Dragonoak: Gall and Wormwood, page 45
“I could not. And so she sang for me. Her voice cracked and she could not hold a tune in a bucket, but it was her voice and I found a way to smile, even with the needles acting as a branding iron down my spine.
“Once it was over, I had no desire to see it. I wanted to be gone from that room and never return. I had been told I could not cover my back and so I marched into the temple with my robes clutched to my chest. I headed straight for my chambers. Tela-Laos followed but I did not hear her footsteps. It is a strange thing, to know that you have succeeded, that you are what the world wanted you to be, and feel so utterly defeated. So empty.
“I sat on the edge of my bed and told myself it was an honour. I was a Daughter of Isjin and I had sworn myself to the service of her will. I was proof of her power. I was a miracle in and of myself.
“I hadn’t been granted reason to cry in a long time. Quietly, Tela-Laos let herself into my room, closed the door behind her and perched on the edge of my bed. You knew this would happen, I accused. She nodded slowly and said that she had. She said that this happened to all necromancers, that it had been part of our studies, and that I ought to have expected it; she thought I knew.
“And I did. I did, but I did not. It was too easy to think of myself as something new. As something the world had not already confined with rituals and rites. Did you not notice the way they courted you? All temples in Phos have been vying for your service these last years, Kondo, she said, and it became so clear. Of course they had. They had visited and I assumed it was merely because I pulled them into my orbit. Not because they wanted something other than the honour of meeting me. I had been given gifts. I had been asked to visit, to preside over services and ceremonies and to bless new statues, and whenever it had happened, Cáh had given me more of what I didn’t need.
“Will it be different now?
“I already knew the answer. They had plied me with the pretence of freedom, had provided for my every need, to make me theirs. I scolded myself for falling for it. For being taken in by wealth and renown when I was sixteen. Had Tela-Laos not moved to Cáh, my debt would’ve been driven deeper still.
“I will still be here, Kana.
“My heart lurched. The dull ache on my back faded. No one had ever called me Kana, just Kana, before, and I knew that such a name spoke of nothing but love.
“She placed her hand on my face and let me kiss her. She put her arms around me and held me, and lulled me to sleep against her chest.
“And in the morning, it was different. The atmosphere had changed. The air was thicker; harder to breathe. Once the high Priest Ishan was safe in the knowledge that his unspoken threat was burnt into my skin, there were more missions. Thorn had not left and Sino-Toku remained by my side. On these missions, often appointed by the King himself, Thorn helped me pick out those amongst the injured or ill or dead who had money enough to be worthy of salvation.
“I visited my mother, grandmother and Skalo-Halos and asked if the temple had ever stopped them from visiting me. You had studies to attend to. Or you were meeting with people, or travelling. That’s what we were always told.
“Next, the healers came. They had moved from Cáh to other prominent temples out of respect for me, but they filtered back in one by one. They were more soldiers than saviours. They stood around Cáh, backs to me, ensuring that nausea claimed me if I went where I shouldn’t.
“But it was not all darkness in those days. Together with Haru-Taiki and Sino-Toku, we found a solution to the falling phoenix population. I did as Cáh expected of me and had certain freedoms, especially when it was easy to convince the high Priests that it was what Isjin would want, and led the project to create the Phoenix Fire in the heart of the city. It took more than a season to have the platform built, the statues put into place, but on that first day, we threw armfuls of bones into the Fire.
“Five phoenixes rose. I had never seen Sino-Toku so happy or Haru-Taiki so proud.
“And I had Laos. She did not return to her chambers after that first night. We had our own world, deep in the temple. Most days, I could forget the ink on my back. I learnt how to stop hating it when she ran her fingertips across it. I kissed her as though I had never known another’s touch before. I kissed her as though I had never wanted for anything – food, water, warmth, rest – until I wanted her.
“See, Kana? It is not all so bad, is it? You have not been thrown to the wolves, my love.
“And then, on the morning of my twenty-third birthday, the sky fell.
CHAPTER XIV
“Laos and I laid tangled lazily together in our bed, watching the sky through the open window as our eyes grew heavy. One moment the moon was bright; the next, the sky blazed with fire. The Priests were torn between believing that Isjin had returned and that the world was ending. Some believed both were happening. All of us prayed as Bosma shook and the horizon burnt.
“The sun did not rise. Thick plumes of smoke and ash filled the air. When it rained, there was no respite from the heat. Each drop burnt stone and flesh alike.
“There had been records of comets before, but none like this. The crater it left was half a mile wide, and only a dozen miles from Phos. The days after the impact were dark and never-ending. There were riots in the streets, for it did not take people long to turn from prayers to anger. Thorn led me through the city and I ripped away what disease I could, lifted corpses from the streets bloated with foul, burning rain. Within an hour, I was alive with light. It trailed from my eyes and seeped from my skin.
“When I returned to Cáh, Ishan was waiting for me. He was a stern Thrycian man who did not believe I spent enough time contemplating Isjin’s miracles. The recent catastrophe had not softened him. He asked what I thought I’d been doing and I saw Thorn’s fingers twitch, missing the comfort of a halberd in his grasp. I explained that I had been out helping people, but he only shook his head and said that there were ways to go about this. That I could not take it upon myself to charge out into Phos and decide what was and wasn’t Isjin’s will.
“Healers accompanied me back to my chambers. Thorn was asked to stay behind.
“Inside, I paced restlessly and told Laos everything that had happened. How wrong it was, how unjust the world had suddenly become. My powers were not limited. I could bring back everyone the comet had harmed and it would barely even exhaust me. Laos told me to remember to breathe and I did not understand what she meant until I looked down and saw that my feet were sapping the light out of the ground.
“Ishan is a wolf, Kana. You know this. He is only as pious as the King pays him to be. And you are a necromancer; you certainly know more of Isjin’s will than he does.
“It was around that time Essua visited Phos. He was half there to help and half there to see me. Though it had been short years since last we saw one another, it looked as though decades had claimed him. He sneered as he made his way through the temple and said This place is saturated with healers. I remember that trick. It makes you begin to believe that nausea and weakness are your default states. It makes you forget all you are capable of.
“I asked him what he wanted. It was not an accusation; I wanted to know what his plan was and how I might be able to help him and the people of Myros. There were two other necromancers with him: Maya, who had travelled all the way from Canth in the hopes of finding an answer to their own matter of falling numbers amongst the phoenix population, and Siv of Mesomia. Between them, they had almost four hundred years of experience. I ought to have been a mere child to them, but they accepted me as one of their own.
“We took to Phos to undo the damage the comet had done. They helped far more than I was capable of. I was forever expected back at the temple. I asked how they were allowed to wander so far and they only said We have been doing this for centuries. You have been doing this for years. In a hundred years, perhaps the hours you are allowed to wander freely through will become days.
“Laos told me to be careful but I could fear nothing, around three Aejin yu ka Aejin. What could they do to me? Ishan needed me more than I needed to follow his rules and Isjin would judge them for only healing those who could pay for it, whether in coin or deed.
“Ishan saw to it that I was not confident for long.
“My mother, who had worked tirelessly every day of her life and never stolen so much as a grain of rice, was put in prison. It is no judgement on her character and I will see it is not reflected as such, Ishan said. But your station means certain privileges. You cannot be punished in conventional ways, not with your gift. Your mother is serving your sentence; that is all. Now, you are needed out west.
“By the time I was twenty-four, the skies had cleared. The burning rain was but a memory better forgotten and much of the damage was undone. It was thought that the land around the crater would be used as farmland again, one day. Essua, Maya and Siv visited when they could. In spite of the healers that drew ever closer to my chambers, I left with my Aejin in the dead of night and returned by dawn. Essua had been right. The high Priests meant to make me think that sickness was all I was. Laos said I was pulling away from her, that I was becoming someone she did not recognise – a sheep in wolf’s clothing – but I told her I could not stop.
“I told her and she understood. I knew that Ishan and the other Priests had met with her. I knew that they had charged her with keeping me in one place and I knew that she would never betray me.
“Take me with you, she said. I will meet these friends of yours and see what my love is doing with my own two eyes. Then I will understand.
“Ishan had decided there was little harm in me visiting my mother and grandmother, every fortnight. Laos accompanied me, delighted that she had convinced the high Priests she was on their side, but one day, my family did not greet me with bright smiles and open arms. They asked me to come in and had me sit down. Skalo-Halos was missing and had not been heard from in weeks. They had sent a raven to their tribe and so knew they had not returned to the mountains.
“My mother had been a free woman for six months, by that point. My grandmother had not stopped spewing bile on the matter since. She turned to me with hard eyes and said This is no misunderstanding. Skalo would not leave without saying goodbye. We have been neighbours for twenty-five years. Family for almost as long. You have been going out at night, haven’t you?
“I went directly to the King. I could still get an audience with him in spite of the recent upheaval, providing I made my demands loud enough. I marched in, ready to demand that Skalo be returned home, but he silenced me before I spoke.
“I am only a King, Kondo-Kana. Only a figurehead. I am here by the will of my bloodlines, not by that of Isjin. I am no Priest. I see to it that our lands are safe and our allies are content. The Priests see to the things that are truly important. Our souls. I have given the most pious of those leave to act as they see fit. It is all within the realms of the law.
“Understand that there is a purpose behind all of this. You are a necromancer, a Daughter of Isjin. As you are worth more than others, there are those too who are worth more than their neighbours. It is the way of the world. We want to save everyone, of course we do, but we must be strategic about it.
“I had no words for him. Just as well. He would have chosen to be deaf to them. I returned to Cáh and put my arms around Laos. I repeated every word that had fallen from the King’s mouth and she stroked my hair, listening as I said that I could not leave this be. I could not let things continue like this. Not for me, not for any necromancer. She kissed my forehead and promised to be at my side no matter what, just as she had years ago.
“Brief moments of the sort were the only things that held me together at the seams. When I was with her, I could forget the rest of the world. I could almost forget the healers at my door. I lost myself in her, in the warmth that came with knowing I did not love her a jot less than I had the first time I’d kissed her. It had only grown, blossoming inside of me as my powers spread and touched the world.
“My fellow Aejin slowed but did not stop. Letters were sent in lieu of visits and soon, there were six of us in contact. They all spoke of their disillusion with what the temples had become. The oldest harked back to the days when necromancers were respected as individuals, rather than as mere tools to be used. They had travelled across Bosma as they pleased, helping whoever they came across. Their judgement had been trusted. I devoured those letters. Laos read them over, hid them in her robes, and took them for Thorn, Haru-Taiki and Sino-Toku to see.
“I decided I would test the temple. I called for a meeting with the high Priests and told Ishan and the others that I was leaving. That I was grateful for the opportunity but had come to realise that temple life was not the only way to devotion. I knew they would say no. I knew they would tell me the tattoo on my back was a contract that could not be voided.
“Yet Ishan waved a hand and told me to be gone, if I was going to insist upon it.
“With a narrowed gaze, I asked him why he was letting me leave.
“You are as troublesome as you are powerful. Cáh was a respected establishment long before your arrival and will continue to thrive, with devoted Priests such as myself and Tela-Laos.
“I heard the threat implicit in his words. My eyes flashed with Isjin’s light and I stepped close to him.
“Laos is with my family. She is no longer within your reach or under your authority, I said. He raised a brow as if to say that he knew where my family lived and could see them back in prison in a heartbeat, and so I said, She is being kept company by my guard, two phoenixes and another Aejin. May I still leave?
“Ishan set his jaw. I knew I had not won; I knew that necromancers before me had tried all this and more.
“I could kill you all, I told him. It was the first time I had spoken the words out loud and they did not stick in my throat as I had expected them to.
“And what then? You cannot kill us all. Even one as talented as you will run out of energy or conviction, eventually. But go, if you will. You have branded yourself a traitor to your King and god.
“I stepped out of the temple. The healers did not follow. Priests watched from tall windows as I went, confused and betrayed, and I did not head to my family home. In truth, no one was there. Essua had moved them safely within the city. I knew there would be retaliation for this and that it was only a matter of time. I walked in circles around the busiest parts of Myros, letting myself bathe in light, and drew as much attention as I could to myself.
“I wanted as many people as possible to witness what the King would let Ishan do to me.
“Whispers tore through the streets. Forces were gathering. No, not forces: a small army. It was not the palace guards being sent out but the finest soldiers in gleaming armour. Only then did I regret what I had done. Only then did I wish I had been less bold.
“I pushed through the crowds and dulled my skin. I took the fastest way out of the city, found myself a horse and headed south. I did not know where I was going, beyond the mountains. I’d only left the flatlands once and that had been a lifetime ago, when Skalo had taken me to their tribe. Like all pane, they had hatched in the mountains, within the safety of dragon-teeth and the Sca-Isjin, but they had not left their tribe for the flatlands until they were twenty-five. The age I had so recently turned.
“Not even the King would break the sanctity of any sanctuary the pane, ever peaceful, would offer me. But my borrowed horse could not outpace the small army that came for me. I had to abandon him once the mountain path steepened, though I knew I had no chance. There were a hundred or more behind me, and healers mingled amongst their numbers. They would surround me and have me vomit out all I was into the dirt.
“I left the path. I ran through the long grass, clambered up rocky outcrops and inevitably caught my foot on something and tripped. Not something. Not something. A pane’s horn rose from the dirt, skull half uncovered. I held my breath as I realised what I had unwittingly stumbled upon: it was the place where the dragons and pane left their dead, that their bodies might return to the dirt while their spirits joined Isjin.
“There were hundreds of them. Some were so recently dead that birds were picking over them, and others were so long passed that they were nothing but dust. There was an army behind me but I did not care. All I could think of was Skalo-Halos and the stories they read to me as a child. Ishan or the King had had them killed and not even returned their body to this sacred place.
“And that was my fault. No. No, it was not my fault. It was their fault. The faceless, roiling mass gathered behind me, baying for my blood. For my compliance.
“Skalo would not have wanted me to surrender. To give up. I dug my fingers into the pliant earth, closed my eyes and breathed out light. Isjin had made me for a reason. She had trusted I would know what to do with my powers.
“She had not created me to be a pawn to selfish men.
“My power rushed into the ground. The hungry earth accepted me, and all of the corpses it had not yet claimed, dragon and pane alike, were mine. There were more than wings and arms and horns missing. Much of their minds were gone. To thank them for their service, I filled the gaps with what I was.
“One moment I was cornered. I had nowhere to go, no energy with which to run. The next, a towering army was at my back. Wings and hearts beat to a set rhythm. I watched as my army slaughtered the King’s. I did not look away. I did not blink. The ground was soaked red and I did not once consider raising them, once their lessons were learnt.
“There was no guilt. No regret followed. Only a dull sense of righteousness swirled within me. They had brought this on themselves. They thought they could control me. They thought that the Aejin yu ka Aejin were theirs to use and that they could threaten Laos. That they could threaten anyone in my family.
