Dragonoak

by Sam Farren

“I did,” Katja admitted, swallowing the lump in her throat. It was all wrong; why wasn't she denying it, claiming that I'd lost myself in a darker way than she had? Without taking her eyes off Claire, she raised a hand and pointed at me. “Then how is it that you're so freely excusing her actions?”

  I stepped back, mistaking her finger for a blade.

  “Rowan acted in self-defence,” Claire said plainly, not needing to point out that her death hadn't been of the permanent sorts.

  “Oh, goodness. She hasn't told you, has she?” Katja said, utterly delighted. Her lips curled into something more sinister than any smile she'd offered up thus far, and I wanted to cling to the front of her shirt, to cover her mouth with my hand and keep it there, no matter how she bit and bit. “I do wonder how many secrets she's keeping from you.”

  “Hasn't told me what?” Claire asked, impatience finally seeping through.

  “How do you think we bartered for passage back to Felheim? You're a smart woman, Marshal. You must know that it would never have been a matter of gold,” Katja said, pausing to hide her smile beneath her fingers. “She murdered someone and delivered the head to Queen Nasrin herself. Assassination on behalf of royalty is still assassination.”

  Nothing was said. Katja's words hung in the air, and Claire couldn't find a way to reply to her. I watched Katja spill what I'd tried to make into a secret, powerless to stop her. What could I have done? Leapt on her and beat silence into her? I'd illustrate whatever point she wanted to make better than she could ever hope to.

  Eventually, Claire managed to say, “It is not my responsibility to punish crimes committed in Canth,” setting her jaw the moment she realised what she'd said.

  “Exactly,” Katja said, pleased.

  Claire didn't falter again.

  “Very well. I see you've delighted in making your point,” she said. “I shall have accommodation set aside for you, with guards to watch over you. At such a time as I feel comfortable letting you wander the streets of Orinhal, you will be the first to know.”

  “I suppose I cannot ask for more, at this very moment,” Katja said, sighing. “Do keep in mind, Marshal, that I still know these lands and the people therein better than most. Please, don't feel you ought to hesitate to request my help. I want so very much to be of assistance, to save my people. Orinhal may be safe, but your brother's soldiers still roam the territories, garnering support beyond its borders.”

  No longer listening to Katja, Claire raised a hand when Ash stepped forward and said, “Not you. Find Barns and Minoa and have them handle the transfer. And should I find that this information has spread, you will spend the rest of your days serving Orinhal amongst a pile of dirty laundry.”

  Ash fumed, close to trembling for the faith Claire had lost in her, but after all she'd heard – after all she now knew about me – she didn't dare to speak her mind.

  She brought back the soldiers Claire had requested, and I didn't hear a word that passed between them all. They were there for close to half an hour, being lectured on the severity of the matter, but time seemed to have stilled inside my head, only moving when it could slosh from side to side. The sooner the soldiers were gone, Katja taken along with them, the sooner I was going to have to face Claire.

  The soldiers marched Katja out, slamming the door behind them and taking all the air in the room as they went. With Katja gone, the spell was broken; I could move again. My body tried to do too much at once. I was pacing and stomping my feet, tugging my hair and knocking my temples with the heel of my palm, teeth grit, grinding together.

  “Rowan,” I finally heard, voice breaking through the mulch beneath my skin.

  “What she said, I... she shouldn't be like that. Shouldn't be that calm, that... she thought this through. Thought it all through. She's trying to make it look like I'm a liar, like I lied, and she's, she's... she should be crying. She kept crying, you know, kept pulling at her hair and going on about how awful it was, screaming and shouting. The whole way over, she'd howl a-and...”

  “Rowan,” Claire said again, and I gulped down a deep breath, jaw trembling to see the worry written across her face. “Rowan, she admitted to what she'd done. And even if she had not done so, it is endlessly clear how cruel and manipulative she intends to be. I believed you when you told me, Rowan. I trust you. She isn't ever going to change that; especially when she refuses to look at you, refuses to call you by name.”

  Claire was right. Katja had confessed to her crimes, yet I'd convinced myself I'd be made to look like a fraud, despite all that. Taking hold of her cane, Claire rose to her feet, meaning to cross the room. Meaning to come towards me, to reach out to me.

  I stepped back, shoulder blades hitting the door frame. I didn't realise I was shaking my head until Claire said, “It's alright, Rowan. It's alright. I'm going to sit back down.”

  I clutched my hands together, nails scraping across knuckles.

  “B-but she said...” I said, voice cracking.

  Sat back behind the desk, Claire asked, as softly as anyone could, “Who did you kill, Rowan?”

  “Gavern. He was... he was a pirate,” I said, screwing my eyes shut as I spoke. “He'd been causing trouble at Port Mahon and all over Canth for years. And the Queen, she was his sister. Half-sister. He was trying to take the throne from her, even though she's doing her best to fix Canth. He killed so many of our people, attacked our home over and over again. It was our only way back here. I never would've got out of Canth if I hadn't done that. We would've been trapped there for years and years, Claire, I had to do it, I—”

  Tears forced my eyes open. I rubbed my fingers against them, trying to shove them back in.

  “Why did I do that, Claire?”

  “None of our hands are clean,” Claire said, words soft not because she wanted to be gentle, but because she couldn't bring herself to raise her voice. How much easier this would've been for her if I could stand to let her wrap her arms around me. “Do not think that you have no choice but to let this define you, Rowan. You have been hurt in ways that few can imagine, and you have continued to fight, no matter the cost.”

  I slumped down onto the floor, spine pressing between the planks of the door. The hard surfaces helped to calm me, stopped me trembling, and with my arms wrapped around my knees, I kept my eyes on Claire. How much would I have done for Queen Nasrin – for anyone – had I known that she had been alive all that time? Not so very much that she could no longer stand to look at me, I chose to believe.

  “Is there anything I can get for you, Rowan? Water, perhaps?” she offered. I shook my head, sniffing loudly. “Very well. Should you change your mind, I'm not going anywhere. I shall stay with you for as long as you need me to.”

  I deflated, anger and fear washing out of me, replaced by nothing but shame. If Claire had been embarrassed by what had come to pass nights ago, then what she felt was the spark that had set a fire blazing within me, feeding on every warm thought I'd ever had. I couldn't even have a conversation without one thing within me tumbling loose and pulling everything else out along with it.

  “I should... you have a lot of work to do, I'm sure,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. My legs felt light, as though I hadn't eaten in days, and I blinked hard, clearing my vision. “I need to go. I need to... sleep, or rest, or something.”

  “Rowan, you don't have to leave. It's of no trouble to me, and—”

  I was gone, door closed behind me. It was cruel of me, I knew; all she wanted was to help, and there I was, brushing her off. Unable to bring myself to hear her out, to say goodbye, when she was doing all she could to reach out to me, patient as no one else ever would be.

  My eyes stung all the way back to Sen's cabin. If anyone glowered at me as I went, I didn't see it, nor did I feel it. Their words were lost to the wind, meaningless whispers that rushed right through me. How could I have ever let myself believe that they could hurt me in some way when Katja still existed in the world?

  Sen greeted me at the door. I
think I mumbled out what had happened and she left soon after, taking Claire her long overdue dinner. I did all I could to distract myself. I fed the chickens and sat amongst them in Sen's garden, not crying into my hands, not crying into my hands. They pecked at the seeds I'd scattered in the grass, clucking busily around me, spreading their wings in alarm when I abruptly rose to my feet.

  I'd meant what I said before. All I needed was to sleep.

  I'd feel like myself in the morning.

  Sen had rearranged the pillows on the sofa for me and folded the deer skin blankets on the arm. I fell down, burrowing between the seat and the back of the sofa, and clinging to myself, I felt the pillow become damp as I drifted off. It didn't take long. As I fell into sleep, I was already exhausted by the thought of ever waking again, and the prospect of dreams demanded more of me than I had to offer.

  Mind hearing my pleas, for once, there was nothing but darkness behind my eyelids as I slept. I tossed and turned, convinced I was back in Canth; the heat rose more than the blankets ought to have allowed, and I rolled onto my front, grumbling into a pillow. Sen tended to sleep later and rise earlier than I did, and while she'd always done her best not to disturb me, the corridor was alive with sound.

  Something cracked, a puff of a roar eating up the air.

  Light reached me, though my eyes were still closed, and when Sen called out, “Rowan!” I had already breathed in a lungful of smoke. I scrambled back on the sofa, startled by the ripple of flames spreading from the door frame. Sen kicked the door clean off its hinges, fire blazing behind her, making short work of the walls.

  CHAPTER XVII

  We made it out while the cabin was still standing, shutters splintering against Sen's shoulder as she gathered me in her arms and fought her way out. Smoke coiled in my lungs and I coughed out phlegm, clinging to Sen's arm like an avalanche in motion. She wanted water, cared nothing for what she'd inhaled, and I scrambled after her, ripping out what rattled within her.

  The cabin blazed within, flames filling the windows like all the burning, hate-filled eyes that had been turned towards me over the past few days. Smoke seeped out between logs, so thick and heavy it ought to have spilt across the ground, and the neighbouring pane hadn't wasted any time at the first sign of trouble.

  They came with buckets and pitchers, anything they could find, causing the fire to do little more than hiss. The supports creaked and twisted with the heat, tumbling in on themselves and taking the roof along with them. The cabins had been built with space in between them, but if the wind chose to pick up on a whim, the flames would spread beyond our control, eating the city of a felled forest within minutes.

  “Don't just stand there!” I called out. The humans still awake hadn't missed the flames rising in the distance, and as the pane rushed between the crumbling cabin and the wells, onlookers gathered to gasp and clutch at each other's arms. “At least get out of the way!”

  I threw myself against the crowd, forcing them to part, and my vision flashed between the flames and the dark. Some of the pane were throwing all the pans and buckets they owned from their windows, but barely enough people were rushing forward to help. I made a grab for one, but couldn't put myself to use.

  “Sen!” I called out. “Sen, where are you?”

  I caught a glimpse of her long red hair, vanishing around the side of the burning cabin.

  “Sen!”

  I charged off after her, bucket thumping against the ground behind me. The fire turned the air around it against me, scorching my skin though I'd yet to touch a flame, and I called out her name over and over, hearing the birds squawk in the garden. I turned the corner and found her kneeling, cloth covering her mouth, fumbling with the front of a chicken coop.

  “Sen! You've got to go, it's about to come down,” I yelled over the roar of the flames, the pathetic hiss of water.

  “My birds...” she choked, gathering them in her arms, losing two for every one she picked up.

  I grabbed her shoulder, unable to move a pane even with all the back-breaking work I'd done in Canth, and said, “Go, go! I'll get as many of them as I can. I can do it.”

  “R-Rowan—”

  “Rip it out of the ground and run!”

  Without taking her eyes off me, Sen wrapped an arm around the coup, and tore the struts clean out of the dirt. I didn't know what I was doing, why I'd offered myself up to the pyre her house had become, but it was my fault. No one was trying to hurt Sen. No one could ever want to hurt Sen. It was me they were after, and I had to fix this.

  Had I not been a necromancer, I don't know what would've happened to me. I forced the ravens' cages open, steel bars hot to the touch, and pulled the young birds into my arms, frightening them as much as the fire did. The front wall came down with terrible thud, flames letting out a hungry gasp, and though I wasn't in the building, wasn't beneath the fallen walls, tears dried in my eyes as quickly as they formed.

  I pulled out the front of my shirt to cradle the ravens and ran, healing the birds as I went, tearing smoke from my lungs like a length of old, sodden hair that had twisted all the way down my throat and deeper still.

  The ground scraped the skin from my knees as I collapsed by Sen, making sure she was alright over and over. It occurred to the humans who'd come to gawk at the spectacle that if the fire spread to the pane district, it wouldn't take long for it to reach their own homes, and all gathered did what they could to fight the fire back, spurred on by concern for their families.

  Keeping the birds close, Sen and I watched as the flames conceded to a death by drowning, having taken what they'd come for. There was nothing but a pile of charred wood left, smouldering with sated hunger.

  “We have to go to Claire. We have to tell her what's happened,” I said, shaking Sen's arm and failing to tear her eyes from the wreckage. “... someone did this because of me. I'm so sorry, Sen. Please. Let's go to Claire. She'll know what to do.”

  Trembling, Sen rested her forehead atop the chicken coop still in her arms, and I thought better of reaching out to her when a growl rumbled in the back of her throat in time with the jagged breaths she was taking.

  With the fire gone, all eyes were on us.

  “You saved them. You saved all of your birds, Sen. See, they're safe! Can you leave them with one of your neighbours? It won't be for long. We just really, really need to see Claire. Come on—we don't need all these people staring at us,” I said softly.

  Unable to help but overhear, one of the pane came over and knelt in front of Sen. They held their hands out slowly, murmuring something about having always taken care of the birds, back in their tribe, and uneasily, Sen passed the coop over.

  I rose to my feet, shirt still held out to carry the ravens. Sen glanced up, not seeing anything until her eyes finally focused on the scars scattered across my stomach. That was enough to make her move. She took half of the birds in her cupped palms and together, we followed her neighbour to their cabin, setting the birds down in the hallway.

  I took her hand, knowing she was in no state to recall where the tower was. I'd taken the smoke from her lungs but it still masked her eyes, covering her thoughts in something thicker than a starless night sky. There were none awake in Orinhal who didn't know what had happened, none who didn't blame me for what had just unfolded; there wouldn't be any who counted me innocent, had I stood alone in a room.

  With the threat of fire over, people turned to fearmongering of a new kind. What had once been used against necromancers suddenly became one of our tools, and the Orinhalians stepped back, as though I was about to burst into flames, not light.

  “Excuse me,” said the one woman who dared to block my path. I came to a halt, burrowing the words out of her with my gaze, no longer content to let people push me around simply because they were scared. “My family and I – and a lot of our friends – we don't think this is right. What's happening to you. You're a nice woman. The Marshal likes you well enough, and even if she didn't, even if you were horrible, y
ou still wouldn't deserve this. I know that probably doesn't mean anything, after what's happened, but I wanted you to know.”

  The woman's words reached me like the sea against a cliff, wearing away the hardness, carving out something new. There were no flames to keep tears at bay, only ocean spray.

  “No, that... it means something. It means everything,” I said, fingers tightening around Sen's. “Thank you. But you should go. If people see you talking to me, they'll get ideas.”

  Realising I was right, the woman left with her best smile.

  There were fewer people around the tower itself, though some had followed us from the pane district, and I stopped outside, waiting for Sen to unlock the door. She remained by my side as if waiting for something herself. Either that, or she thought we were still moving.

  “Sen, have you got the key?”

  “Ah...”

  I spotted a ring of them hanging from her hip and I grabbed it, not expecting her to be in any state to answer as I resorted to trying each one, until the lock finally twisted open. I guided her inside, leaving her to sit on the bulkiest chair I could find as I rushed up to Claire's room.

  A candle burnt low on the cabinet by her bed, book folded across her lap. The ruckus outside and our abrupt intrusion hadn't escaped her, and as I reached the upper floor, she was doing what she could to sit up against the pile of pillows that had been supporting her.

  “Rowan? What's happening?"

  I hadn't considered the state I must be in, sweat and soot smeared in equal measures across my skin.

  “It's Sen,” I said, stepping forward to offer my arm out and help her sit up properly, “There was a fire. They burnt down her cabin, Claire. Someone was after me—they had to be. Why else would anyone ever want to hurt Sen?”

  Claire had settled down into bed in a long nightshirt, and when she swung her legs over the side, the fact that I'd dared to speak of fire made my throat turn dry. Believing that the burns ended at the hems of her collar, her sleeves, was a kindness to no one but myself, and I saw, too clearly, how the bones didn't sit right in her leg.