A Dragonbird in the Fern

by Rueckert, Laura

  After dinner, we went for a stroll through the manor gardens. The sky was darkening already, but the air had that humid, herbal freshness of the early evening that made me want to stay out for hours. Unlike the carefully cultivated lawn and flowerbeds of home, the Farnskager garden was natural. Grass and bushes, shadows dancing with fireflies, stones as high as my waist clustered in small groups with curious fleshy plants growing directly on the rocks.

  As we walked, Raffar pointed out different objects and said their names. Firefly. Rock. Grass. Tree, tree, tree—three different words—so apparently, he was telling me the kinds of trees. At least I still remembered rock and grass.

  The forest that grew up to the manor loomed black ahead, but the cloudless sky glowed a dark sapphire above us. Raffar and I sat on some old tree stumps, hewn into rough chairs. In the sky, stars twinkled into view.

  “You like Farnskag?” he asked suddenly.

  I fought not to break his gaze. It was too early to ask a question like that. Especially considering today’s mess. Out of politeness, I nodded.

  “You miss Azzaria?”

  “Yes.” I swallowed. “I miss . . . family.” I combed my brain for the correct vocabulary. “Mother, father, brothers, sister.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Sister. My dimwitted brain. Scilla wasn’t in Azzaria anymore.

  A soft caress slipped over my neck. I whirled around, but nothing was behind me, and no mosquito or firefly flew away from where we sat. It must be Scilla again. Since her last act had been to hurt Raffar, I should have been scared. Instead, it felt as though a warm blanket had been nestled around my shoulders. At least someone familiar was here with me in this foreign land. Earthwalkers were unpredictable, but did I dare hope she’d be gentle from time to time, now that we’d seen each other back in Loftaria?

  Raffar sighed and snatched a stick from the ground. He scratched the bark of an empty stump chair across from us with its tip. When he spoke, I only understood a few words of each sentence. “. . . sorry . . . you miss her. I know . . . I miss my mother and father.”

  He’d been king for three years now, and he’d only been crowned so young because both parents had died. With Scilla, it was all so fresh, like a wound that had only barely begun to scab over. What was it like for him?

  To soften my words, I picked up a second twig and tapped his with mine. “How . . . they die?” I asked, inwardly cursing my lack of linguistic elegance.

  His voice rumbled quickly, and though I strained, I didn’t understand one word of his answer. He must have seen it in my eyes. He said clearly, “mother,” then coughed until he slowly laid his head to the side.

  Lung fever, probably. A slow, horrible way to die. An awful thing to watch. My heart pinched for him, and I nodded. At least it meant he’d had time to say goodbye.

  Then, “Father.” He rubbed his stomach, over and over, and he shook his head. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it seemed to be another illness.

  His finger tapped his heart three times. “Father . . . good king. I try . . . good king . . . father.”

  Those no longer here left so much behind. Expectations, reputations. Scilla, with her intelligence and ambition, lived in my heart too.

  His voice was low when he said, “Miss them . . . like yesterday . . . like forever.”

  Crickets chirped, but otherwise, the night was silent, as if we were the last people on the continent. Raffar had lost his parents, and then his adopted brothers and sisters had been sent away all at once. The responsibility for an entire country had been thrust upon him at the same time. I ran my twig along his stick until it gently nudged the back of his hand.

  Like yesterday. Like forever. For me too, it felt like Scilla had only been gone a day or two, but I was beginning to forget things I shouldn’t. The exact shade of her hazel eyes. The sound of her laugh. I remembered how she repeatedly brushed a finger down over her nose when she was deep in thought, but as a fact, and not as a picture. And that forgetting . . . it made everything tight inside me, like all my muscles were freezing up from holding in the sadness.

  For Raffar, it must be the same, but the forgetting would be even more intense. I wished I could wipe that ache away for us. We’d both lost our families, whether due to death or distance.

  But we were here; we had each other. Dropping my stick, I stood in front of him. I trailed my hand up the back of his neck, over a three-stripe tattoo to the day’s stubble on his head. He watched me for a moment, then leaned forward until his forehead rested against my abdomen. The tiny bristles of hair massaged my fingers as I stroked his head.

  He took a deep breath. His fist was balled as it came up the side of my hip and pressed against my waist. He turned until his cheek and ear were flush against me. A cozy fire blossomed inside me, and I wanted to curl up next to him until I forgot about missing my family and my country and not being able to speak properly.

  I leaned down, craving the rough sensation of his shaved head against my lips. But before I reached him, his hand glided from my waist. He scooted back on the tree stump and cleared his throat. “Bag,” he said gruffly, pointing to the sack he’d asked me to bring.

  My heart slammed my ribs ten times before I could force myself to take a step backward. Mechanically, I reached inside and withdrew the lexicon. I sat back down on my wooden stool and placed the book into his hands—instead of whacking him over the head with it. His annoying obsession with my age . . . as if a couple of months really made a difference. My birthday was less than three months away.

  Before opening the lexicon, he pointed to my bracelets. Then he showed me a word: carnival.

  “Only one,” he said, leaning forward to give his words weight.

  Carnival? I blinked several times and looked at the word again. Not carnival. Careful. He was telling me to be careful and “only one.”

  But I had two bracelets. “Only one what?”

  He considered, then leafed through the book again. Several words later, it clicked together. I was supposed to be careful because the bracelets only worked one time. Every Watcher only protected a person once. I’d “used up” my protection in Loftaria with the bladeleaf poison.

  “I understand.” Although . . . it might have been the gods or Scilla protecting me. The idea that inanimate objects could influence our lives still made me want to shake my head.

  He pushed up my pant leg and ran a finger over the teeth marks there. “Careful.”

  My face burned. It wasn’t as though I’d deliberately been attacked by an animal because I thought the Watcher would save me anyway.

  For a few seconds, we sat in silence. He was only trying to help. Then I remembered our earlier conversation. “Your parents? No Watcher?”

  “Father, no Watcher. Mother . . . yes. But . . .”

  I got lost in his words again, so we used the lexicon. It turned out Watchers could only save a person from an accident or act of violence. Not from illness, which was part of nature. Raffar repeated that a Watcher could only save once.

  I pointed to the shard in his earlobe. “Still work?”

  His lips curved softly upward, and he shook his head. “I was . . . wild boy. Climbing trees. Even gigantruv. Racing elephant birds. Lucky . . . Watcher.” He frowned and scratched his chin. “Don’t tell. Secret.”

  “Secret?”

  “Only Aldar knows. Aldar was with me.” He pointed to my bracelets. “Don’t tell.”

  I rubbed my forehead and fought the familiar panicky squeeze to my throat. Don’t tell what?

  With the help of the lexicon and a half hour of headache-

  inducing squinting and misread words, I finally comprehended. Part of the protection of the Watchers was psychological. If would-be assassins thought you were protected by a Watcher, they might not even try, under the assumption that you would survive anyway. Back in Loftaria, Raffar had sworn the guards to secrecy. Almost no one knew my protection was gone.

  When I finally understood, a gentleness seeped into Raffar�
��s eyes, and his brows rose. “You . . . good. Better . . . Farnskag.”

  I groaned. He was telling me my language skills were getting better, and yet, I’d barely understood the sentence he’d used to say it. But the look in his eyes . . . as if he were impressed with me.

  A tiny reflection in the shard in his ear glinted in the moonlight. If the Watchers truly had the power to protect, I was thankful they’d kept Raffar safe until I could share my life with him.

  __________

  For the next three days, I desperately tried to get Aldar to take me to see the Stärklandish prisoner, but to no avail. I even dragged him before Raffar, for certainly, he’d give his permission if he understood how important it was.

  I didn’t know what the translator had told him, but based on Raffar’s easy smile when he said no, Aldar sure hadn’t posed my question. Even now, the knowledge made my blood pulse in anger. But the burst of emotion must have spurred on my strategic thinking because I came up with an idea. So, when Aldar needed to visit his father again, and I had a free afternoon with Freyad, I took my chance.

  “Freyad, I have to go to the prison.” A first step would be to get a look at the prisoner. Azzarians often joked that all Farnskagers looked alike because of their tattoos. Maybe the people in Stärkland weren’t any different. Scilla had been the same height and had a similar hair and skin color and figure to mine. If I was lucky, the prisoner would be confused and would say something that would give him away. Freyad would be with me. Assuming he spoke Farnskag, she’d understand.

  She cocked her head. Apparently, I hadn’t used the right words to ask about the prison. How to show it? I clamped a hand around my wrist, like a shackle. Then the same for my ankles. Then I pointed to my eyes again and out toward the square. Aldar had said it was past there.

  Freyad’s eyebrows rose. “Kahngaad?”

  Now I apparently knew the word for prison. I followed when she motioned me to walk with her.

  A weight lifted from my shoulders. It was that simple?

  Perhaps the difficult part was still yet to come—the

  interrogation—but at least I could catch a glimpse of the man.

  Freyad led me through the town streets. A group of people weaving baskets waved and greeted, and I smiled and waved back. “Guuddug,” I called. “Guuddug.”

  We walked on, and either I was confused or we’d taken a wrong turn compared to where the square was. There were hardly any houses here. And suddenly, we stood in front of a small building past the quiet east edge of town in the shade of two huge, swaying pine trees.

  This was the prison?

  Freyad rapped on the door, then nudged it open, whispering several words to me, ending with, “Devsiin.”

  Devsiin? I raised my hand to smother a laugh. When I tried to see the tattoo artist, I was distracted by angry council members. When I wanted to go to the prison, I was taken to the tattoo artist. But at least I was here now.

  A woman about my mother’s age perched on a high chair next to a table where a man lay on his back. His face was tattooed, but long since healed, not like the man we’d seen in the alley. His shoulder was bare, and charcoal lines had been drawn on it to mark where the newest tattoo should go. An elaborately carved bowl was half-full of black ash waiting to be cut into the man’s skin, and a leather satchel lay unrolled, organized with blades of various shapes and sizes. One blade slot was empty.

  “Devsiin kahngaad,” Freyad said to me.

  So kahngaad wasn’t prison. Maybe tattoo artist? Either way, I rolled up onto my toes, eager to ask questions that might bring us progress in the search for Scilla’s killer.

  I waited impatiently as Freyad spoke with the woman, who gripped an intricately etched, not-yet-bloody knife in her hand.

  Raffar’s thumb on my chin . . . A shiver crept up my back. No. No tattoo for me.

  The woman’s hand stole to a pendant around her neck and her wary eyes studied me like she didn’t want me present while she cut ink into the man’s shoulder. Could it have something to do with their Watchers? Was tattooing an act an outsider shouldn’t witness? Sorry for disturbing you! I thought and wished I had a way to say what I meant. But the damage had been done, and I needed answers about the leaf tattoo, so I concentrated on my original question: did someone in town have the tattoo on the commander’s parchment?

  Now, how to get my question across? I didn’t have words or a slate or parchment. I had no other option but to draw it. If my mere presence was an issue, using her ink would probably be a major insult, so I motioned the woman out of her house. She scowled outright at me, but I was the queen, so she set down her knife. She murmured softly to her customer, then bowed her head slightly to me and said, “Skriin Jiara.”

  Once outside, I snatched a twig from the dirt below the tree. I drew the leaf with the thick border around it. Like with Freyad, I pointed to my eyes and to the drawing, then gestured out over the town.

  The woman held up her hand, shaking it as if to wipe away my thoughts. She held out a flat palm, and I gave her the twig. Then she drew three leaves. One like Raffar’s and Freyad’s, with the double-line border with short lines within it. One with the double border and zigzag lines like Aldar. And one with a single, very fine line—she was careful to point out how thick my line was, and that it was obviously not the same. Under each one, she scratched a picture in the dirt. Below Raffar’s was a stick figure, running, holding a staff-like weapon. Under Aldar’s was a slate covered in letters. The third had a house with a hybrid figurehead at the crest and an elephant bird at the side.

  Then she pointed to her own eyes and to my drawing with the thick line. She shook her head and said, “No.” With the twig, she drew crossed lines over it, negating it. She shook her head again and pointed to the other three. Then she nodded, gestured at Freyad and then out over the town.

  If the soldiers had the tattoo like Raffar’s and the scholars had tattoos like Aldar’s, maybe anyone working for the king had the third version. Come to think of it, several servants in Raffar’s manor had one, but not all of them.

  In theory, that third version—the thin line—was closest to the drawing in the commander’s office. But how addled had the witness’s brain been from the attack? Could it be possible he didn’t even remember it right? And the attack had taken place at night. Was it possible to concentrate on something as specific as the leaf’s border during an attack in the dark? I chewed my lip as I pondered it, and the tattoo artist threw a glance back to her house. Without waiting to be excused, she exchanged a few terse words with Freyad, bowed her head ever so slightly to me, and headed for her customer.

  I said thank you to her back, and again to Freyad. The tattoo artist had made it clear. No one in town—maybe no one in all of Farnskag—had the tattoo I was looking for. So, no one in town was guilty of murdering Scilla.

  Or the drawing the witness had made was incorrect.

  Chapter 16

  Aldar’s language lessons were crushing my heart and my mind. Every day, I fled the sitting room with strained eyes and a headache. I spent way too much time wishing Pia were here to teach me instead, even if her Farnskag wasn’t perfect. But then I realized: when Raffar played vansvagd with me, I learned words without thinking. So, after much convincing, Aldar had agreed to try my method. He’d come up with a game.

  I bounced on the balls of my feet, eager to begin a new way of learning. If I could just get rid of that infernal slate, I would learn this language. Aldar smiled coyly at me, asked if I was ready . . . and handed me a slip of parchment.

  I looked down, and the letters flipped around in front of me. Like always. I swallowed and tried not to let my dismay show.

  “It’s a treasure hunt,” said Aldar, his eyes glittering with pride. “These are all words we’ve learned together. If you manage to get all the way to the end, I have a surprise for you.”

  A surprise. I didn’t care about winning some prize, at least not this time. I just didn’t want to read.
/>   “Take your time,” Aldar said. “Concentrate and you’ll get it.”

  Concentrate. I nodded. Concentrate.

  I stared at the rectangle of parchment and reined in the prancing letters. I sounded it out in my head.

  “Dining hall?” I asked Aldar in Farnskag.

  He grinned. “See! You’re learning. Maybe a game is not a bad idea after all.”

  I ignored the pounding already beginning behind my eyes and let out a deep breath.

  “Well, go ahead. Go to the dining hall and look for the next clue.”

  At least I wasn’t reading large amounts of text. If it was only one word per page and there weren’t many pages, I would manage. The dining hall was huge, like at home in Azzaria. There was nothing on the table, and I checked every seat. Then I spotted a flash of cream color under the leg of a chair. I pulled back the chair, and a bit of folded parchment tumbled free.

  Again, I gritted my teeth and stared at the letters.

  “Your Majesty, would you excuse me for a few moments?” Aldar asked. “This morning, King Raffar requested that I look at a document that has arrived from Stärkland.”

  I stared at the letters in front of me. Stop moving! With a wave of my hand, Aldar backed away.

  “I’ll find you at one of the next stations,” he said, then hurried toward Raffar’s office.

  There were four words with arrows between the first and second and the third and fourth. The first word was . . . GARDEN. Good, maybe the fresh air would help me focus. I left the manor.

  The sun shined today, and the heat was welcome on my face. If the air wasn’t so dry and, admittedly, wonderfully apple scented, I could almost pretend I was back home.

  The second word pair was BIRD and PEN, so next I’d cross the garden to the area where the elephant birds were kept. I leaned against a rough boulder topped with succulents as I forced the squirming letters of the final word to make sense. It was a number: THREE.

  Three what, though? I jogged over the lawn to the pens. The birds had a huge grassy area to run in. Some of them stood quietly now, biting off long dandelion leaves. Two chased each other, their heavy feet pounding dust clouds out of the grass. One fluffed up its feathers and waved its long neck back and forth, making a deep cooing sound, probably trying to attract a mate.