Dragonoak: The Complete History of Kastelir (48 page)

Ianto's words were rehearsed, and likely not his own. In the same way that Tom, whoever he was, had been talked into doing as Ianto wished, I'd no doubt that Ianto wasn't a leader of any kind; he, too, was being manipulated. Disposed of because his life was already forfeit. The diseased he carried peeled off him in sheets, crawling through his veins and sticking to the inside of his lungs. It wasn't something a healer could wash away, that much I could tell, and he was far from brave in making a martyr of himself.

Facing the guillotine was a far kinder fate than coughing himself to death.

Katja let go of my hand and stood with her arms wrapped around herself, but I couldn't be sure whether the reason behind King Jonas' death was marring her features, or if it was the ebbing feeling of a disease she couldn't hope to quell troubling her so.

Queen Kidira put her hand on the edge of the table, drumming her fingers against it.

“Commander—I expect this
Tom
has been absent from work since the day of the incident. Have Ocari give you his address, the name of a family member, anything, and take Ightham to bring him in. We shall keep Ires alive until we have the right person, and you have retrieved all the information you can from him; after that, put him to the stake,” Queen Kidira said plainly, and even Akela's eyes flashed as she nodded obediently.

“The... I am to be
burnt
?” Ianto said, trying to tug the bar clean out of the window, unable to lean forward far enough. For the first time, he understood the reality of facing his own death; a beheading, as gruesome as it was, was a lot easier to romanticise than having the flesh burnt off his bones. “B-but surely, the standard method of execution ought to be employed here. The guillotine is, it's t—”

Queen Kidira wasn't listening. She let him stumble over his words for a moment longer, and said to Akela, “The necromancer held in Orinhal ought to arrive in time for the Phoenix Festival. Rather fitting. The people will enjoy the spectacle all the more if there are two executions that day.”

“I—Commander, surely I am within my rights, surely it is lawful that...” Ianto tried, desperate to earn Akela's pity.

Queen Kidira silenced Ianto with a look and only then did she lean towards him.

“You mock the Commander, and then wish to seek her aid when it suits you?” Queen Kidira asked coolly. Ianto froze in his seat, unable to give any reply. Stepping back, Queen Kidira fixed her eyes on Akela and said, “Burn him slowly,” as she proceeded to leave the room.

The next few minutes were a jumble.

Akela had guards escort Ianto to a proper holding cell, and the rest of us flooded out of the chamber. Katja ran off after Queen Kidira, calling for her to wait, and the Queen stopped, placing a hand on her daughter's shoulder and squeezing it tightly. They headed off in one direction and King Atthis led Kouris in another. I leant against the wall, heart doing what it could to crack my ribs apart.

The necromancer from Orinhal was still alive. He was coming here, to Isin. I'd done all I could to push him from my mind, to convince myself that it was all in the past, but he was being brought to the capital, to be burnt in the heart of the Kingdom. Orinhal was a large city, a wealthy one at that, but the death of a necromancer could never be wasted on it.

“Rowan,” Claire said gently. “Are you alright?”

I shook my head. It was hard to look at her when all I saw was the Kastelirian uniform, when she'd stood by silently as Queen Kidira spoke of burning necromancers. But what
could
she do? Had anyone else bit their tongue in Queen Kidira's presence, I would've understood, but with Claire, it was different. I expected too much of her, and it wasn't fair.

“I'll—”

The door slammed open and I leapt off the wall as though the stones were burning.

“Ightham, come,” Akela said, tilting her head down the corridor, “We are finding Ocari at once.”

I took it upon myself to follow Claire and Akela. News of what happened had already spread through the castle, and every chamber and walkway was thrumming with rumour and exaggeration.

Ocari was far too busy for gossip. They walked faster than we did, and I was on the verge of jogging to keep up with Akela and Claire. Three servants trailed behind Ocari, each carrying something that belonged in a different part of the castle. Ocari lectured a boy with a bundle of freshly cleaned sheets in his arms, telling him
exactly
how they were to be folded, and when Akela called out to them, they didn't break their gait.

They glanced over their shoulder, letting Akela know she had their attention, and stepped to the side, so that Akela could squeeze in between Ocari and the servants. Claire and I kept close, ready to take the information we needed and run.

“Ocari, I am afraid I am not coming here for small talk,” Akela said, “I am looking for a Tom, a Tom who is working in the castle.”

“Got a lot of Toms here, Commander. Three working down with the laundry, one who works in the gardens, another two who—”

“Yes, yes, there are many, I am knowing this. But the Tom I am looking for, perhaps he is not coming into work since...” she paused, lowering her voice. “Since His Highness is murdered.”

Ocari came to an abrupt halt, glanced between the servants, and dismissed all three of them with a wave. Ocari's work never ended, but their expression became more serious than stern, and they understood that it was of the utmost importance that they put whatever they were in the middle of aside for the time being.

We were led down to their office, close to the servants' quarters, and as Ocari unlocked the door, they looked at me as though they recognised me, but didn't have the time to work out where from. I would've waited in the corridor, but Claire ushered me inside. I stood in the corner, out of the way, while Ocari muttered to theirself, turning in a circle on the spot, trying to remember where
something
was.

The sheer number of books piled on the desk and lining the shelves made the small office smaller, and a narrow ray of light spilt in through a high-up window, striking the floor by the side of Ocari's chair.

“
Ah
,” they said, pulling the ring of keys from their hip. They unlocked the top drawer of the desk and produced a stack of dog-eared paper. “Had a complaint yesterday morning—well, I get plenty of complaints every morning, noon and night, but this one might be of interest to you. A cook in one of the eastern kitchens said one of their assistants hadn't shown since... you can guess, I'm sure.”

Ocari handed the note to Akela, who nodded gravely as she read it.

“You are having a way to find this Tom?” she asked.

Ocari nodded, then gestured to Claire.

“Ightham—top shelf, red book,” Ocari said as they took a seat at the desk, comfortable issuing orders to Claire.

Claire followed them without a moment's hesitation. I watched as she pushed herself onto tiptoes, prying a hefty looking book from beneath two others, and knew that the uniform had already become her. She wasn't Sir Ightham here, wasn't a Knight. All of that was behind her.

The book thudded dully on the desk in front of Ocari, and they closed their eyes for a split second, mouthing
eastern kitchens, eastern kitchens
, until they found whatever was locked away in the back of their memory. The spine cracked as they eased the book open, and they thumbed through a dozen pages, until they found the right Tom.

“Let's see—the only address we have for this Tom is his mother's. Red Pine street, down in the Gatholith District,” Ocari said, running their finger beneath the handwritten words to be certain. “Listen, Commander. If you're saying that one of our own is responsible for this, one of the serving staff, then...”

“Ocari, my friend, I am not wanting you to worry,” Akela reassured them, leaning across the desk to pat their back. “I am not accusing you of anything, and Their Majesties, they are knowing you are having nothing to do with this. You are keeping this place running for fifteen years now—there is no way you are throwing that all away.”

Satisfied with Akela's words, Ocari closed the book, dust flying as the pages slammed together.

We were gone by the time it was returned to the shelf.

It didn't take long to reach the Gatholith District. Had Michael been with us, he would've presumed to lecture us on the history of the area, explaining exactly what Gatholith had done to have an entire district of the capital named for him, but in his absence, it was just another part of Isin. The streets were narrow, crowded with people running errands and children playing, rather than merchants setting up stalls, and rows of washing ran between the windows, above our heads.

Once we reached the right street, Akela stopped to ask a few men sat on their front steps, scrubbing dirty shirts against washing boards propped up in buckets, if they happened to know a young man by the name of Tom. Akela standing over them was enough to draw an instant, honest answer out of the men, and they pointed us down the street, to the house at the very end of Red Pine.

There was a tavern, halfway along the street, where the road curved. The doors were propped open with barstools, and people spilt out onto the street. Those who hadn't managed to claim a chair sat on the steps of nearby houses.

“This truly marks it, then!” a woman shouted from inside the tavern. “The end of King Jonas' reign.”

“May he find rest in the Forest Within,” someone called in reply, and the people sat out in the street raised their glasses in agreement.

“May he rot in the crypt!” a voice boomed out from the back of the tavern. “Imposters on the throne, the lot of them.”

The people who'd raised their glasses jeered, but there was no force behind it; they did so in a tired, almost playful, sort of way, as though they'd had this argument time and time again. Still, a ripple of disagreement ran through the tavern, spurred on by barrels of ale and bottles of wine, and Akela slowed as we passed by, stopping a fight before it could break out.

“Watch it,” the first person who spotted her called into the tavern. “Hey—watch it, I said! Look, the castle's sent out their finest.”

Any disagreement amongst the tavern's patrons was forgotten. They sipped on their drinks, eyes fixed on us as we headed down the street, all of them suspicious, accusatory. They looked at Claire and Akela as though they were only there to abuse their power, as though the district had been plagued with more trouble from guards than drunks.

“Ightham, cross the street. I am thinking, if this Tom is inside, perhaps he is running out of the window when I am knocking on the door. Go, go. Watch for me, yes?” Akela said, and I followed Claire across the street.

Claire stood to attention while I leant against a lamppost, eyes fixed on the window as mine were. It was propped open, curtains swaying in the breeze, and part of me wanted Tom to escape. He'd been manipulated by Ianto. There'd been so much self-righteous venom in that man's words that to me, coordinating the assassination seemed worse than sinking the blade in. I didn't want to feel as though we were in the wrong, tracking Tom down like this, and I reminded myself that he'd waited for King Jonas. He'd planned to catch him alone, and he'd stabbed him over and over, until not even a healer could save him.

“Did you know?” I asked Claire. “About the execution at the end of the Phoenix Festival?”

I tried to ask it without tensing, and only managed to do so by not looking at Claire.

“I didn't. Had I had any idea, Rowan, I would have—”

“It's fine.” I cut her off, rushing to reassure her. “You have an entire Kingdom to look out for. It's important that you protect Felheim—especially when you're not going to be able to do anything about something like this.”

I wasn't comfortable with the words until I spoke them, but once I heard my own voice drifting out into the warm air, I knew it was the only fair thing to say. Claire would do all that she could to protect me, but I didn't have to test her. Pushing her to her limits for the sake of finding out what they were was the worst thing I could've done for Felheim, for her; I couldn't give up all that she'd sacrificed so much for because of my own discomfort.

The necromancer would burn, whether Claire spoke out against it or not. The only difference was, Queen Kidira might not keep her close, should she dare to go against her laws.

“Is that your uniform, now?” I asked, voice free of judgement. “No more dragon-bone armour?”

“It would appear so,” Claire said, self-consciously adjusting the collar of her shirt.

Akela knocked on the door, hands on her hips as she waited for an answer. Claire and I were just far enough for anything she said to be lost to the general buzz of Red Pine, but we understood enough of the situation in the way Akela had to knock three times, louder and louder, in order to get someone to answer the door.

A woman cautiously poked her head out of the door, unwilling to open it all the way. She let herself believe that Akela couldn't tear it off its hinges, if she wanted to. I'd no doubt she was anyone but Tom's mother, no doubt that he hadn't been able to bring himself to do anything but cower in the cellar, hoping he could hide away forever. She was buying mere seconds for him, doing all she could to blind herself to the inevitability of her son paying for his crimes beneath a guillotine's blade.

Claire yawned.

I tore my eyes away from the woman futilely insisting that her son wasn't there and furrowed my brow at Claire.

“... Kouris requested my company last night,” she said, tightening her grip on her spear. “Insisted that we went drinking.”

I turned away from her slowly, eyes back on the house Akela now had one foot inside, and did what I could to remain stern, to refrain from laughing.

“You tried to out-drink a pane?”

“
Tried
being the operative word,” Claire said, taking a step forward.

My eyes darted from the door to the window, and I saw what had caught her attention. Akela pushed her way into the house, and fingers appeared on the windowsill. Claire held out her spear and I gripped it with both hands as she set off at a sprint and Tom's mother began to wail.