”
There wasn't a soul who dared to disobey her. The crowd broke apart, space pulsing around me, and my vision and thoughts cleared; they were people, just people. They weren't simply arms reaching out, trying to tear away parts of me.
Trembling, I caught Claire's gaze. She tilted her head towards the empty space next to her and with my gaze burning into the ground, I rushed to her side.
“But Marshal!” someone cried out. “That's the necromancer, that is.”
“I am aware of that fact, thank you,” Claire said bluntly, meeting their gaze. She challenged the whole of Orinhal and not once thought of lying about what I was. “And she has a name. No harm shall come to Rowan, lest you wish to answer to me. I would recommend that you continue on with your business, for having her here will do nothing to impact the routine and stability of your lives. We did not break apart Kastelir in order to cling to its old, brutal laws when it suits us.”
The crowd had grown since I'd tried to push through it. The Marshal being outside of the tower was enough to draw people's interest, and the fact that a necromancer was by her side was enough to secure it. None of them knew how to react. They respected Claire on a deep, unshakable level, but I was still a necromancer, still enough to make them question her judgement.
“How'd you know she's not a spy? You know what they're saying about Agados, and how the King has a... you know,” someone else dared to speak up, stood squarely behind two people taller than himself.
“Stop concerning yourselves with rumours about Agados. Thus far, they have not made a single move against us. Even if the King of Agados had an army of necromancers, he has proven that he is more than intent on staying behind his walls. Worry about Rylan instead,” Claire said sharply.
Disquiet rushed through the crowd, and seeing that they were far from convinced, Claire began to pace back and forth.
“Then, if I may, a question: who here has been harmed by necromancy? Directly harmed, by a necromancer themselves. Not merely scared by vicious hearsay,” Claire said, and patiently waited for an answer.
She paced back and forth three times, and not a single person spoke up.
“I see,” Claire said, nodding to herself. “And who here has been helped by a necromancer?”
Ash stood with her arms stuck firmly by her sides, intent on remaining perfectly still, until Claire turned to stare at her.
Grinding her teeth together, she hissed, “Oh, whatever,” under her breath, hand shooting into the sky.
The crowd wasn't stunned into silence, not exactly.
“What?” one man called out. “But you told us about her in the first place!”
Claire and I both turned to Ash, who was busy cringing and shaking her head, well aware that it was already too late to avoid a world of trouble.
“Listen to me,” Claire said, reclaiming their attention before the buzz of conversation rose to a roar. “For almost a year you have helped me keep Orinhal running. I have kept us safe from dragons and Felheimish soldiers alike; I have liberated the few cities that remain, and I have kept our soldiers clear of Rylan as his army marches through the territories, lest he add them to his own numbers; and all I am asking is for you to trust me one more time, as you always have. I will not lead you astray. I would not invite danger into the city. Rowan will harm none.”
Claire's words came out strong but there was no agreement to be found within the crowd. There was nothing but a hint of consideration within the people gathered close together, as though numbers would protect them from a necromancer, and Claire turned from them, not about to waste her breath any further.
I didn't know how to thank her. She hadn't once dismissed what I was; she'd been upfront and defended me as she'd promised she would, years ago. Everything within my chest was twisted and tangled from what had unfolded with Kouris, but I smiled when I met Claire's eye, not caring what Orinhal thought of me, so long as Claire was there for me.
I was about to say something, to whisper words that barely meant enough, but the clatter of her cane drew an awful silence out of all those around us. She'd caught the tip on the corner of a paving stone and it'd slipped from her grasp, sending her tumbling down with it.
A collective gasp filled the air, and there Claire was – there the Marshal of Orinhal was – flat on her face, unable to get up of her own accord.
Sen rushed over, and picked Claire up before anyone could be certain of what they'd seen. One moment Claire was lying there, and the next she was inside the tower, door bolted behind her. The crowd had forgotten about me. Light slipped between my fingers, and with Claire safe inside, safe with Sen, I took my chance to escape, mind racing as my heart did.
CHAPTER XVI
I sat out on the front step of Goblin's cabin, too frustrated to hide away.
I watched people pass and wordlessly dared them to approach me, to say someth
ing, but they only walked faster when I didn't blink. Claire's words had stirred something within them, and though that something was enough to stop a mob from flooding the street, it wouldn't last long.
I didn't care. Let them come for me, let them say what they would. They'd always be frightened of me, no matter how I fought to prove myself, and so I might as well use that to my advantage. I'd lasted months in my farmhouse, in the fields, and none had come for me. None had dared to lay their hands on me, convinced they were safe, so long as they kept their distance.
I rested my chin on my knees, eyes fixed on the tower. Claire would be less inclined than ever to leave its walls, and though what had happened would never turn the Orinhalians against her, the fact that she'd sided with a necromancer might. She was the whole reason I was staying, and yet I couldn't bring myself to walk up to the tower, to see if she was alright. I was too busy convincing myself that she didn't need me.
Goblin, having heard what had happened, brought me dinner, but I couldn't make myself eat. I couldn't even bring myself to be angry at Ash for starting this all, despite having absolutely no intention of ever apologising to Ghost.
“Yrval...” a voice came, dragging me from my thoughts. Kouris was stood over me, blocking the setting sun. “I'm sorry. I got ahead of myself.”
I grunted and she crouched in front of me, tilting her head to the side in an effort to meet my gaze.
“I needed you, Kouris. It's been hard here. Everyone knows what I am, and it's all happening again. And Claire, she's...” I paused, exhaling sharply. “I thought I'd feel better, seeing her. But everything with Katja's still right there and... and I needed you. You marched in here, and you looked at me in exactly the same way as everyone else always has.”
“I can't begin to apologise enough,” she said, and I lifted my chin, not about to avert my gaze any longer. “I got ahead of myself. I was too wrapped up in what had been done, not the fact that you'd been the one to do it. I know you, yrval. Of course you'd never want to hurt the pane. You never want to hurt anyone.”
