Dragonoak: The Complete History of Kastelir (59 page)

I claimed an armchair, once I was alone, but couldn't bring myself to touch what remained of the wine. I gripped at the arms of the chair, stomach turning at the mere thought of anything passing my lips, and stared at the door. Any moment now, guards were going to burst in and drag me away, because King Jonas was risen, and
I'd
done it. They'd know. How could they not?

I wanted to scream or sob, to pull at my hair, but my mind wouldn't let me move. And so I sat, eyes fixed on the door, until it creaked open.

It wasn't the guards. Of course it wasn't; Katja had a plan, and she'd never let them find me.

Twice now Claire had caught death's attention. I'd seen her teeth stained red and her skin splayed open, flesh branded by a dragon; twice she had come back to me without a scratch on her. She took slow, heavy steps across the room, not seeming to notice me, walking as though her body was still riddled with wounds.

She fell into an armchair and stared, as I had, at the floor, making a statue of herself. I tried to work out what I should do for her, whether I ought to get her a drink or say something, but didn't know what would get through to her. Rising, I took a step and she shattered. She covered her face with her hands as she began to cry.

She wasn't loud, but tears streamed between her fingers, and her shoulders shook as I wrapped my arms around her. She let herself be pulled close and clung to the back of my shirt, and I murmured, “Claire, Claire,” running my fingers through her hair. I didn't tell her it was alright. I didn't tell her not to cry.

“We'll get away from this,” I whispered, trying to soothe her. “We'll leave tomorrow morning, just like we planned.”

It was enough for her to catch her breath, leaning back to look up at me with tear-streaked cheeks. I brushed my thumbs across her face, jaw trembling beneath my fingertips.

“Leave? We cannot leave, Rowan. Not now,” she said, falling back against me, energy spent in a handful of words.

If I tensed, Claire thought nothing of it.

“Why... ?”

“Felheim will not stop now. There will be more dragons, and Kastelir is not prepared,” she said, strength returning to her voice when she spoke of dragons. “Akela is... passable, but unrefined. It is up to me to teach them how to deal with dragons.”

It didn't matter. Whether King Jonas returned to the castle within a minute or a week, it didn't matter. The last sliver of hope I'd been clinging to in a desperate attempt to keep myself calm was gone; but with Claire in my arms, it almost didn't matter. This wasn't about me. No matter the consequences, I could face them, so long as I'd ensured Claire was alright.

I could leave on my own. It didn't have to be the end of the world. I could head to Kyrindval and send word from there, doing all I could to help from afar.

“Is it always like this?” I asked, moving beyond fear.

“Always,” Claire said, tears no longer flowing so freely. “In Thule, a Knight's return is celebrated days later for this very reason. It is said that there are only thirteen Knights, but that is not true. Knights come and go. There are hundreds, thousands, eager to be trained; dozens ready to take our place, when we fall. We are expendable; healers are not.

“We are sent out to face dragons. If we survive, we are brought back to the capital, and...”

She drew in a heavy breath, shoulders rising. I remained silent, giving her the time she needed to find the words, and ran my fingers through her hair, uneven along the edges, singed ends cut away.

“They cut me out of my armour,” she eventually said, looking away from me. “There were healers, and so it did not
hurt,
naturally, yet...”

“It doesn't matter if it didn't hurt,” I said, not daring to blink, “You still had to go through that all. You still saw it, felt it. I'm so sorry, Claire.”

Grimacing, she bit on her lower lip. While her gaze was fixed on the wall, I quickly wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, desperate to be strong so that she didn't have to. What she said next came out so quietly that I knew the words were not meant for me, not entirely; they slipped out of her like a confession, all the dark things she had ever thought about herself hidden amongst something far grimmer.

“Every time I seek out a dragon, I do so as though I am to die. I do not
want
to face them, Rowan, but I must. I must. I consider fleeing, saving myself, but then, once I am at its jaws – once I am
burning
– I want nothing more than for it to be over,” she said, huffing a dry, bitter laugh. “Bitterwillow only diminishes reaction times. I
feel
how I am changed so deeply that I cannot believe I can ever be rid of it. And yet I am, every time—until I look in a mirror, and my eyes do not quite focus.”

Claire had taken me away from a world that sought to turn me against myself, once they'd got all the use out of me they could, and I wanted nothing more than to take her away from
this
. The dragons, the politics. All of it. I wanted to take her as far away as I could, down to Canth, where she could fish in the ocean and no one would ever ask her to offer her life in exchange for theirs.

But I knew she'd never leave. Not even if I asked her to.

“I understand,” was all I said, in the end.

“Do you?” she asked, not unkindly, but without missing a beat.

I hadn't meant to make any of this about myself, but while she'd sounded sceptical, there was a dull sense of hope grating against her words.

“I'm a necromancer. I should be able to wash away any wound, and yet... I have scars, Claire. Scars that don't look like scars should look, or feel as they should feel. Because of mistakes I made, they'll never go away. And every time I need to use my powers, every time I'm almost hurt, I'm
terrified
that I'll do something wrong again. That there'll only be—
these
.”

Without giving her the chance to reply, or myself the chance to falter, I took hold of her wrist and pulled her hand towards my stomach, under my shirt. Claire's fingertips were warm, but I sucked in a breath, muscles pulling taut beneath her palm.

Claire kept her eyes on mine as her fingers grazed the web of scars laid out across my stomach, brow furrowing, lips parting. I stared back, trying not to shake, but she didn't see me. She was trying to picture the hard, raised ridges that rose and fell beneath her fingertips, and I found myself nodding shallowly before she'd asked anything of me.

Tentatively, she took hold of the hem of my shirt, hitching it up enough to see my stomach. I didn't breathe, didn't tremble. For years I'd hidden myself away, and now Claire's eyes were flickering across every inch of me. It would've been too much, had she not pulled me into her lap, bowing her head to kiss my scars.

The fear was gone, anger and resentment along with it. Claire saw the mess I'd made of my body, and she drew me closer.

Her hands ghosted across my sides, nose nudging the hem of my shirt up, and I held up my arms, fabric soon forgotten. Claire kissed across my ribs, tracing the shape of scars, and all the heat in the world pooled in the pit of my stomach.

“Rowan,” she said, bringing herself to look up, “You're beautiful.”

My knees sunk against the seat of the armchair, between its arms and Claire's hips, and I cupped her face with both hands, leaning down to kiss her. Her parted lips met mine, hands resting on my hips, and I kissed her as though I never intended to stop; as though there was no other way for her to know what she meant to me.

She returned the kiss in kind, lifting her hips to meet mine, hands smoothing across my back. Her nails ran lightly between my shoulder blades, drifting down to the scars spread across my spine. I rolled my hips as she kissed my neck, the line of my jaw and the shell of my ear, and when I grasped at her shirt, she only stopped me to stand, lifting me clean into the air.

I wrapped my legs around her waist and she kissed me still, taking a few steps we could've made easier and falling gratefully against the bed. The curtains dimmed our surroundings, but not so much that I couldn't see her face when she knelt over me, her body when she let me tug her shirt off.

Her hair fell about my face and she kissed me slowly, pressing herself closer with every breath. She tried to move but I caught her by the shoulders, nails digging in, and she murmured, “Rowan... ?” as my head sunk back into the pillow. I gave the slightest nod, body tensing and relaxing until I couldn't keep still, and she kissed her way across my chest, back down across scars she was already familiar with, until she reached my hipbones.

I wasn't leaving, come the morning. Dragons weren't outside the castle, weren't crossing over from Felheim, clinging to the wall and clawing their way over. The room beyond the bed didn't exist, much less the castle enveloping it. There was nothing but Claire, nothing but her warmth; her fingers, her mouth; her name leaving my lips in a whisper, a murmur, a gasp.

*

It was dark when I opened my eyes. I hadn't drifted off for more than a few minutes, hadn't succumbed to sleep completely, and Claire pressed herself against my back, knees tucked against mine. With her arms around my waist and her nose pressed to my nape, I nestled against her, telling myself that I wouldn't sleep. I'd stay up until dawn broke and head out with the first hint of light. If I slept, I wouldn't be able to take in the feel of her skin against my own, her breath skidding across my neck, body aching pleasantly.

I only closed my eyes for a moment, but they grew heavy, resistant to the idea of opening. The next thing I knew, I was blinking them open, faint yellow light spilling in through the gaps in the curtains. Claire had turned in the night, and I pushed myself up with my palms, fingers gently brushing between her shoulder blades. The last few hours had been stolen from me, and as the light cut across my fingers, highlighting her freckles, I knew I couldn't leave. Not without saying anything.

What I could do, however, was go to Katja. Morning found me clear-headed, and I knew King Jonas hadn't returned to the castle. Being an outsider was enough to cast suspicion on me when he'd died, and I'd no doubt they'd break down the door and pull me from under the bedsheets, not going so far as to bother with an interrogation, this time. But if Katja was still with her uncle, surely she'd be able to tell me what I ought to do. She might even be able to convince him to overlook what I'd done, in exchange for his life.

Nobody would take kindly to tales of a grave-robbing necromancer, but Kyrindval was still a last resort, and I had to try. Kissing Claire on the shoulder, I quietly slipped out of the bed and tracked down my clothes with no small amount of difficulty. Plans almost ruined by a stray shirt, I stepped into my clothes as quietly as I could, but kept pausing, hoping to hear Claire stir. Hoping that she wouldn't let me leave until she got the truth out of me.

“I'll be back soon,” I whispered, legs not as steady as they could be. I closed the door silently behind me and waited on the other side, ear pressed against it, but no sound made its way through.

I slipped out with the servants attending errands, and though the castle wasn't anywhere close to running normally, the wheels were still turning. It was another gorgeous day outside, clear skies signalling the arrival of a summer that was bound to be hotter than any in years, but the city itself was a mess. Remnants of the Phoenix Festival lingered. Makeshift stages and stalls hadn't been cleared away, thanks to the commotion, and banners and flags hung from windows, ripped when they were lucky enough not to have been trampled in the street.

The Kastelirians had expected to deal with a hangover, not a dragon. People wandered the streets, hands on the back of their heads, unable to settle down in their homes, and barely felt much safer within the walls of the city. More damage had been dealt to people's spirits than the buildings around, though I had to wind around a few upturned carts and what remained of broken windows. Some were still intent on getting out of Isin, thinking themselves safe if they moved, while others had turned fear to giddy adrenaline, and were running through the streets, gathering up what they could from battered shop fronts.

Guards and soldiers patrolled the city, shepherding citizens away from the areas that had taken the brunt of the damage, Asos Square in particular. For all the trouble there was to be found, no one looked my way twice.

How apathetic they made the Felheimish look, when it came to dragons.

The former Autíra hadn't gone unscathed, but any shattered glass was being swept up as the residents tried to go about their day as usual. It wasn't until I was stood at the end of the street, Katja's apartment in sight, that it struck me that I was going to have to leave. No matter how good her intentions were, Katja couldn't be expected to protect me over a King; especially not when that King was family.

I'd have to go to Kyrindval. Kyrindval was hardly a
bad
place to have to go, but Claire wouldn't be there, and neither would Kouris.

But it wouldn't be forever, I told myself, tearing my feet from the spot and heading down the street. It would take weeks, months. A year, perhaps; no longer, not now that King Jonas was back. I could do that. Kravt or one of the other pane could help me send letters, and I'd accept responsibility for how rashly I'd acted.

The sun rose above Isin's wall. I lifted a hand to block out the glare, but something beat me to it.

My vision flashed in the sudden absence of light, colours blotting out the darkness, and a thud like a mountain falling sent the wall shaking to its foundations. Throughout Isin, the buildings and trees and streets themselves trembled, but the people remained still, failing to comprehend what they were seeing, needing to find some way to react.

The bright-dark haze cleared and purple scales gleamed, but I couldn't believe what was in front of me. A dragon swallowed the sun whole, claws sinking into stone, causing the wall to crumble. With a roar that made my head ring, the fhord leant forward, fire flooding the edges of Isin. A wave of heat struck me, and all at once, everyone was screaming, “Dragon!
Dragon
!”