Dragonoak: Gall and Wormwood, page 8
The one holding Laus on their tiptoes slowly let go, though not consciously. I may have never seen them before, but I could tell they were the sort of people who didn’t look like themselves without a smug grin on their faces. They stared at Claire as though they had walked in on a ghost, and not one they longed for a reunion with anytime soon.
But the fact that they stared at her so intently they forgot to breathe was nothing in comparison to the way Queen Aren looked at her. She stood behind the twins, far taller than them, and all the contempt and frustration Laus had stirred in her seconds ago was as nothing. Not a trace of it remained. She stared at Claire as though she could not trust her eyes. As though she was too scared to reach out and touch Claire, because it would mean she could not trust her hands, either.
Her eyes didn’t brim with tears. There was no weakness there. She reminded me of Kidira, in a way: the first time I had met her, she had been caught off-guard by a reunion of her own, but it had never done anything to diminish the strength I knew she had.
I didn’t look at Claire. If my hands were shaking, I couldn’t imagine the force that tore through her.
I understood how Aren felt, seeing Claire as she was after so many years. In that way, I had no right to stare at her to keep myself grounded.
“Claire,” Queen Aren tried. It was but a whisper, thick and clunky. She was too accustomed to speaking of Claire as part of the past. Having her in the present was as impossible as tearing apart time itself to get to her. “Claire. I had thought—”
She paused. She cleared her throat and spoke again.
“Mansels. Move.”
It took the pair of them a moment to comprehend words and their meaning. When they finally parted, they did so with a jolt. One of them belatedly remembered to drag Laus off to the side. With the day they were having, Laus deserved more than triple their wages.
“Queen Aren,” Claire said, when there was no one else between them.
It was not what she had wanted to say. All of us understood that. But the word mother would not pass her lips, and she could only make do with stiff formalities and a pretence of politeness.
Until Queen Aren stepped forward, arms outstretched.
My chest ached, and ached more when I tried to imagine what Claire must be feeling. There was no resistance on her part. She let Queen Aren wrap her arms around her shoulders and pull her close, let her hold her as tightly as she must’ve done so many times as a child. Claire didn’t blink. She didn’t move. Queen Aren placed a hand on the back of Claire’s head and whispered something about it being alright now, and only then did Claire stop acting the part of Felheim’s lost Princess.
She was just Claire, slack in her mother’s arms. She clung to Queen Aren tightly, pressed her face to her shoulder, and behind them, the Mansels looked at each other with a mixture of distress and confusion. One of them pointed to her own face in blunt surprise, and the other mouthed what may well have been fucking hell.
“Claire. My darling,” Queen Aren murmured. “What happened? What has been done to you?”
There was not a liar on Bosma who could’ve sounded so convincingly clueless. Amongst all the second-hand emotion rising in my throat, I realised there was hope in that. Queen Aren hadn’t known what became of Claire and hadn’t thought of her as being any worse off than dead. If she was not working closely alongside her husband, perhaps we had more allies than we’d imagined.
Claire leant back and dared to meet her mother’s eye.
“What do you mean what has happened?” she asked.
Queen Aren pressed her hand to Claire’s cheek with a hesitance that feared the wounds were fresh, and that she might not only hurt Claire, but find her own hand stuck to the mess of raw, melting skin. She tilted her head to the side, and her watery smile was one of pity. How could anyone not understand what she meant? How could anyone overlook what she had been reduced to?
“Mansels. Wait outside,” Queen Aren said sharply. The tone of her voice was at odds with the mood, and I wondered if I’d witnessed all the tenderness their reunion had to offer. “Ensure that we are not disturbed under any circumstances.”
“But Your Majesty, don’t you thi—” one of the Mansels started.
“Keep guard and do not disturb me,” Queen Aren interjected, and in a mutter added, “Unless my other child sees fit to return today, as well.”
The Mansels were obedient in action, but their attitude made it clear they weren’t happy with their dismissal. One of them caught my eye and patted the mace at her hip, and the other pulled the door to with a great thud, as though we were being locked inside, rather than them being shut out.
Queen Aren glanced my way, but before she could make a decision, Claire said, “She stays.”
“Very well,” Queen Aren said.
There were matters far more pressing to discuss than who I happened to be.
Claire and Queen Aren stepped back from one another. Their actions were slow, reluctant, but they would never express any desire to stay close with words. As I watched them move apart, I knew they would never come together in such a way again; that there never be a moment of unquestioned affection like that between them again. They were who they were, and castle life demanded they fit into their roles.
“When that guard came to me and said you wished to speak to me, I thought… I do not know what I thought,” Queen Aren said. “When they returned a second time, I would not allow myself to believe they were not intentionally trying to hurt me. I was furious. I wanted them to be wrong, purely to have someone to take my anger out on.”
“I am here, mother,” Claire said, and the pull of her lips made it clear how uncertain she was whether it was a good thing.
“And I cannot begin to understand how that is possible. You were dead a dozen times over. Lost to us long before that. And now you return. As what? I have before me my daughter, fresh from her grave, and I do not know whether I ought to be grateful for that.”
“You might want to sit down for this,” I said, more for Claire’s benefit than Queen Aren’s. “It’s going to take a lot of explaining.”
Queen Aren didn’t respond. She didn’t even look at me, though she took a seat once Claire did.
They sat in armchairs as stiffly as though they were boards with rusted nails sticking out of them, each waiting for the other to start.
“I did not die,” Claire stated, once it became clear that she had more answers to give than her mother did. “Not in the attack on Isin, and not after that. Despite Sir Luxon’s best efforts.”
Queen Aren clicked her tongue.
“The man was sent to find you. To see that you were returned home. Not to harm you. What a waste of a Knight.”
“And yet you still see fit to employ the Sir Mansels as your personal guard. If we are to talk of waste,” Claire said. There was judgement in her voice, but it was an old, teasing sort. It was the first time the conversation had stopped pulling everyone in the room’s nerves taut.
“They are crude, but efficient,” Queen Aren pointed out. “I am not yet dead or betrayed, am I?”
Claire opened her mouth with the start of a rebuke she’d likely offered up a dozen times in the past, but stopped short of speaking. There were more pressing things on the tip of her tongue.
“I have spent these past years in the former Kastelir, cut off from my homeland. I did not wish to fight against Felheim, but I was given no choice,” Claire said. “I had thought there was hope yet for not only Felheim but its royal family, but when the dragons came, when Isin crumbled and burnt around me…
“It has not been an easy two years. I have not borne the title of traitor lightly, but will continue to do so, if I might continue to stand for what remains of our neighbours, beyond the wall.”
“Claire,” Queen Aren said, and she said it as though she understood more than Claire ever would, no matter how much fire rained down on her. “Claire, my darling. It pains me to see you like this, it truly does. But more than that, it hurts me to know that you spent years – that you spent more than a second – thinking of us as your enemy. That I was against you, or had any part in this. You have it all wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Claire asked. Her jaw was set, and she was determined not to believe anything but the truth she had lived since leaving Felheim. “If not you and the King, who else bears responsibility?”
“Not us. Never us. Your brother…” Queen Aren said, doing her utmost not to lose track of her words or thoughts. “Surely you have heard his name spoken with contempt, if you have been in Kastelir all these years. Rylan has… he has not served our family well. You father never would’ve condemned Isin as Rylan did. If I had any idea of what was to happen, do you not think I would’ve stepped in? All that death. All that destruction. Senseless, the lot of it. I could’ve stopped your father, Claire, but Rylan had something to prove.”
Claire didn’t answer. She curled her hands into fists and stared down at her missing fingers. It was all slipping out from under us. We had come to Thule to cut Rylan off at the source, to uncover what sense there was left in the plans we did not yet know of. But if Queen Aren spoke the truth, then Thule was as blind as we were.
His armies and his rampage had another root altogether.
“Claire, look at me,” Queen Aren whispered. “This wasn’t us. What happened to you: it wasn’t us.”
I hated the way she spoke to Claire. I hated the way she spoke of what had happened to her, as though it had been one single, solitary event. In the same way that she had suffered after Isin fell, she had suffered for long years before that, too. But because there were no scars from that time for the Queen to see, she did not acknowledge them. Everything Claire was, everything she had been through and endured, was treated like something that had just happened to her, one day.
“Then you don’t have any control over Rylan?” I blurted out. “He just took the dragons and your army and you couldn’t do anything about it? You didn’t have anything to do with it?”
Claire’s return was not enough to make Queen Aren forget who and what she was. Rising to her feet, she took brisk steps towards me, towering over me as I stood my ground by Claire’s side.
Her piercing green eyes bore into me, and not a single grey hair was out of place as she spoke, slowly and calmly.
“And who are you?” she asked. “No, never mind that: who are you to address me in such a way?”
She was not speaking as Alex had, shocked though he’d been. She would not take the shape of her words back or apologise for her tone later.
But I did not cower. She may have been a Queen, but she was not Queen Nasrin: I did not need anything from her, did not have to prove myself. She may have been powerful, but I had dealt with Queen Kidira before: she had struck me, and that bruise had healed over in a heartbeat.
“I was in Isin, that day,” I told her. Claire reached out and took hold of my wrist, but I didn’t need her to defend me. “I was there when the first dragon came. I watched the fire take everything, and I stayed to help drag people from under piles of rubble and out of burning buildings. I was in Kastelir – in the territories – for the past few months, too, and it’s full of soldiers. Soldiers dressed just like the ones around the castle.
“They’re still there. They’re still taking towns, still tracking down the dragons they’ve lost control of, and hacking them up to make weapons. Felheim is still everywhere, trampling over a country they’ve already destroyed. But you say that you had nothing to do with it. That it’s all Rylan. But I don’t think – I don’t understand – how that makes any sense. Why didn’t you stop him?”
Queen Aren said nothing. I thought she might strike me, or otherwise yell for the Mansels, but the silence persisted, until Claire said, “Her name is Rowan Northwood.”
The corner of the Queen’s mouth slanted downwards, and in what I’m certain was a very dignified, noble gesture, she threw her hands into the air and returned to her armchair. She did not slump, though she pinched the bridge of her nose.
“She raises a fair point. Why didn’t you stop him?” Claire asked. “Why continue to lend him your support?”
“Why?” Queen Aren’s voice was an octave too high. The words slipped under my skin. “Why indeed, Claire. Why do you think he so much as knew of the dragons in the first place? Your father chose to tell you for a reason, Claire. He trusted you. We both did. But with you obviously and abysmally absent, our hand was forced. We had to pass succession onto someone, and Alexander could not very well take the throne.”
Claire didn’t take the bait. She did not for a moment accept an ounce of the blame her mother tried to sling onto her shoulders.
“And so you gave him complete control over the dragons,” Claire said. “You let him burn a Kingdom of millions to the ground.”
“He was defending Felheim. He knew of Kastelir’s – of your plot – to turn against Felheim, and he could not risk war. Not if the Kastelirians knew the dragons would be no real threat to them, once they took Thule. You make it sound so simple, Claire. I was ill. Your father was ill, and remains so. You were gone, and there was only so much we could do. Rylan believed he was doing the right thing. He was so convinced that his actions were the right course, the only way to save Felheim, but we never for a moment thought he would bring down the whole of Kastelir. It is regrettable, my darling.”
“Regrettable,” Claire muttered. “I was not helping the Kastelirians prepare for war. That was the last thing any of us wanted. I sent them a warning and asked for their aid in helping put me upon Felheim’s throne, where I belong. Rylan caught wind of a rumour or created one himself, and took it as truth. All of this, because of an assumption.”
Claire took a deep breath, trying to draw all of the tension out of the room. Queen Aren, paling more to hear that war had never been a possibility more than she had to see her daughter alive after so long, tried to pull back what had unravelled between them.
“Why are we arguing, Claire?” she asked. “Do you truly believe there is any chance I might side with Rylan? He has clearly known of your condition all this time, but has never said so much as a word to me. He allowed me to believe that you were dead all these years, and that alone is enough to consider his actions unforgivable.”
“That is the unforgivable part. Not that he has slaughtered millions and destroyed countless settlements, countless homes. But that he did not tell you that your daughter is—deformed,” Claire said.
“Claire,” Queen Aren scolded. “Rylan has gone too far, and we must stop him, no matter what it takes. I am not the enemy here.”
“And what of you?” Claire went on, not hearing a word Queen Aren said. “Last I saw you, you could not get out of bed without help. Your skin was— Your eyes were— You were dying, mother. They call it healer’s bane for a reason.”
Queen Aren dug her head against the chair’s backrest and sighed at the ceiling. How easy this all would have been if she was still on the verge of dying. She would have Claire’s sympathy, if nothing else.
“I am loathed to ask how much you know, but I have a feeling I ought to assume that you are aware of everything, at this point. If I speak of something that confuses you, I suppose you might ask me to clarify as I go,” Queen Aren said, stalling for time. “I am not proud of what I did, Claire. But with everything happening, with Rylan waging his war, with you dead and your father dying, and only Alexander left to claim the throne, I did what I had to. We have a necromancer. It is kept beyond the mountains, in the Bloodless Lands. I went to it, and the healer’s bane was not such a problem, after that.”
It. It. It was a tool, and thing to manipulate and forget. It had no feelings, no past. No name.
I wish I had been brave enough to burst into light in front of her. Instead, I only had words to use against her.
“Iseul. The necromancer’s name was Iseul. He was Kastelirian, and he was a taxidermist, from the town where they executed Queen Kouris,” I said slowly, clearly. “He went as far as Canth, but missed his home. There was so much of the world for him to see, but you and the King had him captured and used. He was kind. He believed in his country, new as it was. He gave you back your life, and his name was Iseul.”
My hands were shaking, worse than they had when Iseul faded in my arms. As I shouted the words at Queen Aren, I was amazed that the guilt building in my throat didn’t silence me. I wanted so much to speak for Iseul, but had already spilt all that I knew of him, as though that was all there was to him. Because we were both necromancers, I had foolishly let myself believe I knew everything about him. Yet I had never so much as asked Kouris more than a handful of questions about what he was, rather than who.
“This is beyond ridiculous,” Queen Aren said. What would she think if I told her Iseul was dead? Would that finally draw a reaction out of her? “I have not seen my daughter in more than two years, and I do not need an audience.”
“She stays,” Claire said, not feeling the need to elaborate.
“She is welcome to stay in the castle all she wishes. I will have her escorted to chambers of her own,” Queen Aren said, but I would not be moved. Not away from Claire. “Mansels!”
Claire got to her feet as the doors swung open.
“Leave,” she told the Knights. “You will not take orders from the Queen any longer.”
One of them snorted a laugh, and Queen Aren’s mouth pressed into a thin line.
“Is that what this is, Claire? An invasion, comprised of the two of you?” she asked with a dreary sigh. “Darling, you’ve no need to invade anywhere. This is your home, and despite what you believe, despite what you think of me, I am on your side. The two of us are united against Rylan. We want the same things. You do not need to fight me; there is nothing you can win, nothing to be won.”
