Dragonoak (29 page)

“Do you
think Michael would have ever shut up about it?” he asked. “By the
time he was thirteen he would've been telling the tale as though it
was something that happened to him.”

I bit
back a smile, nudging him with my shoulder.

The four
of us sat down to dinner, joined by Kouris before Akela was
finished boasting about the stew she felt solely responsible for.
With Katja out of sight and mostly out of mind, I sat amongst the
people I cared about most, and knew that even if we couldn't save
Kastelir, our journey hadn't been wasted.

CHAPTER XI

Akela took it
upon herself to sort out the sleeping arrangements. Atthis was
given Michael's room, Kouris was content to curl up on my floor,
and Akela claimed the sofa for herself. Katja, now held in one of
the houses I'd spent most of my life passing, was never left alone
for more than an hour. If she was subdued, I didn't want to hear
about it. All I knew was that either Atthis, Kouris or Akela would
head out, the three of them running on some sort of
schedule.

For five
days, we acted as though my father's house was the end of our
journey. I helped patch the stable roofs over, Kouris took to
tending to the chickens, while Akela and my father fussed over who
was going to prepare the next meal. They'd taken to attempting to
improve Atthis' culinary skills, efforts which had yielded a cake
that would've almost been passable, had we not all been familiar
with Akela's baking.

I slept
in my old bed, in my old room, and my house was full of more life
than it ever had been.

I was surrounded by people who wanted me around, yet I found
myself drifting out into the fields, where the sheep no longer
were. We didn't know where we were going, what we ought to do. The
only help my father could offer was in letting us know he'd at
least
heard
of a
rebellion in Kastelir, when he headed to Birchbridge every other
week, and simply strolling into Kastelir without a destination in
mind was of no use to us.

But what
did it matter how many days we spent there? We'd been gone for
months on end. We weren't going to change anything.

Kouris
came to me, bringing lunch with her, and I laid the food out on a
tree stump I used to watch the lambs from.

“Anything you want to get off your chest, yrval?” she asked,
sprawling in the long grass. “Not exactly hard to miss when
something's ticking away inside that head of yours.”

With a
shrug that she couldn't see, I propped my chin on my
knees.

“We're
not exactly going anywhere in a hurry, are we?” I said. “We were
barely off the ship a day before we got here, and now we're staying
still again. I just thought, maybe... maybe we could do something
else. Go somewhere else. It wouldn't take long to get to Praxis,
would it?”

“Praxis?
What's in Praxis?”

“I don't
know,” I replied honestly.

“Well,
that settles it then. Let's be off.”

Scowling, I reached a hand beneath my collar and tugged the
chain from beneath my shirt. The key dangled beneath my fist as I
held it above Kouris' forehead, causing her to push herself up onto
her elbows.

“Ah,”
she said, understanding. “Claire's key.”

Hiding
it back against my chest, I fixed my eyes on the village, waiting
for one of the doors to open. Waiting to see Katja strolling
through the streets.

“She
locked some things away, before we met you. Things she said were
too important for her to leave behind. I know we're supposed to be
going to Kastelir and I know this is out of the way,
but...”

“But
they were her things,” Kouris said, when the words didn't come to
me. I hummed flatly, and she said, “We'll go, yrval. Won't be
taking us too long at all.”

I didn't
head back down to the farmhouse with Kouris. I stayed in the empty
fields as night fell, not wondering what was in the bags Claire had
locked away, but wondering why I thought any of it should matter.
They were relics from a time I hadn't known her, the things she'd
gathered before she'd know me. And she'd only known me for months,
I thought bitterly. It wouldn't make any difference. It wouldn't
matter.

I tore
handfuls of grass out by its root, telling myself that it'd almost
been two years. It shouldn't matter, shouldn't weigh on my mind as
it did. The chain around my neck grew hot with anger, seeming to
burn into my skin for all the spite I tried turning against
myself.

I curled
up on the floor with Kouris that night. She was already sleeping by
the time I tip-toed up the stairs, and only stirred enough to wrap
an arm around me and pull me against her chest. In the morning, she
seemed surprised to see me, half-convinced she'd dreamt me curling
up against her.

“Off
again already?” my father asked as we packed the food he'd insisted
on making us. He hadn't asked us where we were going, whether we
thought it was a good idea, and despite the fact that no permanence
had been assigned to our current arrangements, all of us acted in a
way that almost implied it.

“We'll
barely be gone for more than a few days,” I reassured him. “Kouris
runs quicker than any horse, and we're only going to pick something
up.”

I hugged
him goodbye and Kouris couldn't resist doing the same. On the way
out of the house, we walked into Atthis, back from whatever
building Katja was stowed away in. At the very least, Kouris had
let him know that we were leaving, and he smiled warmly, saying,
“Best of luck, both of you. It'll be a good chance to scout, as
well. See what you can learn from the rest of Felheim.”

For
hours, there was nothing worth reporting on. I held Kouris'
shoulders loosely as we went, searching for a sign that Felheim had
changed, but the only difference resided within me; I wasn't
terrified of pane at every turn, this time. We passed Eaglestone
and it stood strong, far smaller than I remembered it being, and
along the road, we met nothing more interesting than merchants and
travellers who went out of their way to give us a
wide-berth.

We
might've had more luck, had we stopped in a town and eavesdropped
on the locals, but we took lunch in the shade of an oak tree, both
eating in silence. Going to Praxis was, in retrospect, not the best
idea. They weren't my things; I had no right to them. I would've
asked Kouris to turn back, had I known some way to force the words
from my mind and out of my mouth.

Halfway
to Praxis, I'd long since grown tired of green hills, green fields,
green trees, and green shrubs creeping onto the dirt path, and
Kouris slowing was the only thing that caught my attention. Running
alongside the towering wall that divided Felheim and Kastelir was
the fastest way to the city, and we'd kept enough distance for the
soldiers that milled along the top to pay us no heed, pane and
humans indiscernible from a distance, but what Kouris had seen was,
apparently, unmissable.

Her eyes
were far better than mine; it took a handful of seconds, and my
curiosity was more than sated.

Part of
the wall had been knocked clean through.

The gap
split the wall down to its very foundations, debris scattered as
far out as we were. I knew too well that only one thing could cause
such destruction, and raising her shoulders, Kouris charged on, not
wanting to linger. There was no getting into Kastelir from there.
Dozens of workers had been brought in to repair it as quickly as
they possibly could, and they were watched over by no fewer than a
dozen soldiers.

“They're losing control of the dragons,” Kouris murmured as
the gap in the wall was lost behind us. “Maybe it's worse than
all
this
is
making it seem.”

They were still using the dragons. Kastelir could've turned
to ash within weeks, but after all this time, they continued to
find uses for them. Whatever this was, it was far from over, and
Kastelir needed us – needed
me
– more than ever. My powers had grown, there was
no doubting that, and I wondered how many dragons I could take down
before my mind caved in on itself.

I
wondered how much of that would be thanks to Katja.

Distracted by the wall, I didn't think to look out for
Praxis. I'd fixed my eyes fast upon it, scanning for more gaps, but
we didn't pass so much as a crack. Soldiers continued to stroll
across the top well into the night, what had once been an easy
patrol leaving them all on edge, and when morning came, Praxis was
suddenly before me.

I
slipped down from Kouris' back, taking the lead. Praxis was no
smaller than I remembered it being, but nothing gleamed as it once
had. I scowled up at the statues of King Garland and Queen Aren,
half-tempted to climb up on their pedestals and let the truth
rattle out of me, but I hadn't been able to bring myself to say
anything to Kouris in hours.

There
were thoughts in my head, but they were few and hollow. Certainly
not worth saying out loud. I listened as we went, scraping together
any clues I could, and Kouris' ears perked up, only to droop. Like
me, she heard nothing of worth. To hear the citizens of Praxis
speak was to believe that nothing worse than a late lunch order had
ever unfolded.

The last
time I'd been there, the buildings had all looked the same and I'd
followed Claire blindly. Nearly two years on, the buildings all
looked the same, and I was trying to find my own way. Having Kouris
with me meant that the crowds parted for us, but that was of no use
to me when every building I peered into was offering the exact
thing I didn't need.

“Maybe
here?” Kouris asked, squinting at the sign above the
door.

It was
the right sort of establishment, but I didn't have a key to any of
its safes. Frustration made the next hour stretch out into the rest
of the day, until finally, we found the right building, not far
from where we'd started. I'd spent minutes of my life in there, but
the familiarity managed to twist at me, and I worried I wouldn't be
able to speak up.

“Good
morning. How might we... w-we...” The man behind the counter
started off strong, words deserting him at the sight of Kouris.
“How might I be of assistance?”

If
nothing else, he had no intention of dragging things
out.

Nails
catching on the clasp, I unhooked the chain from around my neck,
and let the key slide onto the counter. Forcing a smile, the man
took the key and opened a book larger than any of the ones Reis
kept around, searching for the corresponding safe. His finger
drifted across the pages as he found himself flicking further and
further back, until he found what he was looking for.

“Ah,
yes. Only a few weeks left on this one,” he muttered for his own
benefit, folding the book shut and heading into the back. A few
guards strolled into view, no doubt wanting to see the pane who'd
wandered in, but none of them took a step towards us.

I
glanced at Kouris, nervous, afraid the man would change his mind –
we couldn't collect the things, we were already too late – but in a
matter of minutes, he was placing the bags on the counter and
thanking me for my patronage.

I
drummed my fingers on the edge of the counter, eyes anywhere but
the bags. All at once, I realised that getting them back meant
letting go of the key, and though I wanted to blurt out that I'd
changed my mind, I needed it back, all I could do was dig my nails
into the varnished wood.

I needed
it back. I couldn't say why. There was nothing more for it to
unlock, but the chain felt useless in my grasp, drained of whatever
power it had once possessed. I needed it back and my fingers were
starting to glow.

“I'll be
needing to use that safe,” Kouris said, hand on my shoulder,
grounding me. “That exact one, if it's all the same to
you.”

I looked
down, shoving my hands under the counter.

“...
certainly. And what might you like to store?”

Kouris
hummed thoughtfully, slung her bag off her shoulder, and dropped it
down on the counter. The man working there raised an eyebrow, but
he wasn't about to question a pane, and he certainly wasn't going
to argue with the handful of coins she dropped down next to
it.

The bag
was taken, the key put in its place. Hands no longer glowing, I
snatched it off the surface, metal edges digging into my fingers as
I shakily threaded the chain back through it. No sooner was it back
around my neck than I was out of there, bags bundled in my arms,
walking, and then running, to the gates leading out of
Praxis.

Kouris
took wide strides to keep up with me, and once we were clear of the
city, detouring from the busy road frequented by merchants, I leant
against a tree and tumbled towards the ground.

“I'm
sorry,” I said miserably, clutching the key. The bags laid in front
of me, forgotten. “It's just a key. I shouldn't—it shouldn't
matter.”

“Aye. But it does,” Kouris said, sitting front of me. Legs
crossed, she reached under her leathers, and produced a scuffed
silver coin between her claws. She held it out and I cupped my
hands together, carefully taking it from her, staring down at the
tiger embossed on the scarred metal. “This is
just
a coin. Still, it was the first
one minted with that sigil on it, and Kidira put it in my hand
herself.