Dragonoak: The Complete History of Kastelir (20 page)

Michael kept himself occupied with the talk of books and the worlds they tried to encompass, and would often attempt to learn more about Rán's language. Thus far, I'd manage to gather that it was called Svargan, but most of their impromptu lessons took place while Claire and I sparred.

Like that, with Claire ladling up the stew and Rán letting me lean against her as Michael babbled on, I was just sleepy enough to believe that there was nothing bad in this at all; that we were all travelling for the sake of travelling, and would know what we were looking for once we found it.

But I couldn't help but notice that I knew less about Rán than I did about Claire, reserved as she was. Rán spoke plenty about her adventures with Reis and her time in Canth, but her stories felt like Michael's tales; entertaining, but not about the speaker.

“How old are you?” I abruptly asked her, blowing on a spoonful of stew.

“How old do you think I am?” Rán bounced back, enjoying what had once been part of a deer. I assumed.

I hummed, looking between her, Michael and Claire, but the only guess I could give was, “A few years older than Claire?”

“And how old might the dragon-slayer be?”

I looked to Claire for an answer. Michael too was eager for a response; it seemed he'd learnt to hold back some of the more prying questions he usually dealt out.

“Thirty-one,” Claire said, once she realised everyone was turned towards her.

“Then I suppose I'm a few years older than that,” Rán declared cheerfully, licking a streak of something off her palm.

In truth, I was probably irritated by Michael's current complaints regarding our sleeping situation because I had an unfair advantage. One night, when Rán had seen me shuffling on the spot, trying to get comfortable against the gnarled ground, she'd snatched me up in her arms. Her chest was broad and tough, as though she wore armour beneath her leathers, but that armour was her skin itself, and I slept peacefully with one of her arms draped across my back.

I drifted off with Rán's chest rising and falling beneath me, lulled to sleep by the thought of Isin not being the end. Perhaps I'd cross into Canth with her. I'd endure months on the Uncharted Sea if it meant having the chance to find out if what she'd said about necromancy there was true; if it meant avoiding my village.

Rán moved in the night. It wasn't unusual; she always had to rise to take over the night's watch from Claire, and though I stirred, I never woke all the way. As large as she was, all teeth and claws and curved horns, Rán was surprisingly gentle. When the time came for her to stand guard, I was in a thick of enough sleep that the ground didn't trouble me.

But that night, something did disturb me. A twig snapped beyond the border of my dreams, not loudly enough for Rán to have crushed it. Claire always moved as silently as a shadow. I doubted any of the horses were to blame – they needed more sleep than the rest of us – which meant that Michael was causing a fuss.

I grumbled myself half awake, turned onto my side so that I could hiss at him to be quiet, but it wasn't Michael stood above me.

A woman froze, eyes fixed on mine. Against the backdrop of the fire's dying embers, I saw the shape of an axe hanging from her hand. There was no chance I could screw my eyes shut and pretend I hadn't seen her: the blade didn't gleam, but it was headed for me regardless, swung swiftly in a strong, panicked blow.

My mind reeled but my body reacted. I scrambled back through the dirt, grit and stones pressing into the heel of my palms, feet scoring ruts in the ground. The axe came down, embedding itself into a tree root in lieu of my skull.

My mouth wouldn't open. My jaw trembled but it was lodged in place, and I reached out to the side, clawing against a tree trunk, trying to hoist myself up.

But the rest of my body was shaking, too. The woman lifted her axe again, held it high above her head between both hands, and I held out an arm to shield myself—

For a single, solitary second, the woman didn't move. A statue stood over me in place of anything warm and yielding, axe and hands carved of the same stone.

The moonlight caught Claire's sword, pushed clean through the axewoman's back.

I finally moved in a way that wasn't to tremble, pushed myself up into a sitting position and saw Claire standing behind her, eyes hard like steel, fixed on me.

She pulled her blade free. The woman whined, but no sound followed as she crumpled to the ground. She clawed desperately at her chest, trying to hold the torrent of blood back as it pooled from the twin wounds through her torso.

She gurgled on the blood that rushed between her teeth, convulsing on the floor. Life rattled its way out of her. Claire became a statue in the axewoman's place: she stared at me, bloodied sword in hand, and the pounding in my chest rose between my temples.

I tore my eyes away from her. A hundred miles away, Michael was ripped from his dreams and jumped around the camp, blurting out, “Fuck! Are you—is she—?”. It faded into the distance. The gushing of blood slowed and the last few weak, failing beats of the axewoman's heart made the air thrum.

Something guided me.

Tendrils of dark in the black, wrapped around my wrists, leading my hands towards the wound.

“Rowan,” Claire said sternly. “What are you doing?”

“She's bleeding out,” I murmured, fingers becoming slick as they slid under skin.

“She tried to
kill
you,” she said coldly, dropping her sword and stepping forward.

“
Tried
,” I said, and it didn't matter if Claire wanted me to stop.

I'd already started.

The wound closed. Rent muscle knitted itself together, skin sealing shut as new blood filled the woman's veins, rushing into her heart, forcing it back into a rhythm. The wound echoed in my own chest. My body buzzed as I worked, but a jolt tore through me as I pushed death back, like I'd plunged my hands into ice-cold water.

The axewoman writhed throughout the whole process, brief as it was, and didn't stop moving once she was healed. Her breath came harshly and she choked on the blood left in the back of her throat, and I was covered in all she'd been drained of, just like the ground beneath us.

“Thank you, thank you—” she whimpered, sobbing.

She must've thought I was a healer.

Michael clamped his hands on my shoulders and I came back to myself. I didn't realise I'd drifted, but he said, “It's done, it's done,” and everything shifted back into focus. Claire stood in front of me, ready to hoist the woman to her feet, and the forest was full of sounds again; the rustling of leaves and small creatures scurrying.

I brought a hand to my mouth and traced a smile.

I sprang to my feet, clenching and unclenching my fists to ease the sharp stab of power out of my system, and watched Claire kick the woman in the ribs. The axewoman froze, terrified of what Claire would do next, making it easy for Claire to drag her through the dirt and pin her against a tree.

Michael remained by my side, fussing under his breath, far too jittery to make sense of anything.

And Rán wasn't there.

“Who sent you?” Claire demanded, placing her forearm across the woman's collarbone.

She didn't answer. She wasn't holding her tongue; in spite of the way she'd swung her axe with the intention of killing me, she was too frightened to speak. Her eyes were wide and watery, pleading for me to help her, and I brought up a hand, rubbing my knuckles between my ribs.

Claire gestured towards one of Rán's bags.

“Rope,” she said, and Michael almost tripped over himself in an effort to comply. He was doing all the panicking I didn't yet have the chance to.

Claire tied the axewoman to the tree. She didn't consider struggling, but dug her heels into the ground when Claire began to pace in front of her, eyes fixed on her discarded sword.

“Now,” Claire said, taking a deep breath. “We have no intention of hurting you. Not again. Whether or not you answer my questions, you shall remain here until such a time as someone comes to collect you, or happens upon you. Do you understand?”

Michael brought the fire back to life. The woman's uniform was unfamiliar, dark greys without an emblem or distinct patterning, but when I saw her in the light, I started.

“I know who she is,” I blurted out. I'd been standing there silent and motionless since Claire dragged the axewoman away, and everyone turned to face me. Narrowing her gaze, Claire stepped over, standing close to me. I got the hint and pushed myself onto tiptoes, whispering in her ear. “In the tavern, that time we had to run away, because a soldier came in. I told you I'd seen Sir Luxon—she was with him.”

“You're sure?” Claire asked, straightening.

“I am,” I said, and Claire nodded to herself, heading back over to the woman.

“You know who I am, I see,” Claire said to her.

“Yes,” the woman said, one heel and then the next pushing into the dirt. “... Sir.”

Claire paced back and forth on the other side of the fire. It was far from cold, but I'd started to shake, and wrapping my arms around myself did nothing to help.

“I understand how it is,” Claire said eventually. “Luxon sends you here to assassinate me – the man always was a coward, he must've known that you'd barely succeed in slowing me down, let alone stop me – but my squire wakes up, spots you, and you make an attempt on her life. Yet she is far better than I can profess to be and opts to
save
your life.”

The woman stopped squirming, slumped against the tree and stared off to the side.

It wasn't the time for her to sulk.

She stubbornly nodded her head and Michael breathed out a gasp of surprise, getting himself into a state all over again.

“Why?” Claire asked.

“I don't know!” the woman declared, words practically bursting from her throat. “Sir Luxon gave me the assignment. He said... he said he couldn't say why. Just that the pressure had got to you, that you'd gone rogue and killed half a dozen citizens!”

Michael, who'd been marching back and forth behind me, clung to my arms, fingertips digging in. Claire wasn't given the chance to respond to the allegation, had no time to defend herself; we were interrupted by Rán lumbering through the trees, pushing back low branches as she went.

She froze, saw the axe on the ground and the woman tied to the tree, the blood soaking my clothes and smearing my skin, and pieced it all together. She rushed over to me and I wanted nothing more than to sink against her chest.

“Yrval, what happened, are you—” she started, but Claire marched over, knocking Rán's hands off my shoulders.

“Where were you?” Claire demanded, and her voice was not quiet. “You were supposed to be keeping watch.”

“I—” Rán started, faltering. Claire advanced on her and she actually stepped back. “I had to get away for a moment, that's all...”

Her words came out weakly. Rán didn't have an excuse for herself; her gaze kept darting towards me, ears drooping. She thought we'd be safe.

Any other night and she would've been right.

“Not good enough,” Claire snapped. She was doing a good job of seeming more terrifying with her words than she had with a blade in her hand. “
Look—
look at what happened. At what
could've
happened.”

“I was—” Rán tried, snarling in frustration. She leant close to Claire's ear, murmuring something in Svargan.

Claire's face paled.

“Ah,” she said, looking as though she might relent for a moment. Splaying a hand against Rán's chest, she pushed her back and said, “Watch her. Pack up our things. We need to move on.”

Rán made no reply. She looked over as though she wanted to reach out and wrap her arms around me, and I desperately wanted to tell her that it was alright; this wasn't her fault.

Claire stopped me before I could do as much. She gestured for me to follow her deeper into the forest and I moved on legs that were too light to be my own. The fact that
I'd
nearly had an axe embedded into my skull was doing what it could to catch up to me, and I was distantly numb, as though I'd witnessed something I wasn't a part of. Michael's fussing barely grounded me and Rán's guilt was already distant, but Claire was something solid for me to focus on.

I followed her between trees growing so closely together that I couldn't imagine Rán navigating the forest, until we came to a lake that was barely deep enough to drown in. I stared at the dim surface, wondering why we'd stopped until I remembered the blood on my shirt, on my hands and arms.

And only then, alone with Claire in the depths of the forest, did I recall what the axewoman said.

That she'd been sent after Claire because she'd killed innocent people.

Claire turned to face me. She was far from unaffected by what happened and the even nature of her expression slipped; her face was almost something I didn't recognise. I expected her words to be sharp, for her to reprimand me for what I'd done, yet she reached out to me, two fingers pressing beneath my jaw.

“Your eyes were—” she began softly, and I lifted my head to meet her gaze. “When you saved that woman, your eyes were bright. Not eerily so, but... it was unusual.”

I didn't know anything about that, but I knew Luxon had lied to the axewoman to make her do as he wished.

Claire continued to look at me, fingertips brushing against my neck, and that iciness in my chest twisted deeper.

“Clean yourself up,” Claire said, abruptly retrieving her hand.

I worked my knuckles against my chest and Claire took a seat on a rock, back to the lake, sword draped across her lap. It took me a moment to wade into the water. I was trembling worse than ever, seeing flashes of the blade each time I blinked, arms wrapped too tightly around myself to get my shirt off.

Every time I glanced back, Claire was staring into the black of the forest. She wasn't going to turn, not unless I called for help. She wasn't going to see the scars that weren't scars riddled across my body.

I pulled my shirt off, plunging it into the water along with the rest of my torso. Any rage or fear I ought to have been at the mercy of fizzled away and my stomach became heavy, filled with all the muck and mire bloated at the bottom of the lake. I scrubbed at my arms, washed blood from between my fingers and cleaned my face and shoulders as best I could, sure I'd missed at least half of it.