by Sam Farren
“Don't expect we'll be having long before somebody turns up,” she said, arm around his waist to keep him steady. “We'd best be getting out of here.”
Kouris took slow, steady steps, guiding Iseul out of the building, and Kidira waited until I was outside to leave, doors closing behind her. I didn't know how often they sought out Iseul, but I knew the Felheimish only came when they needed something of him. A dozen times a year, perhaps. The Felheimish had fewer dragons than ever, and some part of me doubted that they were going to any lengths to give them specific targets, anymore.
“The other necromancer...” Iseul murmured, as though I was nothing but a distant memory. “Don't let them take her.”
“Never,” came Kouris' steely reply.
I watched Iseul stumble on feet he hadn't used in countless years, wishing there was something I could do for him. Wishing there was something I could say that would get through to him; it seemed as though he had no real concept of when or where we were, and continued to turn to Kouris, breathing out her name and title as though it was the first time he'd seen her since bringing her back to life.
The fog would clear in time. It had to. When it did, Iseul would feel what I did, would have the comfort of another necromancer, if nothing else. There'd be so much I could learn from him, so much we could learn from each other; I wouldn't be the only one lighting up the dark.
“Queen Kouris,” Iseul said, one hand on her chest to push himself back. Kouris held her arms out, ready to catch him, but as unsteady as he was, Iseul didn't stumble or fall. “I am sorry. So sorry for all of this. But I...”
And then he was moving, marching towards the Bloodless Lands. His light had died down to little more than a gentle thrum, though his eyes continued to blaze. Kouris stormed after Iseul but seemed reluctant to grab hold of him and pull him back; he walked as though drawn into the Bloodless Lands by some greater purpose, and though she kept her eyes screwed shut, there was only so far she could go without snarling.
I rushed in after him, reaching his side just in time to catch hold of him.
I knelt down. He was heavier than all the light had led me to believe, and he looked up at the sky without taking in the darkness, eyes fixed on the moon. His body trembled, and I realised that the light pouring out of him wasn't simply a necromancer's way of screaming; it was energy leaving out of his body, strength that'd been lost him for years upon years.
“What was your name?” he asked, eyes closing. “... Aejin?”
I smiled though he couldn't see it, wrapping my arms around him a little tighter.
“That's right,” I said, “Let's get back to Kouris, okay? We'll take you out of here, Iseul.”
“No, no, Aejin,” he said, using a finger to beckon me closer. I leant down and he said, “Don't you hear it?”
“Hear what?” I asked, gaze slipping from his face when I noticed the ground around us. The white of the Bloodless Lands was fading around him, slipping through shades of grey, desperately grasping for colour.
Iseul only repeated himself. “Don't you hear it?” he asked, one hand clasping my shoulder. The ground beneath us turned to dirt, rich and earthy.
I fixed my eyes back on his closed ones, drew down a deep breath and answered him honestly.
“No,” I said.
“No,” he echoed, smiling. “Neither do I.”
Iseul's body reflected that insignificant scrap of the Bloodless Lands around us. The solid white of his glow retreated, skin grey then brown, fading to gold, desperate to remember how it had once been. I tightened my arms around him, saying his name, louder and louder each time, as though it was something he could stop, and found that he felt less solid, less real. Each time I tightened my grasp there was less and less of him; he'd drawn the light so deep down inside of him that it had replaced his bones, his muscles, all that I could cling to.
“No, no, Iseul, stop,” I murmured, clinging to him, clinging to nothing. I didn't know him beyond what he'd done from Kouris, but I knew him in the same way that I'd known Kondo-Kana's song, in the same way that I knew which parts of my body were no longer mine.
I could learn from him. Could understand him. If he'd only stay, if he'd only—
My arms were clinging to nothing. Tendrils of light slipped between my fingers and the white ground I knelt upon yielded to the pressure of my knees. There was warmth there, green grass for me to tear at. I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't understand.
I rose to my feet, storming towards Kouris and Kidira. They were looking without looking, and I marched straight past Kouris, putting myself between Kidira and the mountains, leaving her with no choice but to look at me.
“What was that? What the fuck was that?” I practically screeched, hands thrown out at my sides. “You bring me here without telling me why, and then—this? You make me come here to... why did you even need me? Did you just want to make me watch him die? Is that even what happened?”
Kidira stared at me evenly, and said, quite plainly, “I didn't know how the necromancer would react. I thought your presence would be necessary. Evidently, I was wrong.”
I stomped a foot against the ground, turning it white. That wasn't an answer. That wasn't anything. Eyes stinging, I reached out and pushed the heel of my palm against Kidira's shoulder. “What's happening!” I demanded. Kidira rolled her shoulder back but didn't stumble for all I'd done to shove her.
Without anything betraying her expression, she said, “I couldn't tell you, Rowan, but I would've thought you'd understand better than most.” She paused, straightening out the leathers around her shoulder. “Wouldn't you sooner let go of your own life than defend yourself?”
She said it as though it was an insult. As though I should've been ashamed for not taking a handful of lives when there were other options available to me. I stepped forward, went to grab her shoulder, but I'd wasted the only chance she was willing to ever give me. Kidira pulled back her fist and with a burst of pain around my eye-socket, I found myself on the ground.
I covered my eye with one hand, seething. Kidira stood over me, so still that it was as if she'd convinced herself that she'd knocked me down with nothing but a stare.
“It wasn't the first time,” I hissed as Kouris rushed over, kneeling at my side.
“Excuse me?” Kidira asked.
“Yrval, not now,” Kouris warned, holding out a hand.
The throb around my eye pumped some sense back into me. I sneered up at Kidira, breath rushing between my teeth, but I said nothing. Kouris was right; it wasn't the time, and I didn't want Kidira knowing, didn't want her looking at me and thinking that it explained everything I did wrong, everything I was, in her eyes.
“... Canth was rough,” I eventually managed, hearing Kouris let out a sigh of relief.
Kidira glanced between us both, deciding that whatever it was could wait. In nothing close to a peace-offering she held out her hand and I took it, stepping close to her once I was on my feet; our eyes met and I turned as sharply as I could, heading back to Oak.
Kouris and Kidira matched my pace, though neither of them quite caught up. I stormed ahead, torn between returning to Oak and losing myself in the Bloodless Lands where none could follow. I could hide in those cities for as long as I needed to, could hide there forever, if that was how long it took me to understand what had happened. I couldn't count it as a victory; we'd broken Iseul free, but he'd become nothing more than light. Who was to say they didn't have someone to replace him? Who was to say it wouldn't cause them to hunt down another necromancer and put them in the same chains?
“Rowan,” Kidira said, but I didn't turn to her. I continued striding ahead, but that didn't deter her. “Kouris. You both saw the condition Iseul was in. I believe he recalled who Kouris was with more clarity than he knew himself. He was bound, his freedom taken from him and forced to do unspeakable acts, and yet think of how very important he must've been to the Felheim. In their plans, his value was immeasurable. He could've asked fo
r anything in exchange for what he was doing and I doubt it would've been denied to him; and yet he was in chains. That was his choice.
“Iseul fought against them. He did not submit after years, after decades. He was brave. None of us ought to forget that, and we must all learn from it.”
The light around my eyes became as nothing. I was left with burning embers, and though neither Kouris nor I said anything, the words were seared beneath our skin. The rest of the journey was made in silence. Oak rose to his feet when he saw us approach, bowing his head once we were close enough for him to discern that something had gone awry. I leant against his muzzle, ran a hand across one of his horns and whispered that we'd like to go to Kyrindval.
CHAPTER XX
I turned away from the Bloodless Lands, on the way back. I leant against Kouris, arms wrapped tightly around her, light slowly seeping out of my system. The sun rose, and there was little to see amongst the mountains. I knew there were tribes both bigger and smaller than Kyrindval scattered across the plateaus, but none were built with a view of the Bloodless Lands.
Whenever I saw another wall, I tried to imagine the space that had once cut between the mountains, and the droves of people fleeing from a light that came at them like a tidal wave. The one time I looked towards the Bloodless Lands, when our journey was nearing its close, I saw something beyond the emptiness; a light shone on the horizon, a spark of gold, slipping out of view as Oak flew on.
He set us down behind the wall, close to what Kouris assured us was another path to Kyrindval.
“You can come with us,” I said, but he only shook his head, and crawled back over the wall once we were on our way. He butted his head against Kouris' chest before leaving, and though Kidira thanked him for his assistance, he paid her no heed as he trundled off. He'd found his own place, and that place was in the Bloodless Lands themselves, for all I knew.
Our journey up the mountain was as exhausting as the rest of it had been. We walked for miles before reaching the path itself, and I was too worn out to succumb to the justified paranoia of encountering any soldiers. I felt as though I needed to sleep for a week and didn't doubt my ability to do so. The Bloodless Lands were behind us, out of view, but I was wandering through the heart of Myros, doing what I could to map a path to the Phoenix Fire.
We reached Kyrindval without any fuss. The tribe spread out before me, distantly familiar landmarks gently reminding me that it was where I'd been headed all along. It hadn't changed; the same dragon-bone arch stood at the entrance, and the tribe extended beyond that, as lively as it had ever been.
The first time I came to Kyrindval, I had been naïve; I had expected the pane to be simple creatures with little material wealth and no culture to speak of. Now that I had seen so much more of the world and understood the workings of my own mind better, it wasn't their complexity that surprised me; it was the peace they continued to thrive in, no matter how humans changed the world around them.
“This is where I'll be leaving you, then,” Kouris said, not bold enough to step into Kyrindval. Not this time.
“It is,” Kidira said.
A terse reply was still a reply, I supposed.
Kidira and I headed into Kyrindval, and though I matched her pace, I made sure we weren't walking side-by-side. I looked around, hoping to find a familiar face, and was met by the smiles of strangers. The pane would stop what they were doing and incline their head towards me, or else greet Kidira, relief and curiosity entangled in their tones. The enormity of the place, the width of the streets and the sheer size of the buildings, wasn't lost on me, as it had been in Eaglestone and Praxis. I walked through Kyrindval as though walking back through time, smaller and younger with every step I took.
Kidira headed straight for the great lodge at the centre of the tribe, and it seemed as good a place as any for me to go. Any pane there would be able to tell me where the resident human was. It wasn't until that moment, already halfway to the heart of Kyrindval, that I fully acknowledged I was minutes away from seeing my brother again. My heart skipped, hands growing clammy, and I felt the amount of time we had been parted for, certain I had changed into someone he would no longer recognise as family, if at all.
As I passed the fire pit, a rumble of a voice called out “Rowan!” from behind me, too surprised to make a question of it. I turned on my heels and saw a mountain of a pane bounding towards me. My lips parted, and before I could speak, a smile took over, doing much to ease my fears.
“Kravt!” I called back as they skidded to a halt in front of me, eyes gleaming.
“My little friend!” they said, hands on their knees as they crouched, putting theirself on my level. “It has been years, many years, and terrible things I have heard. But look! You are here, little friend. I am glad of this.”
For all the fangs and tusks it put on display, there was little more reassuring than seeing a pane grin in earnest. A twist of guilt rose within me, and I told myself I couldn't be blamed for it, because I'd fought and I'd fought to get back to Asar; I hadn't wanted anyone thinking I was dead, least of all Michael and Claire. Kravt understood that there was an explanation for my absence. The pane might've maintained their peace, but that wasn't to say they were ignorant to as what had happened to Kastelir as a whole.
“I'm happy to see you, too,” I said, relieved to see that they hadn't changed. To a pane, two years didn't count for terribly much. “Do you know where my brother is? I was going to go down to the lodge, but...”
“Ah! Michael, yes, of course. Come, come, this way!” Kravt sprang back to their full height, waved a hand and gestured for me to follow. I set off after them, unable to find any excuses to delay the inevitability of tracking down Michael, now that I had a guide. Kravt moved with little concern for the fact that I was half their height, but I just about kept up with them, skidding to a sudden halt when they did.
Michael had gathered quite the crowd.
He stood down in the amphitheatre, pane of all ages sitting in a semi-circle, attentively taking in his words. Scrolls and slates were spread across their laps, and they only looked away from him to scrawl down something that sounded particularly interesting to them. It was fine enough weather to have school outside, I supposed, taking a seat in one of the top rows.
Two pane shuffled to the side, giving me more room than I needed, and one held out a spare strip of parchment. I declined it as politely as I could, whispering thank you anyway under my breath, and turned all of my attention towards my brother.
Time had done little to change him. He certainly didn't look any older, not to my eyes, but if there was one thing different about him, it was how happy he seemed. How caught up he was in what he was saying, surrounded by people who wanted to listen. He dressed as the pane did, taking on red for his colour, and his Svargan was much better than mine. There were only a few words I didn't understand from context alone, but everything he said came out far more fluidly than anything that had ever passed my lips.
“If we look at a record by, say, Kagoni – or any of the human scholars relevant to that era – it becomes abundantly clear that the colonisation of pane land wasn't even documented,” he was saying, “Before coming to Kyrindval and studying your extensive texts, I simply had no idea that land had been stolen from your people. From the perspective of humans, pane simply are mountain-dwellers, here of their own accord. No one even makes the paltry effort to pretend that the lands were willingly given up, or traded away; it's important to remember what humans are taught of the pane before we... before we can...”
He'd been looking around as he spoke and had finally caught sight of me. Had we been sat on the ground, Michael never would've seen past the pane in front of me, but I rose just high enough above their horns to wave at him. He lifted a hand, not remembering how to wave for a few long seconds, and when he did, his fingers curled towards his palm.
The pane sat around the amphitheatre pivoted in their seats, uncertain of what could've possibly distracted Michael from
a lecture. I gestured with my hand for him to continue, and he worked his jaw without a single word slipping out. I laughed, beaming, and with a clap of his hands, he said, “Well. Now, where was I?”
He went on speaking about the theft of the pane's territory, taken from them for crimes necromancers had forced their dead to commit, more animated than before. He made the most of the space available to him, darting from side to side, answering questions and asking plenty of his own.
The group was dismissed earlier than Michael'd intended on, and he apologised to those wanting to speak to him as he ran up the side of the amphitheatre two steps at a time.
“Rowan!” he said, holding his arms out to the side. “... what? How?”
Eloquence and articulation abandoned him.
Getting to my feet, I wrapped my arms around his waist, but he was too stunned to do anything but stand there with his arms held out wide.
“It's really me,” I assured him, and with a startled laugh, he patted me on the back.
“Yes, I can see that, Rowan, I simply...”
He faltered, squeezing me tightly when the words wouldn't come to him.
“Do you know how many problems you've caused?” he asked, lifting me off the ground. “We thought you were dead, you know. But that seems stupid now, doesn't it? Look at you!”
Michael lowered me back down but kept a hand on my shoulder, lest I fade right in front of him.
“I have so many questions that I don't know where to start,” Michael said, proving himself wrong half a second later. Eyes going wide, he grabbed my other shoulder, shaking me as he said, “What about Claire? Have you seen her?”
It was a good thing I had. That was hardly the way I wanted to find out that she was still alive.
“I have. I spent a lot of time with her in Orinhal,” I told him, “I didn't want to leave, but there were problems. Problems with me.”
