by Sam Farren
“What I want?” I said, mouth turning dry. “What do I want?”
Claire opened her mouth, holding out a hand to reach for the fast-fleeing words she couldn't cling to.
“I...” she tried again, shoulders rising. “A sense of normalcy, perhaps.”
“Normalcy?” I hadn't meant to laugh, but it slipped from my lips. “Claire, look at me. I'm a necromancer. I've been chased halfway across Bosma, I spent months and months pretending to not be a pirate, I'm half-convinced that this isn't my hand and I have a... not-dead dragon for a brain-twin? I don't even know at this point. But how much of that sounds normal to you?”
She ground her teeth together, dropping her gaze once more.
“I do not wish to trap you in anything,” she said. “I simply meant that...”
“I know what you meant, Claire,” I said, taking her hand before she could brush her fingers along her scars once again. “Let's just go inside and talk, alright? Please?”
She relented, if only because standing was exhausting.
I held out a glowing hand in front of me, illuminating the way to Claire's room, and set about lighting the candles as she lowered herself onto the edge of her bed. She was no longer with me. Her thoughts were scattered to corners claimed by a darkness a hundred candles and my glow wouldn't be able to banish, and she sat, slumped forward, mind full of what she believed she'd become.
I climbed the steps leading to her bed and stood between her knees, fingers ghosting across her cheeks, settling on the line of her jaw until she found it within herself to look up. Carefully pulling her eye-patch back and dropping it on the bed next to her, I met her gaze and closed my eyes as all the things I'd wanted to say to her when I was in Canth surged through me. If not now, when? There was no saying what awaited us in Thule, and if I could not bring myself to speak a simple truth when we were as close as we were, as raw as we were, then I could find a thousand reasons to keep my lips sealed in the future.
“I love you, Claire,” I said softly, warmth and fear alike pooling in my chest.
And Claire, for all her thoughts had done to turn her against me, didn't hesitate for a moment. Hands on my shoulders, she pulled me close but didn't kiss me.
“I love you too, Rowan,” she said, closing her eyes. “Of course I do.”
She slipped her arms around my shoulders and I knelt on the edge of the bed, letting myself be pulled over her. It took a little fumbling, but I laid on my side, head rested on her pillow, mirroring her position. I reached for her hand, squeezing it tightly.
I'd said the words and nothing had changed. It wasn't all abruptly better, but it gave me the push I needed to find the right words.
“This isn't going to be easy, is it?” I murmured, face inches from hers. “Sometimes I realise how close we are, how close you could be – how close anyone could be – and it scares me. I'm afraid of what could've happened while I wasn't on guard, and I don't want anyone near me. Because if they touch me, even if they don't do anything, I'll just be thrown back to... you know.
“And I know it hasn't been long. Not really. But it makes me wonder if I'll ever go a day without thinking about it. Without gripping my wrist like I'm trying to break it.”
Claire let me say my piece, and her expression didn't twist into something dark as the truth tumbled out of me. There wasn't even pity there; just a quiet understanding that weighed heavily upon me to see.
“I want to drink, Rowan. Even now, even with you. I could tremble with it, most days,” she murmured. “I spend hours doing what I can to convince myself that a glass – half a glass – would do me no harm. That it would help me focus, making things easier in the long run. I make the most elaborate plans to procure it, to go about it in secret. So none of this is easy, no.”
“But you're doing better, aren't you?” I asked, afraid of the answer. “You haven't been drinking. The urges will go away, right? Bit by bit...”
“I'm doing better. I'm holding on,” Claire said, bringing up a hand to my face. “Control can be regained, Rowan. Remember that.”
As difficult as it was, both to hear and to say, I didn't feel worse for what passed between us. It wasn't the way I'd imagined the evening ending, while we were still sat around the fire pit, laughing and smiling freely, but the truth was far more important than going to lengths to convince one another that we were both alright. There were only two options available to us: either we lost each other over how unfair what had happened to us was, or we used what we'd been reduced to as a foundation, and built up from there, together.
“Do you know what I miss the most?” Claire asked. She'd turned onto her back, hand still clasping mine in the narrow space between us. “I miss many things. I miss being able to trust my own body. I miss being able to wash and dress myself. But more than that, I miss running.
“There was a woodland in Thule that was part of the castle grounds. Every morning, I'd wake at dawn and run through it. Often, Rylan would come with me. He was faster, but I knew the woods better than he did; I was there so often that I'd worn tracks into the dirt. We'd made a race of it at least twice a week, and it wasn't easy going. Tree roots jutted out and there were plenty of rocks to trip over, which is to say nothing of the state of things after a night of heavy rain.
“But I went, every morning. My route took more than an hour and a half, and somehow, being exhausted before breakfast gave me the energy to face the rest of the day. More than that, it was the one time I stopped thinking: about dragon-slaying, about any of my other responsibilities.
“I miss that. Running against the wind and rain, not weighed down by anything. And I have to accept that it's all behind me.”
Pushing myself up on an elbow, I looked down at her, doing what I could to smile. I might not have been able to give Claire her leg back or cleanse her burns, but I could give her the rush of the wind and some of the freedom that entailed.
“Come with me,” I said.
“Come with you? To where?”
“The Bloodless Lands,” I said, not pausing for long enough for her to react. “Into Myros. It's all still there, Claire. I found it. I found the Phoenix Fire. It's still burning.”
She pushed herself up into a sitting position, forehead almost crashing against mine. Her gaze skidded to the box of bones on her shelf, barely lit up the candles below, and she frowned.
“Rowan...” she began.
“I know! I know it might not work. But we'll never know unless we try, will we? We'll be gone soon, Claire. Busy in Thule. If not now, when?”
Falling back against the pillow, she covered her face with both hands, laughing flatly into her palms. After a moment, she pulled me close, mumbling, “I think we both need to sleep, Rowan,” into the top of my head.
*
Oak sprung to his feet at the sight of Claire, and I rushed forward, plastering myself against the end of his snout, heels digging into the dirt. He didn't know what had happened to her and would've knocked her clean off her feet, given half a chance. He let out a low growl when I didn't release him, protests turning to a low whimper when he set his eyes on Claire instead.
Slowly stepping back, I let him approach Claire. He spread his wings out, dropped to the ground and whined at her feet. Claire froze, hand held out in mid-air, and I hoped it wasn't too much for her. She wasn't used to facing dragons like this. She'd spent the first thirty-one years of her life with nothing but the thought of slaying them at the forefront of her mind, and then Isin had burnt all around her.
“Hello, Oak,” she eventually said, patting the top of his nose. “Rowan's told me a lot about you.”
Content, Oak rolled onto his side, wings folding back.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“Rowan. This is... I don't know what to call it. It's beyond madness. Even if you did see a fire, that isn't to say—”
“Fifteen hundred years, Claire. It's been fifteen hundred years. That isn't a normal fire burning. You didn't see it. It was like...” I looked to Oak, bu
t he wasn't of any help. “Look. Even if it doesn't work out, don't you at least want to go flying?”
Claire met Oak's great, glassy eye and ran her hand through her hair.
“I suppose you'd know I was lying if I said no.”
I crouched by Oak's head, scratching behind his ear and murmuring that he had to stay extra still, just for Claire. He righted himself, body pressed low to the ground, tail swishing back and forth. Eager to impress her, he placed his jaw against the dirt, doing all he could to refrain from twitching as we moved to his side.
Half a dozen pane watched from the sca-sino, and I was glad we hadn't told Sen about the expedition we were about to embark on. She'd have at least one heart attack.
I strapped Claire's cane to my back in the same way Kidira carried her spears, and slowly but surely, helped her up onto Oak. I climbed up behind her, leant against her back, and watched as she cautiously ran her hands over Oak's scales.
“Are you sure you're still alright with this?” I asked, placing my bag between us. “It can't be easy.”
“Ever since King Garland revealed the truth to me, I've been forced to see the dragons in a new light,” she said. “This can only help.”
There was only one thing for it.
Showing Claire where to place her hands, I wrapped my arms loosely around her and signalled for Oak to set off. I'd intended to be relaxed enough for the two of us, but the moment he kicked off, my arms were tight around Claire's waist. She swore under her breath, hands wrapped tightly around the bases of Oak's wings, but once we were in the sky, once Oak had pushed through the rocky lift-off, Claire was smiling.
“Are you alright?” I asked over the rush of the wind.
Oak beat his wings and held his altitude in order to give Claire time to become accustomed to it. We were already hundreds of feet above the ground, and Claire leant more to the side than I would've dared to.
“I'm on a dragon,” she said, glancing back at me. “Flying. On a dragon.”
“You are,” I agreed, grinning.
I propped my chin on her shoulder, seeing what she saw. With her left eye of no use to her, Claire had to turn her head all the way to properly see the width of the mountain range rushing beneath us, and I'd never known her to be so animated.
“Claire, the blindfold,” I reminded her, pulling it from her back pocket.
“Ah, yes,” she said, taking in as much of the Bloodless Lands as she could in the seconds it took me to put the blindfold on her. “Perhaps I ought to have worn two eye-patches instead.”
Blinded though she was, Claire responded to everything around her. I watched as her fingers clung tighter to Oak's scales and then relaxed as the wind picked up, stomach muscles pulling taut when Oak swooped down, flying closer to the ground. She kept turning her head this way and that, as though hearing something carried by the wind that neither Oak nor I did, and all the while, she was smiling without restraint.
“What do you see, Rowan?” she asked. “Tell me.”
“Cities. There are cities everywhere. I can't imagine how alive Myros must've once been,” I murmured. “And it's all white, like it was along the edges. It's as though it's always been white, and it'll be like that forever, unless... unless someone changes that.”
I rested against her back, listening to the roar of the wind and the beat of Oak's wings, telling her about every tower I saw, every shrine that could've swallowed a castle whole, until Oak brought us to the capital of Myros. He didn't stop along the outskirts, this time, instead landing in the wide, open street leading up to the Phoenix Fire.
I slid off his back, guided Claire down, and she blindly patted her way along Oak's neck, stopping at his head and saying, “Thank you, Oak.” He growled in delight, curling up in the street and letting us attend to business, that he might fly Claire back to Kyrindval soon.
“I think we're in the capital of Myros,” I said, handing Claire her cane and patting a hand against my bag, just to be certain. “Do you know what it's called?”
“Phos,” Claire said, holding out an arm for me to take, “That's what all the books say. Phos is where they built the Phoenix Fire.”
With her arm linked around mine, she reached up a hand, trying to move her blindfold back with her thumb. I pulled her hand away, told her it wasn't time yet, and guided her up the steps, towards Isjin. I was prepared for her this time and inclined my head towards the statue, leading Claire around her outstretched hands.
There the Phoenix Fire was, just as it had been the first time I'd found it. Liquid flame burnt above a grate, running towards the sky, dissipating before it reached the statue standing guard overhead.
The heat of the flames were enough to let Claire know where we were. She reached for her blindfold and I didn't stop her, this time. I turned from the Phoenix Fire, from the life-giving flames that had burnt without spite, without anger, for longer than Kondo-Kana had walked across the surface of Bosma, and instead fixed my eyes on Claire, watching as her face was painted a glassy gold.
She brought a hand to her mouth, words deserting her, and held it out to me.
Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the wooden box, bones still rattling within.
I opened it, held it out to her, and Claire gathered the bones, fingers wrapping tightly around them.
She turned to me and I said, “Go on,” mouth flickering into a smile as I nodded towards the fire.
Holding the bones to her chest, the bones she'd brought all the way from Thule, Claire took a deep breath, scattering them to the flames before she could think better of it.
There was a crackle, a rush of air.
The golden flames ate up the bones, turning them to ashes with roar as hollow as the wind, and the fire returned to the way it had been for more than fifteen hundred years. Untouched, unchanging.
“... that was it,” Claire said, swallowing the lump in her throat. She shook her head, letting out a shaky breath. “For a moment, I really thought—”
“Yeah,” I said, stepping forward and placing my hands against the smooth, black stone the Phoenix Fire was built into. “So did I, Claire.”
There was nothing happening within the flames, so far as I could tell, and some part of me was convinced that I'd be able to feel a ripple of life from within, being what I was. I glanced between the statues of Isjin, silently imploring them for help, and Claire muttered something about them likely being eagle bones after all. Neither of us doubted what was in front of us. Setting eyes on the Phoenix Fire itself was all the proof we needed, and it wasn't charred bones that drew disappointment out me.
It was the look on Claire's face.
She hadn't allowed herself to hope in a long time. This was supposed to be a distraction. Something to focus on, to believe in, while Thule was waiting for us, while Rylan was heading our way with Agados behind him. Myros was supposed to be the one place on Asar we could go to get away from that all, and faced with yet another loss, no matter how much she claimed to have entered into this with no expectations, Claire couldn't turn her thoughts away from all that rested heavily on her shoulders.
Even flying wouldn't make her smile any time soon.
“Come,” she said, holding out a hand to me.
I took it in my own, and she reached up with her other hand, still gripping her cane, to pull the blindfold back over her right eye.
A flood of light brought her hand back to her side.
It was brighter than the Phoenix Fire itself; thinner, lighter. It was like the light that poured from my eyes, from my fingers, like the light that had consumed the whole of Myros and beyond, and I understood, for the first time, that there was nothing to fear from it. It twisted in the air before us, draining the flames dry, and Claire pulled off her eye-patch, both eyes reflecting the white.
The light couldn't sustain itself. Purple filtered across Claire's face like strange sunbeams reaching the ocean floor, and she gripped my hand tighter.
Before us, a phoenix rose from the flames, fir
e trailing behind it, wings beating the flames from its feathers.
And in a land where time no longer held any meaning, for the briefest of moments, life, once again, flooded out across Myros.
About the Author
Sam Farren started writing the way many young authors do: they really, really wanted to post some fanfiction. After dabbling in both transformative and original works for many years, they developed a passion for representing lesbian, bisexual, trans women, and woman-aligned non-binary people of all sorts in fantasy worlds. Dragonoak: The Sky Beneath The Sun, is the second instalment in a fully-written trilogy, spanning both years and continents.
Born and raised in the south-east of England, Sam still resides there, with a charming pile of royal pythons, Tofu, Twix and Toffee. They currently work with animals, and deeply appreciate any and all support via their published works.
If you've enjoyed this novel, please consider sharing a review or recommendation on social media. Please remember that Dragonoak is a small, independent publication, and has been created with relatively few resources. Editing for each book takes at least six months, and any errors are not for a lack of hard work and dedication!
Other Titles in the Dragonoak Series
The Complete History of Kastelir
The Sky Beneath The Sun
Gall and Wormwood
All Else Is Dust
Bare Earth
Contact the Author
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