Dragonoak: The Complete History of Kastelir

by Sam Farren

  We were stopped before we could get close. Two guards crossed their spears, blocking off the corridor, and one of them said, “I'm afraid you'll have to turn back,” when Kouris didn't break her gait.

  “Move,” she ordered, but to the guards, she was just another pane.

  Kouris would've snatched the spears from their hands and pushed through, if she had to, but Akela overheard the commotion and poked her head around the corner.

  “It is fine,” she said, saving us from an altercation, “These ones, let them through.”

  Relieved that they didn't have to restrain a pane, the guards stepped to the side, spears snapping back into place once we'd joined Akela. King Jonas' body had been taken away, leaving only bloodstains behind, soaked into the carpet, smeared across the stone surrounding it. When I breathed in, the scent of it suck in the back of my throat, and though the trail of death faded when King Jonas' body was removed, I could tell too much about my surroundings.

  I knew where his body had ended up, how he had clutched at his chest – and it was definitely his chest, not his throat – and would've been able to place him, even without the bloodstains; I not only understood how long ago it had happened, but what had happened throughout each second that had passed; and I felt, to an unnerving extent, the last ounce of fear that had been bled from King Jonas' body.

  Not using my necromancy in so long had created a drought within me, and I knew that I owed death itself something.

  “Commander, look,” Kouris said, while Claire knelt down low, eyes scanning the corridor. “I shouldn't have been so short with you earlier. You were only doing your job.”

  “No, no, you are right, Your Majesty,” Akela insisted, “Ightham and Northwood, they are having nothing to do with it, and I am being too hard on them because... because I am angry. You are understanding this, yes?”

  “Aye,” Kouris said, holding out a hand. Akela shook it firmly. “—and just Kouris'll do. Been away for too long to be deserving any sort of rank.”

  Claire's search was fruitless. The corridor curved, leaving only a small stretch of it in the blind-spot of both sets of guards that were stationed at either end. There was little in the way of hiding places, and she pulled the single cabinet away from the wall, finding nothing within, beneath or behind it. There was nothing concealed behind any of the hefty painting frames, either.

  “We are having the castle searched, but there are too many places to be hiding a blade,” Akela said, frowning. She moved over to the open window spilling sunlight across the bloodstains. “The assassin, they are coming in this window, and leaving by it.”

  I inched over, squeezing between Kouris and Claire to get a look out of it. There was a drop, but not a considerable one. Had Kouris been outside, she would've been able to push herself onto tiptoes to look in. It looked as though it had once been an open corridor, leading from one courtyard to another, but dank, murky water had pooled in it.

  “Hm. Never could figure out why some of the walkways were flooding, even when Isin was still new,” Kouris said, “Still, don't reckon anyone could go unnoticed here long, meaning they knew Jonas' routine. This was well-planned, if nothing else.”

  “Akela—should you require any assistance, I will do all I can to help,” Claire said, when staring out of the window didn't instantly solve all our problems.

  “Yes, yes, I am appreciating that, Ightham. I am grilling you enough for even Queen Kidira to be satisfied that you are not guilty. I am needing to organise guards to properly question anyone in the area, but first, I am speaking with the guards who are stationed here when it is happening. King Atthis, he is locking them away, just to be safe.”

  Promoted from suspect to interrogator, Claire followed Akela through the corridor and past the guards, and I almost had to wrench myself off the spot. Kouris placed a hand on my back, leading me on, and despite being the only one there capable of fixing this, I was the most useless.

  Panic turned to sorrow throughout the castle, and those who weren't crying stood with their heads hung. I felt being dry-eyed left us conspicuous, but no one was focused on us. They busied themselves consoling one another, assuring friends and strangers alike that rumours were just rumours, and that they must wait for an official announcement from either King Atthis or Queen Kidira before feeling anything too heavily.

  I tried not to stare at anyone, but sobbing so raw it twisted my stomach into knots clawed its way out of one of the chambers we passed. The door was slightly ajar, and through the gap, I saw Katja sat at a table, face buried in her arms. I took another three or four steps before I stopped and tugged on Claire's sleeve.

  “Katja, she's... Lady Kouris, that is, she's upset and she's alone,” I said. Claire furrowed her brow. So much had happened in the last few days that I hadn't had the chance to tell her we'd met. “I went into Isin with her, and I think you'll be alright without me. I don't want to leave her like that.”

  Akela would've gone in my place, if she had the choice, and I pointedly didn't look at Kouris. Claire nodded, managed a faint smile, and the three of them hurried on.

  Katja had taken refuge in a drawing room, and from the way she sobbed so inconsolably, I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd caused whoever had previously occupied the chamber to desert it. I knocked, to no avail, and slipped into the room, quietly closing the door behind me. Katja didn't stop crying, not even to draw in the breath she so sorely needed, and I ached more for her than I did for the entirety of the country that had just lost a King.

  “Katja...” I said softly, wanting to let her know I was there, despite having little in the way of words to offer her.

  Her shoulder rose and stopped shaking. She looked up, eyes red and face much the same. Her jaw trembled as she desperately tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks, but they continued to spill, thick and heavy.

  “Oh, Rowan,” she mumbled, having to blink through the tears to see me. She sniffed loudly, trying to compose herself. Trying to straighten out her dress, at the very least.

  A stack of napkins had been left by a circle of silverware coated in biscuit crumbs, and I grabbed handful of them, deciding they'd have to serve a new purpose. I handed one to Katja as I drew close, dropping the rest on the table and sliding into the chair next to hers.

  “Rowan, I, uncle, he—” Katja tried, pausing to blow her nose.

  “I know,” I said, squeezing the side of her arm. She didn't need to explain herself, didn't need to say anything more, but in spite of all she'd been through, she kept trying.

  “I was too late, too late,” she mumbled, and she turned her palms upwards, fingers curling to form fists. I saw the blood streaking her hands, staining the front of her dress. I saw her knelt over King Jonas' body, desperately clinging to him, trying to shake the life back into him. “I got there, but—oh, he was already gone.”

  Gently, I wrapped my fingers around Katja's wrists, pulled her hands into my lap, and wiped them clean with a napkin. Her hands trembled as I worked, along with the rest of her, and none of this was new to me. I'd let the dead remain dead in the past, and I knew that all I could do for her was to keep catching her gaze, to make sure she knew that I was there, willing to listen to whatever she needed to say.

  “You couldn't have done anything,” I tried to reassure her, but Katja's eyes flashed.

  She tore her hands away from mine in a manner that would've been violent, had I not known she was grieving. She clasped one hand over the other, pulling them both to her chest, and I sat there patient and silent, bloodied napkin held between my fingers.

  Katja shook her head over and over, breath coming fast and heavy. She leant back in her chair, as though backing away. Not from me, but from what had happened. I didn't say anything. I certainly didn't tell her to calm down, or that things were going to be alright; I remained as still as I could, not once looking away from her, and though tears continued to fall, there was a certain clarity in her expression.

  She needed me to know something
.

  “I—I should've been able to,” Katja said, hands furling and unfurling in her lap. Her gaze bore into her palms as though she was expecting her hands to do something, anything, but as she grit her teeth, I could only look at her eyes. They darkened from the centre outwards, blue eyes turning black, the white of her eyes becoming like wet stone. “Why, Rowan? Why do I have this power, if I cannot help when it is truly needed?”

  Katja swallowed the lump in her throat, and all the energy flowing through her dissipated, along with the strain on her body. Her shoulders slumped and her hands fell limp in her lap, and I knew that she felt as I had, when Claire had been carried off by Kouris, when I couldn't return life to the person who'd been placed on my table; she wasn't the same, but she understood.

  “You're a healer?” I heard myself ask.

  “For all the good it's ever done,” she said bitterly, and I wasn't afraid.

  I'd imagined meeting a healer time and time again, imagined them knowing, but I didn't shrink away from Katja. My insides were in knots, but nothing compelled me to run, to save myself. I put my hands on her shoulders, not caring if she saw right through me. Longing for it, almost. The few seconds of respite she'd had from her own tears were over, and as she started to sob once again, I eased her towards me, letting her fall into my arms.

  Katja buried her face in my shoulder, clung tightly to the back of my shirt, and I smoothed my hand across her long hair, letting her say what she needed to.

  “I-I never had a father, you realise,” Katja said, words muffled by my shoulder. “Never needed one, either. For I had two uncles, and I have never been able to imagine how a person should do without them. But now, now I suppose I must learn, and quickly, how I shall manage without my Uncle Jonas...”

  I squeezed her a little tighter, doing all I could to be kind, while my mind reeled with selfish thoughts. I wanted to know more about her powers, how it felt when she healed; if there was a wall she hit, something she couldn't tear down or scramble over.

  “If only I was something more,” Katja near-enough whispered. “Then I could... none of this would matter. None of it at all. Uncle Jonas, he'd, he'd come back to me.”

  Perhaps she felt me tense. She retreated from my arms quickly enough, looking at me; calmed, but only as calmed as one could be, after a loss so great. And there I sat, something more, refusing to do anything. Refusing to help her.

  “Katja,” I said, trying to force the words back inside of her, “You don't mean that.”

  I'd heard it plenty of times, from people in the same state as her. It tumbled off the lips of those who would do anything, anything, to have a loved one back, no matter how abhorrent. Necromancy was only ever desired when it was out of reach, nothing more than a thought, a desperate wish. The moment a person was brought back with it, they were cursed, changed for the worst.

  “I do, so very much,” she insisted, and in spite of all I'd heard before, I believed her. “If only...”

  She tilted her head forward, tears striking her knees. Again, I took her into my arms, knowing that she'd calm down and then lose herself more than once in the ensuing days. As I held her, I knew that I was more powerful than all of this. I was stronger than her grief, stronger than the blade dug into King Jonas, again and again; stronger than death itself, when I chose to be.

  “Katja,” I said softly, “I wish I could do something. I wish I could help you. But...”

  When Katja looked up at me, her eyes were red and the tears were gone.

  She didn't ask me to continue. Didn't dare to.

  Taking my hands in her own, Katja squeezed them tightly and said, “Of course, you do Rowan. You're good. So very, very good.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  When Claire wrote, she put down what I said, word for word. The tip of the quill stopped when I paused to think, scratched across the paper when something came to me all at once, and she struck whole sentences out when I changed my mind.

  There was much to tell my father, much I couldn't say. I told him about Kyrindval and the pane, but I couldn't reference the castle, and while I spoke about my companions in general, sweeping ways, I couldn't mention any of them by name.

  As I spoke, I came to appreciate how much had happened. I found myself smiling at Claire, who was far too focused to notice, hands clasped together under her desk as we waited for the parchment to dry.

  The weather hadn't paid King Jonas' death any heed. A gentle breeze drifted in through the window, making the curtains around Claire's bed look as though they were being sucked in by something, and the clear skies and rising warmth were only interrupted by the chirping of birds. Claire placed the lid back on the inkwell, rinsing the quill's metal nib in a small glass of water.

  “Have you ever tried to write? To read?” she asked, tapping the quill on the edge of the glass and drying the tip with a handkerchief.

  “A few times, when I was younger,” I admitted. “I just never really got it. The letters always seemed to be in the wrong order, and Michael kept trying to teach me, but I guess I just couldn't see what everyone else did.”

  I frowned, not expecting Claire to laugh, but feeling as though she ought to.

  “It happens,” she said plainly, quill back in its pot.

  “Really?” I asked, certain she was saying it for the sake of politeness.

  “Really. To varying degrees of severity, as well; Alexander had a similar problem, and a dozen tutors. It's known as dyslexia. He now reads and writes well enough, albeit with no real haste,” Claire explained. Arms folded across my chest, I leant back in the chair. “... you seem surprised to hear that.”

  There had been relatively few who could read in my village. Two dozen or less, and that was mostly Michael's doing. Yet most people didn't read or write simply because they'd never thought to learn; it wasn't something they needed in their life, and should something change dramatically, they'd be able to pick it up the moment it was required. I, on the other hand, had tried and tried and found myself entirely unable.

  “I always figured it was just me,” I said. “Michael was always saying how easy it'd be, if I just tried, but the more I tried, the harder it became. Even he gave up, in the end.”

  “It's a common enough affliction,” Claire said, lifting the parchment and tilting it to see if the ink was dry. “As I said, you most certainly aren't the only one.”

  I glanced over the letter when she placed the pages back down, no longer able to remember which mark was supposed to make which sound.

  “I just figured, you know, that I was good at—at what I could just do, without having to learn it or really even try. Everything else was just kind of...” I shrugged. “Too much.”

  “Nonsense,” Claire said. Satisfied that the ink was dry, she stacked the parchment, lining up the edges with her palms, “You're more than capable, Rowan. Smarter than your brother in plenty of ways. Besides, did you not tell me that you had problems with your abilities early on? With scarring, and the like? It sounds to me as though you have learnt a great deal about what you can and cannot do; it did not merely come to you.”

  I hadn't thought of it like that, but memories trickled back as she spoke. I remembered the headaches that came to me the first few times I tried to knit lambs back together; they lasted for days, throbbing between my temples, pain distracting me from the rest of the world. Years on and I could rip out disease or bring the dead back with a thought, as naturally as breathing.

  Claire was right. Having only myself to rely on didn't mean that I hadn't learnt anything.

  Seeing me smile, Claire rose to her feet, leaving the desk behind in favour of one of the sofas.

  Three days had passed, and in spite of the castle's best efforts, King Jonas' killer clung to their freedom. I hadn't seen Claire in the interim, as busy as she'd been, and Kouris too had been caught up in her own matters. I'd spent much of that time in my chamber, staring out at the city I wasn't bold enough to head out into alone, and visiting Charley and Calais.
I would've been glad of anyone's company, so long as they were able to talk back, but I would've been beyond happy to see Claire, had she been gone for three hours.

  Which wasn't to say that being with her wasn't a little strange. It wasn't like the open road; there was nowhere for us to head, no beating of hooves to drown out our thoughts. I couldn't rush off ahead and avoid looking at her, and it dawned on me that this was the first time we'd been alone together without any urgency rushing through us. She wasn't hurt, and I wasn't furious for having discovered some new truth. She'd simply come to find me that morning, asking if I should like to write to my father.

  The letter was finished, and I knew I should've thanked her and left. Instead, I tentatively moved over to the sofa, sitting close to her, but not too close.

  “So, um,” I said, making a strong start. “Two days until the Phoenix Festival begins.”

  “Indeed. A day on the heels of the King's funeral,” Claire said, leaning back against the corner of the sofa, feet tucked under her. “But you needn't find an excuse to stay here, Rowan. It's fine that you're simply here; don't force yourself.”

  I found it hard to believe that she wanted my company for the sake of it being my company, and impossible to look at her when she fixed her gaze on me. I stared down at my hands, sitting far too rigidly for the comfort the sofa offered, and bit the inside of my mouth, trying not to break out into nervous smiles.

  Telling myself it was just Claire did nothing to help, because she was never just Claire, and I was all too aware that she was looking at me, unabashed.

  I could lean against her, I told myself. I could lean against her and she wouldn't mind. She might even wrap her arms around me.

  “Well,” I said, continuing to find something wholly fascinating about the palms of my hands. “... can I kiss you?”