Dragonoak

by Sam Farren

  Claire didn't look away, didn't pretend I hadn't seen all that had consumed her. The thought of harm coming to Sen outweighed the rage that would've become her had she heard that Rylan was at Orinhal's gate, and she reached for her cane and tilted her head towards her dresser. I brought the trousers folded over the back of the chair to her, neither looking at her nor looking away as she began to dress.

  Frustrated, breathy sounds left her lips as she pulled them on, leaving most of the work to one hand, struggling to stand without the cane. I held out my arm and she leant against me, buttoning her trousers without a word, picking up her cane and taking the stairs down far too quickly.

  Sen was where I'd left her, hunched over in the darkness. She trembled, face buried in her hands, and Claire took tentative steps towards her.

  “Sen...” she whispered, placing a hand against her back.

  “M-Marshal...” Sen said, rubbing her knuckles against silver eyes as she looked up. “They burnt my house, Marshal. They took my home.”

  “I know, Sen,” Claire said with a heartbroken smile. “I won't let them get away with this.”

  Claire laid her cane across the desk so she could wrap her arms around Sen's shoulders and draw her close. Sen balled her hands into fists, digging the heels of her palms against her knees, and Claire ran her fingers through her hair, gently murmuring much of nothing as she pressed her face to the top of her head.

  There was no way for me to make this right. I couldn't bring back the home Sen had made, couldn't recreate the birds she'd put so much time and care into. All I could do was ensure it never happened again.

  Claire stayed with Sen until she stopped shaking. Easing herself back, she said, “Go. Get some rest, Sen. You won't feel like it, but it'll be for the best. Take my bed. And before you object, consider it an order.”

  But there was no energy left in Sen to argue with. She got to her feet without a word, shoulders hunched, and took the stairs up to Claire's room one at a time, feet thudding dully against them. For a long time, neither Claire nor I said anything. The floorboards creaked overhead and Sen dragged her feet across the floor, but soon enough, a soft thwump told us she had no intention of pacing back and forth.

  Exhaling heavily, Claire claimed the chair Sen had been sitting in, not knowing how she ought to start dealing with any of this.

  “I think I need to leave, Claire,” I said. The words had been pressed against the back of my teeth and there was no holding them in. “It's only going to get worse and worse.”

  Claire turned to me, expression settling into something that couldn't quite grasp at anger.

  “I shall put an end to this at once. I shall ensure the people know that they cannot get away with harming anyone within Orinhal.”

  “You tried that,” I said. “You told the people about me, and they still did this. Even if most of them listen, there's always going to be people determined to be rid of me. And the ones that don't act are only going to resent you for it. I've barely been here for a few weeks and look at all these problems I've caused.”

  Claire furrowed her brow, unable to counter me. She knew I was right. I should've gone to her, should've put my arms around her and told her I didn't want to leave her side again, but I could only stand there, head full of flames.

  “If... that is how it must be,” Claire said, nodding slowly. “I only regret that I could not do more to ensure your safety.”

  Darkly resigned to what had to be done, Claire returned her attention to her desk, eyes darting around to find a document that may well have not existed.

  “I don't want to leave you, Claire,” I said, taking a single step closer. “I've just found you after all this time, and... if it was just you and me, if we didn't have a whole city to worry about, I'd say we needed each other. But I can't stay here. Everyone knows what I am, and that won't be the last fire they light for me, Claire. I can get someone to help me to write to you. I'm sure one of the pane will be willing to help me. It doesn't have to be forever, right?”

  My words got through to Claire. Instead of raising her shoulders and defensively digging through the never ending pile of work strewn across her desk, she turned to me, holding out a hand.

  “I don't want you to go, Rowan. I truly don't,” she said, taking my hand in hers once I was close enough. “I thought that if I found you again – if you had survived – I should never let you out of my sight. But things have changed for both of us. We are not the people we were two years ago, and that cuts deeper than anything else.”

  I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, letting her pull me close.

  “We're not,” I mumbled into the top of her head. “But that doesn't have to be a bad thing, does it?”

  Her fingers tightened in the back of my shirt, and my heart sank deeper with every second she held her silence.

  “The world has been cruel to us both. I neither wish to hold you back nor force you to endure it alone,” Claire said, “I am not... I shall be here, for as long as you need me. I do not know if your letters will reach me, but write. I shall certainly do the same, even if I have to wait until next we meet to read them to you.”

  Taking her face between my hands, I leant back, knowing there was still so much for me to say. Too much. I reined it back in, remembering what Claire had told me: bit by bit, and when we were both ready.

  “Can I kiss you?” I asked, trying to smile as I used up the last of my courage.

  “Kiss me...” Claire repeated dryly, as though it was the most ridiculous notion she'd ever heard and couldn't fathom why I'd ask such a thing.

  “You're beautiful, Claire,” I said, proving myself wrong and dragging up the last few dregs of bravery. “You've always been beautiful, and you always will be.”

  Her knee-jerk reaction to scoff was buried beneath a smile. She glanced to the side, nodded shallowly, and I didn't waste a moment. I bowed my head and pressed my lips to hers. I breathed in as she did. The shape of her mouth had been forever altered, the edges of her lips made rough, but there hadn't been a single moment scattered across the past two years where I felt so wholly at peace.

  Claire lifted her hands, holding my face as I held hers, and I cursed everything that conspired to keep us apart. I looked at her and didn't believe she'd been forged by fire and force and fear.

  “... you'll go to Kyrindval?” Claire asked, not breaking her lips from mine. I nodded, foreheads coming together, and she said, “The way there ought to be safe. If you encounter any Felheimish soldiers on the way, they'll genuinely wish to aid you. Let them help and they shan't cause you any trouble.”

  Before I could stand back up straight, Claire brought a hand to the back of my head and kissed my forehead.

  I couldn't say anything more to her. Couldn't give her the goodbye she deserved without reducing myself to tears. Desperate to spare us both from that, I fled the tower before I could change my mind, and rushed out into the open where the air wasn't cool enough to soothe me.

  There wasn't much I could take with me. Claire's dragon-bone knife was in my pocket but would've survived the fire regardless, and I'd have to worry about finding food on the way. I needed to collect Charley and head north before the entirety of Orinhal knew what happened and decided to retaliate against the threat of fire; but even more than that, there was something else demanding my attention.

  Ash wasn't hard to find. She was doing her best to calm the humans taking it upon themselves to feel personally targeted by a fire in the pane district and came running over at the sight of me.

  “Rowan! Rowan, hey,” she called out, as though I'd wandered across her by chance. “Listen, you've gotta talk to the Marshal for me. All of this trouble with the necromancer thing, you know I didn't mean for any of it to happen. Thing is, I took that stag you offed back to the butcher, and he wanted to know how it'd been killed without leaving a mark on it, an—”

  “I don't care. I don't care what you said, or to who. People have been saying things about me my whole l
ife, and it always ends up like this,” I said, determined to not let her get another word in. “I need to know where Katja is. Take me to her.”

  “You know the Marshal didn't want m—”

  “But you still know where she is. You owe me, Ash. You owe me twice.”

  Swearing under her breath, Ash cringed and set off without another word. There was a chance I could've found Katja myself, had I wandered down every street and felt for her presence, but there was no telling whether she'd be hiding from me or not.

  The cabin Ash led me to did nothing to stand out. The guards watching over Katja were stationed inside, and from the street, I could've convinced myself that a family like any other lived in there. Curtains were pulled across the windows but candlelight ebbed gently through them. It was as though she'd been waiting for me, I thought.

  “C'mon, Rowan, if you could say something to—”

  I headed into the cabin and closed the door before Ash could finish her sentence.

  The guards within leapt to their feet, causing me to break my stride.

  “What do you think you're doing?” one of them demanded, and I had no answer for them.

  I didn't know what I was doing there, or why I thought I could face Katja. Being in the same room as her earlier had reduced me to a trembling mess, and I couldn't speak for the forces that had driven me to seek her out. The guards had made themselves comfortable, playing cards and drinking at a table, but that wasn't to say they weren't taking Claire's orders seriously. They were ready to throw me out onto the street in a heartbeat.

  It was Katja who saved me.

  “Goodness. Is that Rowan, come to visit already?” she asked, not sounding half as pleased as I'd expected her to. With a sigh, she said, “Oh, do let her in. I'm entitled to some entertainment beyond these dreary books, aren't I?”

  The guards didn't look pleased about it, but they relented, letting me pass. Already under her command.

  Like the guards, Katja had made herself comfortable. She was sat in a high-backed armchair, blanket draped across her lap and knees tucked up beneath her, and half a dozen books were carelessly dropped on the low table in front of her. She'd flicked through them all and settled for the least dull, which clearly wasn't bringing her much joy.

  Despite all that, she took no pleasure in seeing me. I braced myself for her reaction, did all I could to steel myself against what she'd say about Claire, but all she said was, “It's terribly late, dear. Do you think you might give notice, next time?”

  If there was no fear within her then I wouldn't let her draw it out of me.

  Gripping the back of the armchair, I towered over her, aching to make her lose her calm façade and sink into the cushions.

  “You can act like this all you want. You can pretend that you're... that you're better, that you only want to help, but I know what you are. Claire knows what you are. So do Kouris and Atthis and Akela,” I said slowly, words chipping my grit teeth. “If you even go near Claire, just remember: I can kill you with a thought.”

  “And I can kill you with a knife,” Katja replied blithely, snapping her book shut. “I wonder. Which one of us is more likely to go through with our threat, hm?”

  My nails dug into the back of the sofa. I could've wiped the smile off her face for good. I could've wrapped my fingers around her throat, beat my fists against her face; I could've done a lot of things, if only I could've moved.

  “Let me ask you, dear. What did you see when you slipped away from Bosma?” she asked, eyes searching my face for an answer she already had. Bringing her hands up, she wrapped her fingers around the collar of my shirt and pulled me close. “I was gone for mere moments, but goodness, I remember it so clearly: the boughs of a great tree, warming me with its shadow. I was sorry to have been brought back to this troubled world.”

  I'd seen nothing when I died and she knew it. There'd been darkness within the darkness and silence beyond all that.

  It was the only thing I'd been able to hear.

  With a shaking hand, I ripped my shirt clean out of her grasp but couldn't bring myself to move away.

  “Really, Rowan. I want nothing more than to help these lands. I honestly am feeling so much more like myself, now that I have something to focus on. What happened to you was... unfortunate, that much I'll say. Had you only been more cooperative, darling. I wanted so much for you to be better, to be all I saw in you.” She heaved a long-suffering sigh, teeth worrying into her lower lip. “But that's all behind me. You ought to do the same. All this wallowing can't be healthy. You were a worthy enough distraction, down in Canth, but that was half a world away. I'm only sorry it can't mean as much to me as it obviously does to you.”

  I pushed myself away from her. I stormed out of the house quicker than I'd forced my way inside, knowing it was stupid, stupid, stupid to have confronted her. I hadn't known what I'd wanted to say; I'd just wanted to see her, as pathetic as it was, to know that she was really there. As close to imprisoned as could be until she lashed out at me again. I almost wanted her to lose control and follow through on any twisted, impromptu plans that swarmed inside her skull, all so she'd be locked away, key thrown out.

  I'd survived her once. I didn't know if I could do it again, but I knew I couldn't be nothing to her.

  “Hey!” Ash called out after me. “Talk to the Marshal next time you see her, yeah?”

  Maybe I nodded. Maybe I kept on charging down the street. Either way, Ash didn't follow, and I found myself at one of the supply units, shoving what food I could grab into an enormous canvas bag. I should say goodbye to Goblin, to Atthis, to Sen, I though. No, no. I should go. I should go, before anything else burns down around me. I marched through the streets, only breaking my gait when Charley met me with all the resistance and stubbornness he could muster.

  He saw the bag slung over my shoulder, smelled the food within and clopped his hooves against the floor of the stable, shaking his head every time I went to put the reins on.

  “Come on,” I hissed, one arm slung around his neck. “You'll get to see Claire again later, okay? For now we've got to get back to Kyrindval. You remember the way, don't you?”

  I saddled him up, got the reins on and tugged on them; nothing. I promised him apples, carrots, all the pears on the planet; nothing.

  Exasperated, I scrubbed at my face, stomping a foot against the floor. “Gods! Charley, we've got to go. Claire's going to be alright. You'll see her before you know it, you'll...”

  I didn't realise I was crying until Charley bumped his forehead against my chest. My palm was slick with tears and my nose kept running, no matter how much force I put into sniffing, and Charley kept nudging me back, as if his disobedience had made a blubbering mess out of me. I laughed through the tears, scratched him behind the ear, then led him out of Orinhal.

  A handful of people caught sight of me as I left. Everyone would've heard the rumours by the next morning; the necromancer had done one decent thing, had packed up and left. They'd feel justified in it, no doubt. They'd reassure themselves that chasing me out had been the right thing to do; after all, who was to say how far the next fire would spread? Who was to say I didn't have at least a little to do with it?

  With the bridge no longer crossing the ravine, the journey was almost a full day longer than it otherwise would've been. Avoiding villages and towns this time didn't lead to the zigzagging across Kastelir it had before. There was a noticeable dearth of them. The wind howled where buildings had once stood, and a chill crept up my spine as Charley galloped over the closest things to graves those people had been given.

  I watched as ravens flew overhead, and waited for Felheimish soldiers to shoot them down.

  One landmark I couldn't avoid was Isin. It had been home to hundreds of thousands of people and even in ruins, the city stretched from one side of the horizon to the other. I saw what remained from the hills; saw the trampled buildings and the shattered wall, the charred ground around it; saw birds swoop in, squawking, buildin
g their nests amidst the decay and couldn't imagine a castle once standing in the centre; and even then, I was too close.

  I'd imagined dragons would still crawl through the wreckage they'd created, would blaze trails of fire across the sky as they circled the city they'd destroyed, possessive over much of nothing, but the stillness, the finality of it all, was worse than all that. Isin had fallen.

  I did what I could to not linger. The mountains began their steady ascent from the horizon within a matter of days, and the taller they became, the less lonely I felt in the wilderness that had once been Kastelir. I started to see people. There were Felheimish soldiers and former Kastelirians alike; the Felheimish army were nowhere near the mountains but soldiers were scattered along the roads in groups of three or four, nodding to me as I passed, offering directions whenever I scowled at the map.

  The citizens attended to life around their villages and towns as though they'd never been given a reason to cower in the past. I passed a settlement by the name of Isos and found the town was thriving, in spite of all else. Felheim's dragons never went near the mountains, lest the dragons living there were given reason to lash out against them. It was strange to think that only dragons were keeping them safe from, well—dragons.

  “Can I help you, miss?” a soldier asked as I approached the foot of the mountains. A small hut had been built at the opening of the road leading to Kyrindval, and she sat outside it with another soldier, some years her junior. She greeted me with a smile, spear rested against the hut a few yards away.

  “It's fine, thank you,” I said, bemused by the disconnect between the Felheimish soldiers that were spoken of in Orinhal and the ones I'd met on the road thus far. “I'm heading to Kyrindval, and I know the way.”

  I gestured to the crumpled map in my hand and the soldier furrowed her brow. She took the map from me, glanced at it, and murmured, “Looks solid enough.” Handing it back, she made an effort to frown. More at the situation than at me. “What brings you to Kyrindval, anyway? Not too many Kastelirians are all that eager to get closer to the dragons.”