Dragonoak (54 page)

“You no
longer use your claws to pick meat from between your fangs,” she
said.

I tried
to picture her sitting there, arms wrapped loosely around her knees
as she stared into the fire.

“I knew
you always hated it,” came Kouris' quiet reply.

“I
didn't hate it,” Kidira said bluntly. “It annoyed me. That's
all.”

Kouris
made no reply. All I heard was the sound of one of them shifting,
rearranging themselves in front of the fire, until Kidira spoke
again.

“Do you
want to hear something funny?”

“Will it
make me laugh?” Kouris asked dryly.

“No,”
Kidira said, and I suppose Kouris must've nodded, because she went
on speaking. “For years – for a decade, perhaps – I spent every day
wishing that you'd come home. I'd entertain all manner of
absurdities: the people deciding that execution wasn't a fit
punishment, you finding a way to atone with the rest of the life
they'd allowed you to keep. I even imagined that you might've
slipped through their fingers, and told myself that it wouldn't
matter to me how you'd dishonoured us both. As those days turned
into months and then years, it was harder and harder to believe
that you'd come home. I'd tell myself you'd escaped and had gone
into hiding, over in Felheim or Agados, or that you'd returned to
your people, but one day, I had to stop.

“My mind
would still wander. I suppose I used it as a... reward, of sorts.
Get through the day, return to my chambers and allow myself to
imagine that you were something other than dead. Every time,
Kouris. Every time somebody knocked at the door, every time a raven
came, every time I saw horns in a crowd; every time, I thought it
was you.

“And then you return to me. After twenty-seven years, one day
you are suddenly
there
, knelt before me. Just as I'd always imagined, just as I'd
always wanted. And the funny thing is, Kouris, the funny thing is
that it
does
matter. All of it, every last bit, matters to me. I do not
wish to see you, I do not wish to be near you, and so I do not know
who I have been these past twenty-nine years, or before all
that.”

I turned
my head, face pressed into the dirt. I squeezed my eyes shut
tighter, fingertips pressed to the ground, pretending I couldn't
hear Kouris' heavy breathing, the growl rattling around the back of
her throat.

“The
pane aren't my people,” Kouris eventually managed, “You are. You
were the only one who—”

“Yet still, you left,” Kidira said, cutting her off. “You
left
me
.”

“I know,” Kouris murmured, voice muffled by her hands or arms
or something else. “I
know
.”

In the
morning, we returned to the other side of the wall. Once we were
back within the Bloodless Lands, there was no more putting it off:
the three of us had to find a way to settle down on Oak's back
together. Weight wasn't the issue. He'd carried Akela and myself
together and had been fine with Kouris on his back, and Kidira
hardly took up much space, but I couldn't comprehend the least
awkward way to arrange ourselves.

Eventually, Kouris decided to take the reins and I settled
down behind her. Kidira sat behind me, and once Oak took off, you
would've thought she'd spent her life on dragonback; she placed her
hands on my shoulders but didn't cling as if for dear life, nor did
she press up against me.

We
travelled close to the ground, hidden by the mountains, though
there wasn't much call to hide; no one stood vigil over the
Bloodless Lands and no human wandered closer to the mountains than
they had to. Kouris had fashioned a blindfold for herself and like
Kidira, covered both eyes as we flew, but I looked out on the
Bloodless Lands, watching Myros unfurl like a scroll as we flew
past. There were cities, dozens of them, villages and towns and
open fields between, rivers and lakes turned still and white, as
though ripples and waves had been carved from something quite
unlike stone.

The
journey was a little longer than the one to Orinhal had been, made
longer still by the breaks we took to stretch our arms and legs.
When nothing in the scenery had changed – the Bloodless Lands were
still to the left while the mountains rose and fell on our right –
Kidira said, “Here. We walk from here.” It was hard to argue on a
dragon's back, and so Kouris gestured for Oak to land.

“What's
so special about here?” Kouris asked, pulling up her blindfold and
squinting at the mountains.

Kidira,
blindfold already half pulled up, began to press on.

“Nothing,” she said without looking back, “But I rather
wouldn't announce our arrival, should anyone be awaiting
us.”

Kouris
and I remained where we were for a moment, sharing sceptical looks.
Oak, deciding that his help was no longer required, slumped down on
the dusty ground, wings stretched out at his sides. I looked
around, trying to find whatever landmark it was that Kidira had
spotted and came up empty.

“All she's said is that we're going to the place where they
keep the dragons,” I mumbled, “She says I need to go with her and
be
brave
, for
whatever reason, but she won't tell me anything else.”

“Of
course she won't, yrval,” Kouris said, patting a hand against my
back as she hurried to follow Kidira. “But this is Kidira: she
doesn't do anything lightly. Whatever this is, it's important and
she's sure to be having a plan.”

I
could've refused to follow along, ruining whatever plans Kidira
might've formed, but I couldn't bring myself to be quite that
petty. Better to get it over with as quickly as was possible.
Admittedly, I was more than a little curious. The last leg of our
journey lasted well through midnight, though darkness didn't fall
on the Bloodless Lands themselves. The sky had long since turned
black, while the Bloodless Lands teemed with light, as I too
did.

“Reckon
we're not far from Thule,” Kouris murmured, eyes ever on the
mountains.

“Kouris...” I said, but didn't know what else I wanted to
say. I thought back to our first journey together, from Praxis
through to Kastelir, all the way to Isin and reached out, and
placed my hand in hers.

A
building came into view, a dozen miles from where we'd left Oak. It
didn't belong to the Bloodless Lands and its design wasn't Myrosi;
it was old to be sure, but compared to the wall and what laid
beyond, it'd barely seen a day in the sun. The round, domed
building sat in the centre of a clearing, with no glass in the
small, square windows carved into the stone. Instead, light poured
out; light that cause me to curl my fingers towards my palm, light
that made Kouris look between Kidira and myself, on the verge of
demanding answers. Kidira put up a hand to preemptively silence
her, observing for a few moments more before speaking.

“I stood
watch here for days. The dragons are kept further down; it's the
pane who bring them here in shackles, muzzles about their snouts,
led by guards. For the longest time, I didn't understand what I was
seeing. I only knew that I couldn't head into that building alone,”
Kidira explained, eyes fixed on me as though the weight of her
stare could rip the light from my bones. “Until I found you, and it
became painfully clear.”

“You mean... ?” I tried, leaning towards the dome, trying
to
feel
their
presence.

“Necromancers,” Kidira said.

“But this was supposed to be a...” I squeezed Kouris' hand
tightly, doing what I could to keep my voice level. “You said it
was a
rescue
mission. But you just want me to... to stop them?”

Kidira
let out a heavy breath, tilting her head towards the
building.

“We are
going to stop them, Rowan. But considering the state I found you in
to entice such a glow, I doubt they will scorn our
help.”

With
that, Kidira marched towards the building, while Kouris and I stood
frozen.

“Come
now, Kidira. Shouldn't we be waiting for a few more of us... ?”
Kouris said, trying to reason with her.

She
didn't break her gait. She could see as well as we could that there
were no soldiers around, for what good were guards when it came to
necromancers? If they were there of their own freewill, then a
fleet of soldiers could offer them no better protection of their
own powers; if they were truly being kept there, the soldiers
wouldn't have stood a chance.

I recalled what Claire had told me. That necromancers were
involved, though she didn't understand how. I ran to catch up with
Kidira, knowing beyond all reason that there
were
necromancers within the
building.

That
feeling of warmth, of understanding, made me braver than I rightly
should've been. I pushed past Kidira, eyes fixed on the dome,
breaking out into a sprint. I could feel something beneath all that
unspoken familiarity. There was something ringing in the back of my
head, too high-pitch for me to hear; something making my nerves
pull taut. Kidira was right. Whoever was in there needed
help.

They
needed help and I understood that. Once a necromancer had been
bound, they were trapped; they could kill their captor but they'd
still be in chains.

“Wait
,” Kidira said, grabbing hold
of my shoulder.

I shook her hand off without looking back. “I'll go first,” I
said, barely aware of my surroundings. All I knew was that I had to
keep going, had to see what was behind those doors. I don't know if
Kidira responded to me, if Kouris said anything. I wrapped my
fingers around the handles, saying, “
You
wait,” as I pulled them towards
me.

They
might've brought pane to the building but the doors weren't
designed for them. The doorway was so low that Akela would've had
to duck to get in, but then the room opened up, up, bright light
making the domed ceiling into a sky. In that first flash of light,
I saw the building as it once must've been; saw all the depth the
faded carvings once had, the colours the peeling paint had once
shone in. But then my eyes adjusted and it was nothing more than a
weather-worn collection of bricks, unfit to house
anyone.

I didn't
find a group of necromancers within the building. Chains hung from
the ceiling, pulled taut around the wrists of one man; not quite
long enough to allow him to kneel, though to look at him, I knew
he'd forgotten how to stand years before. Light peeled off him in
sheets and I saw what I might become, saw an echo of what those who
laid their eyes on me must've seen.

Light
bloomed from his eyes like white fire, coiling up into the air and
never burning out, skin glowing as though he had been carved from
the same stock as the rivers and lakes in the Bloodless Lands. If
he knew I was there, he didn't register it, at first.

“A-ah...
ahh,” he whined breathlessly in a plea for freedom that never
ended. Hands trembling, I stepped closer, and he seemed to flinch;
but he was used to people coming in and demanding things of him,
and so hung his head and went back to whining.

It
wasn't until I knelt before him that I really got his attention.
“Can you hear me?” I asked, reaching back for my dragon-bone knife.
“It's going to be alright, just...”

His eyes
went wide, embers dying down for half a heartbeat. “You're a...
you're a...” he tried. “Go, go! You must...”

His
words lapsed into a mumble, and then more groaning.

“It's
fine, Aejin. We'll get you out of here,” I said, trying the knife
against the chains. It was like cutting through brittle
wood.

“Aejin?
No, no, my name...” he murmured, slumping as the first of the
chains broke. “They'll take you, take you like they took me,
they'll...”

“Shh,” I
said, working on the second chain.

It
finally snapped, and though I went to steady the necromancer,
Kouris had already rushed in and caught him in her arms.

“Iseul!”
she said, kneeling with his head rested against the crook of her
elbow. He gasped shakily, as though we'd pulled him out of the
chains and into a bed of ice, fingertips twitching as he remembered
what parts of his body were his. A lifetime without food, without
water, without sleep, and there he was, reaching up to Kouris'
face.

“My
Queen!” he said, fingertips trailing across Kouris' cheek when she
bowed her head towards him. “I didn't—oh, they took me. I fought
and I fought, but... but they said... if I brought the dragons
back, if I... showed them where to fly—”

His
words faded into raspy breaths and I felt as though I was bleeding
light for him, for Iseul. The blood in my veins slowed to a crawl,
thick and sticky, and I understood; Oak had found Kyrindval because
I'd slipped the image beneath his skin, he'd recognised Kouris
because I too knew her.

“Oh,
Iseul,” Kouris murmured, “You must've known they wouldn't ever let
you go.”

Iseul
tilted his head back, eyes closing, light not fading. Kidira stood
in the doorway, stony-faced, not telling us to hurry as I'd
expected her to.