Dragonoak: The Complete History of Kastelir (23 page)

It forced a smile out of me. From the hill, I saw the castle at the very heart of the city, surrounded by a moat so deep that I could make out the faint edges of it from where I was. It was built from stone stained light blue, the same colour the sky finally was, now that the rain clouds had rolled on. The whole of the city spread out from that point, as though the castle was the seed, and the twisting streets and scattered towers had bloomed from it.

Praxis didn't compare to it. Nothing could.

Michael and I were the only ones eager to press forward, but we could hardly lead the way.

Once we reached the city gates, gates which gave the impression of being greater than the wall along the border, we had no idea of which way to head. Charley, Calais and Patrick were left on the city's outskirts and Michael and I did our best to be patient. He caught sight of a store selling mathematical tools and almost leapt through the window in an effort to press his face up against the glass, but Rán tapped his shoulder, gesturing for him to keep moving.

This was it. This was Isin, the heart of Kastelir. A city that had only stood for as long as the Kingdom had. The cobbled streets were barely worn down by the thousands of people who milled their way around, and as we followed Rán's horns through the crowd, I didn't have the time to take in all that was around me.

There was too much, and it was hitting me that
this was it
. This was what Claire had been striving to reach, this was the reason Rán had joined us. I peered over the crowd as we went, but I couldn't guess at where we were heading.

We passed a dozen inns and Michael didn't make a single joke about staying in one. He was as curious as I was, occasionally glancing at me to see if I had managed to glean anything he hadn't, and then redoubled his efforts to walk alongside Claire.

We cut straight through the city. Above the shops and stacks of houses the castle rose, coming clear into view. It wasn't until we were so close that I couldn't crane my neck back to see the top of it that I realised we were headed straight for it.

There were a number of stone bridges leading from the castle, and arches and columns, interlaced with iron bars, ran around our side of moat. From what I could see, there wasn't any need for them. Soldiers stood to attention at the end of each bridge, and the unguarded edges led to a drop of some thirty feet, before reaching the water.

“Yrval,” Rán said, falling back and smiling distantly down at me. “I'm sorry. Truly, I am.”

I tried to smile back but the corners of my mouth only twitched.

“You've already said that! I told you, it's fine. I'm fine.”

But even then, I knew she wasn't apologising for what had happened in the forest.

She turned from me and approached the soldiers standing guard. They didn't react; didn't flinch or look at her. They were used to all manner of people approaching them and had learnt to ignore the monotony of the city, even when it came in pane-shape.

“Now, how's this...” Rán said to them, digging around beneath her shirt.

I tried to step forward, to get a better look at what she was doing, but Claire held out an arm, keeping Michael and myself back. Still, I saw enough. She took out the pendant she'd shown Claire the day we'd met her, and it had the same effect on the guards: they paled, turning to one another, not knowing what to say. Not knowing what to do, until Rán held the pendant higher and they started, one taking the initiative to unlock the gates.

They swung open and Rán stepped through.

“What just...” Michael mumbled, looking to Claire for an answer.

“Come with us or stay here,” was all she said, heading after Rán and the soldier escorting her into the castle.

Michael hurried after them and so did I. It didn't feel right, but I went along, feet moving faster than I felt I had the courage to do so. We were in a castle. We were in a castle in
Kastelir
, and we'd been let in, no questions asked.

There were no railings on the bridge, nothing to stop me from tumbling over the edge. I was convinced I might fall in, until I was blinking my eyes, adjusting to the dim of the doorway. The colour came flooding back in an instant, and no one was wasting any time.

We sped through the castle with its wide windows, drinking in the last of the daylight, stepping beneath the high arches carved into the corridors. Miles above me, the ceilings burst into blossoms of interlocked patterns, and none of it made any sense. Moments ago, we'd been out in the world, staring at Isin from a distance. I could've covered the castle with my thumb, but now we were inside of it, being led through one doorway and then another.

None of the guards knew what to make of us, but the soldier who'd guided us from the bridge had authority enough to march past. Servants and scholars alike looked at us curiously, and when we reached one final door, carved from oak and reinforced by iron, Claire took the bag I'd forgotten I was carrying and retrieved her helm from it.

There she was, as sharp as she'd been the night we'd met. A world away from me once again.

Rán pushed opened the doors without knocking.

We stepped into the throne room. All four seats were empty, but a man stood behind them, looking out of the windows that took up the whole of the back wall. The glass turned the light that filtered in winter-blue as it washed over him; I didn't need to see the crown upon his head to know that he was one of the Kings.

He turned to us, opened his mouth to calmly demand to know why we were intruding, but only managed to exhale. His eyes grew wide and I saw that his hands were trembling; realised that Rán, too, had been trembling ever since we'd stepped into the castle.

“Atthis,” she said in a low rumble of a whisper and stepped towards him.

“Kouris...” he said softly, as though he thought of the name often, if not always. He opened his arms, grasped at the orange sash across her chest and let her pull him close. “I had never thought to see you returned to us in this life—only hoped.”

CHAPTER X

King Atthis was a sleek tower of a man, but nobody looked tall when a pane took them in their arms.

His hair was more white than grey, and green eyes shone against olive skin as Rán placed both hands on his back. She was humouring him. She didn't tell him he was mistaken, and it wasn't fair. I took a step forward, wanting her to chuckle under her breath and tell King Atthis he was wrong; she was a pane, but she wasn't the ghost of a pane he'd once known.

Michael grabbed my arm. He stared ahead, not blinking, not breathing. Rán's eyes changed from gold to gleaming silver, hands engulfing King Atthis' shoulders, and Claire wouldn't look at me. Her shoulders tensed. All I saw was the sharp, smooth profile of her helm, and she wouldn't look at me.

“You've brought company with you,” King Atthis said, breaking away from the moment. He did me and Michael the courtesy of glancing our way, but his gaze came to settle on Claire. On her dragon-bone armour.

He kept a hand on the side of Rán's arm, as if afraid to let her wander, and she said, “A dragon-slayer from Felheim. Sir Ightham. Not how I envisioned making my return, I'll give you that.”

She was going along with it.

I inhaled shakily, sure I was drowning. Water lapped within my chest, and the rest of the room was still, untouched by the turmoil. Only Michael tensed as I did, but he remained silent, convinced that he understood what was happening.

“Rán,” I said softly. “Why are you... ?”

Her eyes met mine, but she wasn't Rán. Not anymore.

I saw her in disjointed pieces. Tusks jutting from her lower jaw, eyes that had darkened back to gold; claws pointing towards the ground like blades held loosely in her hands; thick, tough skin, a mountain of muscles twisted around bone. I tried to scrape it all together, but it was as though a book had been opened in front of me.

The words were shapes that meant nothing, drifting in and out of focus, ink smearing itself across creased pages. It made sense to the others. To Michael, to Claire. To King Atthis. I couldn't tell a sentence from a paragraph or read a single line, but that wasn't to say I didn't intrinsically
know
what the book contained.

The story of Queen Kouris.

The pieces fell away, taking the illusion of Rán along with them.

“Why...” I mouthed again.

I was furious but muted; terrified but far from cautious. I tore my arm free of Michael's digging grip and moved towards Queen Kouris, who wasn't Rán, almost managing to deceive myself. She would kneel, I told myself. She would fall to her knees and explain herself, make sense of this all, and I wouldn't flinch when she held her arms out to me.

All Queen Kouris said was, “I think it'd be best if we had a little privacy, Atthis.”

And because Queen Kouris had never really been Rán, she turned away. Guards were called in, half a dozen of them at the ready, and a wall of bodies cut me and Michael off from the King, the Queen, and the Knight. I wanted to lash out against them, armed with halberds and spears though they were, but whether I went willingly or not was of no concern to them.

The guards moved as a unit, jostling me out of the throne room when my own feet decided to become part of the stone beneath. Michael was with me, more compliant than I was, saying, “Well, now— excuse me, do you think you might— Rowan, that's my
foot
,” as we were led through the corridors, encased in a ring of clattering metal. King Atthis had given the guards some order that I missed, for they certainly knew how and where to move in unison through the web of corridors.

I tried to pick out some landmark, but the walls were blocked by bodies and the only direction I could look was up. The ceilings domed wherever two corridors met, but we took so many twists and turns that I became too dizzy for anything I saw to be useful. And what would I've done, had I recalled our route back? Broken away from the custody of six guards and rushed back to confront Queen Kouris?

My eyes felt heavy at the thought. At last we stopped, but only for as long as it took to slide a key into a lock. The bolts groaned open and we were unapologetically pushed into a room, door slammed shut behind us. It remained locked from the outside no matter how many times I twisted the handle.

I took to slamming my fists against the frame. The guards couldn't have gone far and I knew they could hear me, but they remained silent no matter how my hands stung, no matter how many times I demanded for them to, “Open up!
Open up
!”

“Curses, Rowan,” Michael exclaimed, grabbing my shoulder and peeling me away from the door. In the hallway, one of the guards cleared their throat. “Calm yourself a little, won't you? The guards are only doing their jobs!”

“Only doing their jobs?” I shoved him away but didn't plaster myself against the door. “They, they—they
locked
us away, and... !”

“Hardly a prison, is it?” Michael scoffed.

He stepped back, opening his arms and gesturing around the room. I did what I could to be still, waiting for the world to stop spinning, and took in my surroundings. Michael was right; I'd never seen anything so fine in all my life.

A low oak table stood in the centre of the room, curved legs carved to resemble arching lions, surrounded by armchairs and sofas draped in fabrics worth more than I could earn in a lifetime, intricate iron lamps spilling from the walls; all of which meant nothing to me.

“How are you so calm?” I demanded. “We were with
Kouris
all this time,
the
Kouris, and Claire knew and didn't say anything, and...”

“Yes, yes,” he said, flicking my forehead. “It's
marvellous
, isn't it?”

I couldn't believe him. I was trembling with anger more than fear, yet he was grinning from ear to ear.

“We have the unique privilege of watching history unfold! Queen Kouris, believed to be dead for twenty-seven years—and here she is, alive and well, and if I dare say so, scheming.”

He put his hands on his hips, unable to believe his luck. I knew too well how self-centred he could be, but he had finally outdone himself. He cared nothing for the betrayal – or didn't perceive that there had been one – or the danger we'd been placed in. Nor did he consider what we may have unknowingly been made accomplices in; all that mattered was that we'd stumbled into something that had all the makings of a story.

“Claire knew...” I mumbled, scrubbing my hands against my face.

“Sir Ightham knows
plenty
of things that we aren't privy to. Don't take it so personally, Rowan. So you've had a few conversations with her,” he said, shrugging as he fell back into an armchair. “It's
boring
on the road. She indulges your curiosity. But don't assume she owes you anything because of it.”

I groaned into my hands, unable to split the flash of anger that kept flaring up between Rán, Claire, and Michael, and fell down on a sofa, making a ball of myself. I pressed my knees to my chest and didn't care that my boots were leaving brown scuff marks across the fabric.

I didn't look at Michael. Couldn't. It was only a matter of time until my anger at him warped into biting frustration with myself; he could be calm and rational about this, so why couldn't I? I forced all thoughts from my mind until the thing that weighed them down was nothing but a dense block of emptiness. Anything I tried to focus on left my mind creaking, threatening to spill.

An hour passed and the key turned in the lock for a third time. I sprung bolt upright, pressed to the back of the sofa. Michael, attentive as ever, seemed to have been sitting that way for some time and welcomed me back to the world outside my own arms with a slight, skittish smile.

I'd been pounding on the door earlier. Now I wished it'd never open.

The hinges didn't creak. The door was pushed open as wide as it needed to be to step through, and Claire came in, closing it silently behind her.

She'd changed, but her body was no more relaxed for being stripped of the armour. Her shoulders and elbows jutted out from under the thin cotton shirt she wore, body so wrought with tension that I was sure she hadn't breathed for an hour or more. I wanted an explanation from her, if an explanation was worth anything at this point, but she didn't stand in front of me as a Knight, as someone of rank and power.