Dragonoak: Gall and Wormwood, page 42
“I’m aware of how Kana is,” she said curtly. She slowly rose to her feet and perched on the edge of the chair without letting go of Kondo-Kana’s hands. “This is no one’s fault but her own. She lures you into these things because of what you both are. Had you not been there, I’ve no doubt she would not have returned to the castle.”
Relief stuck in my throat, impossible to swallow down. Kondo-Kana remained curled in her chair, too small to really be the woman who had hissed at me to slaughter armies.
“I shall take her back to our chambers. Now that this nonsense is done with, perhaps she will know something akin to peace,” Queen Nasrin said and gestured for Atalanta to help her.
Together, they helped Kondo-Kana to her feet, ready to half-carry her through the castle. Varn fidgeted on the spot and kept glancing at me, but didn’t build up the courage or compassion to ask if I was alright. Had Claire been there, the idea of them leaving wouldn’t have been so daunting. I felt as though a rift had opened inside of me, and I understood how much there was to know and how little sense any of it made to me.
It was a relief when Atalanta glanced at Queen Nasrin for permission to speak and said, “Varn, darling. If you wouldn’t mind terribly, I think it would be for the best that you remain here with Rowan.”
Varn was on the verge of sneering, but when Atalanta caught her eye, she grumbled, “… Yeah. Sure. Whatever,” and made herself comfortable on one of the sofas.
I thought I had felt bad before, but with Kondo-Kana and her warm, calming presence gone, it was like having knives in my gut.
Literally: I knew how that felt.
I paced the room. I reminded myself to keep breathing but did so too heavily. Varn followed me with her eyes as I walked along the edges of the room, soon tiring of my antics.
“Sit down or I’m going,” she said.
I did as she asked for three entire seconds. I bolted back to my restless feet and Varn grabbed the back of my shirt to yank me back down.
“Calm down,” she said. “Kondo-Kana’s gonna be fine. She always is.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
Varn shrugged.
“Dunno. Only been in the castle for a few years. It ain’t always that bad, but sometimes it’s worse.”
I nodded but barely took any of it in. It’d happened before. It wasn’t something new, something of my making.
“What’s Old Myros like, anyway?”
“The Bloodless Lands?”
“That’s what you call it? Lame,” Varn said. To her credit, it did sound unnecessarily clunky in Canthian. “Whatever. Same thing. North of the mountains.”
I paused before starting, because how could I explain it to her? How could I explain that the country was all cut from the same cloth and that everything I’d seen amounted to nothing? I took a deep breath and dove in. I explained the towers and the gates and streets, the motionless rivers and the aching white. I told her how the blood had been drained from the ground.
Once it was done, once I had hollowed out all there was to say, Varn said, “Oh. You mean it’s like the void, right?”
“The void?” I asked, sitting up straight. “You know what that is?”
“Uh, yeah? I live with Kondo-Kana. She’s always fucking up everything with the whiting-out, so I asked her about it one day. Gives me a right headache, though. Must suck being in Old Myros.”
“It didn’t bother me,” I said. “You knew what the void was?”
“I just said I did, didn’t I?” she snapped. “Gods, Rowan. You’d think you—wait. Wait, wait. You didn’t know?”
“Why would I?”
“I don’t fucking know. Maybe because you’re the necromancer here and I ain’t?” Varn offered up. “And I bet Reis’ left leg that you’ve gone and voided something before.”
I nodded mutely.
“You really didn’t know?”
“No! Of course not! I spent the first twenty-three years of my life pretending I wasn’t a necromancer. There was no one for me to talk to, no one to tell me anything,” I grumbled.
“Always forget you lot are a bunch of heathens,” Varn grunted. “How old are you anyway?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Cool. Me too,” Varn said, and nudged me in the side in a spate of camaraderie.
Varn was brutally honest. That trait had seen her dragged into plenty of fights before, but I could appreciate getting to the point and moving on from topics without meandering excuses. Varn didn’t care about the Bloodless Lands, didn’t care about what had happened to Myros – or Mhyōa, as it was known in Canthian – and cared far more for the present.
“So! A Queen, huh,” Varn said, sinking into the sofa. She tilted her head back and took in the extravagance of it all. I remembered what she had said at the castle gates: it was too obvious. Perhaps we ought to strip it down as Queen Nasrin had and use the money to house those displaced by dragon’s breath. “What the hell happened to her face?”
I frowned but didn’t feel the depth of it.
Varn was Varn and she had eyes. Of course she’d noticed. She had likely seen pirates with scars far more consuming and not kept her mouth shut about those, either.
“When Isin fell, in Kastelir—”
“Kastewhere?”
“The country that used to be next to this one.”
“Ain’t that Asar?”
“Asar’s the continent.”
“Then where are we now?”
“Felheim,” I said, watching as she squinted out of the window as though the land was laid out like a map, ink scrawled across the hills.
“I thought this was Asar.”
“How could you think this was Asar if you thought Asar was next to it?”
“Dunno. Gods. How am I supposed to know where you’re from?”
“Felheim. Everyone in Canth called me Felheim. Didn’t you think there was a reason for it?”
“… Yeah, that kinda makes sense,” Varn conceded. “So. Kastewhatever got the shit burnt out of it by dragons, right? That was Kouris’ country, yeah?”
“Right. Isin was the capital, so it was hit first. And Claire, she was a Knight back then. She got it into her head that it was up to her to save everyone, all by herself. But there were dozens of dragons, and…” I picked at one of the sofa’s loose threads as I trailed off. “She was stuck under a building for a few days. And, you know. Everything was on fire, so…”
Varn scrunched up her face.
“Yikes,” she said. “That sucks. Still. Not bad, North Woods! Look at this! Weren’t you a farmer or something?”
“I used to look after sheep,” I said.
I told her about the hills I’d grown up in before I’d pretended to be something less than I was, and she listened with interest, as though being a farmer’s daughter was somehow more fascinating than growing up as the daughter of Yin Zhou’s right-hand woman. She told me in spurts about her time on various ships, Yin Zhou’s and otherwise, muttered that she guessed she’d sailed with Reis and that’s how they met, but her stories always came back to Atalanta and all the ridiculous things they got up to under Queen Nasrin’s command.
It was late by the time Claire returned to our chambers and I’d long since cleaned myself up. Varn and I were still chatting and laughing and occasionally punching each other in the shoulder. If not for Claire’s arrival and the reminder that there were other people spread throughout the castle, I could’ve forgotten all about what unfolded with Kondo-Kana. I smiled at Varn as she sprang to her feet, snapping a salute.
There weren’t many people who could take my mind off things so effortlessly.
“Your Majesty!” Varn said, effortlessly falling into a perfect stance.
“Varn,” Claire said, tipping her head in greeting. The day’s affairs dragged on and on and were far from resolved, but a little humour creased her mouth. “It seems that you’ve made yourself comfortable. You’re Rowan’s guest. Please, don’t move on my account.”
“Nah,” Varn said, not quite forgetting herself. Her shoulders slumped but she clasped her hands at the small of her back. “Got a Queen of my own to get back to. And, no offence, but you look knackered. Don’t wanna keep anyone up.”
Varn finished with a slight bow and took a step towards the door as Sen made her way in. She smiled nervously as Varn stared up at her, ears twitching at the tips.
“What’s the deal with her? Or is Kouris the only one with two horns?”
“Varn!” I said and reached out to whack her with a cushion.
“What? She don’t speak Canthian. Can’t get offended if she can’t understand me,” she said, shrugging.
Not caring for an answer, she stepped around Sen and her armfuls of blankets and stomped her way down the stairs.
“Tough day?” I asked, holding out a hand to Claire.
“Dinner feels as though it was a week ago,” Claire said, limp worse than ever. “And matters are still not resolved. I am only here because Sen has insisted upon it. I suppose I am no good to anyone exhausted, but I hate leaving things half-solved.”
“Thanks, Sen,” I called across the room as she dropped the clean blankets off in the bedroom. “What’s tonight’s problem? Rylan’s army? Kastelirian refugees? Kidira wanting to behead everyone she thinks might betray you?”
Shaking her head, Claire propped her cane between two of the sofa cushions and let herself sink into the seat. She might have been determined to work through the night but her body betrayed her, screaming that she was endlessly grateful to be able to stop.
“It is everything. Rylan’s army is moving with frightening haste, likely thanks to mass bitterwillow consumption, and we do not have the forces to contend with him. Akela is recruiting all over Thule and beyond and is having remarkable success, for I suppose it is impossible not to be inspired by one of her speeches. Sometimes even I believe she could lead us to victory equipped with little more than a ladle and her wits. But we can only take on so many recruits at once. There is the matter of arming them, of training them. In truth, I believe we are hoping to create a wall of bodies to scare Rylan off.
“And then there is the matter of the pane’s land. Half of my council members either believe that we have more important things to focus on right now, or that those lands cannot rightly be called the pane’s anymore, by virtue of the centuries we have farmed and built upon them. Of the half remaining, half say nothing either way, and of those who fiercely support Sen and me, I cannot tell how many do so because they believe it wise to be on my side.”
“It’s… it’s difficult. I-I knew it would be hard, but… There’s nothing on most of that land. No villages or farms. The humans, they just don’t want us living there,” Sen said, poking her head back into the room. “Even when it makes sense. The pane, we… we’re good farmers. B-better than humans. We could farm the land to help everyone. But the people still won’t listen.”
“Sen is a beacon of logic and has nothing but realistic hope for the future. She has a real head for agriculture, yet even when she puts it on paper, people still do not wish to listen,” Claire said. Sen might’ve got Claire back to her chambers, but that didn’t mean she would be able to take her mind off work. Gesturing for Sen to sit down, I set about making tea. “I could propose the same ideas. Present them as facts. People would listen, the council would have no choice but to, but it is not right. These are Sen’s ideas, for her people. They ought to come from her.”
“I-I don’t want credit. I don’t need anything like that. I just… I want to help the pane.”
“It isn’t about credit. It’s about the pane having a voice in my council, in my Kingdom. A voice that equals that of any human’s.”
“I’m not… m-my voice, it’s, it might not be the best example. I…” Sen murmured, rubbing the back of her neck with her claws.
“Nonsense. Akela, whose voice could fill a ravine, listens to you as though there is no one else in the room. The issue is not with you, but with those listening,” Claire said.
Sen said nothing in reply but I saw her fight off the start of a self-conscious smile.
We drank our tea in small sips and discussed all the things that weren’t going as they should’ve been. The pane and their land. The approaching army that would dwarf ours. The former Kastelirians who were still without homes. Queen Aren, locked in her chambers, and her insistence on bending Claire’s ear. Agados, looming in the distance, yet closer than any of us were comfortable with.
I hugged Sen tightly as she left, once Claire was changed and ready for bed, and thought I might fall asleep without having to close my eyes all the way.
The moment my head hit the pillow, realisation hit Claire.
“… Did you not take Kondo-Kana to the Bloodless Lands this evening?” she asked, sitting on the bed next to me. I nodded into my pillow, mumbling in the affirmative. “Why have we been discussing trifling matters when there is this to talk about?”
I rolled onto my back, meaning to tell her that an encroaching war was hardly a trifling matter, but catching her eye undid all of the good chatting with Varn had done.
And so I told her. I shuffled up the bed, rested my back against the headboard, and described every inch of what I’d seen. I told her every word Kondo-Kana had said, engraved on me as they were.
“Haru-Taiki was right. For attacking her. For being angry at us for being friends with her,” I said. “Everything she did… It doesn’t matter if it was yesterday or a million years ago. She did it. She chose to do it. And maybe we can forgive that, because it’s been so long and she’s changed, but it was only yesterday to Haru-Taiki. We don’t even know what happened between them and I can’t say any of this to him because he wouldn’t understand! It might be years before he knows enough Mesomium for us to explain. And that’s if we even find him!”
Claire placed a hand on my shoulder and eased me back under the blankets.
“We’ll find him. It’s only been a few days, Rowan. All he needs is time,” Claire assured me. “And perhaps to speak with Kondo-Kana. If he can face her, she can translate for you.”
I buried my face in Claire’s shoulder and didn’t have to do anything but exhale heavily for her to ask, “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I said instinctively, but was quick to continue. “It’s just the things Kondo-Kana said. About necromancers and where we come from. What we are and why.”
I explained it as best I could, paraphrasing Kondo-Kana in a way that hopefully made sense.
Propping her chin atop my head, Claire hummed to herself as she processed what I’d said.
“She said that you were made from the last of Isjin’s light, when she had no more dreams to dream,” she said, making half a question of it.
“Yeah. Right. She made it sound like we came after humans, after pane, after phoenixes… after everyone. Like we’re not just humans who can do something extra, but…”
“But something different altogether?” Claire asked when I couldn’t finish the sentence myself. “From my understanding, we are all made from this light, whether that is simply a placeholder for something beyond our comprehension or a mere metaphor for something far more complex and drawn out. We are all one in the same, at our cores. You would not think a pane worth any less than a human, would you? If you are not a human, if that is the case, then it is of no consequence. You are you. You are made of the same things you have always been, and those who loved you yesterday love you today.”
“I don’t think I even believe in Isjin,” I mumbled. I let my arms slip around her waist and held on tightly. “And Kondo-Kana doesn’t make sense most of the time. I don’t know why I’m making a big deal about it.”
“Because it matters,” Claire told me. “… And because you’re tired. Talk to her in the morning. Give her time to clear her head and organise her thoughts and see if she has better answers for you outside of the Bloodless Lands.”
I didn’t talk to Kondo-Kana in the morning. There were more important matters to tend to. I had lunch with Kouris, where she devoted much of her time to squinting at letters, like the Claire of old, and spent the afternoon helping Akela stroll back and forth in front of the new recruits. They were a mixed bag in all regards but wealth: the young and old, experienced and novice, were all from the poorer parts of Thule. War was an abstract idea to the rich, and Akela assured me that most of them were currently busy working out how to make money off it. Ore, timber and leather could be sold in bulk for the weapons and armour we needed, and with business concluded, they were content to hide behind castle walls and within their gated communities.
I was busy the next day. The one after that, too. I had to show Varn and Atalanta around the rest of the castle, and Reis couldn’t have possibly found an art store without me. I ran chores for Sen so that she could focus on her real work and made sure Oak wasn’t lonely. He was short with me and kept puffing himself up to appear bigger whenever I tried to pass him. It was almost as though he was hiding something or someone.
I purposely didn’t mention Haru-Taiki around him.
It was a week before I saw Kondo-Kana again. A week where she’d slept far less than I’d told Claire she had. A week of constant gnawing at my gut as her influence spread through the castle. At first I could feel her from a corridor or two away, could feel her through the walls, but the longer she remained in the castle the more empty spaces she found a way to fill. I could feel her in my chest all the way from the lake the day before I finally caved and sought her out.
Atalanta greeted me at Queen Nasrin’s door. She shook my hand as though it wasn’t the dozenth time we’d met and we hadn’t, in fact, spent much of yesterday playing cards while Claire and Queen Nasrin drew up all sorts of contracts and agreements. Trust the two of them to commemorate their newfound friendship with paperwork.
Atalanta promptly returned to her book once the door swung closed behind me, having long since decided that of all the threats in the castle, a necromancer was far less of a danger than the cut of the glares some nobles threw Queen Nasrin. Varn was curled up in an armchair, dead asleep by a fire that was almost called for with the abrupt onslaught of autumn, and Queen Nasrin sat behind her desk, working at a far more leisurely pace than she ever did in Canth.
