Dragonoak: Gall and Wormwood, page 11
Claire pulled me to her chest and held me tight.
“Stay,” she said, face buried in my hair. “I do not care what the guards report to my mother.”
CHAPTER VI
Two days later, Agados was no longer a threat in the distance. It was a target we were actively striding towards.
We left without Claire and headed north through the forest. Haru-Taiki had set out earlier that morning in search of Oak, and Claire had ensured we'd be able to slip out unnoticed by arguing with her mother more aggressively than usual. Surely she could at least let Eden sit in on the meeting, Claire said. For a moment, Queen Aren paused to consider Claire's demands, defences chipped away bit by bit with each passing day, but one of the Mansels cleared their throat and the Queen shook her head.
And that was that.
She locked herself away with Claire for the better part of the morning and we made our exit. We were not exactly prisoners, not yet, but if we asked permission to leave, we would've had to explain why. And had we explained why, our request would've been denied.
Kidira had made a point out of how we were not to trust anyone beyond the small group we'd arrived with, the small group Eden had wordlessly been invited to, but we once again found ourselves relying on Laus to get out of the castle. They had learnt to walk with purpose since being thrust into the heart of our latest disaster, and with their boots polished and their uniform freshly pressed, no one questioned them when they marched us through the corridors, out the back door, and through the gates leading to the forest.
I said goodbye and thanked them there, not certain they'd be able to meet Oak without fainting.
Eden hummed as she led us through the forest, eager and excited and more than anything, nervous. She'd dressed in riding clothes with a light, thin blade hanging languidly at her hip, and had plenty packed for the journey in her sturdy canvas bag. Kidira and Akela trailed behind, and I squinted between the foliage at the golden sun.
The forest brimmed with the sound of birds. The trees were warm when I ran my fingers across their bark, and the ground hadn't tasted rain in weeks.
Summer was finally here.
“Is that...?” Eden asked, abruptly halting as the trees began to thin and we could see the horizon again.
“It is,” I said, grinning.
I ran ahead, heart pounding before I'd broken out into a sprint.
“Oak!” I called, but Haru-Taiki reached me before I got anywhere near Oak.
I almost charged straight into him, for the way he dived down and stretched out his wings. I scolded him with a playful tap on his beak, at which he squawked proudly. I gestured to my shoulder and he wasted no time taking the weight off his wings. Deep purple feathers tickled the side of my face and the back of my neck, and with his great talons clinging to me, I made it the rest of the way to Oak.
Oak greeted me with a lick to the face, tongue dry but soft, and I hooked a hand around his horn. I was more myself with him around.
“I'm sorry you have to stay so far away, boy,” I told him as I ran a palm over his smooth scales. “It won't be like this for long. Claire's going to be Queen, you know? Then you can live on the land outside her chamber windows, and swim in the lake every morning.”
Pleased by this, and in as little rush as ever, Oak thumped his tail against the ground as the others caught up with us. He recognised Akela and Kidira easily enough, having different reactions for both of them, but looked at me with concern in his glassy eye at the sight of Eden.
“That's Eden. She used to be Claire's fiancée,” I whispered into what passed for a dragon's ear. “She's nice. We like her.”
Oak let out an intrigued rumble, pushed himself up on his paws, and plodded to meet Eden halfway.
At the sight of a dragon heading her way, Eden gave a deep, swooping bow. It was more theatrical than courtly, and Oak did his best to mimic it with outstretched, torn wings.
“It's an honour to meet you,” Eden said. “I've heard so much about you.”
“And now that everyone knows each other,” Kidira said. “Let's not waste any more time.”
I set an example for Eden by climbing on Oak's back. He barely tensed. I patted him between his shoulder blades, proud of how far he'd come. From the corner of my eye, I saw Akela catch hold of Kidira's wrist.
“You are being sure of this?” Akela asked. “This is something you are truly wishing to do?”
Kidira did not click her tongue in irritation. She pushed herself onto tiptoes and pressed a hand to Akela's cheek, touch as soft as her eyes were hard.
“I am certain,” she said. Kidira was not a woman who was uncertain about anything, and so felt no need to speak of this certainty around anyone but Akela. “There is nothing I would like more than to march to their capital and tell them exactly what I think of them, and how little we wish to have to do with them.”
Akela managed the beginnings of a smile. Kidira gestured for her to lean down, and when she did, she kissed her on the forehead.
“Do not worry about me. Go. Protect Claire. From the Mansels, especially. They are looking for the vaguest reason to take action against her.”
“Oh, yes,” Eden agreed in an absent-minded mumble. She hadn't taken her eyes off Oak since she'd first seen him. I wasn't sure she'd managed to blink, either. “You can't trust either of them. Dreadful women, honestly.”
I urged Akela over, leant towards her, and said goodbye with a hug and a kiss on her cheek. Kidira climbed onto Oak's back as though clambering over a pile of rotting logs, and Eden stared up at us. She still wasn't blinking. I held out a hand, breaking her from her trance, and she said, “Ah, yes, I do suppose...” and apologised for every step she took as she began her ascent.
Oak beat his wings. Akela vanished to all but a speck below us, and Eden, sat between Kidira and myself, clung tightly to my waist and went through the same cycle of fear, awe and exhilaration that we all had. Patting the back of her hands, I smiled, both for her and myself. I watched the clouds tear past us and thought: this can't be my life. Any moment I was going to wake up in my farmhouse and realise that none of this was mine.
Haru-Taiki flew alongside us for a handful of miles, and we saw him off with a wave, telling him to take care of Claire.
The trip to Agados was almost three times as long as the one to Orinhal had been, and we lost a day to flying. At the thought of Orinhal, guilt bubbled within me. Surely we ought to have headed there, to save Atthis and Ash and Goblin and all the others we'd left behind. But what could we do? Rylan had claimed it and was still there, for all we knew. We were but three people and a dragon who couldn't breathe fire.
We didn't stop in Orinhal. It was too far south for us to even pass. Our first stop was west of where Isin had once been, after half a day spent in the air. Our legs were stiff but boneless, our heads light from flying so high, and the heat made us uncomfortably clammy. To Oak, stamina wasn’t an issue. He could fly indefinitely, and while we paced back and forth and stretched out to remind ourselves of our bodies, he yawned, eager to get back up in the air.
I watched the territories pass beneath us, reams of green interrupted by patches of angry red. Scars spread across the landscape, eating up what little remained of cities and towns, and though I wanted to look away, I could not. Rylan had taken so much more than Isin, and to look away would be to deny the extent of what he'd done.
Our second stop was a dozen miles from Agados. There were plenty of maps of the Kingdom, though few of them were more detailed than the rough location of its capital, Soldato. That was all we needed. The next step was simple: fly high enough over the wall to not be spotted by any of the patrols, land a few miles in, and find a safe place for Oak to wait while we headed to Soldato on foot.
Kidira had all the papers. Claire had written a letter, intended for Agados’ King but far more likely to end up in the hands of some advisor, and Kidira had translated it; Claire copied it out word for strange word, wanting it all to be in her hand. We had all other sorts of official documents from Felheim, along with royal seals and sigils. Everything we’d need for some sort of diplomatic forgiveness, when things eventually went awry.
Agados’ wall was at least twice as tall as Felheim’s, and for a heartbeat, I worried Oak would never be able to fly higher than it. Rising to the challenge, he shot into the sky, causing Eden to yelp and cling to me harder than ever. In turn, I looped my arms around the base of Oak’s wings and leant forward, hoping Kidira wasn’t too proud to latch onto Eden.
As soon as we were out of sight, we barrelled towards the ground. I heard Eden exclaim loudly, incoherently, and I realised I was doing the same. There were some things people never got used to.
Agados opened up, a handful of miles from the border. It was a jagged land, as though the gentle slopes of a mountain’s foot stretched all the way to the coast. Storm grey rocks protruded from the ground, and thick forests of evergreens reached out to us like spears.
Strange. I had imagined Agados as a land pressed flat. I had imagined that the King, or whoever pulled his strings, would’ve filed away all the country’s rough edges and imperfections, polished the surface, and left the whole of Agados more abstract than the Bloodless Lands themselves.
But as I had learnt since leaving my farmhouse, places were just places, and though the landscapes could vary, everywhere had things hidden under the surface; that’s what truly united us.
Oak set down in a clearing that could barely be described as flatish, and almost gave a stag a heart attack. We gathered our bags and found our legs, and with my arms around Oak’s trunk of a neck, I told him that he was to wait, unless there was so much as a sign of danger. In that case, he was to flee.
“Well,” Eden eventually said, unable to help but notice that Kidira and I were standing there, unmoving. “Shall we?”
We headed west, out of the forest. Soldato was anywhere from ten to thirty days by horse, according to the various maps we’d squinted at, and none of us wanted to find out how far it was by foot.
Kidira didn’t look back. Eden glanced over her shoulder every few seconds. At first, I thought she was watching Oak disappear, but once there were only trees behind us, I realised she was pulled back by the same thing I was. I marched forward, did my best to follow in Kidira’s example, but my shoulders ached for how tense they were and I found myself going to great lengths to keep my eyes fixed forward.
The forest fell away, replaced by open meadows and sharp, sudden inclines. At the top of what was more a rock pile than hill, I finally let my gaze flicker over my shoulder. Eden, close behind and more invigorated than exhausted, put a hand on my shoulder and tried to see what I saw.
“Are you alright, Rowan?” she asked softly, so Kidira wouldn’t overhear.
Nodding quickly did nothing to convince Eden.
“Rowan. Come now. We’re about to head deep into the belly of Agados together. We ought to be able to trust each other.”
My stomach made knots of itself. Claire trusted Eden, which should’ve been enough for me. More importantly than that, Eden had been in my position, once upon a time. She’d understand better than anyone.
Myself included.
“It’s Claire. I don’t like being away from her. Not after I was gone for so long, and with everything going on in the castle, and—” I said, flushing with shame. Not for what I was about to say, but because I had trouble finding the words. Yet Eden knew. She knew. “I’m worried that she’ll, with all the pressure, Claire will…”
Understanding flashed in Eden’s eyes, and the way her smile refused to fall was somewhere between eerie and heartbreaking. Her hand moved to the small of my back and she steered me on.
“Claire is an alcoholic,” she said, plain and quiet. “It is not a matter of her fighting to never slip again. It will happen, and it will happen more than once. That is not a judgement or condemnation of Claire’s character: it is the simple fact of things. There is unspeakable pressure on her, and her family situation is… it is enough to unsettle anyone. But each time she gives into temptation, or her circumstances compel her to take refuge in such a short-term solution, we will be there for her. Each time, the fall will be a little less far, until one day, she finds herself on even ground. It is an illness, a horrible thing, and we cannot expect it to never happen again. Do you understand?”
“I…” It wasn’t fair that I didn’t want her to have to go through it. Claire didn’t want to go through it, either, and she was the one who had to suffer each and every last aspect of it. “Yeah. Thank you, Eden.”
“Years ago, when Claire and I… when we were trying to repair our relationship, she often could not keep promises to herself for days. Sometimes, she could not stay sober for more than a few scattered hours. She has worked harder than you could ever believe to get this far, Rowan.”
I could only nod, silently mulling the words over as we continued on our path.
Our time out in the open didn’t last long. The land gave way to yet more forest, full of warmly coloured birds I didn’t recognise the likes of. There were endless trees, making that part of Agados denser than any part of Felheim. So many trees, I thought, adjusting the bags on my back and thinking of Akela. I thought of all those years – decades – she’d spent trapped in Agados, alone in the forest, chopping down tree after tree. Repetitive, endless. For the first time, something like gratitude, warm and rising, fluttered in my chest at the sight of Kidira.
It didn’t last. Whatever I felt was washed away by the threat of danger. A party emerged from the edge of the forest, made of broad-shouldered men carrying crossbows. Hunters, I thought, though their dress was more fashionable than practical, and there was barely any dirt around the ankles and knees of their trousers. They were out for sport, not food.
“Agadians,” I murmured, stopping by Kidira’s side.
“Evidently.”
It didn’t take them more than a few seconds to spot us. My ears rang with panic, but through it all, I was dully aware of being surprised that I could still feel panic over this sort of thing, mundane as it was in comparison to cities burning and enemy ships heading towards port. My first fears were irrational. It wasn’t all over: Kidira had taken meeting Agadians in Agados into account.
After a moment of staring at them as they stared at us, one of the men raised a hand.
Eden waved back, and the group came towards us.
My mind turned to numbers: six of them with just as many crossbows and hunting knives no doubt hidden in their boots, and three of us with a spear, a sword, and a necromancer. The odds were hardly in their favour, but they had no way of knowing that. In Canth, I’d learnt that thinking you could win was half the secret to actually winning.
Up close, I saw that the men were cheerfully exhausted, but more than that, they were smiling. They weren’t smug expressions, and there was nothing I found reflexively ugly about any of it. They were delighted to have stumbled across strangers. What would we have done in my village, had outsiders visited us? We certainly wouldn’t have taken up arms against them.
Unless they were pane.
I did my best to smile at one of the Agadians, but it came out crooked.
When one of the group began speaking, a well-dressed man with a beard as long as his forearm, I took pains to forge my expression into one of attentive cluelessness. Kidira listened carefully, nodding after every other word to remind herself that she did know Agadian, despite the disuse it had fallen to.
When he finished speaking, the man stood with his arms open in an easy, friendly gesture. Kidira replied sharply, though without her usual hostility. The man grinned and turned towards Eden and me.
“They’re from a village on the other side of the forest,” Kidira translated, with none of the original enthusiasm. “They’d like to know if they can offer us dinner, or a place for the night. There is an inn, apparently.”
I agreed, albeit hesitantly. A village meant horses, and horses meant getting to Soldato and out much faster. Nodding earnt the same results in any language, and the men clapped in delight as they made swooping motions with their arms and led us back to their village. A few of them chatted eagerly with Kidira, far more excited to meet foreigners than I’d expected; so eager that I resolved not to relax, or trick myself into trusting them.
I fell into step next to Eden.
“I do so hope they won’t be responsible for this dinner,” she said, nudging me in the side. “It doesn’t look as though they had much luck with their hunt.”
Eden was right. Their bags were empty, no strangely coloured birds filling them, and no one struggled to carry a fallen stag. The Agadian men strapped their crossbows to their backs and made a show of guiding us to their village and booming cheerfully at Kidira. I would’ve felt safer had they been less overtly friendly.
I caught one of them getting his friend’s attention to point at the sword at Eden’s hip. They both laughed in a sickly, endeared sort of way, and I reminded myself that Kidira knew what she was doing. Kidira would’ve put a spear through their throats if she so much as suspected danger. A little patronising wouldn’t put our lives at risk.
I stuck close to Eden’s side; our time in Agados would make better allies of us than any amount of Claire’s trust. The village itself was three miles off, through alternating patches of thick forest and rocky terrain, and when the men decided the path had become treacherous, they turned to us to offer help.
I wanted to scream that I had not only scaled the mountain paths up to Kyrindval but had leapt from them, too; that I had fled from fire and ran across burning sand; but it would’ve fallen on deaf ears. I shook my head and went on in silence, too uncomfortable to talk to Eden, even though our words wouldn’t have been understood.
Kidira chatted idly at the Agadians’ beckoning, translating every tenth snippet or so. It was never anything of worth. “We’re halfway there,” or, “They will prepare dinner for us, once we arrive.” But we did find out that, “They have horses, and are willing to trade for them.”
