Dragonoak (10 page)

I wish I
hadn't asked. Katja was barely able to hold back the torrent of
pain that rushed out of me as my heart released the blade,
surroundings falling away from me. Light peeled away in favour of
darkness, but it wasn't dying that scared me so; I'd come back from
that.

I did
all I could to keep myself conscious, to face Katja and her knife,
for I had slipped out this world once already and found myself
adrift in something more hollow than emptiness.

*

I hadn't
managed to remain bound to Bosma.

I awoke
and pain tunnelled into my body. Katja had continued pushing her
knife in once I was beyond unconscious, and had done all she could
to heal the wounds over before my body could attend to them. I was
riddled in mutilated scars, worse than the ones the wolves had left
behind, and my head pounded, unsure of what to do with the
conflicting forces running through me.

My
hearing was muffled, vision blurred, but I saw the night sky
through the window. The passage of time did nothing to console me,
and I couldn't tell whether I'd been there for a day or four. No
one would be looking for me. Kouris might wonder where I was, but
she'd only conclude that I'd headed off with Akela after all, or
joined another crew for a handful of days.

The
sounds of Port Mahon slowly crept back to me, and the buzz of the
town became a thrum. I wanted to call out, to raise my voice and
scream for someone to come up here, but when I opened my mouth, a
breath barely managed to rattle its way out.

Katja
was close to me, sat in the corner of the room.

She was
crying. Sobbing, really. Her whole body heaved as tears streamed
down her face, and she was practically choking on her own guilt. It
was the closest I could ever imagine coming to smiling. A light
rushed through my fingers, as though my hands were cupped around a
candle and light was seeping between the gaps.

Katja
looked around at the sound of me stirring, eyes stained red, and I
wanted nothing more than to fade back into the darkness. It'd be
better for me, better for everyone.

“Rowan,
I-I didn't... oh, it isn't meant to be this way,” Katja gasped. “I
didn't want to hurt you, didn't want to harm you. I shouldn't have
done that. I'm sorry, so sorry. Please, you have to believe me. All
I wanted was to be stronger, to be able to protect Kastelir. That
isn't so wrong, is it? I've done terrible things, but I only wanted
to help. You have to believe that none of this was supposed to
happen.”

Head
tilted to the side, I met her gaze. What did she expect me to say?
That I forgave her, that it wasn't too late to end this? That I'd
never mention this to another soul, not as long as I lived?
Sniffing, Katja drew in a shaky breath and wiped her eyes, bravely
wearing a watery smile.

I had no
words for her, and barely any strength. Not taking my eyes off
hers, I leant forward as far as I could, and spat all the blood and
vomit left in my mouth at her, plunging back into the dark depths
before she could retaliate.

*

The next
time I came to, my body had healed itself over enough to soak up
the discomfort of my surroundings. It was the hottest part of the
day, and I sweated though I'd yet to struggle, dried blood and
vomit sticky against my skin. The floorboards wore against my bones
and the ridges of the stove were worked into my spine. I sat up as
straight as I could, shoulders rolling back, only to find that my
wrists were no longer chained behind my back.

My left
arm had been pulled behind me and chained to the back leg of the
stove, and the other was stretched out at my side, bound to the far
leg at the front. I didn't care why I'd been repositioned. I
couldn't move more than I'd been able to before, but I could move
in different ways, and I pressed my feet flat to the floor, trying
to inch my way up, chains grinding against metal.

My voice
was almost strong enough to reach out to Mahon, but the clank of
metal drew Katja out of her room. She'd changed again but hadn't
washed the blood out of her hair, and I saw faint trails of dried
tears swiped across her face.

She was
calm, focused. More than that, she wasn't holding the knife, and it
made me braver than I ought to have been.

“How do
you think this ends for you?” I asked in a whisper, thudding back
down against the floorboards. “W-when Atthis and Akela get back,
what do you think they're going to do?”

Katja
tilted her head to the side, as if trying to work out whether or
not I'd really had the gall to say that.

“Atthis is my
uncle
. We are family, and he will
take my word. If you think that I intend to leave you like this,
Rowan, you are sorely mistaken,” she said, crouching in front of
me. “And Akela,
well
. She has been in love with my mother for so very long that
she would never disgrace her memory by failing to protect me.
Whether you believe her to be your friend or not, you are still a
necromancer; she will understand that I had no other
choice.”

My ears
rang, but it wasn't what she said that made my head spin. Her
certainty that my friends would be betray me, would condone this,
stirred nothing within me. All I could think of was water. My mouth
was dry and had been for days, and the air I breathed turned to
sand in my mouth. I ran my tongue across my teeth, the roof of my
mouth and the inside of my cheeks, knowing that blood itself would
be a relief right now.

“Are you
going to stab me again?” I asked, eyes rolling back as I looked up
at her. “Your mother wouldn't be proud of you, Katja. She'd say...
say you waited too long. She'd never waste her time like this.
She'd just... just burn me.”

My head
lolled forward as I laughed hoarsely, and Katja's fingers knotted
in my hair a second later.

“Never
speak of my mother, Rowan,”
Katja hissed at me, ensuring I had no choice but to meet her fiery
gaze.

“She might... she
should
, she should burn you too,” I
mumbled, mouth curling into a smile, “In case you're right. In case
you can become a necromancer. B-better safe than sorry, right? Do
you think she'd be happy if y-you went back and saved the country
with necromancy?”

Katja's
grip loosened and her palm struck my cheek, forcing my head to jerk
to the side. I'd seen her trembling with a knife in her hand,
sobbing over what she'd done, but this was the first time I'd truly
angered her, the first time she'd been aware of how quickly control
was slipping between her fingers.

I licked
my dry lips and she lifted a hand to hit me again, but rose to her
feet, thinking better of it. Eyes closed, I listened to her bare
feet press to the floorboards as she went back and forth, back and
forth, trying to regain her composure.

I wasn't
sure when she'd knocked the chair over, but I heard her pick it
back up and drag it into the spot in front of me. The black behind
my eyelids kept trying to shift into something else, and
consciousness only kept rushing back into me because Katja's
silence wouldn't let me leave.

I forced
my eyes open and Katja raised her brow, glowering at me as though I
was a dog who had chewed through her best dress.

“I've
been thinking, Rowan. Thinking about what you said,” she began, and
the words drifted through my mind. Keeping my gaze fixed on her was
taking all the energy I didn't have, and all I could think was how
strange it was that words were just sounds, but they were supposed
to mean something to me. “You're right. I reluctantly admit that
you're right; perhaps I cannot be a necromancer. Perhaps the fault
is my own. Had I been more willing to hone what powers I had at a
younger age, perhaps I would be more receptive to necromancy. But
as things currently are, I simply don't stand a chance.”

She
paused, waiting for me to respond, but I kept my silence, hoping it
would keep her from saying anything more. This wasn't the end of
it. She wasn't giving up.

“What I
can
do, however, is make you into a better necromancer. I believe
I've already done so, to an extent, simply by sharing knowledge
with you. You wouldn't have ever thought to move Uncle Jonas' body
without my assistance, would you? Honestly, Rowan. Do you have any
idea what you're capable of?”

“K-kuh... killing...” I stuttered, and she sighed,
exasperated.

“Yes,
yes. Killing dragons. Goodness me, we've all heard that story a
dozen times over. And yet despite all this, you still fail to
appreciate the extent of your powers.”

My eyes
closed, but darkness hadn't quite taken me. I was aware of the room
beyond, aware of the way my shoulder blades felt as though they
might split apart as I slumped to the side, only held up by my
right arm chained far away from me.

“Are you
even listening?” Katja asked, impatient.

“Nnn,”
was about all I managed. Perhaps I blinked my eyes open.

“Why do you have to make things so hard on yourself?” Katja
rose to her feet, and I tried to let myself slip away, desperate to
be unconscious before she could lecture me anymore. From above, I
heard one of the drawers slide out, cutlery clattering together as
it jerked to a stop on its rollers. “We could've worked together.
It could've been
easy
, you could've taken control, and yet here we are. I have to
do all the work myself. Here, here, look. You told me that things
just
happen
for
you. That it's intuitive. This shouldn't be any different, should
it?”

Steel pressed to my wrist. There wasn't enough force behind
it to break the skin, barely enough to cause my eyes to flutter
back open, but once they did, the words, “No, no, no,
no,
”
were tumbling from my lips. Katja hadn't taken out another
ordinary knife.

It was a
meat cleaver.

I kicked
out, but she was knelt to the side, too far for me to reach. Energy
boiled within me anew, and I screamed and screeched, knowing, even
then, that the noise was only reverberating within my own skull. I
forced every inch of my battered body to move, desperate to pull my
wrists free of the chains, the chains free of the stove, the stove
free of the wall; anything that would let me escape.

Even if
I didn't have the strength for it, surely I was moving too much for
her to be able to strike. She'd put a knife through me but I
couldn't let her do this. I couldn't let her take a piece of me. I
couldn't, I couldn't.

“Katja,
no, no. I'll help you, I'll do whatever you want me to,
I'll...”

She
wasn't listening. Eyes fixed on my wrist, she brought the meat
cleaver up, dropping the blade down in a clean, quick motion. I
tore my eyes away, screwed them shut as the cleaver cracked the
floorboards open, and my heart lurched, even though she'd missed.
She'd had to. Nothing in my body registered a loss, and no pain
flared up within me. I could do it. I could pull my arm free before
she tried again.

I was
almost convinced that the chains would tear like paper until I
tried curling my fingers.

Nothing.

I looked
down, slowly.

Katja
had pulled the cleaver back and risen to her feet. I stared down at
my hand, wrist still bound in chains, and when I pulled my arm
back, it broke away with ease.

My hand
didn't.

The air
in the room turned to ash and flooded my lungs. The speed of my
breathing overtook the pounding of my heart, and the nausea rose up
within me, pooling in my lap, splattering across the floor. She'd
done it.

Katja
had taken my hand and she hadn't even had the decency to let me
feel it. Finally falling to the side, I held the bloody mess to my
chest, convulsing as more than blood poured out of me, source never
drying up. I was burning, burning from the inside out, that strange
light from my fingers spreading throughout the rest of
me.

“Claire...” I gurgled through the gore, as though it was the
only word I knew. “Claire, Claire...”

The
cleaver was placed atop the counter and Katja knelt down, picking
my hand up and dropping it carelessly on the table.

“Claire?” Katja asked, stepping into the puddle of blood
surrounding me. “Goodness, dear. I know this is a difficult time
for you, but you have to focus. Don't let delusions take you. You
know as well as I do that Claire's dead. You saw what became of
Isin. Rowan, darling. You know that Claire would never abandon the
city, not while there were still dragons there. She isn't going to
come for you. You don't need saving, Rowan; you merely need to be
more compliant.”

For the
last eighteen months, I'd done all I could to keep hold of myself,
but every time I mentioned Claire's name, I'd felt another small
part of myself slipping away. I'd tried to respect her memory, but
it hurt to think of her. Yet if there was ever a time to lose
myself to the imaginary, the unattainable, this was it.

My
vision faded to all but a spark, and in this light I let myself
believe that Claire was coming towards me. It didn't matter how
she'd escaped Isin, or how she knew to find me there. All that
mattered was that she'd been safe in Kyrindval all along, and that
she was there with me, ready to put her arms around me. I gripped
my wrist, trying to flex fingers that were no longer there, and did
all I could do drown out my whimpers by convincing myself that she
was pressed against me, fingers trailing through my
hair.