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Dragonoak: The Complete History of Kastelir

Page 43

by Sam Farren

“They didn't need you to translate?” I said, leaving the vegetables behind to help her stare up at the shelves.

  “Hah. No, no. The Agadians, they are understanding us well enough—until they are disagreeing, which is always, and then they are pretending that they are mishearing, hoping that we are correcting ourselves,” Akela said, scoffing. She pulled a sack of flour free from a shelf so high up that even she had to push herself onto tiptoes to reach it. Her shirt was instantly covered in a thin film of flour as the bag hit her chest. “I am not attending meetings with... with people such as they are. I am making a cake.”

  “A cake?” I asked, as though her palms weren't already covered in flour.

  “Yes, yes. A cake. And if you are not keeping up, you are missing out,” Akela announced, using the sole of her boot to kick the door open.

  I glanced back at the vegetables as though I hadn't already made up my mind. The sight of them didn't compel me to stay. Ocari tasked me with their care in order to be rid of me, and I felt little guilt in delaying the process. Especially when the prospect of cake loomed in front of me.

  More than that, there'd been a bitter note caught up in Akela's voice, the kind I hadn't thought to hear from her. She'd been muttering to herself in Agadian, and I thought I might make better company than rows upon rows of flour.

  Destination fixed firmly in mind, Akela took two turns through a web of narrow corridors, using her shoulder to open the door of a small kitchen, tended to by a single cook.

  “I'm afraid this kitchen is in use,” the cook said when the sack of flour met the worktop with a thud.

  “I am afraid I am making a cake for Queen Kidira, and if you are not letting me have this space to myself, then you are having to go to your Queen and explain why you are not letting Commander Ayad use your kitchen,” Akela said, dusting off the front of her shirt and making matters worse. “How do you think she is responding to that, hm?”

  The cook didn't argue. Hands held up in front of them, they said, “Suppose I can be finding somewhere else to work, Commander,” and headed out through the door I was propping open.

  Akela pulled the cupboard doors open, well acquainted with their contents, and heaped bowls and whisks and sieves into her arms, raiding the larder for slabs of butter and baskets of eggs. I stepped to the side, trying to keep out of her way as she swung a knife as though it were an axe, carving off a chunk of butter. I pulled the scales and the stack of weights away from the wall, but Akela was already throwing handfuls of flour and sugar into a bowl, not wasting her time with precise measurements.

  The cake wasn't going to take long to come together. Akela slammed eggs open against the counter, and the stove door creaked on its hinges as I pulled it open, getting the fire going. It was barely big enough for the cake Akela was whisking together under one arm, and I supposed this kitchen was used to make the servants' meals, whenever the castle was particularly busy.

  “Do not worry,” Akela said as I rose to my feet, oven lit. “Queen Kidira, she is liking the more—hm, modest cakes. Lemon sponge, this sort of thing, yes? Saying it is for her, that is only a ruse. We are making something with more substance, Northwood!”

  Her idea of substance came in the form of cocoa powder, which she applied generously, turning the batter light brown. Placing the bowl on the counter, she attacked the contents with a wooden spoon, hair coming loose, falling about her face. With one arm holding the bowl in place and the other mixing, she tried to blow the stray strands out of her way. I pulled a chair across the room, legs scraping against stone, and hopped on it, pulling Akela's hair free and retying it.

  “Ah. Thank you,” she said, and I jumped down, holding the steel pans as she poured the mixture in.

  “Everything okay?” I asked cautiously.

  The spoon chiming against the glass bowl as the last of the cake batter dripped into the pans was all the answer I thought I was going to get, until she said, “Yes, yes. Or it is being fine, in a number of days.”

  I said nothing in reply, letting her know she could keep talking, if she wished to, and with a tea-towel in hand, opened up the oven door. Akela stood back, waiting for the swell of heat to rise, and carefully slid the cake pans into the oven.

  Sat on the counter, we idly ate the cake batter left on the bowl, spoon and whisk, cupboard doors rattling as Akela rocked her feet back and forth.

  “... it is Agados. They are coming here, and they are thinking they are having any say in who is taking King Jonas' throne. The Old West, they are trading with Agados for many, many decades, because Agados, it is having wealth enough to buy all the resources it is needing. There are veins of gold in their mountains, and they are chasing out the pane,” Akela eventually grumbled. “Agados, it is not a good place. They are wanting to influence Kastelir, and I know that they are not listening to Queen Kidira, no matter what she is saying. They are not listening to my Queen, and how are we to know what is really going on in their country? Agados, it is worse than you Felheimish, with your wall.”

  “Claire said that even if Agados offered her help, she'd never take it,” I said, trying to understand. “I'd never really heard of Agados before all this.”

  “Yes—that is how they are wanting it. They are keeping to themselves, they are only taking what they want, not letting outside influences in. Their Kings, they do not leave the Kingdom. Even now, even when they are burning a necromancer, they are only sending diplomats,” Akela said, frowning, “In Agados, they are putting people in boxes, they are forcing them to play roles. I am not wanting this for Kastelir.”

  Perhaps Kastelirians didn't grow up on tales of Felheim's corruption, as we endured tales of Kastelir. Perhaps they grew up hearing about Agados' cruelty.

  “Don't worry,” I assured her, licking the back of the spoon and dusting flour off the bridge of her nose. “No matter what the Agadians have planned, they won't be able to ignore Queen Kidira. She'll probably just glower at them until they run back to their King.”

  Akela managed a laugh, boots thudding against the floor as she slipped from the counter. Not wanting to speak of Agados any further, she pushed herself up on tiptoes, retrieving a stack of chocolate hidden atop one of the cupboards. She dropped it carelessly onto the table, using a fist to smash it to bits, throwing the fragments she didn't melt down as a base for the icing into my lap.

  Once the cake had cooled enough to bring it all together, it lived up to the smell that had preceded it. In spite of the way Akela had haphazardly thrown it together, it was one of the best things I'd ever tasted; it was beyond indulgent, so rich that a mouthful alone was almost enough to make my eyes water, and Akela effortlessly made her way through at least a third of it.

  “It's good. It's really good,” I told her, wiping the crumbs from the corner of my mouth.

  “Yes, I am knowing this,” Akela said with a grin, licking icing from her thumb. “My talents, they are not all involving the swinging of the axe.”

  Akela was in better spirits, but still wasn't herself, and when I jokingly suggested that she help me sort through the rest of the vegetables, she was in enough need of a distraction to do so. We sat on the floor of the pantry together, picking at the cake, working until the light was so poor I could no longer discern between bruises and shadows.

  “I am thinking, the festivities, they are done,” Akela said, standing and stretching, holding a hand out to me. “Queen Kidira, she is expecting me, and I am needing to change.”

  What remained of the cake was wrapped in napkins and left in my care, and Akela and I parted ways once we reached the carpeted part of the castle. I stuck to the edges of the castle, wanting to avoid the Agadians, in search of Claire or Kouris, hoping that either or both of them were free.

  It didn't take long. Kouris rounded a corner, almost walked into me, and said, “There you are, yrval. Been looking all over.”

  She crinkled her nose, momentarily losing her chain of thought, tongue flicking out as though tasting the air.

 
“I, ah...” Kouris started again, shaking it off. “We've got a few hours before Kidira's gonna be dragging the dragon-slayer back off for another round of politics. Thought we could all sit down for a talk.”

  In the last few months, I'd been rudely awoken by an axe-wielding assassin, confronted by a Knight who'd later ended up in a river, face split in two, been accused of killing a King, and found out that my Kingdom was founded on cruelty and lies. Had Kouris' words not sounded ominous, I would've known something was amiss.

  “Cake?” I asked, holding a slice out, napkin peeling back.

  Kouris' ears stuck straight up, as though lightning had torn through her spine, and with a furrowed brow, she took a step back.

  “No. No thanks, yrval,” she said, waving her hands in front of her. “—as I was saying, we don't have all the time in the world. Best be getting on with it.”

  I followed her with a shrug, supposing that it meant there was more cake for me and Claire. My stomach twisted at the thought of more chocolate, but I doubted that would stop me from having another bite or two. Necromancy, it seemed, was of no help when it came to poor dietary choices.

  Kouris was far from skittish, but she wasn't in the mood to run into anyone, either. I took three strides for every one of hers, congratulating myself on starting to recognise my surroundings, when Kouris turned into a corridor that made me wonder if there was ever an end to the labyrinth that had engulfed the castle.

  The staircase we climbed reminded me of the one that led to Queen Kidira's chambers, though no portraits hung on the walls, and clumps of dust broke apart under my fingers as I ran my hand up the banister. She pushed one of the double doors open, not having to duck into the room, and for as displaced from time as the staircase had been, the chamber beyond was remarkably well-kept.

  It was much like Queen Kidira's, spears notwithstanding, and though sheets were draped across much of the furniture, what was on display was big enough for any pane. Light streamed lazily through clear windows, and I wondered if in twenty-seven years, the sheets protecting chairs and tables were the only change to the chamber.

  “Good. She found you,” Claire said, sat in an armchair at least three times as wide as it needed to be. Kouris took her place on the sofa opposite her, and I joined Claire, leaning against the arm of the chair that came up to my shoulder.

  “Cake?” I offered.

  Claire's gloves were folded neatly on the table in front of her, and she took the cake eagerly, pulling away chunks with her fingers and eating without getting a single crumb on the side of her mouth, in her lap. I rubbed my fingers against my lips, just in case, but when I pulled them back, no chocolate was smudged across them.

  “This is good—did you make it?” Claire asked, eating faster when she realised it was not only cake, but good cake.

  Kouris drummed her fingers impatiently against her knee, and I said, “I watched Akela make it,” eager, in a sense, to hear what they had to say. I doubted it was anything good, but from the moment I knew there was something they had to share with me, I'd no choice but to find out what it was, lest my heart never stop grinding against my ribs.

  “Here's the thing,” Kouris said, hurrying to dispel anxiety, “The dragon-slayer and I, we're thinking of leaving.”

  “Leaving? Leaving Kastelir, you mean?”

  “Aye. Now, you know that we had nothing but good intentions when we came here. The dragon-slayer thought she could get help for her Kingdom, and I thought I could use my status to make that easier. Had Jonas been allowed to stick around, it just might've worked. But now Kidira and Atthis are too busy fighting with half the Kingdom over who gets to take the throne, and the other half would see them off their own. That's not even to mention what's happening with Agados.

  “It wasn't the best plan, but it was a plan. We saw it through, and this one's stuck acting as Kidira's lackey, trying to prove her loyalties, and Atthis, he wants to act like nothing bad is going to come of this. And, if I'm being honest, I might be hurting more than I'm helping here. Can't be expecting to come back after so long and hope that nothing had changed. Doesn't leave us with many options, does it?”

  Claire nodded along with Kouris as she spoke, picking the last cake crumbs from the napkin. Without looking away from Kouris, I handed her the other slice. The thought of leaving Kastelir didn't frighten me. If anything, it made me realise how much I wanted to be out of the castle, back on the road, where Claire wasn't being made to dress as a foreign soldier, stripped of rank and honour.

  “Where we will go? Back to Felheim? To Thule?” I asked, uncertain whether trading one castle for another would do us any good. “Are there people there who will help us?”

  Claire shook her head, chewing thoughtfully.

  “There may be, though I do not believe so. The King clearly planned for this – planned for me to follow in his footsteps – and my entire life has been guided by him. I have only become acquainted with those he approved of, and he is not solely responsible for what is happening with the dragons. The web of those involved stretches further than I suspect, no doubt,” she said, sighing. “I did not expect Kastelir to help me, but I wished to warn them regardless—and I have done just that.”

  “Okay. Okay—” I said, rubbing my hands together. I knew one thing for certain, and that was that Claire wasn't simply going to ask to leave. We'd be running. She'd make an enemy of yet another King. “What about the Queen? Queen Aren?”

  The corner of Claire's mouth slanted downwards, and she stared at the cake in her hand, picking at it without eating any.

  “The Queen has been ill for some time. Healers have purged the disease over and over again, but inevitably, only succeed in prolonging the decay. When last I saw her, I learnt that the healers were of little use to her. I should not like to trouble her, if such a thing is still possible,” she said, jaw tightening.

  I put a hand on the back of hers, squeezing it, letting go so that she could finish off yet more cake.

  Kouris' ears twitched as her gaze burrowed into the crumb-laden napkin, and in order to break the silence, I said, “Seriously, what is it?”

  She didn't seem to hear me.

  “Pane don't like chocolate,” Claire informed me, flicking a chunk of cake directly at Kouris' nose. Kouris snarled, teeth snapping together, and Claire said, “Couldn't say why, though.”

  I laughed under my breath, but felt it ripple through my chest. Claire wrapped an arm around me as I leant against her, and I thought not only of the people we'd leave behind, of Akela and Katja, but of those Claire would have to face. The King, the Queen. Her brothers. A slew of Knights who could surely stand against her, along with the entirety of a nation indebted to them for the dragons they kept at bay.

  “Don't reckon we'll be going to Thule, not straight away,” Kouris said, having brushed off her nose half a dozen times. “Best to be heading to the source of it all—where they're raising and twisting their dragons.”

  “Oh?”

  “The Bloodless Lands,” Claire clarified, and as she said it, it all slid into place. Where else would they be able to manipulate beasts the size of barns without anyone stumbling across them? “Or near enough.”

  “Isn't that dangerous?” I asked, questions spilling from my lips. “ … Do you think the Phoenix Fire is still burning?”

  “It won't be safe, but none of this journey has been, thus far,” Claire said, “And I doubt we shall get close enough to find out.”

  “They're not gonna see us coming,” Kouris said, slamming a fist into her open hand. “They're not about to be wasting soldiers when no one ever crosses into the Bloodless Lands. That's just asking for their secrets to spill.

  “Now, keep in mind, yrval, you don't have to be coming with us. We don't want to leave you behind, but we're not forcing you into this. You've been kept in the dark for long enough, and we wanted everything out in the open. We can take you to Kyrindval, or—”

  “No!” I said, bolting to the edge of my seat. I
wasn't going to back down, not after I'd come so far with them. “I followed you all the way through Felheim and Kastelir and up to Kyrindval, not knowing what was going on. And I'm not just going to go home or put up with Michael now that I'm finally starting to understand it all. I want to help. Even if that just means carrying bags and washing the dinner things.”

  Kouris' lips curled into a smile and Claire pulled me back, neither of them saying another word. They didn't have to. I could tell that they hadn't expected me to stay behind, and had only made the offer in order for me to refuse it. They wanted me with them. They'd set out with their own missions and I'd insisted on following along, but now I wasn't simply a burden they were shepherding through Kingdoms.

  I would've smiled, but found it hard to greet the plan with any real enthusiasm. All three of us were pre-emptively exhausted by what laid ahead; the weeks spent on the road, trying to remain inconspicuous with a pane in our midst, soft beds a distant memory. I closed my eyes, doing what I could to turn my thoughts away from the never-ending landscape that'd pass us by.

  “I'll send a raven to your brother. Let him know to stay in Kyrindval,” Claire said. “We leave at dawn.”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Claire returned to Queen Kidira's side, and I headed to my chamber in order to gather my belongings and get an early night's sleep. The former didn't take long. I'd kept Claire's key around my neck since she'd placed it there, and my only other belongings of worth were the knife from Michael and the helm from Kravt. I sorted through the clothing I'd slowly been putting to use, and hoping it wouldn't be missed, folded as much as would fit in my bag.

  I slid the bag under a chair, aware that it wouldn't go unnoticed if Katja turned up unannounced, and wrestled with the urge to find her and Akela. Confining myself to a chair, I came to terms with the fact that I wouldn't be able to give them a proper goodbye, even if they inexplicably weren't busy. I'd say too much in holding back the goodbye I felt I owed them; there'd be a dull finality in all I wasn't saying.

 

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