Dragonoak (9 page)

Katja
was paler than I'd ever seen her. She shook her head over and over,
and with trembling hands, picked up another of the fish. Twice she
tried to ease it into the pitcher and twice she failed, until
finally, the fish slid in, causing the other to flail all the
more.

Her eyes
shone with the promise of tears, and with a deep, unsteady breath,
she held her hands over the pitcher and did exactly nothing.
Nothing but frustration built up within her, and I relished in it.
Maybe this was all it took; maybe this outburst would finally get
through to her. The fish refused to move, and Katja gripped the
sides of the pitcher as though it would make any
difference.

“I've almost got it,” she said, voice painfully high. “I can
feel...
something
. Something that's different to anything else I've ever felt.
Please, Rowan. Please. If only I could cling to whatever it is. If
only you would tell me how it feels for you.”

Her eyes
were all but black, and as she trembled with the impossible task
she'd assigned herself to, her skin too changed. It became sickly,
reflecting the grey of Felheim's sky on a dreary day. She was
desperately trying to twist her power into something it wasn't,
burning herself from the inside out as a consequence.

Seeing
her like that caused all of my anger to rush out. I wrapped my
fingers around her wrists, easing her hands away from the pitcher,
but the part of her nature that had always tried to repel mine got
the better of her. I couldn't hold on without feeling as though my
palms were burning, and as my stomach twisted in on itself, I
looked around, needing something to break her out of the trance
she'd forced herself into.

The
glint of a kitchen knife caught my attention. I darted over and
grabbed it, took hold of the last fish and sliced it
open.

“Katja. Katja, look at me. You're forcing yourself to bring
that fish back to life, and you're only hurting yourself,” I said,
picking up the bloody fish and dropping it into the water. “It
shouldn't be difficult. It should exhaust you, but not like
this
. You shouldn't have
to think about it. It should be so much harder for me to bring this
fish back, and yet...”

I held
my hand over the pitcher, lest Katja convince herself that the two
dead fish had come back to life through her own brutal efforts. I
blinked and they were back, fighting for space within the pitcher,
and all at once, the spell was broken. Katja stopped staring, arms
falling slack at her sides, and I put the knife down, pulling her
into my arms.

“My
mother's dead,” she said in a small, broken voice. “Everyone. My
entire country. They are lost to me. I did nothing for them, and
even now, I continue to be useless...”

“It's
alright, Katja,” I said, placing a hand on the back of her head.
“You've done everything you can. I know that. Kouris and Akela and
Atthis, they know that too. I know it's hard, but there isn't a
magical solution to this. Being a necromancer won't change the
past. I can't bring back everyone we've lost, and I can't kill all
of the dragons on my own. You're a healer, Katja. You're never
going to be useless.”

Swaying
in my arms, Katja finally nodded shallowly against my shoulder. In
spite of everything she'd put me through, I couldn't blame her. Not
with her crumpled in my arms, not after all she'd been through. All
she'd wanted to do was help, and she'd put more effort into the
impossible than any of us. I held her close, wanting her to know
how deeply sorry I was for all that she'd lost, hoping that time
would be kind and bring her back to her true self as soon as it
could.

Leaning
back, eyes half-lidded, Katja placed a hand against my cheek and
rested her forehead against mine. Her shoulders tensed and I wanted
to tell her that it was alright, that she could relax, but I wasn't
given the chance to let my own eyes close.

The
metal bit into me, cold and sharp.

Blood
oozed between my ribs and pain cut through my understanding of what
had happened. There was nothing else in the world: only the red
sting cutting through my chest and Katja's eyes meeting mine. I did
all I could to force a sound from my throat, but none came. I could
only reach blindly, fingers finding Katja's elbow, tracing down to
her wrist, to her fingers wrapped tight around the hilt of the
kitchen knife.

The
wound was trying to force itself shut around the blade, and Katja
pushed the knife in deeper.

Her
fingers curled against my cheek and I slumped forward, knees
buckling, everything in my body letting go.

Katja
pulled the knife back and the wound gasped before closing. I clung
to her with all the strength I had left as she drove it in again
and again, into my stomach, between my ribs.

Stop
, I would've pleaded, had my
throat not been thick with blood
. Stop it,
stop it, please. I don't want to die, I don't—please.

CHAPTER IV

The
darkness was absolute.

I was
not sleeping, I was not dreaming, and I was not
unconscious.

I wasn't
aware of the depths I had drifted into until I came to, blinking my
eyes open, surroundings warping and blurring around me. I wasn't
granted any sort of blissful delusion; I knew exactly where I was,
exactly what had happened to me. There were no words to describe
the pain. It had become me: I was intimately aware of every inch of
my body, every fibre. Every layer of skin and sinew burnt bright in
the back of my mind, every muscle and tendon that had been cut
through.

Moving
caused metal to jangle behind me. Chains were wrapped tightly
around my wrists and I found myself sitting, head slumped forward.
Slowly, I stretched my fingers out, finding that my hands were
bound behind a thick, iron bar, curved at the base. The leg of the
stove, I realised, feeling the hefty door dig against my back. I
jerked my arms, shoulders straining, but even if I'd had any
strength left in me, I wouldn't have been able to pull the stove
from the wall.

The
front of my shirt was torn to ribbons, lap soaked in blood,
floorboards not much better off. I could replenish blood as quickly
as I lost it, and I couldn't account for how many times I'd had to
refill myself, over and over.

Katja
was standing over me. I saw her feet but couldn't bring myself to
look up. She cleared her throat, dragging a chair from the table
and sat in front of me.

“Rowan,”
she said plainly, and trembling, I lifted my head, for fear of what
would happen if I didn't.

She'd
changed. There wasn't a fleck of blood on the dress she was
wearing, and her hair was dark where it had recently been washed.
Watery trails of blood were still smeared across her jawline and
throat, but it didn't make any difference. She could wander out
into Mahon like that and nobody would look at her twice.

“Katja,”
I tried, eyes fixed on the knife laid across her lap.

Katja
drew in a deep breath and I didn't dare speak another
word.

“I never
wanted
to be a healer, Rowan. My mother was always very supportive
of this, but there were those who believed I ought to set all my
ambitions aside in favour of aiding those foolish enough to get
themselves hurt in the first place,” Katja said, and I didn't care
why she was telling me this. As long as she was talking, the knife
was going to remain in her lap. “My mother was always quick to
silence them: no one argued with Queen Kidira. All my life, these
so-called powers have been one great insult to me. I am but a
glorified
weed
. I
could do so much more, I could do what you refuse to, and instead,
I am forced to endure you wasting your gift.”

“Please...” I mumbled, chains rattling behind me. “Please,
Katja. Let me go. I won't tell anyone, I won't...”

Katja
let out a shrill laugh, and instantly, I was the calmer out of the
two of us. She trembled in her seat, holding the knife by the
handle lest it fall out of her lap, and shook her head over and
over, fingers running through her hair.

“No. No,
I don't think I shall do that,” she said, “I didn't mean for any of
this to happen. You must believe that, Rowan. I honestly did not
wish for it to come to this, but goodness, you gave me no choice.
We can't turn back now.”

“What...” I started, eye-lids heavy. My head kept rocking
forward, and every time I focused my vision, Katja seemed to have
drawn closer. “What did I do?”

“What
did you do?” Katja repeated, kneeling in front of me. Fingers
digging in beneath my jaw, she tilted my head up so that I could
see the disappointment written across her face. “I gave you every
chance to tell me what you were, Rowan. I went so far as to
flagrantly mention Kondo-Kana around you. I took you to one of
Isjin's temples. I let you know that you were safe around me. That
I thought highly of necromancers. And you insisted on remaining
ignorant.

“I have given you every opportunity to help, to become better
than a person of your standing could ever dare to hope to, and you
have squandered it all. You are
selfish
, Rowan. You are too utterly
wrapped up in your own grief to comprehend how you might be of help
to others.”

Though
she was holding my head up, I could feel myself slipping away.
Everything in my body wanted to tumble down, down, and slip through
the floorboards like the blood that had been stolen from me. She
was right. She was right. All I cared about was getting back to
Asar, leaving behind everything the people here had given
me.

“You
knew...” I murmured.

Of
course she had. Sickness hadn't welled up within me by chance,
hadn't gripped me whenever she was demanding something of
me.

“I knew. Of
course
I knew. From the moment you stepped into the
castle, I knew that there was a necromancer in Isin. All my life,
Rowan, I had waited to meet a necromancer. I studied endless books,
the records left by past healers who'd come into contact with them.
I convinced myself it was wishful thinking; surely I wouldn't be
able to feel a necromancer's presence so clearly. And yet the
moment you arrived, I knew,” Katja said, fingers moving from my
chin to run through my hair. “And after all that time, what is my
patience rewarded with? An illiterate farmer who barely scrapped
together the intelligence to get there in the first place. I tried
my best to make you better, I truly did, but you are irredeemably
oblivious, Rowan.”

All my
life, I'd been convinced that necromancy only served to negate
anything of worth I had within me. But there Katja was, reassuring
me that my powers were the only part of me that counted for
anything.

“If
you
can
do this, I certainly can,” Katja said firmly, and I opened my mouth
to tell her that she was wrong, but she covered it with her
fingers, refusing to let me speak. “No, no. Don't waste your
breath, dear. You were right about one thing: of course I can't
bring back
fish.
I've spent my entire life healing humans. I need to start
with something I'm familiar with.”

Her
words had almost been enough to make me forget the knife in her
lap, but in a flash, it was at my chest again.

“Don't
do it, don't do it,” I blurted out, heart betraying me. It pounded
in my chest, reaching out to greet the tip of Katja's knife. My
skin split open and the first trickle of blood spilt out, but Katja
wasn't putting enough pressure on the blade. The first time she'd
struck me, she'd exhausted herself. She'd lashed out blindly, knife
digging in at odd angles, missing and splitting the surface of my
skin open, but now, her movements were careful and calculated.
“Hurts, hurts, please, don't, stop, stopstop, hurts—”

My feet
skidded against the floor, chains rattling behind me, and though
thrashing only made it worse for me, I couldn't stop.

“Shhhh,” Katja hissed, inching the knife in deeper. Blood
stained my teeth and I pushed myself back against the stove,
knowing that the pain would fade. Even then, I knew it wouldn't
last forever. Because if it didn't fade, I would never be able to
move past that moment; I needed it to be a memory, needed it to be
gone. I was on the verge of collapsing, mind about to flicker out,
but my powers surged through me, forcing me to stay afloat amidst
the pain. “Oh, no, no. I don't
want
to hurt you, Rowan...”

Her hand moved to my forehead, washing away the pain. The
knife remained between my ribs, blood filling my mouth, and though
I could
feel
the
steel lodged in my chest, it didn't hurt. I stared at Katja, eyes
wide, and when I tried to talk, I only succeed on choking on the
blood. I coughed until my eyes were streaming, blood splattering
from between my teeth and lips, and very gently, Katja reached up,
using her fingers to scoop out what blood she could.

“See,
see,” she said softly. “It doesn't have to hurt, Rowan. Keep still
and it'll all be fine, you'll see.”

“There's
a knife in my chest,” I croaked. “Pull it out. Please.”