Dragonoak: The Complete History of Kastelir (24 page)

She clasped her hands behind her back and set her jaw. I looked at her and felt as though my stomach had been scoured from the inside.

She was waiting for me to say something, to shout at her.

I didn't disappoint her. I was on my feet before I'd reassured myself that the floor wasn't going to slide out beneath me, hands held out to fill the space between us, fingers grasping at nothing.

“You knew! All this time, you knew who we were with,” I said, and though my voice was not loud, it rushed out of me like a cold, dry wind. “Kouris! And you just let her come along. You let me think that she was someone else, that I could trust
you
, even if you never told me why... !”

“Rowan,” Claire tried, instinctively reaching out to me.

I stepped back, teeth grit. I was tired of people pushing and pulling me, grabbing my shoulders and arms to subdue me, to turn me away from whatever truth I was trying to grasp at. Claire's eyes flashed and she straightened as best she could, all that weight she'd shared with Rán returned to her shoulders, now that Kouris was back in her castle.

“If I had thought you were in
any
danger,” Claire said, regaining herself, “I would not have travelled with Rán—with Kouris. I would not have put all I have striven for these past months at risk; nor would I have allowed any harm to come to you or Michael.”

“But you let me near her!” I protested, seeing Michael rise to his feet out the corner of my eye. I screwed my eyes shut and I was in the forest again, hands clinging to Rán's horns as she charged along to the sound of my laughter, ducking down to snatch up firewood; not at all like the shambling ghost of a headless pane I'd grown up to tales of, thick, ropey hair grasped in one bloody hand while the other cut through the night in search of eyes to replace its mutilated own. But still—but still... “She's
killed
people.”

“As have I,” Claire reminded me, leaning forward, trying to catch my eye as I stubbornly shook my head over and over.

“I just—”

I was on the verge of forcing my point into the air between us when Michael brazenly stepped forward, eager to override my words with his own. I ground my teeth together, crushing the feeling I'd finally dredged up between them.

“It's a little overwhelming, there's no doubting that. But you do have a habit of overreacting at times like these. Really, Rowan, you've no concept of how to deal with a stressful situation,” Michael said, nodding his head in deep contemplation of his own wisdom. “We ought to take a leaf out of Sir Ightham's book and think about the bigger picture. She's hardly concerned with herself, is she? Now, if you were—”

My face was red and my fists were shaking, but Claire saved me from hot, angry tears.

“
Michael
,” she snapped. She thrust out a hand, pointed at the armchair, and he fell into it like a house collapsing. “This is not some trifling matter. The return of Queen Kouris after twenty-seven years is not something one can
over
react to. In the future, do not presume to speak for me.”

If he could've sunk into the cushions I doubt I would've heard from him again. He folded his arms across his chest, so unused to apologising for his words that a Knight's authority merely sent him burrowing into a thickening gloom. A minute of stale silence crawled by, and when he muttered, “... Sorry,” it was almost lost to the throat-clear he forced out half a second later.

Tensions spiked and fell flat. Claire took a seat on the sofa, perched on the edge like a gargoyle sat vigil, and I reluctantly slumped down on the opposite side, pressing myself into the corner.

“I understand that the stories one grows up with stick in a person's mind, but the Kouris of your childhood tales is a tyrant who never existed. A ghost, no less,” Claire said. “She was raised in a time of war, and none escape that without blood on their hands. I will not tell you to talk to her, much less forgive her, but know that her lies were a necessity.”

How many of those had there been? Had she really travelled to Canth and lived as a pirate; was there really a human by the name of Reis and had any of their adventures actually happened? I thought of her arms around me, of how easily I'd fallen asleep against her chest. How blindly I'd trusted her to take me away. I'd wanted nothing more than to remain by her side, and I hadn't even known who she was.

“You'll have questions. Should you not wish to speak with Kouris, I shall strive to answer them. But for now—” Claire paused, standing back up. “Dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“The Kings have requested your company.”

Michael perked back up at the prospect of dining with royalty. I had no such desire to face either of them, least of all around a table, but thought that Claire must've taken responsibility for the both of us.

I didn't want to put her at risk. Not after she'd come so far.

Dinner was hastily thrown together and the atmosphere was creased, jittery. I rather thought that one of the Kings had suggested it and put the whole affair into motion before they could think better of it. Guards escorted the three of us to a banquet hall far greater than the scattered candles allowed us to perceive.

A rich mahogany table stretched on endlessly, dipping into the darkness left and right of me. Candles stood in the centre, making the trays and plates and bowls of food seem like something out of a painting; there was all the luxury Michael had been harping on about for weeks, but our small party forced the hall to draw in on us.

Kouris sat between Kings Atthis and Jonas. King Jonas was a bear of a man with a smile wrinkled into his face, and he greeted us heartily, but didn't keep his attention on us for long. He couldn't help but glance at Kouris every few seconds, glimpsing the past. Her chair was enormous, big enough for a pane and then some; I wondered whether they'd brought it in especially for her, or if it'd always been there, presiding over the joy and festivities of banquets and feasts like a tombstone.

“Well! This evening has certainly taken a turn for the bizarre. Had you told me this morning that I'd be dining with Kouris – not to mention a Felheimish Knight and her companions – I would've signed over the Kingdom to prove I didn't believe you,” King Jonas said as I shovelled roast beef I had no intention of eating onto my plate. “Now, Sir Ightham's name I got—and you two are?”

“Michael and Rowan Northwood, You Highness,” Michael managed in a single breath, gripping his cutlery tightly to stop it from trembling.

“Northwood?” King Atthis interjected, leaning forward to absent-mindedly scoop up a serving of boiled potatoes. His thoughts had been elsewhere while we sat there – he seemed irritated, and I suspected that dinner had been King Jonas' idea – and his sudden contribution to the conversation gave Michael reason to pause.

His eyes darted around as though he could've misspoken. Taking a breath, he said, “... Yes, Your Highness,” and bit his lower-lip.

King Atthis hummed to himself, leant back in his seat, and dismissed his own enquiry with a wave. The dull chime of cutlery against dishes emphasised the silence we'd lapsed into, and I dared to steal a glance in the direction of the woman who wasn't Rán. There was no food on her plate and her fingers hovered over a knife. Nobody ate, because the Kings had yet to take a bite.

King Jonas showed mercy to Michael, on the verge of collapsing onto his plate, in spearing a piece of potato on the end of his fork. Kouris, however, did not take kindly to the commencement of the meal and furrowed her brow, offended by the prospect of Jonas daring to eat.

“Where is Kidira?” she asked, and as she spoke, I knew it was a question she'd been refraining from asking.

Neither King Jonas nor Atthis wanted to answer. They glanced at each other around Kouris, and warily, King Atthis said, “You have missed her by two days. She went to Kyrindval on official business,” and busied himself with cutting the beef into thin strips.

The corner of Kouris' mouth twitched.

“Then I will go to Kyrindval,” she said, picking up the knife.

“I'm not certain that's the wisest course of—”

“I
will
go to Kyrindval,” she growled under her breath, burying the blade up to its hilt in the only raw leg of meat sprawled out across the table.

The candles flickered and everyone's appetite picked up. Claire and Michael ate more than their fair share, gulping down goblets of wine as they chewed and chewed in lieu of speaking. The Kings too shovelled food into their mouths as though they could swallow back the sticky pulp of the atmosphere. All in the most refined manner possible, of course.

I smushed a criss-cross of asparagus with the back of my fork but couldn't eat. The others were so busy avoiding eye contact that I found myself staring openly at Kouris; for a woman who'd waited twenty-seven years to get home, the prospect of having to wait mere days to see Queen Kidira again had twisted her features and darkened her eyes.

Good, I thought. Let her suffer, if only because of her own impatience. Wherever Kyrindval was, I hoped the ground would shake and topple it into the sea, into the Bloodless Lands, far beyond Kouris' reach. Not that it mattered: if my blood burnt with betrayal born of the weeks I'd know her, there was no way Queen Kidira would be able to bring herself to face Kouris.
She won't want to see you!
I wanted to shout.
It's been twenty-seven years—go back to Canth. Go back, go back!

King Jonas cleared his throat, sending the roar of my thoughts rushing into the crevices of my mind.

“Although her daughter is here, should you wish to meet her.”

He said it cautiously. Best to broach the subject in the company of others to temper her reaction. King Atthis' knuckles turned white around his cutlery and Michael scraped his knife across his plate.

There Kouris was, an insect full of her own venom, but something inside of her had torn, and she was burning from within.

Yet I couldn't bring myself to feel vindicated.

I recognised the look on her face. It was the same one she'd worn when she'd returned to camp and found me drenched in an assassin's blood. She excused herself so quietly that I barely caught the string of words as they slipped between her fangs. Her chair scraped across the floor as no one asked her to stay, and she was gone, taken by the darkness, leaving a well of silence where she'd once been.

I stared down at my food as everyone continued eating. The colours blurred together, the greens of string beans into the reds of peppers and the rich browns of meat, and I tried to account for the way I wanted to leap to my feet and charge after her. After Queen Kouris, I reminded myself. Kouris might've stepped into the shadows but Rán had disappeared long before that.

“Well!” King Jonas said abruptly, trying to laugh away what had happened. “Dragon slaying, is it?”

“It is, You Highness,” Claire said with a bow of her head, pouring herself another glass of wine.

“Splendid! Well, not so much all that trouble with the, ah, razings, but the beasts themselves. Terrifying creatures, I hear,” he said, nodding his head to himself. “And what of you two? Seen many dragons in your time?”

It wasn't until then that I realised what the Kastelirians thought of our dragon problem; that they were as common as rodents and no more of a pest; and that it was a novel business, ripe for storytelling, with the potential for adventure.

“I-I'm afraid not, Your Highness,” Michael managed. “You see, we're from a village some twenty miles from the coast, and as I've no doubt you know, dragons don't dare to venture too close to the ocean. I've read that they can smell the salt on the wind from great distances and are terrified of being doused.”

“Is that so?” King Jonas replied, almost disappointed.

He turned back to Claire as King Atthis watched attentively. Without Kouris there, the cogs of conversation slowly fell into place, turning smoothly with every question posed and answer delivered.

“If I might ask—how many dragons have you defeated, Sir?” There was no doubt that King Jonas was genuinely interested in the topic and Michael's confidence began to build. “More than the Sir Priorys?”

Claire shook her head modestly, placing her glass down as she spoke.

“I have only encountered nine thus far,” she explained, “And the fact that I sit before you is evidence enough that I came out victorious. I doubt I shall beat the record of the first dragon slayers within my lifetime.”

Only nine dragons? I stopped staring at my plate and focused fully on the others. Strange. I'd imagined Claire being sent to fight at least one a week; that it was the sort of thing she could do in her sleep, by this point.

“Ah—now, don't sell yourself short, Sir!” Michael chimed in. “The Sir Priorys pioneered the art of dragon-slaying and worked together for decades. And that was over two-hundred years ago, around the time the territories' last stint of peace collapsed and... oh, well, that is to say, before the territories were united by the rigidity of Kastelir. A-anyway, it was a long time ago, before techniques were refined—together, they only slayed twenty-seven of them.”

He recovered from his blunder with a puff of air that made him sound winded and managed to render the deaths of twenty-seven dragons as something altogether unremarkable. Claire, sat among us as Sir Ightham, had single-handedly slain ferocious beasts; all else was a series of dusty, fast-fading numbers.

“Really? I must admit that I've only read about such matters in books—I've never had the chance to discuss them with any Felheimers,” King Jonas mused, far from offended by Michael's retelling of Kastelir's past.

They continued discussing Knights who had come before Sir Ightham as I pushed my food around my plate. King Atthis didn't contribute to the discussion, and despite the thin film of irritation that clung to his features, I didn't think Michael's heavy-handedness was to blame. King Atthis glanced at the empty seat next to him once a minute, like clockwork, and barely touched more of his meal than I did. I deigned to catch his eye and he lifted his brow in mute sympathy.

“—I expect there was a reason you came all this way, Sir Ightham,” he said, cutting Michael and King Jonas off mid-conversation.