Dragonoak (51 page)

“Pardon?” Kidira asked, more disinterested than
wary.

“Kouris.
She was dead,” I went on, and as the words slipped from my tongue,
I knew how bad an idea it was. It wasn't my story to tell, but
Kouris never would do so, not if Kidira forgave her a thousand
times over. More than that, I thought I might finally get a rise
out of Kidira. I wiped my eyes, mouth, and chin with the back of my
hand and continued. “She went to them. She went to the people who
wanted to punish her for what she'd done and she let them cut off
her head. All because you made her think it was the right thing to
do. They made her kneel at the gallows and they took her
head.

“She
didn't ask for anyone to bring her back. A necromancer pieced her
back together and when she returned, she was in Canth. And do you
know why she stayed? Because she thought keeping Kastelir together
was more important to you than she was.”

As I
spoke, I felt justified in what I was doing. I had steeled myself;
my words came out slowly and clearly, too strong and certain to be
anything but the truth. But when I finished and the crack of wood
burning was the only sound to fill the cave, I wanted nothing more
than to draw the words back into my chest.

Kidira stared down at her open hands. She didn't move. She
didn't breathe. I saw two years pass across her in a flash; the
downfall of her country, the certainty that her daughter and
Commander were dead, the knowledge that the Kings she had ruled
alongside for thirty years were gone, along with the weight of
Kouris' absence once more pressing down on her. I saw that she was
a
person
, a
person who had suffered as we all had.

I'd been
patient with Claire. I'd forced myself to understand how she could
be so distant, so blunt. Why she could only face herself while
intoxicated, some days, and all the little things that had changed
between us. And yet I'd been cruel to Kidira because she'd been
short with me. She'd saved my life and I'd blamed her for losing
Kouris. I would've apologised, if saying sorry wouldn't have made
Kidira felt weaker than she already did.

She rose
to her feet, leaving the cave without looking at me, without taking
her spear.

“Stay,”
was all she said to me, and I obeyed. She needed time to process
what I'd said in whatever way suited her, though I couldn't imagine
her crying or screaming. It was pitch-black outside and I was
ablaze; I'd only draw the soldiers' attention if I wandered out in
the dark. There was no drawing my light back inside, not now. I
didn't even try.

I hadn't seen much during my brief spate of consciousness at
the foot of the mountain, but I knew we were somewhere with no
roads. The soldiers wouldn't be able to take such a direct route
down. It could take them days to find the spot I'd fallen to, and
Kidira and I would've moved on by then. We'd be back on our way to
Kyrindval, avoiding all the soldiers because... because
Kidira
would be there.
I'd seen her at her lowest points, when Kouris had first returned
to her, when Jonas had been lost, and now, yet I had no doubt that
she could cause an army to tremble.

I tried
the stew again. Took small sips and let it settle in my stomach.
Hours passed before Kidira returned, and I drifted not quite to
sleep in the interim, but felt numbed to the passage of time. She
came in quietly, piling more wood onto the fire that had died down,
despite me doing a fine job of keeping the place bright. Once there
was life in the flames again, Kidira stood back up, staring down at
me.

“I shouldn't have said any of that,” I said, looking up at
her. “And I really shouldn't have said it like
that
.”

Kidira
shook her head.

“I pulled your body off a rock and you've spent much of the
day vomiting and lapsing into unconsciousness. You're allowed to be
insensitive this
once
,” she said, and I knew it was the only time I'd ever get
away with it. “Why
did
you leap off the mountain?”

She sat
down in front of me. I took it to mean that I was being given the
chance to start over with her and made the right choice in holding
nothing back.

“There were soldiers on the way to Kyrindval. At first they
were letting me pass without a problem, but then there was a whole
party of them. And they knew who I was,” I said, thinking back to
that slip of parchment they'd been glancing over. The way they
looked at me was enough to tell me what it said:
necromancer heading to Kyrindval, here's what you
need to look for—be careful!
“It happened
up on the path. There wasn't anywhere to run, so I did the only
thing I could. I jumped off the mountain. I wasn't about to let
them catch me.”

“Couldn't you have killed them?” Kidira asked bluntly,
testing me.

“I could've,” I said, trying to shake the light out of my
fingertips. “But I
couldn't
.”

Kidira
paused, sorting through the information. Whatever conclusion she
came to wasn't given away by her demeanour. Nothing in her
expression changed; she merely went on with her
questions.

“Why
were you headed for Kyrindval? Did something happen at
Orinhal?”

“Yes,” I said, hurrying to elaborate lest I concern her. “Yes
and no. It's just...
me
. The people found out what I was and it didn't go well for
me. Again. I was causing too many problems for Claire, for Sen, for
everyone. I thought it would be best to get away from
Orinhal.”

She
barely paused.

“And
Canth?”

I told
the story of our arrival and stay in Canth in clear, concise terms.
It wasn't the rendition of the tale I'd told my father or Claire; I
stuck to the facts, to the bones of Canth. I told her how we'd
headed there out of necessity, meaning to regroup and return to
Kastelir the moment we could. I told her how the Felheimish army
had blocked our way, how we'd done everything we could to get back
to Asar. I told her how Kondo-Kana had found me and she didn't care
to question me. I told her how I earnt our passage home and she
nodded slowly.

“And I take it you can't do anything about
that
?” Kidira asked,
waving a hand towards me.

I'd
almost manage to forget about the glow. She hadn't.

“I can,
but it might take some time,” I admitted, rubbing my hands against
my forearms,

“You may
continue towards Kyrindval, if you wish,” she said, pausing. “Or
you could make yourself useful.”

How the
years must've tempered her to make an offer come out in lieu of an
order. I leant towards the fire in anticipation of what she was
going to say, asking “How?” though she didn't answer me. Not right
away. She kept her lips pressed into a tight, thin line, and looked
hesitant to say any more. She was torn between regretting what
she'd already said and being unwilling to ever doubt
herself.

“I will
trust you because Claire trusts you. Do not let her down,” Kidira
finally said, staring up from the flames. “I have spent the last
few weeks in the Bloodless Lands.”

I almost toppled forward. For a moment, for a single
split-second, I wondered how she even
knew
about it, as though it had been
some secret between Kondo-Kana and myself.

“The
Bloodless Lands? How did you—why aren't you... you
know?”

Kidira
tilted her head to the side, mildly irritated. Not so much with my
questions, but with the fact that I didn't automatically know these
things, being what I was.

“The
Bloodless Lands don't reach the mountains. Not quite. There's a
stretch of unscathed land between the Bloodless Lands and the
mountains; fifty feet wide, perhaps,” she explained. “Its effects
aren't instantaneous. Discomforting at a glance, yes, but if one
averts their gaze and employs a blindfold...”

I nodded over and over, showing that I understood, all of a
sudden aware that I should've been asking her
why
she was there.

“I
shouldn't be the one to do this: tracking down those responsible
for manipulating the dragons. But circumstances compel Claire to be
where she is, leading the people, and so I must act in her place,”
Kidira went on to say. “I did mean to head back to Orinhal for
reinforcements, but I should think you will do better than any
soldier I could've fetched, and I rather wouldn't waste any more
time.”

“Me?
Because I'm a necromancer, you mean?” I said, determined to get the
word out around Kidira without my voice cracking.

“Exactly
that.”

Nothing ever changed. What I was had seen me exiled from my
village and now a city, had sent me running across countries, but
as soon as I was
useful
, as soon as I became a means to an end, then people could
tolerate being in my vicinity. Canth accepted necromancers,
uplifted them, but I'd still had to abuse my powers to deserve
Queen Nasrin's help. And now Kidira thought she could make use of
me; thought I could wipe out those who stood in her way.

“I'm not going to just
kill
the soldiers for you,” I said firmly.

“Is that
what you think of me? Kouris does me no kindnesses, as is usual,”
Kidira said, sighing, but paused, as if taken aback by how easily
she'd spoken Kouris' name. “I will not make an assassin of you.
This is to be a rescue mission, of sorts.”

Kidira
returned any offence I'd dealt her by way of a stare, making me
feel small.

“A rescue mission... ? Is there anyone
in
the Bloodless Lands?”

“As I
said, the edges are safe enough. Where better to twist and warp
dragons?”

She had
a point. There wasn't anywhere on Bosma as desolate as the
Bloodless Lands, and all on Asar grew up knowing that to draw close
to the Bloodless Lands was to succumb to the madness of
necromancers. Back when I was a child, I let myself be convinced
that the Bloodless Lands were to blame for making the pane as I was
told they were, and the elders would often murmur that the
settlements close to our side of the mountains weren't as safe as
they ought to be.

“I'll go
with you,” I said, still desperate, in a way, to prove myself
worthy of my own life. “What do you need me to do?”

Kidira
was already packing away her things, pouring out the last of the
stew neither of us had really touched. She hummed flatly, back to
me, slinging her bag over her shoulders. I followed her lead,
extinguishing the fire without having to worry about fumbling in
the dark, knowing there was an answer coming and doing my best not
to be too anxious for it. She wasn't going to have me kill anyone;
I wouldn't have to prepare myself for climbing onto pirate ships
and stealing heads.

“You'll
see when we get there,” Kidira eventually said as she stepped out
of the cave. I didn't have it within myself to press her any
further. I followed, knowing we couldn't afford to linger in any
one place for too long. “Here. Put this on.”

Kidira
retrieved a hooded cloak from her bag and I wrapped it around
myself without any fuss. Dawn had yet to break and I would've led
any wandering soldiers right to us. I pulled the hood up so that it
covered my blazing eyes, vision fixed on the ground, the backs of
Kidira's feet. I'd taken enough clothing from her already, what
with the sash of purple cloth she'd had to give up to provide me
with a makeshift cloak; only tough leathers and furs remained,
arms, back, and body strengthened by years spent amongst the pane,
wandering the mountains.

We
headed back on ourselves, passing the rocks I'd crashed into. I
wouldn't have recognised them, for much of the landscape repeated
itself around the mountains, but the rock and dirt I'd plummeted to
had turned white; whiter than dragon-bone. The fact that it was
still dark had no bearing on it. The white stood out as though
night had forgotten to fall across it, no shadows marring the
surface. The few dark spots were made of blood and all else, and I
did my best not to focus on them.

“Look,”
Kidira said, driving the blunt end of her spear into the ground. I
winched, certain she meant to ask me questions I didn't know how to
answer, but when I followed the direction of her spear, I saw
Claire's dragon-bone knife thrown off to the side. My hands went to
the small of my back, where it'd been tucked into my trousers,
pulse spiking when I realised it wasn't there; when I realised I
would've lost it, if not for Kidira's sharp eye. I lunged forward,
snatched it up, and checked it for scratches, of all
things.

On we
went. To the best of my knowledge, it'd been two months since
Kidira had set out from Kyrindval. I hoped that much of that time
had been spent searching, to no avail, and that we weren't going to
march for a solid month through the Bloodless Lands. We weren't
even through the mountains and I could see no end in sight; just
mountain after mountain cutting valleys into the horizon. Kidira
walked at a pace that was hard to match, and I began to regret that
I didn't have—