Dragonoak: Gall and Wormwood, page 65
I didn’t dare to move. I didn’t want to startle her more than she already was; one quick movement and half of Thule would be as the Bloodless Lands were.
“Is that what they told you?” I asked.
“Yes. Because… because that’s what happened.”
I didn’t look back but I knew the void had taken most of the castle. Confusion in the city had turned to cries of fear as people inched back, wanting to save themselves while they were drawn into a trance by what was unfurling between two necromancers.
“That’s what they said happened. But that doesn’t make it true,” I said. “Rylan was killed, but not by me. He was no King. He invaded our castle. He was going to use gunpowder from Agados to destroy Thule. He was willing to kill everyone and destroy everything to get what he wanted. Those don’t sound like the actions of an honourable man, do they?”
“But the King is a good man,” Halla protested. “He gave me this power! He protects me and I protect Agados from… from people like you.”
Halla’s eyes roared like a furnace.
How long would it be until she was beyond her King’s control and shown to that empty stone room Katja had spoken of?
In Halla’s mind, she could no longer distinguish Rylan from the Agadian King. We’d as good as slain the person who kept her imprisoned, who’d deluded her so, and to forgive us would be to accept all that he had done to her.
“That’s not true.” I tried to speak softly but wasn’t far off begging her to see reason. “He didn’t give you your power. I’ve never met him and you know I can do the same things you can. Kondo-Kana can, too. She’s up there on the balcony, watching us. You can feel her, can’t you? We’re necromancers, Halla. We were born with this power. Your King isn’t a good man. He’s just used one necromancer after another and all so that he can live longer. He… he disposes of them once they stop obeying him. You know this. That’s why he had to find you. You know you’re not Agadian, don’t you?”
It was too much at once. Halla screwed her face up and for the briefest moment, the void stopped spreading. She stopped drawing power into herself and turned to Tirok, clutching the front of his chestplate. He murmured something in Agadian to her and she nodded, relieved; he’d been at her side for years, ensuring she never remembered too much of herself.
“I’m sorry, Rowan,” she said, and it didn’t matter what she was sorry for. The void had stopped spreading. “I… I wanted to trust you, I really did. You’re like me, even if you don’t understand why. But I have to do this. I have to protect my Kingdom. Your people will take Agados if I don’t take you.”
I darted back, taking in what she had already destroyed. The damage was irreparable. We could rebuild hallways and replace battered doors, but humans and pane couldn’t live so close to a void. The castle was high up on a hill. The people would be forced to stare at it every day, until the only thing we could do was give up Thule. Abandon it in its entirety.
But I couldn’t give up.
“Don’t you want more than this, Halla?” I asked, stepping back as she reached out to me. “I know the Agadians only let you leave because you were doing this to Soldato. For all their armies, you have more power than they do. You could be free. Please, listen to me. You don’t have to do this.”
Halla held her tongue, fingers curling towards her palm.
In spite of Kondo-Kana’s story, I never considered that I might have another necromancer’s power pushed into me, one day. The light that ran through Halla surged into me, knocking my own clean out and sinking deep into my bones, burning, freezing. It was an unsettling, foreign feeling; I had been forced into a skin that wasn’t my own, and there was only one way this ended for me.
Silence, silence.
“Halla—” I tried, bones creaking. I tensed, certain my muscles were going to slide out beneath my skin.
“You… you’re saying what you think I want to hear,” Halla protested. She stepped closer as my knees buckled. “You’re fighting for your freedom. Of course you’d say that, of course…”
I didn’t want to push back against her with my own power, but her hold on me was crippling. My knees hitting the void was the least of my worries.
“I’m not. I’m doing this for Felheim, for everyone here, for—” My vision was swimming, colours swirling in front of me. “For you, too. I’ll go with you, Halla. We can leave together. Anywhere but Agados. Anywhere but back to your King.”
For a moment, Halla’s hold on me loosened.
“Why?” she asked. “Everything you have is here. Everything… Why would you do that?”
“Because what they’ve done to you isn’t fair. Because they could’ve done it to me, if they hadn’t found you. And I’d want someone to pull me out of it, no matter how hard it was.”
Halla screwed her eyes shut but light spilt out. She scrunched up her face but in the time it took for me to push myself to my feet, she knocked me back again.
“No!” she cried. “No. No, I can’t. Stop this, stop saying that…”
Akela had rushed down from the balcony and Atalanta and Varn were at her side, but the Agadian soldiers weren’t letting them through. Oak snarled, lashing out at them, whimpering every time a spear was futilely thrown against his side.
“Anywhere,” I murmured from the ground. “We could go anywhere. We could go to Canth, if you want to. Have you ever seen the ocean? We could spend hours out there, fishing. I could teach you how to swim.”
“… I know how to swim,” Halla said quietly. The dislodged memory caught her off-guard. She pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead and the void spread further than either of us could see.
Again, her powers gripped me. My ribs were steel, unbending, unbreakable, but a mountain was pressing down on them. I gasped for breath and begged my eyes to stay focused. I couldn’t pass out. I could let them take her back to Agados.
But my other option was to fight. Halla’s ability to extend life had been honed by the Agadians and their King, but all else boiled on the surface unfocused, untested. She drew in light beyond the Agadians’ control, beyond her understanding, and she’d never faced a dragon. She’d never run through a battlefield and risen fallen soldiers in their hundreds.
I was strong. I could do this. I could push myself to my feet and force my power through her until I left her twice as broken as the Agadians had.
My bones were no longer steel. They were drops of ink on the surface of the water, formless, twisting.
I refused to let another necromancer become as nothing in front of me.
My whole body shook and I thought of Iseul. Iseul, lying in my arms, free after so long. I’d saved him but it’d still been too late. But as I held him, a certain sense of peace had become him. His wounds thrummed through my mind and I remembered what Kouris had said of the Forest Within, and how Akela had desperately tried to explain what she’d seen beyond death.
I thought of Kondo-Kana’s fear and it hit me along with the weight of Halla’s power.
People weren’t supposed to see the Forest Within. Not until they were truly ready to reside in it.
Iseul had smiled at me. He’d said he couldn’t hear it, and there had been peace in that.
Kondo-Kana was wrong.
There was no such thing as the silence. It was nothing but another way to control necromancers.
There was only emptiness beyond life because Isjin – or something, someone – knew that we weren’t ready to leave Bosma, yet. Our bodies knew that they could heal and our spirits would cling to them as long as they could. Wounds would close. Limbs would regrow.
And when we were ready. When we were ready…
We were so much more than we thought we were, and I wouldn’t let another necromancer live in the depths of the fear they’d become accustomed to.
Throwing myself forward, knuckles hitting the void beneath, I used all of that power growing within me, the power I could use to end Halla’s misery for once and for all, and forced the empty ground to take it. Light blazed from my eyes, rose in wisps from my mouth, and with a roar, I pushed all that I had into the void.
Colour poured from me. The ink of my bones seeped into the bloodless ground and the stones turned grey, steel bars glimmering. The castle was an ancient thing again, not beyond time, and I stood straight, forcing Halla to stop.
Forcing her to think clearly for the first time.
I stepped forward and she moved back.
The brighter Halla felt me burn, the less afraid she became.
When I held out my hands, she knew to take them.
“Don’t you understand what we are? What we can do? You’re worth so much more than whatever the King tells you you are. You don’t have to use your power to fight for someone like that. You don’t have to fight me. You don’t have to fight anyone. You can use this power to protect yourself. To protect others,” I said in a whisper, squeezing her glowing fingers. “Is going back to Agados what you really want?”
My outburst of necromancy had either ripped something from her chest or cleared a fog long since settled into her mind.
Halla bowed her head and in a voice that broke my heart said, “… My mother let them take me.”
She fell easily into my arms but it wasn’t over. The Agadians who understood what was being said were more alarmed than whose who could only assume I’d bested her in some way. When they lunged at me, Varn and Akela were ready.
“Have you met Oak? He’s a giant dragon, by the way,” I asked as Ash led our soldiers between the grids of Agadians and held them in place. “He can take us anywhere. Wherever you want to go.”
I’d earnt the first tentative thread of trust Halla had to offer and she clung to the front of my shirt, shivering. I rubbed my hands against her arms and in a murmur she said, “I’d like to stay here. If… if you wouldn’t mind. I don’t… I don’t understand what’s really happened. And… you said there’s someone else here, isn’t there? Another—”
She paused, unable to form the word. She wasn’t ready to admit that her powers hadn’t been bestowed upon her by the King, yet.
“Right. Kondo-Kana. She’d love to meet you.”
Halla nodded. I kept my arms around her, kept her steady.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said, and it was decided.
That was how we won.
Not by slaughtering the Agadians where they stood and not by tearing the light from the chest of a necromancer who had barely been allowed a thought of her own. But by reaching out to her and letting her know that there was always another way.
We were more than what people would use us for. We were not merely there for Kings to impose their rule centuries after they ought to have fallen, to twist dragons against their nature and pave history with ash and fear.
We could revive dying lands and return stolen life.
We were more than death and darkness.
We were the light we burnt with and so much more.
I turned to the balcony and raised a hand. I waved to Claire and it was over. The Agadians backed away and the people of Thule marched towards the gates, ground solid beneath their feet.
They brought their hands together, clapping along to a rhythm that drove the Agadians out, and I held Claire’s gaze as the people cheered for their Queen, chanting her name over and over.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Years spent watching over Port Mahon made organising repairs second-nature to Reis. In the weeks that followed the siege, citizens came pouring in to help clear the debris while Reis drew up all manner of plans. They were intent on doing more than merely fixing the castle; none too impressed by the number of steep, unforgiving staircases scattered around the building, they set about installing pulley-drawn lifts on scaffolds outside the towers and reworking some of the entrances.
The days grew colder and winter greeted us with flurries of snow from the mountaintops. The mountains brought other things, too: the pane came down in their hundreds and though I held my breath for them, the Thulians let them mingle in the streets. There was resistance, of course, but less than we had dared to hope for. The whole city was trying to regain its balance after the unrest and fear, and bit by bit, people were starting to accept that things would never be the same again.
Ash, Laus and Goblin worked long days and longer nights to maintain order in the streets. I feared Thule would forever be a ruin of itself, cracked deeper than gunpowder could’ve accounted for; but a month passed and businesses opened as they always had, markets boomed with life, and the people had shaken off much of what had happened as they did bad dreams.
It wasn't so easy for the rest of us. The castle was far from the only thing we had to repair. Our soldiers patrolled the wall at all hours, only now, they weren’t keeping the former Kastelirians out. They stood watch, anticipating retaliation from Agados. But the Agadians didn’t come for Halla in the night, as I often dreamt they would. With the threat of Rylan gone and his funeral a small, private affair, half of those with a say in the castle were more intent than ever on protecting Felheim above all else.
Haru-Taiki's influence could only do so much.
And more than that, amidst the confusion and unrest, the people had one question that rose above all others: why did the Queen have a necromancer living in the castle?
In spite of that, there was relief in it. Rylan's army was not coming for us and each day, we heard word of some new disruption gnawing at Agados from the inside. The King, if there had ever been a King, did not last long without Halla. No replacement had been found for her. A new ruler had taken the throne, and while I did not expect change to happen overnight, Agados would never again be as it had for centuries.
Felheim was a tangled mess of its own downfall and the deep-seated problems its rulers had woven into it, but there was no rush. Our days were not numbered. We could take as long as we needed to unknot the ragged skein and set our Kingdom on a better path.
On the first day of Winter's End, I walked around the castle with Varn and Halla and couldn't imagine how I would ever tire of this: peace, at last. Varn grumbled as we went and huffed all the more when I took a seat on a low, stone wall. She kicked restlessly at the knee-deep snow claiming the lawns.
“Still can't believe this is real,” she muttered. “Cold, white sand. What the hell.”
Halla didn't need to understand a word of Canthian to know Varn was complaining. Her lips curled into a smile and she picked up on the sound of Varn's boots swinging in the snow and did the same. She took a deep breath, enjoying all the crisp, cold air around her. It was happening more and more, these days: Halla had started to smile freely and often. She didn't always feel like leaving her chambers and none of us pushed her, but I always made certain to let her know I was there.
More importantly, I made sure she knew I wasn't angry when she took time to herself.
“Ready for tonight?” I asked her.
“Akela's going to help me,” Halla said, hooking an arm around mine. “Do I need to bring anything? We're supposed to be raising money, but...”
“Just yourself!” I said, nudging her side.
Halla nodded, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of her mouth. Varn shot me a worried look and I raised my hand, letting her know that she didn't have to act. My troubles rattled inside my head while Halla's tended to pour from her. I was getting better at recognising the signs. I gave her arm a squeeze and Varn scooted onto the wall next to her, patting her shoulder.
“Is Varn coming?” Halla asked.
I translated the question and Varn said, “Hell yes I'm ready for tonight. Ready to get off this godsforsaken continent, and I ain't going out without a bang. I've got a week on the sea coming up. I'm gonna get so drunk I won't even realise we've left land.”
I delivered the message back to Halla. She laughed into her scarf and said, “Does that mean she has a dress?”
“I think Haru-Taiki will be in a dress before Varn,” I said, grinning.
Varn understood enough to reach over Halla and smack the back of my head.
The guards made their rounds, uncertain of how to react to me. Claire, Kidira, Eden and Akela were easy enough to snap salutes to, and while it was begrudgingly accepted that the castle was mine to freely roam, the guards tended to walk a little faster when their patrols crossed my path.
“What’re they gonna do when you're Queen too?” Varn asked.
“What?”
“Never mind,” Varn said, winking. “Let's get a move on, yeah? It always takes Lanta hours to get ready and she always needs my opinion. Like she don't look good in everything.”
Varn and I took Halla to Akela's chamber and wandered aimlessly. Apparently Atalanta could do without Varn's keen eye for a little longer.
The city had been caught up in a swell of preparations, putting more effort into decorating homes and public places than they had for the Phoenix Festival. The servants were busy putting the finishing touches around the castle.
“You lot always make such a fuss?” Varn asked.
“We had a feast back in my village. That was about it. The longest it ever lasted was two or three days,” I said. “But everyone in Thule – everyone who can afford it – celebrates all month. That's what Claire told me. I think everyone's really eager to celebrate this year and forget everything with Rylan and Agados.”
“Like they were even involved! All they did was stand around and wait while we sorted everything,” Varn said. “Anyway, whatever. Can't expect much from a stupid holiday about a made-up season. You know what's proper worth celebrating this time of year?”
“What?”
“My birthday,” she said, slapping her chest.
“It's mine soon, too!” I said. “On the twenty-third.”
“No fucking way!” Varn said, but remembered herself before she could look too pleased about it. “Get your own birthday, North Woods.”
