Dragonoak: The Complete History of Kastelir
Page 19
“You'll have questions. Should you not wish to speak with Kouris, I shall strive to answer them. But for now—” Claire paused, standing back up. “Dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“The Kings have requested your company.”
Michael perked back up at the prospect of dining with royalty. I had no such desire to face either of them, least of all around a table, but thought that Claire must've taken responsibility for the both of us.
I didn't want to put her at risk. Not after she'd come so far.
Dinner was hastily thrown together and the atmosphere was creased, jittery. I rather thought that one of the Kings had suggested it and put the whole affair into motion before they could think better of it. Guards escorted the three of us to a banquet hall far greater than the scattered candles allowed us to perceive.
A rich mahogany table stretched on endlessly, dipping into the darkness left and right of me. Candles stood in the centre, making the trays and plates and bowls of food seem like something out of a painting; there was all the luxury Michael had been harping on about for weeks, but our small party forced the hall to draw in on us.
Kouris sat between Kings Atthis and Jonas. King Jonas was a bear of a man with a smile wrinkled into his face, and he greeted us heartily, but didn't keep his attention on us for long. He couldn't help but glance at Kouris every few seconds, glimpsing the past. Her chair was enormous, big enough for a pane and then some; I wondered whether they'd brought it in especially for her, or if it'd always been there, presiding over the joy and festivities of banquets and feasts like a tombstone.
“Well! This evening has certainly taken a turn for the bizarre. Had you told me this morning that I'd be dining with Kouris – not to mention a Felheimish Knight and her companions – I would've signed over the Kingdom to prove I didn't believe you,” King Jonas said as I shovelled roast beef I had no intention of eating onto my plate. “Now, Sir Ightham's name I got—and you two are?”
“Michael and Rowan Northwood, You Highness,” Michael managed in a single breath, gripping his cutlery tightly to stop it from trembling.
“Northwood?” King Atthis interjected, leaning forward to absent-mindedly scoop up a serving of boiled potatoes. His thoughts had been elsewhere while we sat there – he seemed irritated, and I suspected that dinner had been King Jonas' idea – and his sudden contribution to the conversation gave Michael reason to pause.
His eyes darted around as though he could've misspoken. Taking a breath, he said, “... Yes, Your Highness,” and bit his lower-lip.
King Atthis hummed to himself, leant back in his seat, and dismissed his own enquiry with a wave. The dull chime of cutlery against dishes emphasised the silence we'd lapsed into, and I dared to steal a glance in the direction of the woman who wasn't Rán. There was no food on her plate and her fingers hovered over a knife. Nobody ate, because the Kings had yet to take a bite.
King Jonas showed mercy to Michael, on the verge of collapsing onto his plate, in spearing a piece of potato on the end of his fork. Kouris, however, did not take kindly to the commencement of the meal and furrowed her brow, offended by the prospect of Jonas daring to eat.
“Where is Kidira?” she asked, and as she spoke, I knew it was a question she'd been refraining from asking.
Neither King Jonas nor Atthis wanted to answer. They glanced at each other around Kouris, and warily, King Atthis said, “You have missed her by two days. She went to Kyrindval on official business,” and busied himself with cutting the beef into thin strips.
The corner of Kouris' mouth twitched.
“Then I will go to Kyrindval,” she said, picking up the knife.
“I'm not certain that's the wisest course of—”
“I will go to Kyrindval,” she growled under her breath, burying the blade up to its hilt in the only raw leg of meat sprawled out across the table.
The candles flickered and everyone's appetite picked up. Claire and Michael ate more than their fair share, gulping down goblets of wine as they chewed and chewed in lieu of speaking. The Kings too shovelled food into their mouths as though they could swallow back the sticky pulp of the atmosphere. All in the most refined manner possible, of course.
I smushed a criss-cross of asparagus with the back of my fork but couldn't eat. The others were so busy avoiding eye contact that I found myself staring openly at Kouris; for a woman who'd waited twenty-seven years to get home, the prospect of having to wait mere days to see Queen Kidira again had twisted her features and darkened her eyes.
Good, I thought. Let her suffer, if only because of her own impatience. Wherever Kyrindval was, I hoped the ground would shake and topple it into the sea, into the Bloodless Lands, far beyond Kouris' reach. Not that it mattered: if my blood burnt with betrayal born of the weeks I'd know her, there was no way Queen Kidira would be able to bring herself to face Kouris. She won't want to see you! I wanted to shout. It's been twenty-seven years—go back to Canth. Go back, go back!
King Jonas cleared his throat, sending the roar of my thoughts rushing into the crevices of my mind.
“Although her daughter is here, should you wish to meet her.”
He said it cautiously. Best to broach the subject in the company of others to temper her reaction. King Atthis' knuckles turned white around his cutlery and Michael scraped his knife across his plate.
There Kouris was, an insect full of her own venom, but something inside of her had torn, and she was burning from within.
Yet I couldn't bring myself to feel vindicated.
I recognised the look on her face. It was the same one she'd worn when she'd returned to camp and found me drenched in an assassin's blood. She excused herself so quietly that I barely caught the string of words as they slipped between her fangs. Her chair scraped across the floor as no one asked her to stay, and she was gone, taken by the darkness, leaving a well of silence where she'd once been.
I stared down at my food as everyone continued eating. The colours blurred together, the greens of string beans into the reds of peppers and the rich browns of meat, and I tried to account for the way I wanted to leap to my feet and charge after her. After Queen Kouris, I reminded myself. Kouris might've stepped into the shadows but Rán had disappeared long before that.
“Well!” King Jonas said abruptly, trying to laugh away what had happened. “Dragon slaying, is it?”
“It is, You Highness,” Claire said with a bow of her head, pouring herself another glass of wine.
“Splendid! Well, not so much all that trouble with the, ah, razings, but the beasts themselves. Terrifying creatures, I hear,” he said, nodding his head to himself. “And what of you two? Seen many dragons in your time?”
It wasn't until then that I realised what the Kastelirians thought of our dragon problem; that they were as common as rodents and no more of a pest; and that it was a novel business, ripe for storytelling, with the potential for adventure.
“I-I'm afraid not, Your Highness,” Michael managed. “You see, we're from a village some twenty miles from the coast, and as I've no doubt you know, dragons don't dare to venture too close to the ocean. I've read that they can smell the salt on the wind from great distances and are terrified of being doused.”
“Is that so?” King Jonas replied, almost disappointed.
He turned back to Claire as King Atthis watched attentively. Without Kouris there, the cogs of conversation slowly fell into place, turning smoothly with every question posed and answer delivered.
“If I might ask—how many dragons have you defeated, Sir?” There was no doubt that King Jonas was genuinely interested in the topic and Michael's confidence began to build. “More than the Sir Priorys?”
Claire shook her head modestly, placing her glass down as she spoke.
“I have only encountered nine thus far,” she explained, “And the fact that I sit before you is evidence enough that I came out victorious. I doubt I shall beat the record of the first dragon slayers within my lifetime.”
“Ah—now, don't sell yourself short, Sir!” Michael chimed in. “The Sir Priorys pioneered the art of dragon-slaying and worked together for decades. And that was over two-hundred years ago, around the time the territories' last stint of peace collapsed and... oh, well, that is to say, before the territories were united by the rigidity of Kastelir. A-anyway, it was a long time ago, before techniques were refined—together, they only slayed twenty-seven of them.”
He recovered from his blunder with a puff of air that made him sound winded and managed to render the deaths of twenty-seven dragons as something altogether unremarkable. Claire, sat among us as Sir Ightham, had single-handedly slain ferocious beasts; all else was a series of dusty, fast-fading numbers.
“Really? I must admit that I've only read about such matters in books—I've never had the chance to discuss them with any Felheimers,” King Jonas mused, far from offended by Michael's retelling of Kastelir's past.
They continued discussing Knights who had come before Sir Ightham as I pushed my food around my plate. King Atthis didn't contribute to the discussion, and despite the thin film of irritation that clung to his features, I didn't think Michael's heavy-handedness was to blame. King Atthis glanced at the empty seat next to him once a minute, like clockwork, and barely touched more of his meal than I did. I deigned to catch his eye and he lifted his brow in mute sympathy.
“—I expect there was a reason you came all this way, Sir Ightham,” he said, cutting Michael and King Jonas off mid-conversation.
All attention turned to Claire. She placed her hands flat on the table and pointedly looked between Michael and myself. With a wave of his hand, King Atthis had us cleared away like so many dirtied dishes.
“The guest rooms on the next level,” he said to the guards who'd stepped out of the darkness, and I regretted not having done much more than chew on a lettuce leaf for appearances' sake.
“Thank you—thank you for dinner and your time, Your Highnesses,” Michael said, placing his cutlery across his plate as he rose to his feet. I nodded, hoping I seemed enthusiastic in my agreement.
“Well,” Michael exhaled as we were ushered out of the dining hall, shoulders relaxing as though his latest performance had gone off without a hitch. I turned my head, trying to catch sight of Claire, but from the doorway, the candles lent me little aid. “No one's ever going to believe what just happened.”
I was glad he was content with his lot, and had we not recently lost Rán, I might've seen them as more than just people and be awed as he was. The guards had no reason to crowd around us this time, but it was already late, and not much more of the castle was revealed to me. It was all arching shadows and dark alcoves, torches flickering and not carrying the light far.
We were taken up a spiralling staircase of stone and I grazed my fingertips across the wall until we reached a floor that seemed less travelled. The corridor was narrower, but by no means narrow; there were paintings on the walls, paintings I couldn't make much more out of than the vague shapes of faces, and a dark blue carpet sprang beneath the soles of my boots.
“Here we are,” one of the guards said to me halfway down the corridor, pushing a door to. A short distance on, Michael was taken to a room of his own. “If there's anything you need, let us know.”
Moonlight hit the window, and under the soft, eerie glow, I found a drawer full of candles and matches. I didn't light enough for the entire chamber; the room was enormous, draped in shadow and wealth beyond anything I'd ever experienced. The bed stood as an island in the centre of the room, curtains hiding the mattress, blankets and all else, making it into a room of its own.
There were armchairs in one corner, as fine as the ones in the first room we'd been forced into, and I crouched by the table between the chairs, leafing through the supplies set out there. Everything I needed to make blends of tea I'd never heard of sat in small, silvery pots, as well as a stack of sugary biscuits.
I took one of them and nibbled on it as I explored the rest of the room. There was a bookcase twice my height, brimming with books bound in leather, titles embossed in gold and silver on the spines, glinting as I moved the candle I carried. If Michael's room was anything like mine, I doubted he was going to get any sleep tonight.
A mirror and basin stood next to a painting of what I assumed was an important point in Kastelir's creation, though I recognised none of the figures in it, and beyond that, there was space. More space than I knew what to do with. Putting the candle on the table, I leapt through the curtains and onto the bed.
The mattress gave beneath me, sinking down to accommodate my weight, so soft that I immediately thought it might swallow me whole. All at once, the impact of sleeping on the hard ground caught up with me, and I sunk my fingertips into the pillow, forgiving Michael for all the whining he'd done.
I drifted in and out of sleep for what felt like an entire night while I laid there with my eyes closed, but when I bolted upright, I knew it couldn't have been longer than an hour or two. A knock at the door woke me up, and when I didn't move, there it was again; it didn't seem as loud, once I was fully awake. It couldn't have been Kouris.
It definitely couldn't have been Rán.
I poked my head between the curtains, having forgotten about the room beyond the bed, and scrambled over to the door, opening it an inch. I don't know who I was expecting – the Kings would never have bothered with me in person – but under the slowly-fading candlelight, I saw Claire on the other side and hurried to pull the door wide.
“Is something wrong?” I asked as she stepped into the room and proceeded to look around as though she wasn't entirely certain how she'd got there.
“No...” she mumbled, then furrowed her brow. “Perhaps.”
She wasn't avoiding the question, trying to leave me in the dark: she genuinely didn't know how to answer. She stood there, lips slightly parted, and everything about her was heavy. The way her shoulders slumped, the darkness beneath her eyes. I placed a hand between her shoulder blades, thinking words might not reach her, and pointed towards one of the armchairs.
Claire moved clunkily into the seat, convinced that she was still confined to her armour or something more rigid. I hovered, but only for a moment, and busied myself with pouring a glass of water from the pitcher by the basin.
I returned, placed it on the table in front of her, and she said, “I apologise,” rubbing the heel of her palm beneath her eye. “I seem to be tired.”
“It's alright, Claire,” I reassured her. “Did you—did the Kings hear you out? That's what you came for, isn't it?”
“They listened, but I do not know if it will stir them to action. Kouris is with me, but—” Claire paused, bringing the glass to her lips without taking a sip. “They will not act either way until they have consulted with Queen Kidira.”
The other armchair proved to be heavier than it looked, but once its arm was pressed against the side of Claire's chair, I fell against the cushions. Claire kept her eyes fixed on me, and they threatened to stay closed each time she blinked.
“Are you going to Kering... something? The place King Atthis was talking about?”
“Kyrindval,” Claire clarified. “And I am. I do not wish to delay my meeting with Queen Kidira, and Kouris has agreed to wait until sunrise to leave.”
I tucked my knees up against my chest, finding it difficult to be angry at Claire for not having told me about Kouris; I should've been angry at Kouris for lying to me, I decided. Claire had far more to worry about than what I did and didn't know and was likely only allowed to remain within the castle because of Kouris. She needed her to get this far, and she needed her to secure her position.
I couldn't compromise that.
“Where is Kyrindval?” I asked, sounding the name out slowly. “Wha
t's there for the Queen, anyway?”
“Kyrindval is in the mountains. It's one of the larger pane tribes. There are some nineteen-hundred of them, I believe,” she explained, drinking in earnest. I wondered if the wine from dinner was taking its toll on her. “From my understanding, Kastelir was formed on the basis that there would always be a pane on the throne. But none would take the position, after Kouris, and thus Queen Kidira consults with various tribes on relevant matters.”
The only lasting impression I had of Queen Kidira was as the woman who'd ordered the death of a necromancer, but the thought of a pane tribe – the thought of anything so close to the Bloodless Lands – quelled any of the gaping discomfort thoughts of her would've otherwise dredged up.
“How far away is it... ?”
“It should take around a week to reach,” Claire told me, and without missing a beat, said, “Do you wish to come?”
I froze, certain it had to be a trick question. Claire rested her head against her propped up palm, eyes closed, and there was no doubt in my mind that nonsense had escaped her lips on the way to falling asleep. I'd been operating under the impression that she'd come to tell me she was leaving, and that I was to stay here in the castle, in this room, keeping to myself, not saying anything to anyone.
When I didn't answer, Claire kept on talking, eyes closed.
“I suppose this is the part where I tell you you're to stay here. You ask me to come, I say no; you ask again, I reluctantly mull it over, and grudgingly say yes. I thought I'd save us both time,” she said, and I huffed out a laugh, nodding though she couldn't see it.
“Does this mean we have to bring Michael?” I asked. “We'll never hear the end of it if we go to a place like that without him.”
Claire forced her eyes open, squinting at the low flame burning above the last inch of wax. She tried to sit up straight and succeeded the second time, gripping one of the arms for support.