Dragonoak: Gall and Wormwood, page 58
“Claire,” I whispered. “It isn't over.”
“It never is,” she said. “It never is.”
Atalanta succeeded in sowing enough confusion throughout the castle for our path to the banquet hall to be almost uneventful. Varn, Akela and Atalanta did what they had to, and Reis ever had their pistol at the ready.
The soldiers stationed outside of the banquet hall rushed towards us, swords and spears raised. They demanded that we drop our weapons and recognised us within the space of a few seconds.
“Ightham!” A familiar face was leading the soldiers. Atthis had taken control and none had questioned his authority; everyone knew of how Rylan's army had been devoured from the inside. “Excellent. Everyone was starting to get restless.”
The relief on Atthis' face wasn't reflected in the soldiers'. Some were undoubtedly glad to see their Queen, but it only complicated the matter for others. To them, it didn't matter who was on the throne. If the Queen was dead, Rylan would take her crown and all of this would be over. There would be no more warring royals to complicate their lives.
I didn't blame them for not looking beyond the moment. Politics and Agados' growing shadow were nothing compared to the palpable danger they were now in. The castle had literally crumbled around them. Rubble and smoke filled the corridors and the enemy had weapons greater than our own.
Still, they eventually remembered themselves. They greeted their Queen with belated salutes and stiff backs and opened the doors wide for her.
It was chaos inside. The larger tables had been pushed onto their sides, acting as the last line of defence, and there were so many people crowded into the hall that the air had turned stale with the stench of sweat and dread. Goblin had taken Laus and a handful of other soldiers under his wing and was having them organise the masses as best they could, but half the people there were intent on making sure everyone knew they feared the worst.
A hush rolled across the banquet hall in staggered waves as Claire's presence took hold and a cluster of soldiers and civilians parted enough to let Eden come barging through.
“You're alright!” she said, taking in the sight of us all. Her eyes were shining and she was a little breathless, but her fierce grin made us all a little more determined to see this through. “All of you, I... goodness, it's good to see you.”
“I'm glad you're safe,” was all Claire could offer, while my chest tightened with relief. Her voice was a little less brittle than it had been.
I squeezed Eden's hand. She returned the sentiment and turned to Reis.
“I am so very relieved to see you, Captain,” Eden said, placing a hand on their shoulder. “The last I heard, the Mansels were heading in your direction.”
At the mention of the Mansels, Varn placed her hands on her hips proudly. Reis grunted and rolled their shoulders back.
Claire scowled but had no time to linger on it. We had a table and chairs dragged over to the corner, and while Claire was brought up to speed on what had been happening around and within the banquet hall over the last few hours, the rest of us took the time to finally breathe.
Akela leant against the wall, distancing herself from us, and Varn and Atalanta frowned at each other over their poorly drawn assumptions that Queen Nasrin had been in the other's company.
Kidira cleaned her spear on neckerchief she'd liberated from some noble who’d decided that no one had it quite so bad as he did, and Reis was stood to attention behind Claire, already far too entwined in Felheim's dealings for their liking.
I would've stayed rooted to the boards but I didn't know when we were going to get another chance to be settled again. I could tell Claire was already forming a plan from the way her hands moved as she spoke to Goblin and Atthis, and who was to say that Rylan's forces wouldn't close in around us at any moment?
I drifted towards Akela. I leant against the wall next to her and smiled. She caught my eye but didn't offer me her usual cheerful greeting.
What she was feeling wasn't something I could take away from her as easily as Halla had closed her wounds and embroidered life back into her. But that wasn't to say I didn't understand it intimately.
“You've told me things, before. Important, personal things, after... After you saved me. You didn't have to, but that's the sort of person you are. You always help everyone,” I started, while I still had the courage to speak. “I always wish I could be more like you. I know the things you've been through haven't been easy, that they're too awful to talk about, but... look at you. You're always so thoughtful, you always put everyone first, so—I just wanted to say that it's happened to me, too. I've died. Katja, she... more than once. I understand it. If you want to talk about it.”
Akela kept her eyes fixed fast on mine as I spoke, and I expected her to clap me on the back and say thank you, but she was fine. Instead, she bit the inside of her mouth and turned her eyes towards the ceiling.
“It is being strange, Northwood. So very strange. I am there, and I am knowing what things the Mansels are doing to me, but it is not mattering. Everything is light, but it is not being blinding, and it is not all there is; it is like I am in this world but I am understanding all of it. I am understanding myself. All of myself…” She paused, sneering. “I am… resenting being back? I am not knowing. Already, it is fading, it is gone. But what I am seeing, it is not bad. And that is why my chest, it is aching still. Because I am dying. I am gone, and where I am going, I am thinking that it is making all of this pointless. What am I doing with this?”
I’d been wrong. I’d died but that didn’t mean I understood her. When I’d died there’d been nothing but silence. To her, all of this warring and death had become meaningless, hollow; to me, this world was the only thing of any substance.
“If you hadn’t come back, I think the world would have been pointless to a lot of us,” I eventually offered.
Her face softened, though a smile was still far off.
“You can talk to Kouris when she comes back,” I added. “She understands. She was dead for a long time and she said that it fades. That you won’t always remember it as strongly as you do now. I think.”
“You are only thinking?” Akela asked. There was more caution in her voice than I’d ever heard.
Claire’s interruption saved me from having to give voice to my fears. She raised a hand, beckoning us over, and we gathered around the table, ready for our next step.
“I need to speak with Rylan. That much is abundantly clear. I understand that it will do little good, that he is surely past the point of being reasoned with, but I cannot justify acting more rashly until I have exhausted all possible peaceful options,” she explained. “Who knows. Perhaps he is at the end of his tether. Perhaps he is desperate enough to accept my help in banishing the Agadians.”
“I’ll go,” I offered before anyone else could. “Rylan knows who I am. He knows what I can do. And he knows that I speak for you, Claire.”
“That the best idea, kid?” Reis asked.
“You didn’t stop me when I went after Gavern,” I pointed out. They shrugged. “I can get to Rylan. He’s probably got soldiers looking for me already! I can take a message to him and I can make sure he lets me go.”
Silence followed, broken up by restless footsteps and heavy sighs in the hall beyond. They knew I was right, that I was the most suited for the job, but none wanted to let me leave.
It was Kidira who spoke up first.
“Rowan’s right,” she said. “I shall accompany her.”
That was all the argument Claire needed to relent. She didn’t say anything, but some of the tension faded from her shoulders.
“I’ll go too,” Eden added. “The three of us have worked together in the past, and I see no reason to believe that delivering a message within the castle will be a greater task than journeying all the way to Agados. Besides, I have known Rylan for many, many years. That may count for something.”
Being met with grim compliance was barely any better than being buffered by resistance. Akela declared that she would join us, but a sharp look from Kidira ensured she was tasked with standing guard over Claire.
Claire wrote what she needed to and pressed her hand to my cheek before I left. She wished me luck. I saw a spark in her eye and knew that I would hand myself over to a hundred armies, if it meant she regained some semblance of herself for even a moment. The distraction of planning, of moving forward, was what she needed to drag her out of the muck and mire she believed her life had become.
“We’ll be off, then,” Eden said to everyone.
Varn, who’d got the gist of it from Reis, gave her a thumbs-up and offered out a dragon-bone sword. Eden politely declined and finally tore herself away when it seemed that Reis didn’t have a goodbye to offer.
I tried to catch their eye but they were pouring their focus into picking at the splinters of their damaged leg.
“How do we do this?” I asked Kidira and Eden, once the banquet hall was behind us and we were back in the belly of the castle.
“You know that my fathers are actors, do you not?” Eden asked. I would’ve laughed at how out of place the question was, if not for the urgency in her voice. “I was practically raised on the stage. Learning how to act was inescapable. With that in mind, I do hope you’ll forgive me for what I have to do. I don’t mean a single word of it.”
If Eden had a plan, it wasn’t going to be one I liked. I turned to Kidira for guidance, and she decided that Eden was worthy of trust.
“Okay,” I said. “Do what you have to. What do you need us to do?”
“Look upset. Betrayed,” Eden said, and marched around a corner, straight into a group of Rylan’s soldiers.
They raised their weapons, but Eden took control of the situation with clear, confident words.
“Guards! I have the necromancer,” she said, voice brimming with pride. “Take us to Rylan at once.”
She grabbed hold of my arm and tugged me towards the soldiers. They looked at one another, certain they were walking into some trap, and Eden said, “Go tell him that it is Eden. Tell him that I see things clearly now. All too clearly. Long years spent with Claire and how am I rewarded? I am replaced by a farmer. A necromancer. Claire has shown me no loyalty whatsoever, so I wish to repay the favour. I have information for Rylan. Vital information, regarding the dragons. If you insist on blocking the way, Claire and the Canthians she keeps for company will gain the upper-hand. Do you wish to be the reason this all slips between his fingers?”
Eden’s outburst did the trick. The guards turned to each other and muttered something, and Eden kept a tight grip on my arm.
I reminded myself that it wasn’t her. That the words were forced, and false. I knew Eden would never betray me, but there was a sting to what she’d said that helped me better play my part.
“I’m afraid I shan’t be joining you,” Eden whispered, while the soldiers called for back-up. “Trust me, Rowan. Do not forget to trust me.”
Kidira and I were led through the castle, flanked by dozens of guards. She glowered when they pulled her spear from her hands but didn’t say a single word. She only stared and stared until the soldier holding her weapon was the defenceless one.
The soldiers barricaded us within a parlour and Eden was taken straight to Rylan.
I didn’t know what she was planning but I chose to trust her, and more importantly, I chose to trust that she’d be safe. I lost myself in my thoughts, determined to end this and bring Halla back to herself, but found my plans were no more solid after half an hour than they had been after a matter of seconds.
Kidira shuffled restlessly next to me. She readjusted herself in her seat every few minutes, ran her fingers across the mint green fabric the chairs were wrapped in, and didn’t once take her eyes off the door. Rylan was behind it, which meant…
“You’re here to see Katja, aren’t you?” I asked.
I couldn’t believe it’d taken me so long to put the pieces together.
“No matter what she has done, she is still my daughter,” Kidira said. There was nothing of forgiveness in her voice. “I lay awake wondering, sometimes. What is worse: what she is doing to Kastelir’s memory, or what she has done to you. But that is not my decision to make.”
There wasn’t any way for me to answer that. The two were separate, distinct from one another, but it made my stomach churn uncomfortably to know that Kidira considered what had been done to me on par with what had happened to her Kingdom.
“Do you know what she did? All of it?”
“What happened in Canth, you mean,” Kidira said. “Indeed. Or so far as Akela has been able to inform me.”
I didn’t need to tell Kidira that Akela didn’t know everything. That no matter what Akela had seen and no matter how awful it’d been, she’d only scratched the surface. Things had unfolded in that room, against the stove, that would swallow me whole if I stopped fighting against the memories for so much as a second. Only Katja would and I ever understand what had really happened in Canth, but we each knew a different side of the truth. Me in my chains and her with the knife trembling in her grasp.
“For what little it is worth, I realise that my daughter’s actions were her own. You ought to, as well. She was not compelled by circumstance or outside forces to do what she did to you. The decision was hers in its entirety. You certainly do not factor into any blame,” Kidira said.
I wanted to thank her but couldn’t speak. I had spent endless nights staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep, telling myself that I had started all of this by using my powers. By being who I was. I had bent to Katja’s will and brought King Jonas back to life and from that moment, it was inevitable that my nature would force her hand. The fact that she had tired of me was because I had changed in some way. No matter what it was, whether violence or neglect, had been my fault.
But hearing Kidira say I wasn’t to blame branded the words as the truth in my mind. It was worth more than the offhand comment she took pains to make it out to be; no one knew Katja better or held what I was against me more than she did.
“I wasn’t a bad mother,” she continued. “When council meetings demanded my presence, I took Kouris on my lap. I made certain to read to her every night. But some people—some people are what they are.”
“Kidira,” I said. I wanted to place my hand on her shoulder or arm but quickly thought better of it. “Thank you. I…”
“No matter what happens here,” she interrupted me coolly. “Protect Akela. Keep Agados at bay.”
“I promise.”
We weren’t left waiting for much longer. Two soldiers marched us to Rylan as though they themselves had tracked us through the corridors. He had taken refuge in Alex’s chambers. Aren was sat in a corner, looking as though the whole ordeal had left her with a terrible headache, and Alex wrung his hands together.
Katja was nowhere to be found.
For his part, Rylan presumed to have made enough of a push on the castle to rid himself of his armour. He dressed as the King he believed he was, for what good was steel or dragon-bone around a necromancer? A forest green cloak hung from his shoulders and polished black boots reached his knees, along with an outfit too immaculate to suit the lines around his eyes. It didn’t matter that he’d taken the time to have his hair brushed through, or rings placed on his fingers and chains draped around his neck.
Having been shunned by sleep for long days made him look more like Claire’s brother than ever.
I knew he’d done it all in anticipation of seeing her. He wanted to prove that he was all she wasn’t.
“You were looking for me,” I said, eyeing the chair he gestured for me to take.
Rylan remained on his feet. I did the same, not giving him the chance to tower over me.
“You are a necromancer,” Rylan sneered. “You are my sister’s one true advantage. Of course I was looking for you.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and stood straighter. If what he’d done to Kastelir had aged him beyond his years then this had hollowed out what remained. He clenched his jaw, doing what he could not to snap. It was futile to stop himself from stumbling after all the wrong steps he’d taken.
“Talk to Claire,” I urged. “You don’t have to fight like this. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, Rylan. She’s still your sister. She’ll listen to you. I promise.”
“Listen to me? To what end? To hear out my unconditional surrender?” Rylan asked, shaking his head. “I rather think not. I am on the cusp of bringing Felheim into a new age. Claire wishes to destroy Felheim to save what remains of Kastelir, and I will not allow her to throw away all that our family has done for this land. All that our citizens have made for themselves.”
“You destroyed Kastelir,” I said. Burning buildings and crumbling towers filled my mind but my words came out calmly. I remembered the grit against my knees as I knelt to draw smoke from people’s lungs, the way my back ached as I tried to lift tumbled walls from broken bodies and let it ground me. “You destroyed Kastelir and we don’t even know why. And now you’re letting Agados into Felheim. What did you promise them? What was left of Kastelir? The pane? You’re not doing this for the good of the Kingdom. You’re doing this because you don’t want to lose.”
“No,” Ryan spat. “You have been deceived. Everything – everything – I have done has been for my country. I’m not the traitor. I’m not the one who fled to Kastelir to spill secrets to our enemies.”
“Your enemies?” Kidira asked. “Kastelir never once threatened Felheim. Our internal problems, coupled with your dragons, ensured that. If Claire is a traitor, then I will swear off loyalty for the remainder of my life. She never betrayed the country, or the people; only its cruel methods.”
“That’s a lie!” Rylan said. “My sister took confidential information to you at the very same time the Agadians arrived in Isin. Our countries may have had no real contact for decades, but Alexander’s engagement to your daughter gave me a reason to send operatives into Isin. For my brother’s protection, you understand. I know what was happening in the capital. I did what I had to to defend Felheim from an Agadian-Kastelirian alliance.”
