Dragonoak

by Sam Farren

  “I was in trapped in Canth,” I said slowly, “With the others.”

  Kidira hesitated. I saw her open her mouth and snap it shut, dropping her gaze to the side as she reined in whatever words had tried to leap forth.

  “... the others?” she finally asked, too cautiously for me to risk wasting any more time.

  “Akela, Atthis. Your daughter,” I said, rushing to distance myself from Katja. “And Kouris. We're all back. Everyone's in Orinhal, except for Kouris. She came looking for you a while ago.”

  It wasn't my place to tell Kidira so much at once, but I had even less of a right to keep it from her. She stared into the fire, cleared her throat, then became unduly focused on stirring the stew over and over. I turned away and busied myself with adjusting the cloth Kidira had wrapped around me, giving her a moment to herself. I knew that if I saw anything like weakness ripple across her expression she wouldn't be able to come back from that. I'd no doubt she was doing her best to convince herself I was lying; my words wouldn't truly sink in until she'd seen everyone she'd counted dead with her own two eyes.

  “Kouris thought you were dead, you know,” I added, against my better judgement.

  “Good,” Kidira replied briskly. “Then she knows how it feels.”

  I lowered my head, wincing. My heart gave a jolt at the words, still settling into place. It beat too hard and I brought my hand to my chest, fingertips sliding cloth over smooth skin. Oh, Katja: would you be proud of me now? Had I finally reached my potential, or at least scratched at the surface?

  I kept my gaze low, willing to deal with the brunt of Kidira's scorn so that Kouris didn't have to. Kouris wouldn't be hearing any kind words from Kidira no matter how much I endured, but I thought I could take off the edge while the sting was fresh.

  “Canth, again?” Kidira murmured. “No points for originality there.”

  “We had no choice,” I said, looking up, eyes fixed on her shoulder. “There were dragons everywhere, the whole country was burning and—”

  “And you got on a ship and sailed away to safety,” Kidira said, and I wanted to scream that her daughter had been saved because of whatever cowardice she imagined had fuelled us, but couldn't. “Save your excuses. I was in Kastelir; just like you, just like Kouris. I didn't run; Claire didn't run.”

  My throat was raw with all the yelling I wasn't doing. I couldn't tell her not to breathe Claire's name as I had to Katja, because when it came down to it, Kidira was the one who'd been there for Claire when I hadn't. She was right. We'd run, we'd saved ourselves. It didn't matter that I was carried onto that ship. We left Kastelir and watched it burn from the ocean, while Kidira had stayed amongst the rubble of Isin, pulling bodies out of the wreckage.

  There were burns on her hands, up her arms. I watched her ladle the stew into wooden bowls taken from her pack, and stared blankly at it when she placed it in front of me.

  “Eat,” she said bluntly, and I took hold of the bowl for fear of what she might say if I refused her orders. I brought it to my lips, sipping it. My tongue was old and worn and the taste didn't overwhelm me, but when I swallowed it, I felt it slip from my throat and trickle into my chest, as though I was riddled with holes and it was about spread throughout the entirety of my body. I choked it back up, stomach turning for the first time, and couldn't stop coughing and heaving.

  My hands were in the dirt as I rocked forward, glowing brighter than ever, all the nothing I had inside me mixing with bile, splattering on the ground. I groaned, gasping for breath, and Kidira sat there, watching. Unmoving. She didn't slap my back, didn't offer me a drop of water. It was as though she was in on this with Katja; she was ignoring me, acting as though what I was going through was nothing.

  “... she was dead,” I mumbled, just as soon as I could mumble.

  “Pardon?” Kidira asked, more disinterested than wary.

  “Kouris. She was dead,” I went on, and as the words slipped from my tongue, I knew how bad an idea it was. It wasn't my story to tell, but Kouris never would do so, not if Kidira forgave her a thousand times over. More than that, I thought I might finally get a rise out of Kidira. I wiped my eyes, mouth, and chin with the back of my hand and continued. “She went to them. She went to the people who wanted to punish her for what she'd done and she let them cut off her head. All because you made her think it was the right thing to do. They made her kneel at the gallows and they took her head.

  “She didn't ask for anyone to bring her back. A necromancer pieced her back together and when she returned, she was in Canth. And do you know why she stayed? Because she thought keeping Kastelir together was more important to you than she was.”

  As I spoke, I felt justified in what I was doing. I had steeled myself; my words came out slowly and clearly, too strong and certain to be anything but the truth. But when I finished and the crack of wood burning was the only sound to fill the cave, I wanted nothing more than to draw the words back into my chest.

  Kidira stared down at her open hands. She didn't move. She didn't breathe. I saw two years pass across her in a flash; the downfall of her country, the certainty that her daughter and Commander were dead, the knowledge that the Kings she had ruled alongside for thirty years were gone, along with the weight of Kouris' absence once more pressing down on her. I saw that she was a person, a person who had suffered as we all had.

  I'd been patient with Claire. I'd forced myself to understand how she could be so distant, so blunt. Why she could only face herself while intoxicated, some days, and all the little things that had changed between us. And yet I'd been cruel to Kidira because she'd been short with me. She'd saved my life and I'd blamed her for losing Kouris. I would've apologised, if saying sorry wouldn't have made Kidira felt weaker than she already did.

  She rose to her feet, leaving the cave without looking at me, without taking her spear.

  “Stay,” was all she said to me, and I obeyed. She needed time to process what I'd said in whatever way suited her, though I couldn't imagine her crying or screaming. It was pitch-black outside and I was ablaze; I'd only draw the soldiers' attention if I wandered out in the dark. There was no drawing my light back inside, not now. I didn't even try.

  I hadn't seen much during my brief spate of consciousness at the foot of the mountain, but I knew we were somewhere with no roads. The soldiers wouldn't be able to take such a direct route down. It could take them days to find the spot I'd fallen to, and Kidira and I would've moved on by then. We'd be back on our way to Kyrindval, avoiding all the soldiers because... because Kidira would be there. I'd seen her at her lowest points, when Kouris had first returned to her, when Jonas had been lost, and now, yet I had no doubt that she could cause an army to tremble.

  I tried the stew again. Took small sips and let it settle in my stomach. Hours passed before Kidira returned, and I drifted not quite to sleep in the interim, but felt numbed to the passage of time. She came in quietly, piling more wood onto the fire that had died down, despite me doing a fine job of keeping the place bright. Once there was life in the flames again, Kidira stood back up, staring down at me.

  “I shouldn't have said any of that,” I said, looking up at her. “And I really shouldn't have said it like that.”

  Kidira shook her head.

  “I pulled your body off a rock and you've spent much of the day vomiting and lapsing into unconsciousness. You're allowed to be insensitive this once,” she said, and I knew it was the only time I'd ever get away with it. “Why did you leap off the mountain?”

  She sat down in front of me. I took it to mean that I was being given the chance to start over with her and made the right choice in holding nothing back.

  “There were soldiers on the way to Kyrindval. At first they were letting me pass without a problem, but then there was a whole party of them. And they knew who I was,” I said, thinking back to that slip of parchment they'd been glancing over. The way they looked at me was enough to tell me what it said: necromancer heading to Kyrindval, here's wha
t you need to look for—be careful! “It happened up on the path. There wasn't anywhere to run, so I did the only thing I could. I jumped off the mountain. I wasn't about to let them catch me.”

  “Couldn't you have killed them?” Kidira asked bluntly, testing me.

  “I could've,” I said, trying to shake the light out of my fingertips. “But I couldn't.”

  Kidira paused, sorting through the information. Whatever conclusion she came to wasn't given away by her demeanour. Nothing in her expression changed; she merely went on with her questions.

  “Why were you headed for Kyrindval? Did something happen at Orinhal?”

  “Yes,” I said, hurrying to elaborate lest I concern her. “Yes and no. It's just... me. The people found out what I was and it didn't go well for me. Again. I was causing too many problems for Claire, for Sen, for everyone. I thought it would be best to get away from Orinhal.”

  She barely paused.

  “And Canth?”

  I told the story of our arrival and stay in Canth in clear, concise terms. It wasn't the rendition of the tale I'd told my father or Claire; I stuck to the facts, to the bones of Canth. I told her how we'd headed there out of necessity, meaning to regroup and return to Kastelir the moment we could. I told her how the Felheimish army had blocked our way, how we'd done everything we could to get back to Asar. I told her how Kondo-Kana had found me and she didn't care to question me. I told her how I earnt our passage home and she nodded slowly.

  “And I take it you can't do anything about that?” Kidira asked, waving a hand towards me.

  I'd almost manage to forget about the glow. She hadn't.

  “I can, but it might take some time,” I admitted, rubbing my hands against my forearms,

  “You may continue towards Kyrindval, if you wish,” she said, pausing. “Or you could make yourself useful.”

  How the years must've tempered her to make an offer come out in lieu of an order. I leant towards the fire in anticipation of what she was going to say, asking “How?” though she didn't answer me. Not right away. She kept her lips pressed into a tight, thin line, and looked hesitant to say any more. She was torn between regretting what she'd already said and being unwilling to ever doubt herself.

  “I will trust you because Claire trusts you. Do not let her down,” Kidira finally said, staring up from the flames. “I have spent the last few weeks in the Bloodless Lands.”

  I almost toppled forward. For a moment, for a single split-second, I wondered how she even knew about it, as though it had been some secret between Kondo-Kana and myself.

  “The Bloodless Lands? How did you—why aren't you... you know?”

  Kidira tilted her head to the side, mildly irritated. Not so much with my questions, but with the fact that I didn't automatically know these things, being what I was.

  “The Bloodless Lands don't reach the mountains. Not quite. There's a stretch of unscathed land between the Bloodless Lands and the mountains; fifty feet wide, perhaps,” she explained. “Its effects aren't instantaneous. Discomforting at a glance, yes, but if one averts their gaze and employs a blindfold...”

  I nodded over and over, showing that I understood, all of a sudden aware that I should've been asking her why she was there.

  “I shouldn't be the one to do this: tracking down those responsible for manipulating the dragons. But circumstances compel Claire to be where she is, leading the people, and so I must act in her place,” Kidira went on to say. “I did mean to head back to Orinhal for reinforcements, but I should think you will do better than any soldier I could've fetched, and I rather wouldn't waste any more time.”

  “Me? Because I'm a necromancer, you mean?” I said, determined to get the word out around Kidira without my voice cracking.

  “Exactly that.”

  Nothing ever changed. What I was had seen me exiled from my village and now a city, had sent me running across countries, but as soon as I was useful, as soon as I became a means to an end, then people could tolerate being in my vicinity. Canth accepted necromancers, uplifted them, but I'd still had to abuse my powers to deserve Queen Nasrin's help. And now Kidira thought she could make use of me; thought I could wipe out those who stood in her way.

  “I'm not going to just kill the soldiers for you,” I said firmly.

  “Is that what you think of me? Kouris does me no kindnesses, as is usual,” Kidira said, sighing, but paused, as if taken aback by how easily she'd spoken Kouris' name. “I will not make an assassin of you. This is to be a rescue mission, of sorts.”

  Kidira returned any offence I'd dealt her by way of a stare, making me feel small.

  “A rescue mission... ? Is there anyone in the Bloodless Lands?”

  “As I said, the edges are safe enough. Where better to twist and warp dragons?”

  She had a point. There wasn't anywhere on Bosma as desolate as the Bloodless Lands, and all on Asar grew up knowing that to draw close to the Bloodless Lands was to succumb to the madness of necromancers. Back when I was a child, I let myself be convinced that the Bloodless Lands were to blame for making the pane as I was told they were, and the elders would often murmur that the settlements close to our side of the mountains weren't as safe as they ought to be.

  “I'll go with you,” I said, still desperate, in a way, to prove myself worthy of my own life. “What do you need me to do?”

  Kidira was already packing away her things, pouring out the last of the stew neither of us had really touched. She hummed flatly, back to me, slinging her bag over her shoulders. I followed her lead, extinguishing the fire without having to worry about fumbling in the dark, knowing there was an answer coming and doing my best not to be too anxious for it. She wasn't going to have me kill anyone; I wouldn't have to prepare myself for climbing onto pirate ships and stealing heads.

  “You'll see when we get there,” Kidira eventually said as she stepped out of the cave. I didn't have it within myself to press her any further. I followed, knowing we couldn't afford to linger in any one place for too long. “Here. Put this on.”

  Kidira retrieved a hooded cloak from her bag and I wrapped it around myself without any fuss. Dawn had yet to break and I would've led any wandering soldiers right to us. I pulled the hood up so that it covered my blazing eyes, vision fixed on the ground, the backs of Kidira's feet. I'd taken enough clothing from her already, what with the sash of purple cloth she'd had to give up to provide me with a makeshift cloak; only tough leathers and furs remained, arms, back, and body strengthened by years spent amongst the pane, wandering the mountains.

  We headed back on ourselves, passing the rocks I'd crashed into. I wouldn't have recognised them, for much of the landscape repeated itself around the mountains, but the rock and dirt I'd plummeted to had turned white; whiter than dragon-bone. The fact that it was still dark had no bearing on it. The white stood out as though night had forgotten to fall across it, no shadows marring the surface. The few dark spots were made of blood and all else, and I did my best not to focus on them.

  “Look,” Kidira said, driving the blunt end of her spear into the ground. I winched, certain she meant to ask me questions I didn't know how to answer, but when I followed the direction of her spear, I saw Claire's dragon-bone knife thrown off to the side. My hands went to the small of my back, where it'd been tucked into my trousers, pulse spiking when I realised it wasn't there; when I realised I would've lost it, if not for Kidira's sharp eye. I lunged forward, snatched it up, and checked it for scratches, of all things.

  On we went. To the best of my knowledge, it'd been two months since Kidira had set out from Kyrindval. I hoped that much of that time had been spent searching, to no avail, and that we weren't going to march for a solid month through the Bloodless Lands. We weren't even through the mountains and I could see no end in sight; just mountain after mountain cutting valleys into the horizon. Kidira walked at a pace that was hard to match, and I began to regret that I didn't have—

  “Wait!” I called out. “My horse, I le
ft him halfway up the mountain. I need to go back! What if the soldiers have him?”

  “If the soldiers have Charley then there's nothing you or I can do about that,” Kidira said bluntly, not slowing her pace. I ground to a halt in protest, and as if no longer able to hear my footsteps following her, Kidira said, “But I very much doubt that the soldiers would go to the lengths required in order to guide a horse down the mountains when they're clearly so very distracted by their hunt for you. The pane will find him, sooner rather than later. Enough of them will recognise him.”

  I frowned at her back, not wanting to relax, to believe that it would really be alright, but softened regardless. I took wide strides in order to catch up with Kidira, wishing I could bring myself to turn and run back up the mountain path without feeling as though I was plummeting again at the mere thought.

  Dawn painted the sky an angry, muted shade of red and I prepared for the elements to turn against us. When it was as light as it was going to get, I pulled the hood back and shook my head, dried blood clumped in my messy hair. I wasn't going to contest the sun, wasn't going to stand out to anyone tracking us from a distance.

  The mountains and their valleys weren't at all as I'd imagined them to be as a child. The ground wasn't dry and barren, the air wasn't bitterly cold, and my surroundings came to me in more shades than stone grey; there was a wealth of life there, more than I'd been able to catch a glimpse of from Kyrindval. The grass grew tall and wild flowers tangled with it, and deer sprang about in the distance, ears perking at the sound of us passing through. There were a thousand insects trying to scream over each other, and it didn't take more than a few minutes for us to catch a rabbit.

  We skinned it, cooked it, ate and moved on. I managed to keep the meal down without gagging; my body was already used to itself, even if I wasn't. Kidira and I continued to march between the mountains, down sloping valleys and up sharp inclines, rocks tumbling out from beneath our feet. It was peaceful out there. Conversation came by way of laboured breathing and the calls of birds above served to emphasize the calm and quiet of the place. There weren't any other humans around for miles, and there was warmth to be found in the shadows of mountains.