Dragonoak (35 page)

Oak
pulled back, staring stubbornly at me, and Akela knocked a fist
against one of his horns, saying, “Go! Go! Look, these people, they
are on their way, and they are not as pleased to see you as we
are.”

Puffing
out a hint of smoke, Oak scampered back, looking between us one
last time before picking up speed and launching himself into the
sky. With my eyes fixed on him, I forgot about the people charging
our way, and felt my stomach leave the ground as he did.

“Good
evening!” Akela called as three riders approached, “If we are
arriving at the wrong place, well, this is rather embarrassing! All
of you, you are from the resistance, no?”

They
circled us, horses walling us in, and a woman wearing a dragon-bone
chest plate and a crudely carved helm stared down at Akela,
frowning.

“Do you want to explain what you're doing out here, close to
where a
dragon
just landed?” she asked, glancing my way to see if I'd be any
more cooperative. “—
you
.”

Dismounting her horse, she pulled her helm off, pointed at me
and said, “You!
You
.”

I opened
and closed my mouth, pointing back.

“You...”
I said. “You tried to kill me!”

“Right!”
the woman said, far too pleased that I'd recognised her from that
night in the forest, when she stood over me with her axe held high.
“And you saved me. What the hell are you doing out
here?”

“We came
to join the resistance,” I explained, but Akela stood in front of
me, arms folded across her chest.

She
didn't have her axe with her, but knew she didn't need it. Not even
against three armed soldiers.

“Excuse
me, what is this we are saying? You are trying to kill Northwood?
What is she ever doing to you!”

Placing
a hand on Akela's shoulder, I eased her back, saying, “It was a
long time ago, and I don't think it was anything personal. She was
with the Felheimish, then.”

The
explanation cleared absolutely nothing up for Akela, and she
frowned at me more than she did the woman on the horse. Her two
companions couldn't make much more sense of the situation, but they
backed off, supposing that we were of no threat to them.

Another
rider charged our way, calling out “Ash! Everyone who knows how to
slay a dragon is stationed around the perimeter, what way did
the—”

He
didn't get the chance to finish his sentence. Akela fixed her eyes
on him, and once he was close, she pulled him clean off his horse.
Ash reached for her weapon and I went to pull Akela off him, but
she didn't tackle him to the ground. She held him up to her chest
and he gripped at her shoulders, grinning, wrapping his arms around
her neck when the surprise was too much for him.

“Goblin!
Goblin, you little monster,” Akela said, squeezing him tightly.
“You are alright, you really are. You are making us worry so much,
I hope you are knowing this.”

She
dropped him to the ground and Goblin gripped the side of her arm,
saying, “Commander! We thought... you can imagine what we thought.
Where have you been all this time?”

“That, hm, that is a very long story. I am thinking, while we
are telling it, we are putting our feet up and having a drink, yes?
Travelling by dragon is strangely exhausting, I feel as if
I
am the one flying all
those miles, and I am wanting to tell you all about Canth before
your father is getting the chance to!”

The
method of Akela's arrival went straight over Goblin's head. He
clung to her arm tighter, stared up at her desperately, and said,
“... m-my father? He's with you?”

“Pssh,”
Akela said, waving a hand. “He is taking the long way, yes, he is
finding a horse and galloping all the way here. In two weeks, he is
probably turning up, and by then, you are knowing all of the
stories worth hearing!”

Goblin
stepped back, bringing a fist to his chest, and I smiled, and not
only because I was bearing witness to the good news he was getting.
It was a rare day in Kastelir when something beyond reports of
another razing reached people's ears, and I let him soak it in
before lifting a hand and waving at him.

“Ah,
Northwood, this is—”

“Galal,”
I said. “I know. We've met before.”

He
brought a hand to his forehead; it was all too much for one day,
but only in the best sort of way. The last time I'd seen him, Isin
had been burning and he'd been desperate for my help. I'd helped
pull his husband from the wreckage, helped bring him
back.

“Oh
,” he said, rushing over to shake
my hand. “Oh!”

“What is
this?” Akela asked, looking to Ash for answers. “Northwood, I am
not understanding how you are having time to know so many
people.”

“Your
husband, is he... ?” I asked.

“He's in
Orinhal! Come, come, we should be getting back to the city. I take
it there's no threat from that dragon?” Goblin asked, taking his
horse by the reins. “You said you rode it here, didn't you? The
Marshal will need to hear about that.”

Goblin
caught Ash's eye and she nodded.

The
other soldiers rushed back towards Orinhal ahead of us, letting
those preparing for an attack know that there was nothing to fear,
and the four of us headed towards the city together. It was too
dark to see much of the outskirts, but I saw the vague shapes of
what were fields where the forest abruptly ended, and though
Orinhal hadn't been spared dragon's breath, the wall still stood,
patched over and rebuilt in most places.

The
resistance wasn't lacking in numbers. Dozens of soldiers worked the
night shift, and once we were through the gate, I saw all that I
couldn't from the sky. Orinhal had been razed to the ground, but a
new city had been built on its ashes. More than a hundred tents
were littered along the outskirts of the city – newcomers, Ash said
– and beyond that, much of the forest had been sacrificed to build
a maze of streets lined with log cabins.

Life resounded within the city. Light spilt from windows and
people walked arm in arm through the streets. There was even a
tavern, serving patrons out on the front patio, celebrating the
fact that a dragon
hadn't
made short work of the city. Orinhal wasn't a
make-shift base, a camp; the people had made it their home. The
smell of grilled meat wafting out of a restaurant nearly caused me
to falter, but Goblin and Ash didn't once break their stride, and
Akela nudged me on.

I smiled
at those I passed, feeling welcome already, and Goblin and Ash led
us to a tower in the centre of the city. Calling it a tower was
fairly generous: it was one of the few original buildings that
remained, and all but the first two floors had been destroyed. In
its past life, it had been a clock tower, and a clock had been hung
over the arching double-doors to commemorate that.

Ash
waited until I was in front of the doors to knock, and Goblin
pulled one of them open for me.

I
stepped into a dimly-lit office. The furnishings were sparse, save
for half a dozen chairs stacked neatly in the corner, along with a
bookcase full of undoubtedly important documents. A desk had been
placed in the centre of the room, and a woman who looked like
Claire sat behind it.

She was
working with her head bowed, hands placed flat across the desk. She
gripped the quill in her left hand, three fingers missing from the
other, and she was so used to interruptions that she chose not to
acknowledge me.

Candle-light flickered across her blonde hair, casting
shadows across the contours of her face I couldn't quite make out.
My hands trembled, light spilling through them, threatening to rush
out of me with the force of so much blood thundering through my
veins. I took a step forward, aware of every inch of the air I
moved through, every fraction of every second that scraped by, and
the woman relented and said, “What is it?” in Claire's
voice.

The
light shot up my arms, into my eyes.

The candles couldn't account for such a blinding flash, and
the woman –
Claire
– looked up at me.

It
wasn't true. Couldn't be. I could find my way back to Canth, find
my father alive and well. I could slip back into Kastelir without a
single problem, and I could bring a dragon back to something
resembling life, flying across half a country in a matter of hours,
but I couldn't do this. I couldn't step into a room and find
Claire, alive, breathing. Living her life, moving through each and
every day, existing outside of my memories.

I rubbed
my fingers against my burning eyes, certain she'd fade.

She
didn't.

I stared
at her, breath tangled up in my chest, and saw that as I'd changed,
Claire had too. It was her eyes that caught my attention first of
all. One was as cold and blue as it had always been, but the other
was covered in a milky film, pupil and iris impossible to tell
apart. From it, a wave of burns spiralled across her face, covering
all but the left side of her jaw, a sliver of her cheek. The burns
had changed the shape of her mouth, changed the way shadows fell
across her skin, and they spread down her neck, beneath the collar
of her shirt, and came back out of her sleeves.

She
rose, clutching the cane rested against the side of her desk. It
tapped against the stone floor as she moved close, and then, all
was quiet, all was calm. The beating of my heart was
muted.

Our
reactions were so slight, so subtle, that it would've been
impossible to tell what we were to one another, unless told; and
then it was all anyone could hope to see. The signs were there,
scrawled all over us, written in an ink that wouldn't fade at the
mercy of time or the elements. The words were etched into my skin,
as unreadable as all others, but I made sense of them in what I saw
reflected in her.

But the
calm faded.

I was
breathing, but not breathing. I was only exhaling, short and sharp,
chest stinging with it, vision already blurred...

“I...” Claire said slowly, as though her jaw had been fused
these past two years and she was learning speech all over again. “I
thought you were
dead
.”

I covered my mouth, turning to the side, breathing loudly
enough to deafen myself. All that I'd been put through – all that
had been done to me – was
nothing
compared to this. I was standing in front of
Claire, Claire who'd brushed her fingers through my hair, who'd
taken me away from my old life, but I couldn't bring myself to look
at her. I could only tremble, light claiming my body, heart trying
to fold in on itself.

“Rowan,”
she said gently, voice catching in her throat. Her hand came to
rest between my shoulder blades, certain to break me. “Rowan,
please. It's me.”

Wrapping my arms around myself, I fell heavily onto my knees,
forehead hitting the floor. I'd needed her. I'd needed her when I
was in chains, but now that I was in the room with her, I couldn't
bring myself to
look
at her. If I did, if I kept my eyes on her for a moment
longer, she'd fade.

This was
another dream, another delusion. Someone – something – was doing
this to me.

Claire
knelt by my side, cane clattering on the floor next to her, and I
couldn't believe she was there. I couldn't bear what it'd do to me
when I came to and she wasn't with me.

I clutched at my sides, forehead scraping across the stone
tiles, and there Claire's hand was, fingers gently brushing across
the nape of my neck. I wanted them gone,
gone.
None of this was real, it
couldn't be; but then a funny sort of thought worked its way into
my mind. I remembered the time I'd exhausted myself healing the
masses in Benkor and had gone to bed without a bite to eat; Claire
had brought me bread. She'd barely known me, but she brought me
bread.

That was Claire.
This
was Claire. This was Claire, she was here, she
was here...

“Claire...” I murmured, turning my head to look at
her.

She
nodded, helping to ease me up. Knelt in front of her, I lit up
every inch of her skin, and saw how every burn had twisted and
gnarled her features. She reached out, placing her hands against my
cheeks, wincing when she realised I felt the void left behind by
her missing fingers. Not giving her the chance to look away, I
threw myself against her chest, arms wrapped tightly around her
waist, threatening to never let go.

Claire's
arms wrapped tightly around my back and I sobbed, clutching the
back of her shirt.

“You're
alive,” I said, tears soaking her shirt. “You're alive,
you're...”

“Shh,
shh,” she said, rocking me. “I'm here, Rowan.”

I cried
until my head pounded and my body ached, light dimming but not
fading. Claire didn't say a word about it – didn't say anything as
I trembled in her arms – and when I looked up, I found her eyes red
and watery.