by Emily L K
Panicked, she grabbed a dishcloth and wrapped it around the bite, but it was only a matter of seconds before the blood soaked through the makeshift bandage. She leaned against a workbench and pressed her hand tight over the wound, the way her mother had taught her to do when she cut herself with the kitchen knives.
“Think,” she muttered to herself, “think, think.” Nobody from the kitchens could help her. Of course, they could stop the bleeding and wrapped the bite better, but they couldn’t stop the dragons from coming back. But there was one person who could help, the one person in the whole palace who knew about dragons.
Karalis, sir? She called out in her mind, attempting to speak to him the way he spoke to her. There was no response. She tried once more but when her mind stayed silent, she decided there was only one way to speak to him.
The Karalis’ suite was on the ground floor, that much she knew from the servers who took him his breakfast. Cori only encountered other servants as she hurried through the palace though none of them paid her any mind. It wasn’t uncommon for servants, even kitchen ones, to be on errands in the dead of night.
At each new corridor she cursed, growing increasingly frustrated. Would she ever find his rooms? Perhaps she should go back to her mother for help with the bandage. The thought had barely formed when she rounded a corner and ran into a guard.
“Sorry, sir,” she gasped. She bowed low, clutching her arm to her chest. He made a noise that could have been a dismissal, so she straightened and hurried past. At the next corner, she paused and peered around it. At the end of the corridor were a set of double timber doors with filigree designs traced onto the wood with gold paint. Two men with swords at their belts stood on either side of them with.
There were a few other doors up the hallway, made of a similar timber but without decoration, and each with a guard. Cori leaned against the wall in the shadows, her head touching the cold stone. She closed her eyes briefly, defeated. Her arm throbbed, but the Karalis remained unreachable. His guards would never let her through.
Eyes still closed, Cori, wishing the guards would leave. They talked quietly to each other, their voices muted by the length of the hallway. Would they stay there all night? She was still paused there, trying to decide what to do when she heard a door open. She peered around the corner again in time to see a man dressed in a captain’s uniform poke his head out of a door on the left side of the corridor.
“Advisor wants to see us all,” he said. The guards relaxed their stances and filed through the doorway.
Please don’t be locked, Cori thought desperately as she entered the corridor at a run. There was no time to think of a plan, she knew this was her only chance.
She passed the door the guards had entered. The voices inside preparing to come out masked the light thud of her footsteps. Heart pounding, she slammed into the double doors at a dead sprint. They swung open easily. She fell through, landing heavily on the carpeted floor. Sharp pain shot up her arm as she cried out. The doors swung shut behind her.
Cori sat back on her knees and looked around. She was in a receiving room adorned with plush armchairs and lounges. A buffet table ran along one wall and it had several ewers arranged atop it. There was also a spiral staircase that led to a second floor. The carpet was a deep red and soft to touch as she pushed herself to her feet. As she rose, she noticed that blood had seeped through the sleeve of her nightgown. She hugged her arm to her chest and stepped further into the room, glancing around with trepidation.
There were three doors at the back. As she approached, candlelight flickered beneath one. Teeth clenched, she placed a hand on the door. She knew her actions were completely inappropriate, yet the searing pain in her arm spurned her on. She turned the handle with a click and stepped inside.
The Karalis sat at a dark wood desk with large and colourful clusters of parchment strewn across it. The walls held shelves of thick books and a large window at the far wall was open, letting a salty breeze into the room. The sound of the ocean rushed against the cliffs, much louder at this end of the palace.
The Karalis glanced up. A Look of surprise flashed across his normally still features. She paused, finally reconsidering her actions.
“Cori!” He pivoted to face her. His voice was as deep as she remembered from her mind and he certainly laid to rest the rumours that he couldn’t speak. “What can I do for you?”
She was momentarily thrown by his amicable greeting. He neither questioned her presence nor demanded she leave. Instead, he asked what he could do for her. Cori pushed the thought away; she would ponder this strange familiarity later.
“My holy Karalis,” she began, attempting to lower herself into a prostrating position. He held up a hand and stopped her, then lowered it to the desk. He leaned forward so she was forced to meet his eyes. They were wide, sincere.
“Don’t do that. Tell me what’s wrong.
Trembling, she rolled up the sleeve of her nightgown and extended her arm. Her voice broke with the fear she had for so long fought to contain. “Please, I need your help.”
The Karalis pulled her closer. Carefully, he unwound the makeshift bandage. As it pulled away from the bite, he sucked in his breath and Cori winced. It was a bloody mess.
“That‘s...” he began, inspecting it closely. He glanced quickly up at her, once more seeming surprised. “Did a dragon do this?” He turned her arm towards the light and blood dripped from the wound onto the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice. The skin around the puncture wounds had a silvery sheen.
“Yes,” Cori whispered. “I tried to stop them, but they grew stronger and more lifelike and now...” She drew a shaking breath. The Karalis frowned.
“The first night I became aware of you, something was distressing you. I tried to calm you and it seemed to work. I didn’t know it was this. Dragons.” He watched her, golden eyes whirling. “Come, let’s get this cleaned up and then you can tell me everything.”
He placed the cloth back over the bite marks and led her from the study. His bathroom was next door. The floor and walls were a smooth stone, except for the walls in the back half of the room which were glass, giving a rounded view of a wild garden. The light that the Karalis brought with them into the bathroom threw eerie shadows onto the bushes outside. Before the windows was a sunken pool filled with water with a flat panelled shower directly overhead. Other things were scattered about the room, a towel thrown over a bench, clothes kicked into a corner and a half-burned candle melting in its holder.
The Karalis shot Cori a look that dared her to judge the room but she didn’t care. She swayed on her feet, fingertips reaching for the wall to steady herself.
“Easy, Cori.” The Karalis caught her before she lost her balance and helped her to the floor.
Back pressed against the cool stone wall, she watched through drooping eyelids as he picked up a washbasin from the bench and filled it with water from the pool. He knelt before her, once again unwrapping the cloth on her arm. The towel in his hand touched the water and he squeezed out the excess water then wiped the blood from her skin. She winced, and he paused.
“Why don’t you tell me how this happened?” He suggested, hand tightening on her wrist in a grip that commanded her attention. She licked her lips and, for the first time since the dreams had begun, spoke aloud about the dragons. She told him how the dragons had at first behaved as if they were a mere figment of a nightmare, but as time had rolled on, they’d become increasingly realistic.
“The injuries they inflict seem small compared to their size in my dreams,” she added.
The Karalis eyed her, his wash cloth covered hand pressed over her arm. “You’d be able to walk down the throat of a real dragon. Let’s be thankful the injuries aren‘t to scale.”
Well, that was a dose of reality, she thought faintly. The idea of walking down a dragon’s throat would have been laughable had one not just attempted to kill her.
The Karalis stood and rummaged through a drawer at the bench,
producing a salve and a fresh bandage. He applied the salve over the now clean puncture marks and wrapped the new bandage around it.
“When did the dreams start?” he asked.
Cori frowned, thinking back all those months. “I was in the throne room, the one where you have your parties.” He nodded his understanding, and she continued. “It was after the party had ended, and we were cleaning up. I was looking at your throne and the dragon blinked at me. That morning when I went to bed was when I first dreamed of them.” She bit her tongue before mentioning she’d been hearing strange whispers most of her life. She met his eye, sure she sounded ridiculous, instead he seemed stunned. His eyebrows were raised, his lips parted in surprise. His hand hovered over her arm even though he had finished bandaging. The only part of him that moved were his eyes as they searched hers.
“Karalis, sir?” Cori said timidly as the silence dragged on. He blinked and shook his head, then lowered himself fully to the floor and sat cross-legged facing her.
“It makes sense, the chair,” he said with a shrug and a small smile. “Its wood comes from the Hen Goeden forest, where the dragons go to die.”
A trickle of dread crept down her spine. Had she been cursed? Had the carved dragon done something to her that could eventually kill her? She didn’t want to ask. She didn’t want to know. If he spoke of it, then it would become real and she didn’t want it to be real. Her hands found the floor and she pressed her fingers hard against the stone, knuckles turning white.
The Karalis seemed to sense her fear, his gaze dropping quickly to her hands, and he changed the topic. “The dragons, what colours are they?”
“Green,” she blurted. “The green one is the most vicious. It was the one who did this,” she nodded down at her arm. “And there is a red one. It doesn’t seem as bad unless it gets a fright, then it will snap. And a black one as well. It ignores me completely.”
The Karalis stared out the window at the dark garden, and Cori stared at him. Now that the danger had passed, she considered her situation. What was she doing here, sitting on the Karalis’ bathroom floor with the Karalis himself? And why had he so easily dropped his lifetime of masks for her?
“Your voice is different,” she let slip.
“Oh?” He responded mildly, fixing his strange eyes on her. “How so?”
“When you spoke to me before, in my head, it sounded like you were almost singing and now,” she frowned, “it doesn’t.”
A smile spread slowly across his face, lighting his features and setting his eerie eyes aglow. Cori forced herself not to shrink away from him, though her toes curled and she pulled her knees to her chest.
“There are some things I should tell you.”
Chapter Seven
“When I speak aloud, you cannot hear my Hum.” The last word vibrated from his lips. Cori pressed herself back against the wall. A strange sensation filled the bathroom.
The Hum is the Dijem magic. His words touched her mind now, the melody in his voice more pronounced than ever. We use the Hum to weave our songs. Listen carefully, you should be able to hear mine even when I don’t speak.
Cori listened. She could hear the breeze blowing through the bushes outside, and the ocean rushing against the rocks. She could hear a drip, from shower to pool and the Karalis breathing. She was aware of her own breath, her heartbeat, a sweet song in the air.
She closed her eyes, trying to hold onto it. It was a whisper, a vibration through her entire body. A memory of a summer day when there was nothing more to do than lie in the shade with a hot wind through her hair.
The song pulled away, and with reluctance, she let it go and opened her eyes. The Karalis’ eerie smile had lessened and the glow in his eyes had subsided, leaving them their ordinary golden hue. He stood and held out his hand to her. She took it, feeling calluses that were out of place for a man who didn’t do manual labour, and let him pull her to her feet.
“Do you feel all right?” He waited for her nod of assent before releasing her hand. They returned to the receiving room where he lit a few candles on a low table.
“Please, sit down.” He gestured to an armchair and she sank wearily into it. He selected another chair and pulled it across the room to face her. He sat down and surveyed her thoughtfully, his chin resting on his fingertips. Cori tucked her hands beneath her thighs to keep from fidgeting. Her dragon bite no longer hurt, rather her arm felt a tingling numbness. She wondered what was in the salve he’d applied.
“I’m going to teach you something,” he said after a time. “Normally this wouldn’t come until later in your training, but considering the circumstances, I think it best that you learn it now.”
Cori didn’t move as he lapsed back into thoughtfulness. Even her breathing was shallow, as if silence could make the moment last longer. She drank him in as she hadn’t before. He sat as still and graceful as a cat, eyes unfocused in contemplation and fingers drumming together in their steepled position. He wore no adornments this night, dressed simply in a white cotton shirt and loose grey pants. His sleeves were stained with splatters of her blood and she knew she should take the shirt and wash it for him, but she couldn’t find words to speak.
That he graced her with his attention was monumental. Indeed the significance of his open hospitality wasn’t lost on her. A nagging sensation warned her she should go, that there was no turning back from what he was about to tell her, but she couldn’t move. She wanted so badly to know, to have a secret that no human had ever been privy to. She sucked on her bottom lip to keep from hurrying him along. Butterflies stirred her stomach, both excited and apprehensive.
“The Hum is what allows me to speak to you, mind to mind,” he suddenly said, making Cori jump. “I cannot see your thoughts, or what you‘re doing. It’s simply a projection of my voice to you. Dragons also have a Hum which is how the Dijem are able to speak to them too. The Dijem can also use the Hum to weave songs which forms the base of our magic and the notes can be manipulated to different purposes. Does that make sense?” He waited for her to nod, then continued. “I’m going to teach you a song that, when you sing it to the dragons, will hopefully weaken their presence.”
He seemed suddenly nervous. His hands fell to his knees, fingers bunching in the material of his pants. He took a deep breath. And another. Then he began to hum. It was a simple melody, made up of only a few repeating notes. The tone was soft and flowing, like a lullaby. It wove around Cori, pulling her in, setting her at ease. She realised, somewhere in her mind, that the Karalis had switched from humming aloud to pressing his Hum upon her mind. He abruptly stopped.
“You’ll be able to resist the lure of the Hum as you become used to it,” he explained apologetically. She was too dazed to ask when on earth she would have time to get used to something so powerful. Her mind felt as though it were drifting. If she closed her eyes, she was sure she’d see the universe spiralling around her.
“Let me show you one more time,” he said gently, drawing her back to her surroundings. He hummed the tune again, using only his mouth this time. He made Cori try. She repeated it a few times until the Karalis informed her that she had it right.
“It’s almost dawn,” he said, stretching.
“Dawn! I have to get back!” Cori jumped up, only to sit heavily again when the tolls of the night swept her balance away. “How will I get past your guards?” She asked when she was finally able to stand without swaying. “They didn’t see me come in.”
The Karalis’ mouth quirked. "Follow me," he said. He led her up the staircase.
His bedroom was as large as the kitchens. A wide bed, low to the ground, was centered at one wall with simmering torches ensconced either side of its head. The covers had already been pulled back and Cori wondered guiltily if the Karalis had been headed for bed when she’d arrived.
The outside wall of the room, like those downstairs, was made of glass, showing the vista beyond. Pink dawn light touched the water even as the lights of Lautan glittered like
a dewed spider web below.
The Karalis led her around the bed, their footsteps muffled by the sand coloured carpet. The colour was entirely at odds with the rich reds that adorned the rest of the palace. He placed his hand on the wall and with a soft click, a hidden door swung open, revealing an empty hallway.
“You should be able to get back this way without much trouble.” He stood back so that she could step past him and she could feel power emanating from him. Was it an effect of the magic he’d taught her earlier? It was enticing and she wanted to stay and learn more. She paused, turning back to him before he closed the door.
“Why me?” She asked. “Why did you choose me, when there were all those others? I’m not like them.”
“No, you’re not.” He smiled and nudged her out the door, closing it behind.
You are so much more.
CORI MANAGED TO GET back to the kitchens without incident. She hummed as she walked, matching the melody to her steps. People were already at work when she opened the door but she managed to slip past them almost unnoticed. Dahl, with a tray of tea and breakfast, turned as she was opening the door of the living quarters. He almost dropped his burden as he appraised her in her nightgown. She ignored him and entered her room.
Her mother and sister had already left for the day so Cori quickly pulled off her bloodied nightgown and changed into her school robes. She bunched the nightgown up the front of her robes to launder later. Still humming under her breath, went back to the kitchen and to her mother’s work bench.
“Where have you been, darling?” Bel queried as Cori set herself to measuring flour for the bread into a large mixing bowl.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she replied, not meeting her mother’s eye though she was being truthful. “So I got up and started on some homework. I have to head off to school now though.” She kissed her mother goodbye then locked eyes with Saasha. Her sister spared her a glance, which Cori supposed was something.
