Dragonoak: The Complete History of Kastelir

by Sam Farren

  Katja tugged me into the far corner, as out of the way as we could be in such a small, crowded room. Queen Kidira and King Atthis stood in front of Ianto, neither one of them saying anything, both content to let Akela handle the interrogation. Queen Kidira refused to give Ianto the satisfaction of anger flaring within her, but the King was having a harder time remaining calm. His hands clenched and unclenched into fists, teeth grinding together.

  Claire was the last into the chamber. She pulled the door shut behind her and Kouris charged across the room, hands slamming down on the table.

  “You did it, did you? You put a knife in Jonas?”

  Ianto flinched, but seemed more confused than alarmed.

  “I made my terms clear to the servants,” he said, leaning to the side to speak around Kouris. “I will only speak with the unlawful rulers of these lands.”

  Akela blocked his view of the King and Queen, mimicking Kouris' pose with a little less force.

  “What? You are not understanding who you are seeing?” Akela asked, sounding utterly bemused. “Do not tell me you are thinking your northern Queen dead!”

  Ianto stared up at Kouris, lips parting, eyes narrowing. After a moment, he brought his free hand to cover his mouth, letting out a sharp, breathy laugh between his fingers.

  “Dear me. I was but a boy of ten when you were executed for your crimes—that is, if you aren't simply another pane, propped up by these frauds. I would not be surprised either way! They have kept you hidden in some cellar all this time, I expect,” Ianto said, laughing until it tangled in his throat, leaving him choking. His eyes watered and he pounded a fist against his chest, doing what he could to clear the last of it out of his throat. No one in the room stepped forward to help him. “I am a sick man, a very sick man indeed. I shall waste neither your time nor mine, whether or not you are who you claim to be.”

  Despite what he said, he pursed his lips together, looking between Akela and Kouris, waiting. He wanted to be questioned. He wanted them to have to grasp for answers. I stared at him, no longer wondering what sort of man would stab another to death in cold blood; I wondered what sort of man could sit there, brimming with pride, eager to brag about it.

  Kouris raised her brow when Akela glanced at her, giving her the go ahead to continue the interrogation.

  “You are saying you are the one who is sneaking into the castle and murdering the King, yes? You are coming here and claiming responsibility for it all?”

  “I am saying that I am claiming responsibility, but I am not killing your King with my own two hands,” Ianto said in a mockery of Akela's accent, leaning towards her. Akela held his gaze, and his lower jaw trembled, as though his lungs were on the verge of betraying him again. “I set the plan in motion, but I cannot claim to have a drop of Jonas' blood on my hands. I'm merely here as a formality.”

  No one but me was surprised to hear that. King Atthis stepped forward, but Queen Kidira gripped his arm, pulling him back.

  “You are not doing it yourself, you are saying? Well, I am certain you are wanting to tell me who is doing it, yes? You are not wanting to face the gallows alone, are you?” Akela asked.

  “Indeed, indeed. The man you are looking for goes by the name of Tom,” Ianto said plainly, slouching in his seat.

  “Tom,” Kouris repeated, standing as straight as she could, horns clipping against the low ceiling. “How many Toms do you reckon you know, Commander?”

  “Too many to be counting! Two of my cousins, they are named Tom. At family gatherings, it is very confusing—and to be making matters worse, one of them is naming their son Tom. And there are many Toms in my squads, and all of them, they are good, honest men. Well! One of them, I think I am living without him quite easily, but he is not having the guts to skin a rabbit, much less to be stabbing a King.”

  Kouris put a hand on her chin, nodding thoughtfully for effect.

  “Can't be saying it's a particularly common name amongst the pane, and there's a shortage of Toms down in Canth, but I could probably draw up a list of ten or eleven knocking around Asar.”

  Irritated that Akela and Kouris were entertaining themselves at his expense, Ianto cleared his throat, attempting to pull their attention back onto him. While they were busy mulling things over, Queen Kidira took matters into her own hands. She stepped forward, parting Akela and Kouris with an outward sweep of her arms.

  Queen Kidira stood in front of the table. She didn't slam her hands down on it, or even lean towards Ianto, and still, the chain around his wrist rattled, chair legs scraping across the stone floor.

  “Ires. You've had your fun,” Queen Kidira said in a low voice, more exasperated than exhausted. “Tell me who Tom is, lest you force me to find out whether the Commander's aim with a spear is as good as it is with an axe.”

  “A threat!” Ianto was nothing short of delighted. “But I needn't tell you who Tom is. He works – worked, I suppose – here. For no fewer than nine months, as it happens. But you never took the time to know him. The people who work for you are nothing but insects, are they?”

  Queen Kidira didn't rise to the bait. She sighed, turning back to King Atthis, and said, “We'll have to talk to Ocari. They'll know who he's talking about,” and had no more questions for Ianto.

  He shuffled in his seat, eyes darting around the room. He caught my gaze for half a second, debating whether it was worth riling me up, and when Akela and Kouris began talking amongst themselves in hushed whispers, Ianto leant forward, and said, “Well. Too proud to ask me why I did it?”

  King Atthis scoffed, and when he spoke, his voice was more controlled than I'd expected it to be.

  “The blanks are easily filled. You are part of the rebel group intent on tearing Kastelir apart, and you assassinated King Jonas in order to send a message—that your people are numerous and far-spread. You do realise you'll be executed for your part in this, don't you?”

  “As I said, I'm a very sick man,” Ianto grumbled, and when King Atthis said nothing more, he took the opportunity to keep on speaking. “My organisation wants you to know what we're capable of. For thirty years you've sat on the throne—and what claim did you have to our old territories, much less to this farce of a Kingdom? You made your own borders, ignored the treaties set up between other clans. Executed those with better claims to power than you, and declared that your rule would be short-lived. That others would be voted onto the throne, that we'd all get a chance to shape this new land. And look what came of that. Three decades later and we're having to carve the crowns off your heads.”

  Ianto's words were rehearsed, and likely not his own. In the same way that Tom, whoever he was, had been talked into doing as Ianto wished, I'd no doubt that Ianto wasn't a leader of any kind; he, too, was being manipulated. Disposed of because his life was already forfeit. The diseased he carried peeled off him in sheets, crawling through his veins and sticking to the inside of his lungs. It wasn't something a healer could wash away, that much I could tell, and he was far from brave in making a martyr of himself.

  Facing the guillotine was a far kinder fate than coughing himself to death.

  Katja let go of my hand and stood with her arms wrapped around herself, but I couldn't be sure whether the reason behind King Jonas' death was marring her features, or if it was the ebbing feeling of a disease she couldn't hope to quell troubling her so.

  Queen Kidira put her hand on the edge of the table, drumming her fingers against it.

  “Commander—I expect this Tom has been absent from work since the day of the incident. Have Ocari give you his address, the name of a family member, anything, and take Ightham to bring him in. We shall keep Ires alive until we have the right person, and you have retrieved all the information you can from him; after that, put him to the stake,” Queen Kidira said plainly, and even Akela's eyes flashed as she nodded obediently.

  “The... I am to be burnt?” Ianto said, trying to tug the bar clean out of the window, unable to lean forward far enough. For the first tim
e, he understood the reality of facing his own death; a beheading, as gruesome as it was, was a lot easier to romanticise than having the flesh burnt off his bones. “B-but surely, the standard method of execution ought to be employed here. The guillotine is, it's t—”

  Queen Kidira wasn't listening. She let him stumble over his words for a moment longer, and said to Akela, “The necromancer held in Orinhal ought to arrive in time for the Phoenix Festival. Rather fitting. The people will enjoy the spectacle all the more if there are two executions that day.”

  “I—Commander, surely I am within my rights, surely it is lawful that...” Ianto tried, desperate to earn Akela's pity.

  Queen Kidira silenced Ianto with a look and only then did she lean towards him.

  “You mock the Commander, and then wish to seek her aid when it suits you?” Queen Kidira asked coolly. Ianto froze in his seat, unable to give any reply. Stepping back, Queen Kidira fixed her eyes on Akela and said, “Burn him slowly,” as she proceeded to leave the room.

  The next few minutes were a jumble.

  Akela had guards escort Ianto to a proper holding cell, and the rest of us flooded out of the chamber. Katja ran off after Queen Kidira, calling for her to wait, and the Queen stopped, placing a hand on her daughter's shoulder and squeezing it tightly. They headed off in one direction and King Atthis led Kouris in another. I leant against the wall, heart doing what it could to crack my ribs apart.

  The necromancer from Orinhal was still alive. He was coming here, to Isin. I'd done all I could to push him from my mind, to convince myself that it was all in the past, but he was being brought to the capital, to be burnt in the heart of the Kingdom. Orinhal was a large city, a wealthy one at that, but the death of a necromancer could never be wasted on it.

  “Rowan,” Claire said gently. “Are you alright?”

  I shook my head. It was hard to look at her when all I saw was the Kastelirian uniform, when she'd stood by silently as Queen Kidira spoke of burning necromancers. But what could she do? Had anyone else bit their tongue in Queen Kidira's presence, I would've understood, but with Claire, it was different. I expected too much of her, and it wasn't fair.

  “I'll—”

  The door slammed open and I leapt off the wall as though the stones were burning.

  “Ightham, come,” Akela said, tilting her head down the corridor, “We are finding Ocari at once.”

  I took it upon myself to follow Claire and Akela. News of what happened had already spread through the castle, and every chamber and walkway was thrumming with rumour and exaggeration.

  Ocari was far too busy for gossip. They walked faster than we did, and I was on the verge of jogging to keep up with Akela and Claire. Three servants trailed behind Ocari, each carrying something that belonged in a different part of the castle. Ocari lectured a boy with a bundle of freshly cleaned sheets in his arms, telling him exactly how they were to be folded, and when Akela called out to them, they didn't break their gait.

  They glanced over their shoulder, letting Akela know she had their attention, and stepped to the side, so that Akela could squeeze in between Ocari and the servants. Claire and I kept close, ready to take the information we needed and run.

  “Ocari, I am afraid I am not coming here for small talk,” Akela said, “I am looking for a Tom, a Tom who is working in the castle.”

  “Got a lot of Toms here, Commander. Three working down with the laundry, one who works in the gardens, another two who—”

  “Yes, yes, there are many, I am knowing this. But the Tom I am looking for, perhaps he is not coming into work since...” she paused, lowering her voice. “Since His Highness is murdered.”

  Ocari came to an abrupt halt, glanced between the servants, and dismissed all three of them with a wave. Ocari's work never ended, but their expression became more serious than stern, and they understood that it was of the utmost importance that they put whatever they were in the middle of aside for the time being.

  We were led down to their office, close to the servants' quarters, and as Ocari unlocked the door, they looked at me as though they recognised me, but didn't have the time to work out where from. I would've waited in the corridor, but Claire ushered me inside. I stood in the corner, out of the way, while Ocari muttered to theirself, turning in a circle on the spot, trying to remember where something was.

  The sheer number of books piled on the desk and lining the shelves made the small office smaller, and a narrow ray of light spilt in through a high-up window, striking the floor by the side of Ocari's chair.

  “Ah,” they said, pulling the ring of keys from their hip. They unlocked the top drawer of the desk and produced a stack of dog-eared paper. “Had a complaint yesterday morning—well, I get plenty of complaints every morning, noon and night, but this one might be of interest to you. A cook in one of the eastern kitchens said one of their assistants hadn't shown since... you can guess, I'm sure.”

  Ocari handed the note to Akela, who nodded gravely as she read it.

  “You are having a way to find this Tom?” she asked.

  Ocari nodded, then gestured to Claire.

  “Ightham—top shelf, red book,” Ocari said as they took a seat at the desk, comfortable issuing orders to Claire.

  Claire followed them without a moment's hesitation. I watched as she pushed herself onto tiptoes, prying a hefty looking book from beneath two others, and knew that the uniform had already become her. She wasn't Sir Ightham here, wasn't a Knight. All of that was behind her.

  The book thudded dully on the desk in front of Ocari, and they closed their eyes for a split second, mouthing eastern kitchens, eastern kitchens, until they found whatever was locked away in the back of their memory. The spine cracked as they eased the book open, and they thumbed through a dozen pages, until they found the right Tom.

  “Let's see—the only address we have for this Tom is his mother's. Red Pine street, down in the Gatholith District,” Ocari said, running their finger beneath the handwritten words to be certain. “Listen, Commander. If you're saying that one of our own is responsible for this, one of the serving staff, then...”

  “Ocari, my friend, I am not wanting you to worry,” Akela reassured them, leaning across the desk to pat their back. “I am not accusing you of anything, and Their Majesties, they are knowing you are having nothing to do with this. You are keeping this place running for fifteen years now—there is no way you are throwing that all away.”

  Satisfied with Akela's words, Ocari closed the book, dust flying as the pages slammed together.

  We were gone by the time it was returned to the shelf.

  It didn't take long to reach the Gatholith District. Had Michael been with us, he would've presumed to lecture us on the history of the area, explaining exactly what Gatholith had done to have an entire district of the capital named for him, but in his absence, it was just another part of Isin. The streets were narrow, crowded with people running errands and children playing, rather than merchants setting up stalls, and rows of washing ran between the windows, above our heads.

  Once we reached the right street, Akela stopped to ask a few men sat on their front steps, scrubbing dirty shirts against washing boards propped up in buckets, if they happened to know a young man by the name of Tom. Akela standing over them was enough to draw an instant, honest answer out of the men, and they pointed us down the street, to the house at the very end of Red Pine.

  There was a tavern, halfway along the street, where the road curved. The doors were propped open with barstools, and people spilt out onto the street. Those who hadn't managed to claim a chair sat on the steps of nearby houses.

  “This truly marks it, then!” a woman shouted from inside the tavern. “The end of King Jonas' reign.”

  “May he find rest in the Forest Within,” someone called in reply, and the people sat out in the street raised their glasses in agreement.

  “May he rot in the crypt!” a voice boomed out from the back of the tavern. “Imposters on the throne
, the lot of them.”

  The people who'd raised their glasses jeered, but there was no force behind it; they did so in a tired, almost playful, sort of way, as though they'd had this argument time and time again. Still, a ripple of disagreement ran through the tavern, spurred on by barrels of ale and bottles of wine, and Akela slowed as we passed by, stopping a fight before it could break out.

  “Watch it,” the first person who spotted her called into the tavern. “Hey—watch it, I said! Look, the castle's sent out their finest.”

  Any disagreement amongst the tavern's patrons was forgotten. They sipped on their drinks, eyes fixed on us as we headed down the street, all of them suspicious, accusatory. They looked at Claire and Akela as though they were only there to abuse their power, as though the district had been plagued with more trouble from guards than drunks.

  “Ightham, cross the street. I am thinking, if this Tom is inside, perhaps he is running out of the window when I am knocking on the door. Go, go. Watch for me, yes?” Akela said, and I followed Claire across the street.

  Claire stood to attention while I leant against a lamppost, eyes fixed on the window as mine were. It was propped open, curtains swaying in the breeze, and part of me wanted Tom to escape. He'd been manipulated by Ianto. There'd been so much self-righteous venom in that man's words that to me, coordinating the assassination seemed worse than sinking the blade in. I didn't want to feel as though we were in the wrong, tracking Tom down like this, and I reminded myself that he'd waited for King Jonas. He'd planned to catch him alone, and he'd stabbed him over and over, until not even a healer could save him.

  “Did you know?” I asked Claire. “About the execution at the end of the Phoenix Festival?”