Dragonoak: Gall and Wormwood, page 16
I tried to catch Kidira’s eye, but she held her bag out for me as she stared at the path ahead. I slung it over my shoulder, took Eden’s bag for her, and headed for my horse.
“She’ll come,” Kidira said, one foot in the stirrup.
Eden climbed onto her horse, and I did all I could not to look back. I was leaving Halla. Abandoning her. The King’s men would track her down, drag her back to that tower, and find a way to make a necromancer sorry.
I tugged on my horse’s reigns and he set off at a canter. Eden and Kidira were either side of me, and with every step the horse took, the bond between Halla and me pulled taut, like a thread about to snap. There was no rush. No guards surrounding us. We were not torn from one another: rather, we made a choice to be apart.
And Halla, realising that it was her choice, finally spoke up.
“Rowan! Wait. Please.”
It wasn’t until her arms were tight around my waist, forest tearing past us, that I let myself believe I’d got through to her. I wasn’t the lesser of two evils, but a choice worth fighting to make.
Agados wouldn’t have been happy, but that would’ve held true no matter what I did. It didn’t matter that Halla had killed the guards to escape: they deserved it, for keeping her trapped there. She did what she’d had to. In the end, she’d found the bravery to escape a life she’d been forced into thinking liveable, and I was honoured to play any small part in that.
We fed our horses bitterwillow and charged through the rest of Agados. We understood what was behind us without having to say it, and I focused on the rush of the wind and the gasps Halla let out, equal parts fear and delight. All we had to do was reach Oak and we’d be safe.
I didn’t know how I’d explain him to Halla. Whether I should bring it up or let her reach out and press her palms to his scales. In the end, it didn’t matter. I was him and he was me. Halla would understand that. She was one of the few people who could.
The week it took to escape Agados was unlike any I had known before. Throughout the day, we pushed ourselves and our horses to their limits, eating and drinking as we rode, draining their aches and pains along the way. At night, I did not sleep, and not because I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.
There was no shortage of things for Halla and me to say to one another. Whether we spent our nights under the stars or hidden away in some barn, we sat facing one another; my eyes on Halla’s face, Halla’s hands on mine. It wasn’t necromancy we spoke of, nothing of shared experiences. I told her of the deer and rabbits we’d passed, and Halla would say did you hear the way that river flowed and crashed! or we must’ve passed a meadow of flowers, earlier, it smelled so wonderful, Rowan.
I could tell that she had barely ever been outside, but it was difficult to conjure up anything like sadness. It was all in the past. It was in the past, and we were striding forward. We were heading towards what would be our home, a place where we would finally be free to be ourselves, coming and going as we pleased.
The days were long and exhausting but over as soon as they began. We chased the setting sun over the horizon, and Eden took Halla on the back of her own horse, eager to get to know her. We were fleeing from an army we couldn’t see but knew were there, but as Eden so cheerfully put it, we had nothing to lose in talking.
Kidira was not cruel. Kidira was not short with Halla, but she was practical. Somewhere along the way, she had decided that we were her responsibility, and I did all I could to be compliant. I let her keep watch, though Halla and I were awake regardless. I trusted her when she said certain villages were safe to gather supplies from and others weren’t, and that it was worth zigzagging our way out of Agados, rather than taking the same quick path we had on the way in.
“We can’t be far now,” I said, buzzing with excitement and sleep deprivation alike. The closer we got to the wall, the more impossible it felt that we were going to be able to cross it, and the more likely it was that Oak had been but a figment of our imagination. “Once we get to the border, it won’t take more than a day to reach Thule. I can’t wait for you to meet Claire and Kouris and Akela and everyone!”
“You keep mentioning Princess Claire,” Halla said, unable to imagine Claire being separated from her title. “How do you know her?”
“I told you. When I ran away from my village, it was because she happened to be—”
“No, no. I remember that much. But she is a Princess, but you still only call her by one name.”
“Oh! Well, that’s because she’s my…” I paused, brow furrowed. What was she to me? I loved her and she loved me, but with all that was going on and all that had changed between us, we hadn’t had time to discuss what any of it meant in the long run, or how we might express our relationship. “Uhh.”
“Girlfriend,” Eden helpfully offered from the other side of the room.
We weren’t staying in an inn, but rather someone’s house. We’d happened across a small farm along the side of a hard-packed dirt road, a farm where the Agadians who owned it remembered how to work, and the old man had been happy to offer Kidira their spare room, after being shown our last handful of gold. He had not known that there were three others with her: we’d snuck in through the window.
“Right. Right!” I said, hoping I wasn’t as red as I felt. “I think.”
“Oh,” Halla said. She pursed her lips together, and after a moment, said, “Is that… Oh.”
For a while, she didn’t talk. She fiddled nervously with her fingers, and after a few minutes spent listening to Eden beat the dirt out of a shirt she’d worn one too many times, Halla began to cry.
It wasn’t the first time, either. Eden had run out of clean handkerchiefs to offer her, and I did all I ever could. I placed a hand on her back, rubbed between her shoulder blades, and didn’t say too much at once. I didn’t tell her not to cry, or that there was no reason for crying. The King’s influence was far-reaching, and I was not going to save her from that by simply existing.
I remembered Kondo-Kana’s words. I promised myself to never reduce Halla to one thing, or to merely see her as the result of all the terrible things that had been done to her.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Halla said, wiping her eyes on the backs of her hands. Taking a deep breath, she said, “It’s… so much. So much. You are nice, Rowan, you are like me, but you are different. Your people are different. I want to help them. I want to change things in Kastelir and Felheim, but I cannot help but think that I could help them more by being with my King. He’ll be so angry, won’t he? Angry for what I did to the guards, for leaving… He does so much for me, Rowan. For all of Agados. If I could speak to him, I could get him to help. I promise.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t understand why the differences between us were so awful, or how they could possibly be worse than what the Agadian people were reduced to. I couldn’t tell her that the Agadian King was a liar without driving her from me, and she’d never believe he was powerless alone.
Saying it’ll be alright lost all meaning the dozenth time.
Kidira spoke. She did so quickly and sharply, and she did so in Agadian.
Halla blinked her eyes dry. She nodded sharply, whispered her reply and reached for my hand.
She squeezed it tightly, but didn’t hold on for long. For the first time since we’d left Soldato, she fell into a deep, effortless sleep. With her dreaming, there was no reason for me not to do the same.
The next evening, our journey drew to a close. I’d apologised to our horses a hundred times over for what we’d put them through, and continued to do so as we hopped off their backs for the last time. Visiting the same places we had before wasn’t wise, but we’d no choice but to pass the village we’d spent that first night in to find Oak.
And while we were there, it was only fair that we dropped off the horses. They’d certainly done enough for us. I led mine by the reins, other hand holding Halla’s, and helped her down the steep hillside. She was used to traversing the tower, not the outdoors, and after a week on the road she was still liable to trip and stumble. Kidira had fashioned a cane for her out of a branch she’d carved into shape one night, and Halla was becoming more adept at finding her way by tapping in front of her.
“I do hope Oak hasn’t been terribly bored in our absence,” Eden said. “Does he get bored? What do dragons do for fun?”
“In Kyrindval, he played with the other young dragons,” I said. “I’m sure he found something to keep himself entertained.”
Or he’d taken my advice to be careful to heart and had spent the entire time sleeping in some impossibly thick woodland or found a cave to squeeze into.
The village was no more than a minute’s walk away when I saw the Agadians come towards us. I’d been uneasy all day at the thought of returning to the tavern, of having their eyes fixed on me when I could not speak in a way they understood, but after so long immersed in Agados, I understood that they were only people, and they were not responsible for the King’s will.
I raised a hand in greeting.
One of the men raced towards us.
He headed straight for Kidira, blurting out his words with such desperation there was no sense to be found in them. She placed a hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye, and told him to start again. He took a deep breath and did just that, but I couldn’t even begin to pretend I was listening to him. All I could focus on was the way that every other Agadian was staring at Halla as they inched towards her.
Eden’s hand fell to the hilt of her sword. Halla, understanding the Agadian being thrown around, clung to my hand so tightly that I couldn’t tell where hers ended and mine began.
“Back on the horses,” Kidira ordered. “Now.”
I pulled Halla up behind me. The man who’d approached Kidira stepped back, but the others weren’t as content to let us leave. Kidira paid them no mind. Tirok had taken her spear but she’d made herself a staff, and she wielded it as she set off at a gallop, cleaving her way through the crowd.
The men were smart enough to get out of the way, but Eden had her sword in hand, just in case.
The horses’ feet thundered against the ground hard enough to shake all of Bosma, and I barely heard Kidira say, “The man came to tell us that he was sorry, but they are Agadian after all. They are loyal to their King.”
Word had spread, as we knew it would. Ravens had been sent. It was foolish to have entertained the notion of veering close to the village, in the same way it had been foolish to rest in any of the other settlements we had along the way. Nothing had come of that, and why should this have been any different? It was almost too obvious a trap.
I looked over my shoulder as we charged ahead, but the only Agadians behind us were villagers, slowly stuttering out of sight as the land rose, burying their home behind the horizon. No doubt the person who returned Halla to the King would be given all the riches earnt on the bruised and bloodied backs of Kastelirians.
The villagers would round up what horses they had left and follow us, but that didn’t worry me. What mattered were the Agadian soldiers I could see ahead. There was only a dozen of them, and they weren’t from the capital; they had been stationed on the wall, but left their vigil when word reached them of Halla’s disappearance. They fanned out to form an effective barricade with the crossbows they wielded.
“Halla!” one of them called, and I did not understand the rest of what he said.
“Don’t worry,” I told Halla. “I’m not going to let them take you back. We’re going to get through this, and we’re going to get back to Thule.”
And I was right. I was right! There, on the horizon, the forest rose from the ground. The trees grew with unnatural haste, ten feet taller in the time it took to blink. A mighty roar followed the uprising, and Oak spread out his wings, knocking back the tattered trees and branches he’d ripped clean out of the ground.
We tugged on our horses’ reins, and they whinnied and neighed as they came to a clunky skid of a stop. The soldiers meant nothing at all. Not in the face of a dragon.
They turned on the spot. Halla, having dropped her cane in the rush, made her way off our horse’s back and landed on unsteady feet. I watched her step forward. Watched her stand her ground as the soldiers trembled and backed towards us, away from Oak, as he continued to beat his wings and create a wind of his own.
Halla balled her hands into fists. She lifted her head and shouted at the soldiers, voice raw and warbling, but not brittle.
My chest swelled with pride. Oak would scare off the soldiers before they could remember how to aim their weapons, and all we’d have to do was clamber onto his back and return to Thule.
I hopped off my horse, made brave by Halla’s courage and Oak’s great shadow, and reached for her.
Kidira grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand back.
“She says that she’s sorry. That she was scared and confused,” she said, jaw set. She met my gaze and though I wanted to fight against it, I knew she wasn’t lying. “She says that she’ll make it up to the King, and that she’s grateful they’re going to take her home.”
PART II
CHAPTER IX
In the same way that I hadn't been in Claire's chambers for long, I hadn't been awake long, either. In truth, I wasn't certain I was awake. My entire body rattled with numbness, teeth and skull aching, and colours bled into one another until there was no distinguishing the edge of any sense.
Had Kouris not come to collect me from my chambers, I would've believed she hadn't left Claire's side since I'd headed to Agados. Bits and pieces of her clothing were strewn around the room, leathers draped over the backs of chairs, fabric pooled in piles on the floor, and one of the larger sofas had the permanent indents of a sleeping pane.
Kouris sat on the floor with her head tilted back, and Claire kept her hands busy. She sat behind Kouris, comfortable in an armchair of her own, and raked her long, dark hair back as she carefully brushed it through.
“You should've been there, Claire,” Kouris said, sighing at the ceiling. “It was like they were making themselves some kind of twisted sca-sino. It was a hole in the ground, just along the edges of the Bloodless Lands. I'm thinking calling it a quarry might be making sense, but they'd built houses – cages – down there. I was thinking we'd find ten, twenty pane. Had to be at least fifty, young and old. Reckon some of them were hatched down there. That’s not to mention the dragons. Plenty of hatchlings half the size of Oak down there, already looking worse than he does. Nothing big enough to take down a village, though. Let alone a city. Gods. Reckon Rylan has used up the last of ‘em already.”
Kouris took a deep breath and ran a hand across her face. I'd seen more pane in the castle than usual, which meant pane who weren't Kouris and Sen, and had heard the fragmented renditions of what had happened. Kouris and Sen had been busy in my absence. They'd headed through the mountains and over the wall, and freed the pane from the chains the Felheimish had put them in.
At least something had been achieved, these past few weeks.
“They're safe now,” Claire reminded Kouris. Hair thoroughly detangled, Claire placed the brush on the arm of her chair and began splitting Kouris' mass of hair into three separate streams with her fingertips. “Those who wished to have been escorted back to their tribes, if, indeed, they did have tribes in the first place, and the rest have shelter here. Felheim will make reparations; I will ensure Queen Aren agrees, no matter how begrudgingly.”
Kouris snorted flatly.
“That mother of yours. Wonder you turned out half as well as you did,” she muttered, head tilting back towards Claire's hands. “Not surprised so many of 'em are staying. We're not made for violence, you know that, but the things they had no choice but to do, raising dragons just to be tortured. No wonder none of 'em ever wanna show their faces again.”
“I shall do all I can for them,” Claire promised, and started braiding Kouris' hair.
“That pane, the one who came all the way to Canth to find me. They knew him, but they didn't know his name. We always gave our hatchlings names during Winter's End. The whole tribe came together to squabble over it, but not a single person down there could think of anything they'd ever called him. It's like we're animals,” Kouris said, closing her eyes. “Gods. What would've happened if he'd never escaped? Never made it down to Canth?”
“You would still be in Port Mahon at this very moment, no doubt dealing with your own brand of trouble. I would have travelled through Felheim and Kastelir without ever meeting you and have been poorer for it. And not simply because Kidira and Atthis may have never listened to me without your aid.”
Kouris cracked an eye open, let out a low laugh, and reached back to pat Claire's hand.
I yawned.
“Tired?” Claire asked, already halfway through Kouris' braid. She made quick work of it, even with limited fingers.
“Mm,” I hummed. “Might go back to bed.”
“You've spent the past three days doing nothing but sleep,” Claire said. She wasn't judgmental; just concerned, for I could barely keep my eyes open for longer than a few minutes at a time.
“Oh, aye. That's something we were forgetting to tell you,” Kouris said. “That's a thing she does now.”
I nodded in sluggish agreement. Claire raised her brow, waiting for more in the way of an explanation
“I didn't sleep much, after...” After. There was no need to elaborate, for everyone knew where I marked the befores and afters of my life. “Until I was with Kondo-Kana. It's like all of the exhaustion caught me at once. I slept for days. Kondo-Kana said it's just something that happens. That she's slept for centuries, before. And Varn, she told me that one time, Kondo-Kana fell asleep in Queen Nasrin's study for weeks.”
