Dragonoak: Gall and Wormwood, page 23
Amy stopped, shoulders rising in irritation.
“Go back to the Princess. Tell her what you want, and think whatever you want about us,” she said, closing the distance between us. “Here's what it comes down to: we don't want a war. Rylan, he's got Agados at his back. When it comes to it, who do you think he's going to listen to? His mother, who knows and accepts and condones what he did with the dragons, or the Princess he burnt half to death? Those two aren't ever going to settle anything between them. Queen Aren's the smart choice, because she's the safe choice. For me, for Emma, for Felheim. Kastelir's probably coming out of it better, too.”
“That's what this is all about?” And there I was, letting myself believe that they had no desires beyond being needlessly antagonistic towards us. “There's so much more to this than just Rylan. I'm starting to feel like he's the least of our problems. Claire can do this. She can be better for Felheim than her parents ever were. She's got a phoenix. She can rule as she's meant to.”
“She's got a gimmick,” Emma said. “No army, no allies. No chance.”
I sucked in a breath, feeling foolish through and through. I spoke of Claire as though I’d never met her, and had been convinced by a few bold words and a risen phoenix at a festival. I could’ve said so much more, but I’d thought I could impress the Mansels as easily as Claire swayed the crowds.
I watched them leave. There was something clunky in their gait, as though they were fighting not to look back and see how crushed we were by their words.
“Sometimes, I am thinking,” Akela began grimly, “That perhaps these two, they are being the smartest ones in the Kingdom.”
“They’ve got no loyalty. Not even to the Queen. They’re only with her because it’s safe. Not to mention how well it must pay. They’re going to jump ship the moment Claire starts to look like she’s winning,” I said, if winning was the right word to use. “If they were in Mahon, they wouldn’t last five minutes.”
“No! If Reis is meeting them, they are throwing the Mansels straight into the sea.”
I had to accept it as part of castle life, which, through a series of convoluted events that all felt commonplace while they were happening, was my life now. Akela and I changed the topic by telling Sen all about Reis and their hold over Port Mahon as we searched for lunch. I wanted to find Claire and tell her about our run-in with the Mansels, but every time I set off in search of her, some guard or another was under orders to turn me around. All they’d say was that the Princess was busy.
She was never too busy to meet with Eden. Eden herself apologised profusely for it, frustrated by how unfair it was, but she had nothing to be sorry about. It was all Queen Aren’s doing. I understood where I came from and what the nobility thought of me, and I knew that Queen Aren was still desperately trying to shape Claire into someone she wasn’t.
She wanted the daughter who looked up to her back. The daughter who’d respected her. Claire’s life was not a clear-cut path of marriage, succession, and ruling, as her parents’ had been. Instead, she was constantly teetering on the verge of being a liability. Every time someone turned me away, I was terrified that something had been done to Claire. That she’d been taken from the castle and locked away, or worse.
I had Alex and Eden to reassure me that it wasn’t the case. Claire was still meeting with Queen Aren, still trying to make something of their staggered, stuttering relationship, and from what I could gather, she hadn’t gone back to her father’s side.
At night, I returned to my chamber. Claire’s were off-limits to me, or I had decided they were. Things were volatile, and while I spitefully wanted to provoke more of a reaction from Queen Aren, I didn’t want Claire to suffer for it. Alone, I forgot how I was supposed to feel tired, let alone sleep, and paced the room until the candles burnt out.
I tossed and turned once my feet were sore and when I slept, I dreamt. I twisted my toes in Canth’s burning sand, and the tide washed over me, bringing relief. I moved through a town where I was not only welcomed, but I was allowed to be myself. I could breathe in and exhale nothing but light. I was back in the ancient temple, walls crumbling around me, carvings faded, and the warm, humid air was flooded by the sound of a phoenix squawking.
It drowned out Kondo-Kana’s song. I placed my hand against the wall and felt my way towards her. I turned a corner and she was there. I held out my arms and she stepped into them, letting my fingers twist in the loose fabric of her dark cloak. She smiled at me, soft and beautiful and fierce, and when she placed her hands on my cheeks, I did the same. My fingers brushed against her hair, and I reached over, pulling her hood back.
She changed.
Her black hair turned blonde and her skin faded until it was all but white. The eyes I wanted to lose myself in were no longer the white of the moon; they were blue and cutting and she was, she was—
I woke with a start, teeth clamped together as though the pressure would stop my thoughts from proceeding any further. I knew who I dreamt of, and I didn’t need to devote a moment in the waking world to dwelling in it.
But no matter what I tried, there was no tricking myself into falling back asleep. Being alone wasn’t what I needed, despite the initial, familiar urge to bolt the door closed and stack furniture against it so that no one could ever get to me again. Hours later, and with a lump permanently lodged in my throat, I stopped staring at the door and the faint light lining it and managed to drag myself out of the room.
Knowing I shouldn’t be alone and finding the will to actively seek out company were two very different things. Before getting to my feet, my mind raced with all the possible paths I could take, but paralysis was hard to shake off.
The only thing that got me moving was knowing there were fewer people to run into during the dead of night. Still, the guards littering the dark corridors were more cautious than they would’ve been in the daylight. If there was anyone left in the castle who didn’t know who I was, they knew what I was. I walked barefooted down the lavishly carpeted hallways, playing the part of the clueless farmer.
I drifted towards my destination. I leant against the door before knocking, and by the time someone answered, my fingers were tangled in my hair.
Kidira stared at me with silent regard. She was dressed in a robe and her dreadlocks hung loosely over her shoulders, but I saw nothing that led me to believe she’d been asleep. The chamber behind her was small, with a seating area and a bed crammed into a single room, and a candle burnt on the low table between the chairs.
It took her all of a second to determine that neither disaster nor panic had brought me there, and she did a commendable job of filling the doorway with her squared shoulders.
“Nightmare?”
I shrugged.
“Go to Claire’s,” she said, tilting her head down the corridor.
“Can’t,” I muttered. “The Queen’s doing all she can to stop me from seeing her. I just thought that…”
Kidira stared at me so intently I couldn’t hold her gaze. My guts pulled tight, like a rope at the mercy of an anchor sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I’d only imagined that something had grown between us, in Agados.
With my shoulders arched and back aching, I muttered, “Claire’s dealing with enough already.”
Kidira relented with a shake of her head. She stepped back, gestured towards the sofa, and glanced both ways down the corridor before closing the door behind me.
Akela was sprawled out across the bed, blankets barely draped across her waist. The night was warm but not sticky with it, and her long, loose hair fanned out across her scarred back. I took extra care to ensure the floorboards didn’t creak under my feet, but Kidira said, “She sleeps like the dead,” as she returned to her armchair.
“I know,” I said. “In Canth, we all lived together for the first few months. Nothing bothered her. Not the heat, not when Reis had people over, not when they fired their pistol because there were pirates arguing outside…”
Kidira hummed and propped her chin on her knuckles. For the first time, it sunk in that Kidira had thought Akela dead for two long years, just as I had Claire. There was a difference between knowing and feeling these things, and it settled into my bones, becoming part of me. Kidira had known Akela for more than a decade, had loved her for years, while I had known Claire for a matter of months. I’d no idea what she’d been through, or was going through still.
Be kind, I thought. Be kind, even to Kidira. The aftermath of another dream about Katja resolved itself in a different way, and all I wanted to do was take the hate she made roil inside of me and crush it between my palms until only kindness was left. I would be kind, so kind, that not even I would believe she’d ever laid a finger on me.
But comfort would not be a kindness to Kidira. It would be a mockery, there for my selfish benefit. And so I said nothing about Akela or Katja, did not breathe another word about Canth, and nestled against the arm of the sofa. Being in the presence of another person made me realise how exhausted I truly was, and I scrubbed my hands against my face, body thrumming uncomfortably.
“I guess Akela told you what the Mansels said to us,” I said as means of jerking myself awake. Kidira nodded. “I’m worried they’re right. Not about everything, or about most things. But it kind of is a gimmick, isn’t it? Haru-Taiki, Claire’s wounds…”
“Yes. But that is not necessarily a bad thing,” Kidira said. “The people of Felheim cannot grasp what is truly happening. We barely understand it, and we have lived through it. They want stories. They want something prophetic; they want to believe that their Princess took the phoenix for a sigil as a child because she was destined to revive a phoenix after fifteen-hundred years. That alone is qualification enough for her to rule. So long as they believe that, all the better for us.
“I was a Queen for thirty long years. I was a leader before all of that. I know that it is not about something so vague as to be meaningless as fate, but rather years upon years of sacrifices, hard decisions, and devotion. Claire understands that. Claire is willing to play her part, and that is why she will make a great Queen. So long as the people know that, it does not matter why they believe it. Let her find some use for her burns. She certainly deserves to have them work in her favour, for once.”
“What did people believe about you?”
“That upon my parents’ death, my brothers squabbled for control of our territory, and that in answer to this, I, barely sixteen at the time, slaughtered the lot of them and claimed leadership,” she said without blinking.
Pausing for a few seconds and abruptly feeling more awake, I said, “… Did you?”
Kidira raised her brow.
“Sorry,” I said, lifting my hands. “Sorry.”
“Upon my parents’ deaths, the territory was left to me because I had a better head for politics and strategy. I was twenty,” she said, impatiently tapping her fingers against the arm of her chair. “My brothers supported me in this, acting as my generals, and were only too happy to go under different names to add credence to the rumours. After all, if I had no qualms about murdering my own brothers, why should I think twice about pushing a blade through someone who betrayed me or questioned my decisions?”
Clever. I wondered how often Kidira thought of those early days, before Kastelir was formed. Before she was much of a leader at all. Kastelir was founded thirty-two years ago, long before I was born, but Kidira was already a person. She had already grown into herself. Did she go years without thinking about the moments in her life that had once felt so pivotal? Did she forget the details for decades on end?
One day, if we got through this, I might be able to do the same.
“I’m not sure how much I know about the territories is true, and how much of it is just a story, but… you didn’t start winning – or making progress – until you had allies, right? Until the territories joined together, and you had Kouris and Atthis and Jonas.”
“Yes. We could not break the cycle of war until we stopped needlessly waging it. To everyone’s surprise.”
“Maybe that’s the part the Mansels were right about. About us having no allies. It’s just been us, for so long,” I said, shifting to the edge of my seat. “And if Claire becomes Queen, it’s going to be the same. Just Felheim, wall still there. Even if we take in all the refugees from the territories, people will still act like it’s us and them.”
“And how do you propose we fix that?”
“We have an ally. Canth! All we need to do is start acting like there’s more to it than collecting on the old King’s debt,” I said. Nothing in Kidira’s expression changed, so I pushed harder. “Look. We call it the Uncharted Ocean like we don’t have maps of it! We act like it’s a completely different world, but it’s right there. If we don’t do something, we’re going to end up just like Agados. We’ll be behind our wall, only letting others in for their trade, and we won’t even have neighbours. Queen Nasrin would lend us her help. Even if it’s just symbolic.”
Kidira listened. The corner of her mouth twitched into neither a smile nor a frown, and with a wave of her hand, she said, “Propose the idea to Claire.”
That was as good as getting her approval.
“We received word from Kyrindval,” Kidira said, while we were on the subject. These days, we rarely weren’t on the subject. Everything came back to it. I had no idea what I’d do with my time, if not fret. “Rylan did not return, as he said he would. It has been more than a month, but he did not even send foot soldiers.”
“That’s… good?” I tried.
“Only temporarily. It means one of two things. Either he has struck some new deal with the Agadians and we are in trouble, or he has found himself in trouble with the Agadians and we are in trouble.”
“I could go and look for him. Me and Oak. An army shouldn’t be hard to miss, right?”
Kidira shook her head.
“Flying from one point to another on a dragon is one thing, but scouring half a continent is another matter altogether. It could take weeks. Months. And in that time, Rylan could arrive, and…”
“Hm?”
“We may require your assistance,” she said, laying waste to the conversation.
I was half-relieved. I hadn’t actually wanted to cross every inch of Asar in search of an army. I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news.
Closing my eyes, I decided I’d said enough to take my mind off things. The sofa, while nothing special, was endlessly comfortable for how tired I was, and the faint spark of hope that Canth might become the allies we’d always needed was enough to lull me back towards sleep. Faint sounds filled the room and blankets rustled as Akela rolled onto her side, but none of it disturbed me.
It was sickness that woke me, not sound. I thought it might be hunger at first, but the sensation shot from the pit of my stomach to my head and pounded between my temples. Grumbling, I twisted myself awake. I was startled to find myself sitting. Kidira had nodded off without moving from her seat and didn’t wake until someone knocked at the door.
It was not a light, inquisitive sound. It was frantic, and my head thudded along with it.
Kidira opened her eyes as though she’d merely blinked. There was no confusion, no slow process of waking up. Akela didn’t stir as Kidira crossed the room, opening the door without regard for her own safety or any apparent curiosity.
“I, er—” the man at the door said, and pushed himself onto tiptoes to look over Kidira. “Is she here?”
I knew he meant me. I knew more about him than either of us were comfortable with.
“What’s happened?” I asked, wishing he was more like Katja and could better control the sickness that seeped from him.
I moved to Kidira’s side and the man took a deep breath, clasping his clammy hands together.
“It’s the Queen. The King,” he said, correcting himself. “King Garland took a turn for the worse. Worse than he was, that is. And even Queen Aren is by his side, and… and I came to you. I found you, because the Princess won’t visit, she refuses to, but if she doesn’t come now…”
“Who is this?” Kidira asked me, rather than the man.
He opened his mouth, but knew no way to make sense of the situation, because he didn’t know what I was.
“One of the King’s healers,” I said without looking away from him. “You mean he’s…?”
“Slipping away,” the healer said, nodding his head over and over.
“Quite the euphemism for one who works against time and death,” Kidira said.
“Please. You were with the Princess that first day, and I’ve—um,” he said, managing to hold my gaze for seconds at a time. “I know what people say in the castle. The King wants to see her. Please. Convince her to come with me.”
“Of course,” I said, foot already out the door.
“Wait,” Kidira said, and we did. “You said the guards were under orders to keep you away from Claire, did you not?”
I nodded. I’d planned on charging through and barging my way straight into Claire’s chambers, and Kidira’s plan wasn’t terribly far removed from mine.
“Akela,” she called across the room. Just like that, Akela stirred with a mmph? “Get dressed. We’ve business to attend to.”
Akela grumbled into her pillow, reached blindly for the blanket, and wrapped it around herself like a cloak. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she began picking up stray pieces of clothing with her toes.
“I am thinking, if it is four, maybe five in the morning, and we are going places, it is the sort of business that is—” She abruptly cut herself off with a jaw-stretching yawn. “I am sorry, I am not being a morning person. But I am saying if we are attending to business at this hour, then it is the sort that I am needing an axe for, not a handshake, yes?”
The healer still looked mildly horrified as we headed down the corridor. Akela handed me her axe while she tied her hair back, and it took the man a handful of seconds to remember how to keep up with us. I gave Akela her axe in time for us to come face to face with the guards stuck working the nightshift outside of Claire’s chambers, and they crossed their spears at the foot of the staircase.
