Dragonoak: Gall and Wormwood, page 59
The back legs of a chair scraped across the floor as Kidira took a seat. With her elbows propped on the edge of the table, she rested her chin against the backs of her fingers and didn’t speak, didn’t blink. Rylan looked to Aren for guidance but she offered none. He opted not to hurry Kidira along. He stood tall but didn’t manage to loom over her.
“You assumed that plans were being put into motion. That Claire had informed us of your dragons that we might join forces with Agados to conquer Felheim,” Kidira said, inhaling sharply. “You acted on an assumption. Out of paranoia. The Agadians were not there to make some new alliance with us. They came for King Jonas’ funeral, to learn what would become of old trade agreements. They came because of the necromancer we were to burn. They knew nothing of Felheim. Nothing of Claire’s presence.
“Yet you acted. You razed my country to the ground. Your dragons took hundreds of thousands of lives and ensured that millions did not survive that first winter. My blood was in that land. My blood held together the bricks of every building and flowed in every river. I was born in a time of war and fought for peace. I strove for thirty years to ensure that peace meant something.
“And you tell me Kastelir is gone because you made a mistake. Because you did not think to send word, or investigate.”
Kidira rose to her feet and Rylan took a step back.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he said, “Of course you would claim as much, Queen Kidira. If there was so much as a jot of truth in your claims, Kouris would’ve said so.”
“I am no Queen. You made certain of that,” Kidira said, stepping towards him. “I have no crown, no country. No home. No laws govern me. My only loyalties lie with Claire. You would do well to keep that in mind, Rylan.”
Rylan’s lips twitched but he said nothing more. Best not to, if he was determined to believe that he was still in the right, after all these years. Kidira was overflowing with lies, desperate to convince herself that she wasn’t responsible for the Kingdom’s downfall: that was the truth he had to cling to.
“They aren’t wrong, Rylan,” Aren said. “You have gone past the point of thinking things through. You claim to have attacked Kastelir for allying with Agados and yet you have accepted them into our lands and put us in their debt. I understand that one may need to deal with Agadians, from time to time, but such things should always be done quietly, and in a way that does not encroach on our Kingdom. Do what you wish with the bones of Kastelir, darling, but do not let Felheim suffer for it. No matter what you may think, your sister is doing a reasonable job.”
“Please,” Alex begged. “Listen to them.”
“Mother. Alexander,” Rylan hissed, dismissing them. “Bring Claire to me. I am far from unreasonable. I understand what is best for Felheim. The sooner she surrenders, the sooner we can begin rebuilding.”
There was no making him see sense. The more evidence we brought him the blinder he became. I couldn’t do this alone and neither could Kidira. Claire had always known how to get through to people and there were few who knew Rylan better than she did. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t listened to me. He’d agreed to speak with Claire and that was what I’d come for.
“Am I free to go?” I asked. “Weren’t you looking for me?”
“Indeed I was. But you aren’t going to leave Claire’s side,” Rylan stated plainly. “You won’t go far.”
He spoke as though bestowing freedom and restraints in the same breath. I wanted to prove him wrong but had absolutely no intention of letting Claire meet him alone.
Rylan would never settle for simply speaking with Claire. Kidira and I both knew a trap when we were walking into one.
“We won’t meet here,” Kidira said. “We will be in the central courtyard in an hour.”
She made an order of it. Rylan didn’t dare say a word against it, lest she ignore him.
“Where is my daughter?” Kidira was unable to stop herself asking from the doorway. “Keeping your soldiers in line, no doubt. She evidently has more of a head for strategy than you do.”
“She sees things my way,” Rylan said, and left it at that.
Kidira said nothing and tilted her head sharply to the side. I exited the room, taking the stairs two at a time, and Kidira kept close behind.
“Now it is a matter of who has the better trap,” Kidira said. “I remember enough of the courtyard: we can station Atalanta on one balcony and Varn on another. I am certain she is as deft at archery as she is swordplay. They will be far more discreet than half of our guards tripping over themselves to cram onto the balconies.”
“Do you really think that’s what it’ll come to? Killing Rylan?”
“I would think not. If that was all it’d take, we could have done so several times in the past,” Kidira explained. “If we were to assassinate Rylan, power would simply be passed to someone else. We would have no way of managing his forces, or the Agadians. Who is to say that the person in question wouldn’t be less reasonable than he is? We can at least exploit his relationship with Claire.”
Convincing him to surrender was hopeless. In bringing the Agadians to Thule, Rylan intended to walk away from this victorious or not at all. He had already painted himself as the rightful King, deaf to the truths behind the destruction he’d spread, and I didn’t know how Claire was going to break through all of that.
But she was Queen for a reason.
She was the best chance we had to end this without any more bloodshed.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Varn and Atalanta scouted the best places to lurk in the balconies overlooking the courtyard.
Claire stared long and hard at Reis and when they said nothing, asked, “Are you certain Eden is safe?”
I should’ve nodded, but could only raise my shoulders, hesitant.
“She had a plan. She went to see Rylan and she was with him for ages. She knew what she was doing,” I explained, for the third time. “But I don’t know where she is. She’s probably with Aren.”
Reis frowned and fiddled with their pistol. They headed out after Varn and Atalanta with Akela in tow. Claire had spent an hour in contemplative silence, aware that this could be our last stand. Everything rested on getting Rylan to listen to her, yet he had been deaf to her pleas for peace for years.
I stayed close to her side. My powers wouldn’t fail me if it meant protecting her.
Rylan was in the courtyard, as he’d promised. He stood at the far end with his hands clasped behind his back, and his chosen soldiers were as well hidden as Varn and Atalanta. I saw no reason not to believe that the walls would come crumbling down at the slightest gesture from him. Katja was the only person by his side, put there to throw me off-balance and prove Kidira wrong. I didn’t look at her. Couldn’t.
My eyes were determined to fixate on bruises that weren’t there.
Instead, I looked at Rylan. Rylan, who hadn’t seen Claire for years. Rylan, who in spite of all the rumours and first-hand reports about the state she’d been reduced to, wasn’t prepared for the way she looked. For what he had made her. Claire hadn’t gone to the ostentatious lengths Rylan had. Being able to stand of her own accord was enough. She held her cane while he eyed her, letting the dark depths of her exhaustion show in the face of his indignation, fury kindled by the years separating them.
Claire waited for him to speak first. Her fingers loosened around her cane as Rylan’s gaze trailed across her burns and eyepatch, gaze dropping to the unnatural curve of her leg. He cleared his throat.
“Claire,” he said.
“Rylan,” she returned stiffly.
There was no need to use titles to put any more distance between them.
“Quite the situation we’ve found ourselves in,” he said.
Silence took hold in place of a laugh.
“Quite.”
They pursed their lips tightly together. I let my gaze trail up to the balconies but saw no shadows of soldiers, or signs of their crossbows.
“You cannot win this, Rylan,” Claire said. “You’ve no claim to the throne and the people understand the extent of your trespasses. The people support me. There will be riots in the streets, should you choose to pursue this course of action. You have done much to harm Felheim and Kastelir both, but please. Do not continue to make the same mistakes out of stubbornness.”
Rylan pinched the bridge of his nose. Katja placed a hand on his elbow, urging him to lean down, and whispered something in his ear.
“The people support you, do they, sister? So you made a handful of your famed speeches and let them pity your scars,” he said blithely. “How many of our citizens are happy that you deign to let a necromancer live in our castle? In your bed? That you are allowing endless refugees into our Kingdom, draining the last of our supplies? That you wish to tear Felheim in two to give our land to the pane? You have not yet been on the throne for six months. No one would remember your reign.”
“And how would they remember you? As the man who destroyed an entire Kingdom and brought Agados to our doorstep when Felheim no longer wished to be razed by its rulers? For that is how I shall always remember you, Rylan, if you do not surrender,” Claire said, jaw set. Her blue eye flashed with the emotion her voice refused to tremble with. “You are my older brother, Rylan. You are supposed to love me. You are supposed to protect me. Yet I am what you see now because of you. And there are those far worse off yet. Is this what you wanted? Truly?”
Rylan could defend what he’d done to Kastelir to the death but had no words good enough for Claire. He lifted his chin and I saw him blink, once, in an effort to forget the questions and the weight they carried.
Katja placed a hand on the small of his back, steadying him.
Propping him up.
“You mean to say that you will not release the Kingdom into my care?”
“I will not.”
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Rylan was supposed to crumble under the weight of what he’d done, all of it manifested before him in the form of Claire, yet he was more determined than ever to pry Felheim from between her fingers.
“Then you leave me no choice,” Rylan said, in spite of the thousand chances we’d given him to crawl out of the hole he’d dug.
Raising a hand, Rylan signalled for his soldiers to come forward. They rushed onto balconies, spilt from the adjoining corridors, crossbows ready to fire. Varn and Atalanta had their arrows at the ready but they weren’t faster than a matching pair of bolts. Let alone a dozen of them.
I held up my hands before the others could, hoping that Claire had some plan, that Akela knew a way out of this.
The first bolt flew.
It wasn’t aimed at Claire, but at the balconies where Varn and Atalanta were stationed. An arrow shot out in response, flying true. Rylan did not flinch, did not step back, confident that this would end in his favour.
Two more bolts were released, narrowly missing their targets.
Claire didn’t flee. As long as Rylan held his ground, she would too. My fingers flowed with the force I was about to release, for I was finally frightened enough to act. This was it. This was the end, unless I did something. Unless I let myself become what they believed I was. One of Rylan’s soldiers was hit in the throat and a sharp, sudden squawking ricocheted through the courtyard.
It was far from a gurgle of pain.
Haru-Taiki flew past in a blur of purple and gold, leaving behind a trail of brilliant fire.
It cut across the courtyard, growing, twisting: a living thing. Like the Phoenix Fire, the flames were thicker, heavier, than anything campfires or dragon’s breath could account for. It burnt without kindling, without spreading through the foliage in the courtyard, and charged through the corridors, stretching out to the ends of the castle. The heat from it was immense, creating a curtain of flame between us that threatened to reach out and strangle me, should I step too close.
Rylan and Katja finally flinched. They stepped back, but not to retreat. Neither of them could stop watching the fire twist like wet paint running across a canvas.
“What is the meaning of this?” Rylan roared from the other side of the flames.
Haru-Taiki doubled back, wings spread wide as he glided to a stop. Claire was so transfixed on him that she didn’t hear Rylan speak, let alone answer him. Paling, she held out an arm, and Haru-Taiki took it.
He wrapped his wings tightly around his chest, making himself as small as he could as he bowed his head.
“Haru…” Claire murmured, drawing him to her chest. “Welcome home.”
Haru-Taiki closed his eyes, pressed his beak to Claire’s forehead, and set back off.
Two trailing white lights burnt within the darkness of a corridor unclaimed by a phoenix’s fire. Kondo-Kana emerged, arm held out in front of her. Haru-Taiki landed, talons wrapped around her wrist, and all knew to turn towards her. All knew better than to speak, in awe of her in spite of the strange fire dividing us. Raw strength rippled and twisted within her, as though she had found a way to hone and recreate all she had felt in the Bloodless Lands.
Everything about her was light and terrible, aching power.
“I have seen half of this continent destroyed. I have felt the blood drain from these lands and mix with my own,” she said. “The rest of Asar will not fall. Neither of you will be the harbinger of its destruction. I care nothing for Kings and Queens and their petty squabbles. Haru-Taiki will not reclaim his fire until a resolution has been reached. It may not burn the castle or the land it was built upon but he has willed it to rend flesh from bone. This line will not be crossed.”
“Do you have no end of necromancers?” Rylan barked across the flames. “Who is that?”
“Someone who has not yet forgotten their own voice,” Kondo-Kana said, pulling back her hood. “Do not think that I am here to serve the Queen. Do not think that I will forget my promise to remove myself from history if Nasrin is threatened.”
Katja screwed her eyes together tightly and ground the heel of her palm against her temple, forcing her vision to refocus.
“Well,” Claire said, both hands folded over the handle of her cane. “Would you care to continue talking, Rylan, or would you like to fire upon my people for a while longer?”
Rylan and Katja had prepared for a lot of things, but phoenix fire and necromancers more willing to act than I was didn’t rank amongst them.
“Kouris,” Kidira said sternly. “Last chance.”
It was the only thing she said. Katja did her best not to flinch.
“Dear me,” Katja said. She went to sigh, but when she fixed her eyes on Kondo-Kana, she couldn’t make sense of what she saw. She blinked, tried again, but stared to her right. “It appears someone has forgotten there is more than one floor in this castle.”
Katja lifted a hand, gesturing for their soldiers to move.
“The flames are symbolic,” Kondo-Kana said, neatening Haru-Taiki’s tail feathers. “Climb to the stars, if you wish, but those who cross the line will not remain bound to Bosma for long.”
Katja’s composure slipped. She actually sneered as she called the soldiers back with another wave of her hand. Kondo-Kana’s presence had a deep, scathing effect on her. It was almost as if Katja was deaf and blind to her, but could feel how sincere Kondo-Kana’s threats were.
There was nothing else for it. All Rylan and Katja could do was retreat into their half of the castle to restructure their plans.
None of us moved. Haru-Taiki’s flames put us at as much of a disadvantage as they did Rylan, and Atalanta and Varn kept their bows drawn, lest Rylan act in haste and have his soldiers rush towards us regardless.
Kondo-Kana placed a hand on my cheek and said, “If you were not here, Aejin, I would have sent them to their graves already. Time is my gift to you; I have it in abundance. Now, tell me. Where are they? Another Aejin yu ka Aejin walks these paths, yet they have not made themselves known to me.”
“I…”
Movement in the corridor Kondo-Kana had taken stopped me from having to explain that Halla didn’t understand what was inside of her. Queen Nasrin joined us, sari singed and torn, soot smeared across her skin. She sighed at the curtain of fire and knocked Kondo-Kana’s hand from my face.
“She’s being overly dramatic again, isn’t she?” Queen Nasrin said to Claire. “She saw to it that there wasn’t a scratch on me, yet here we are again.”
“Queen Nasrin. Had I known the castle would come under siege in such a way, I never would’ve—”
“Invited me here? You didn’t. I was forced here by Yin Zhou; even you do not have the power to say no to her gifts. And do not forget that I am the Queen of Canth. You’ve no idea how many assassins are sent after me on a weekly basis. Spend a month in my palace and you will find yourself laughing this off. Now, Kana has brought us time, if nothing else. We’d better find a way to fix all of this. I’d like to return to my country sometime this century.”
Claire bowed her head, grateful Queen Nasrin could keep calm in any situation. From above, Varn swore in delight and Atalanta clasped her hat to her chest. They vanished, replaced by the sound of boots thudding against stairs as they tore their way into the courtyard.
They bowed half a dozen times, hands on Queen Nasrin’s shoulders as they ensured she was truly in one piece.
“What the hell happened, Your Majesty?” Varn asked. “We were worried sick!”
“After that blast, I looked everywhere for you. I had rather hoped you were with Varn, but when I met up with her, I was terribly disappointed,” Atalanta said.
“Don’t fuss,” Queen Nasrin said, batting their hands away. “Kana and I were caught in the explosion, as you were. Kana suffered less for it and took me to safety. I have spent the last handful of hours convincing her to remain calm and not indiscriminately murder everyone in the castle. She is like a house cat: content to be perfectly lazy, until you step on her tail. Then she is all claws.”
