Dragonoak (36 page)

“I
really did think you were dead,” she whispered. “All this time,
Rowan...”

I
brought my hands up, pressing them to the sides of her neck. She
closed her eyes as the burns brushed beneath my palms, rough like
old, misshapen leather. I ran a thumb across the line of her jaw,
and she kept her eyes shut, biting her lower lip. How certain she
must've been to believe a necromancer dead.

“What
happened, Claire?” I asked, as though either of us wanted to dredge
up the past.

“I... I
realised you were right, Rowan. I couldn't have taken on the
dragons myself. I had slain three, and though I was not unharmed,
they had not...” Pausing to take a breath, Claire let go to me to
gesture at herself. “I tried to find you. Tried to leave the city.
But there were still those needing help, and buildings were
tumbling all around us. I became trapped underneath one for days.
My armour prevented me from being crushed entirely, but the flames
were relentless.”

I
should've been there. Should've held myself together after I'd
killed the dragon and gone back for her.

“It was
Kidira who saved me. She pulled me from the rubble and took me to
Kyrindval,” Claire concluded after a moment.

“Kidira?
Queen Kidira's alive?” I asked, and she nodded. “Kouris and
Akela... they'll be happy.”

Claire's lips parted, forming a silent
oh
, and she said, “They're...
?”

“They're
alive! I came here with Akela, and Atthis and Kouris are on their
way,” I said.

“That's... I'm glad to hear that.”

It was
too much to take in at once. The burns made it difficult for Claire
to smile, but she tried, lips twitching before slipping back into
something more neutral. Any good news was negated by the years
missing between us, and all I could think of were the long days
she'd spent beneath that building, fire lapping at her
skin.

“I'm
sorry I wasn't there. I should've been. I wanted to find you,
Claire, but...”

“What happened?” Claire asked, needing answers as badly as I
did. “Galal said... he said he last saw you with Kouris, facing a
dragon. I searched for you, Rowan. Once I was healed enough to move
of my own accord, I searched for you, but it was futile. I went to
every shelter that had been set up, every camp, and yet... we held
a memorial, almost a year ago, for those we'd lost. I—where
were
you,
Rowan?”

“Claire...” I breathed jaggedly, lengths of iron grinding
between my ribs, piercing my lungs to know that all I had felt –
the certainty of her death, the absence of her in the world – had
echoed within her own chest. How heartless I had been to console
myself by thinking I meant nothing to her. “Canth. I was in
Canth.”

That was
it. Two years reduced to a single word.

She
repeated it, closed her eyes and brought a hand to her forehead. I
smoothed my hands across her shoulders and belatedly realised the
floor wasn't the best place to beat our hearts against. I rose
slowly, holding out a hand, and Claire picked her cane back up,
struggling to rise to her feet.

“Can we
sit somewhere?” I asked, glancing at the chairs.

My legs
were more unsteady than they'd been upon leaving Oak's back, and
Claire tilted her head towards the staircase leading up to the next
level. She went ahead, gripping the banister as tightly as her
cane, taking them one at a time. She paused with every step, teeth
grit, and though I could tell it was causing her pain, I could feel
nothing of the injury she'd suffered. I'd been gone for too long
and her crushed leg had settled into a new shape.

Claire
had made her home on the top floor. A small table with two chairs
sat in one corner with a bed opposite it, and on the other side of
the room, a dresser and wardrobe were pressed against the wall. Her
dragon-bone armour hung from a stand between them. The breastplate
was scuffed, and while one of the hollow legs was crushed, none of
it showed a hint of the fire that had rushed over
Claire.

Books
lined a shelf, and I thought of my bag with Claire's things stowed
safely inside. I brought a hand to my shoulder but it was gone;
left on the floor downstairs, most likely.

Gripping
the wall, Claire lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, laying
her cane across the covers. I paced back and forth, feeling her
eyes on me, uncertain how I'd brought myself to look away. The
light was rising and rising within me, no matter how seeing Claire
ought to have extinguished all that raged within, for I could feel
futile trying to find a way to make this all right was.

“Rowan?”
she said when I didn't slow.

I shook
my head and kept moving. I grasped for words and none of them were
big enough. Nothing that came to mind could express all I'd
suffered in two years, how I'd spent every day wishing I'd been
stronger; wishing I'd gone back for her.

“Start
at the beginning,” Claire suggested softly.

The beginning. Hours –
minutes
–
after I'd last seen her.

“Goblin was right. He saw me and Kouris facing a dragon,” I
said, staring at the spot where a mirror should've hung above her
dresser. “But I killed it. I reached out and it died. I didn't know
I could do that; I wasn't
trying
to do that. I just didn't want to die like
that.”

“You
killed a dragon,” she murmured, not surprised or sceptical; merely
awed, as though she'd never done the same herself. “And then...
?”

“I wanted to go back to you. I wanted to wipe out the other
dragons, but it was too much. I wasn't strong enough, Claire. It
was like something in my head
snapped.
I remember bleeding and
bleeding and passing out. I couldn't use my legs for weeks after
that. Kouris carried me out of Isin, but no matter where we went,
there were dragons.

“Akela
was with us. We kept moving south, helping those we could, but...
but then we were at the coast. There was nowhere else to go, and
there was only one ship left, so we took it to Canth. We were only
meant to dock for a few weeks, to wait it out, but...”

“But the
Felheimish army closed the ports,” Claire concluded.

She
tilted her head forward, eyes on the floor, and ran a hand through
her hair, brushing it back. I let her absorb the information as
best she could, not yet ready to tell her how I'd earnt our passage
pack. My mind had been rent in two: on one side were my memories of
Canth, of the adventures I'd had, the things I'd seen and the
people I'd come to know, and on the other side were all the things
I could express to Claire. Each half felt as hollow as the
other.

“Queen
Nasrin helped us back,” I managed. “I thought about coming back to
Asar every day, Claire. I didn't know what I was going to find
here, didn't know what I could do to help, but you have to believe
that I wanted to be back, to...”

Claire
looked up, catching my gaze, and shoulders slumping, I let myself
be pulled towards her. I knelt in front of her, hands on her knees,
and she placed a hand on the back of my head.

“I thought you were dead,” I whispered, resting my head in
her lap. “I thought I'd never see you again, and I couldn't
stop
missing you, no
matter what I did or where I went.”

She
hummed softly, fingers trailing through my hair, I only moved to
ensure my weight wasn't pressed against her bad leg.

“I spent
a lot of time in Kyrindval, healing to the best of my ability. I
have been Marshal here for almost a year. Much has happened, and
I... I understand. I understand that it is not easy to reflect on,
or articulate, but I understand.”

I lifted
my head and she eased me up, guiding me to the spot on the bed next
to her. I reached for her hand but she pulled it away, finger and
thumb curling towards her palm. I gripped my wrist to stop my hands
from wandering again, and Claire turned her head from me when she
felt my eyes on her. With her head turned, I could see that her ear
had been pinned back, fused to her skull with heat.

“There
weren't any healers... ?” I asked weakly.

“No,”
she said bluntly, teeth grinding together. “I don't suppose that
you could—”

“I'm
sorry. The scars are too old. I'd only make it worse,” I said,
hands covering my stomach.

“Ah.”

An
uneasy quiet gripped the room, whispering that we'd already said
all there was to say. Inches and years divided us, and I knew that
Claire wasn't the woman I'd once known; I wasn't the person she
remembered. It wasn't fair. I had her back and it still wasn't
fair. I wanted to claw the months back and make everything right,
for what use was I to her now? My powers were worthless, my
frustration even more so, and had I washed her scars away, I knew
it wouldn't change anything.

I
pressed my hands to the sides of my head, trembling.

“Rowan,”
Claire said, still needing to repeat my name, to convince herself I
was real.

She
wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. She was
still Claire, she was still Claire, I reminded myself; it was
simply too much at once. I'd feel better in the morning. In a week.
When I'd had time to sleep and understood all that had unfolded in
my absence.

I
reached up, brushing my fingertips against her hand. She sucked in
a breath but didn't pull it back, remaining still and steady as I
ran my fingers across knuckles that led nowhere.

“...
you're glowing,” she stated, after a while. “I read something of
the sort, but I took it to be mere metaphor. Is this the result of
pushing your limits against the dragon?”

I tensed
in her arms and she eased me back, trying to catch my eye. The
truth would find its own way out, eventually. It wouldn't take
forever for Katja to reach Orinhal, and all that had happened to
Claire was so brazenly on display. She needed to know that I didn't
want to keep things from her, not even after all this
time.

“Someone
hurt me,” I said, faced buried in her shoulder. “... Katja. But I
don't want to talk about it. Not yet.”

It took
all she had not to lash out with her words, to demand to know what
had happened. She tensed, wrapped her arms tighter around me, and
all I wanted was for it to all stop. For the world to still and for
everything to tumble into the void, my thoughts included. In a
sense, I knew that everything had been leading to this point, and
now that I was here, I had no idea what my next step ought to
be.

My
eyelids grew heavy, and Claire's lips atop my head made it all the
easier for me to slip away, trapped in a dreamless
slumber.

*

I awoke
with my head in Claire's lap. She ran her fingers through my hair
as I stirred, disturbed by the sun filtering in through the window
and feet stomping below. My vision was hazy but I could tell my
skin had dulled, and the footsteps making their way up the stairs
were impossibly loud. I scrunched my face up, trying to rid myself
of the sensation of being held underwater.

“O-oh,”
came a voice too soft to match the pounding of feet I'd heard. “I'm
sorry, Marshal. I'll go, shall I? I'm sorry, I really am,
I...”

I bolted
upright, greeted by a pane staring down at the tray of food she'd
brought. The first thing I noticed about her – the first thing
anyone noticed about her – was the scarring across the right side
of her forehead, where a horn ought to be. The other curled back,
not quite as long as Kouris', though the pane was far taller.
Bright red hair contrasted against her pale skin, and if pane could
blush, she would've.

“I
didn't realise you had company,” she went on to say, and the voice
really was hers. It was verging on melodic, with how gentle it
was.

“It's
fine, Sen,” Claire said, reaching blindly for her cane. “Sen, this
is Rowan. Rowan, this is my maid, Sen.”

“Rowan... ?” Sen asked, repeating my name before processing
it. I caught her eye and she looked away, fangs worrying into her
upper lip. I took a step back, lest I was too close for her liking,
and she dared to glance between me and Claire, eyes an unsteady
shade of gold. “It's nice to meet you, Rowan.”

“You
too, Sen,” I said, holding out a hand. The fact that I'd offered it
made her skittish, and she reached out slowly, tentatively taking
it in her own without looking directly at me.

A day
ago, I would've been convinced that if I ever saw Claire again,
nothing could tear me from her side. Now, I was ashamed of how
eager I was to leave. I came up with a dozen excuses for her; she
had things to attend to, and I'd only get in the way; she needed
time to process this, as I too did; she needed to clear things up
with Sen, to start making sense of it all; and I inched towards the
stairs.

“I
should find Akela,” I blurted out.

“Indeed,” Claire said, holding out an arm for Sen to help her
up.

I
watched as Claire grimaced to stand straight again, body aching
with the strain of moving after having sat for so long, and I
realised one thing hadn't changed.