Chapter Five

Solitude

In the past month, Ark has become the generous dragon hunter gracing the valley with his benevolence. The spell affecting everyone continues to confuse Ark. People now seem to recall him, their conversations, his visits, as if they’re somehow allowed to remember this new Ark. This Dragonslayer. After two more unsuccessful attempts to leave the valley, he puts the thought aside for later. Maybe the strength of the magic will lessen in time, maybe depleting the rubies is the key, and for a while, he visits Crinidava quite often, donating rubies to those in need, to the hungry and the cold and the poor. Some lie in order to get gems, others accept with wariness.

Every undeserved demand for rubies darkens his heart, but the relieved smiles keep him doing it. If he were to be honest, he’d admit he does it mostly for his own humanity, something he’s feeling more and more removed from while surrounded by the misleading silence of the castle.

Here, the magic caresses his soul while the accompanying agony eats at his sanity. For a while, the villagers’ grateful faces were the only things breaking the monotony of his long, solitary days.

His actions, however, haven’t been without side effects. Ever since travelers from surrounding places have started pouring in, Ark hasn’t been down to Crinidava. His desire to give is intense, but he has his limits. The fervor of the demands, as if they’re all entitled to the rubies Ark pays for with his sanity, rings too close to Geren and his gruesome avarice. Thus, Ark has stopped, but it has inspired them to do this, instead.

Outside the gates, hooligans holler, asking for rubies. Some of them bang at the wood, others throw stones over the walls.

“Kill them.” The whisper travels through the castle. “Kill them, Arkeva, for us.”

Ark ignores the voice while he prepares a plate for lunch.

“End them all, until only blood and broken bone remains. Please, Arkeva, for us. Protect us.”

“They can’t get in,” Ark mutters, “so shut up.”

“Don’t you want to feel the life drain from their bodies? Don’t you wonder how easy it would be to stab an arrow through their eyeballs?”

Ark huffs as he picks up the plate but finds his bow in his hand instead. “Stop this. Now.”

“Come on, Arkeva, you want to. You want to slice them open, smother them all—”

The air lodges in Ark’s throat, and he struggles against an invisible hold. The constriction moves around his spine, both upward to his head and down his back, making his legs tremble under the weight.

Slaughtered bodies lie around him, blood everywhere, the stench of death stifling in the scorching air.

“Stop!” he screams, then chokes on a sob.

He’s on his knees, dry heaving on the floor of the kitchen until a glass of water appears in front of him. But he pushes it aside before he scrambles to his feet.

He runs and runs until the voice quiets and he can lie his heated forehead against cold stone.

The only place the malice can’t reach him is in the other one’s room, his sad companion. He finds refuge there more often than he steps outside the castle.

*

“Where are you?” Orsie asks again, focusing his thoughts on the feeling of home and his friend.

The whisperer’s place, he needs to know it. Just like the last few times he asked, flashes of distorted images come back, a sense of hurt and fear instead of a location. Orsie sighs. Looks like he’ll have to find his anaskett and his unseen whisperer by himself.

It’s a man, from what he can tell. Maybe a page or a servant, timorous of his surroundings. Surely, one of Nevmis’s new subjects; there’s no other explanation. Orsie wishes he knew his name, but the same magical barrier is obscuring his identity as well.

With a frown, Orsie continues stirring the stew pots. Claiming to be a cook is working well for him when he needs a place to sleep and supplies for the road. Some recipes are disgusting, and he wrinkles his nose more often than not, but other foods are delicious. Orsie never knew human mouths could taste all these things. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss his dragon form. He’s maybe a week away from Ses, depending on how long he has to stay at this tavern. He wouldn’t have halted at a roadside post station of all places, but an empty belly doesn’t benefit his lingering sickness.

Later, lying in a cot above the stable, he watches the ceiling in the dark room, a sliver of moonlight coming in the small windows. He imagines the view from the whisperer’s large ones, overlooking a snow-covered forest, and a smile forms on his lips. It’s been so long since he’s felt like smiling that the soft laughter forming in his head adds to the comfort. He’s not alone tonight, his mind filled with silly joy, heart pounding in his chest.

His breath quickens, his skin warms, and Orsie squirms against the sheets.

He’s never felt anything similar; is it sickness?

Someone touches him, under his clothes. Not Orsie, but the whisperer, and it turns Orsie’s stomach. He rolls off his cot, falls to his knees on the ground. Wrong, it’s wrong, and he fights against the thoughts, pushing at them until he can breathe.

He curls up against the wall, knees drawn to his chest, head in his hands. Orsie has no claim; he shouldn’t feel this drive to abscond with the whisperer, to shield him from the want of others.

A sound that’s more bark than laugh leaves his lips, and he wipes at his cheeks for a long time. The light falling on the floor moves with the setting of the moon, but Orsie can’t make himself stand. This can’t happen. He doesn’t even know who the whisperer is, yet, Orsie has attached to his kindness.

Dragons are possessive beings when their affinity is welcome. They mate once in their entire life, those of them lucky to find creatures after their own hearts. A dragon’s companion would be just as selfish in keeping their dragon close, keeping them away from the world. It’s what they’d do if devoted to each other—hoard their shared affection.

What is Orsie doing, slipping into this madness that can lead nowhere good? The man has all the right to search for companions wherever he wishes. Orsie’s not there to offer himself. Not even as a voice in the whisperer’s head.

He decides, then, to shut it out. He can’t—he can’t yearn, can’t let this feeling be known. The whisperer deserves to be happy, free of Orsie’s burden.

*

After the incidents outside his gates, Ark shouldn’t be surprised at a visit from the highest-ranking magistrate in Crinidava. Dieri is a small man with a mousy face and eternally wiggling fingers, but he has a reputation of fairness. Many appreciate him, although he does have a tendency of trying to bend circumstances to his favor. It usually results in better lives for the villagers, like that time when Geren lost a bet to him and the entire garrison had to help cut down old trees. Ark doesn’t dislike him, not really, but neither is he inspired to trust the man.

Dieri leaves his group of horses and aides outside the gates and has no problem sitting on the cold stone of the courtyard while he gives Ark the village’s deepest apologies. He treats Ark like offended royalty and lays out the three days of celebration Crinidava will hold in his honor, should he be willing to open his gates.

Ark refuses, and Dieri is more than upset, but an annoyingly long back-and-forth later, it is decided that one night of celebration can be held in tents outside the gates. Afterward, Ark is convinced that the Danvian capacity to feel offended would make for a great contender to the fickle nature of dragons. He snorts at himself, willing to admit the same fault, but the magistrates are being ridiculous with the length to which they need to go to prove the village is not at fault. Thus, there would be no need for Ark to move away and take his rubies with him, though that last part goes unsaid.

Ark would be lying if he said he didn’t bask in the attention. All these people coming and going with gifts and honors drown out the malice and the sadness. He almost forgets it, out here under the clear night sky, between food and sweets, good wine and cheery music.

He’s drawn among the dancers by a young woman with green eyes and dark hair. Her soft touch accompanies her bright smile under the flickering light of the torches, and for a while, he forgets. He sets aside all thoughts of magic, of rubies and yearning. He stops thinking of anything other than how she’d feel, caressed by his crimson sheets.

Next he knows, he’s falling in his bed with her in his arms, laughter loud in the room. Her mirth shines through the kisses, skin warm under his hands as he pushes cloth aside to reveal more and more. He leans back, kneeling on the bed to look at her, and Ark’s about to ask for her name when she points to the side.

“What’s in there?”

The left side door is open. Has been, all this time, a cool breeze sweeping through, along with…along with… Ark stills, jaw trembling under the weight of so much anguish. He’s rarely felt anything coming from his sad companion while outside the room. Only at times of heightened emotion does he catch feelings and sensations traveling through the narrow corridor on low gusts of air.

This is stronger than any other occurrence. Worse. His palms feel dirty where they’ve touched her. He recoils, scrambles off the bed gracelessly, but it’s too late.

Something snaps shut, almost audible, and Ark’s stomach turns. No, this isn’t happening.

“Arkeva,” the malice sings over hateful cackles. “It’s her fault, hers alone. Take her apart, show us her nice warm blood. Maybe he’ll forgive you then.”

“Get out,” Ark grits at the woman.

“But—”

“Out!”

His yell startles her into running, and Ark trusts the castle to guide her out. He stumbles into the dark left side room, kneels.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Please forgive me.”

There’s no answer. Nothing, not even a wisp of presence.

Ark’s jaw clenches as his eyes sting. This is all Dieri’s fault, and he lets anger fill him, just to have something to cling to, anything other than empty silence. He walks outside, not far behind the scared woman, and finds the music gone, eyes watching him warily.

“Be gone and don’t return,” he tells them, right before he wills the gates closed.

The subsequent bang reverberates through the courtyard, and Ark collapses against the wood. He feels too little and too much at the same time, unable to untangle his thoughts from one another.

Dawn finds him still there, resting his forehead on his bent knees.

He wants nothing else to do with the outside world.

A tickle at his ankle finally makes him unwind enough to look. Red ivy stretches everywhere. The vines, grown thick and sturdy, cover the walls and the castle. Leaves sway softly in the wind, mesmerizing, like drops of water, carrying his pain and guilt toward the sky. His eyes sting and overflow.

Ark cries.

The malice laughs, basking in Ark’s misery, drinking his hot tears, night after night.

The other, his cherished one, remains silent.

Gone.

*

A warm May wind blows from the south when Orsie reaches Ses. Sister to Grond, the settlement is so large, it takes an hour to travel from one end to the other on foot. But that means there are many places willing to hire a sickly man. Orsie counts himself lucky to find work at another tavern, especially since quite a few soldiers come by to spend their wages on cheap ale. If anyone knows the gossip of a city, it’s the garrison soldiers, who are often sent high and low, from the palace to the slums, for various tasks and missions. So far, he hasn’t found anyone who remembers a dragon passing by lately.

Orsie’s days blend one into the other for a little while, the summer progressing steadily toward stifling heat. His next scale goes earlier than expected, the months of mortals no longer neatly aligned with the cycles of rising crescents. It throws Orsie off balance, so he chooses to extend his stay. A small reprieve, a chance to put aside some slivers of gems so he won’t need to stop for work as often during his next journey.

He doesn’t realize how much time has gone until he overhears some customers talking about the new moon passing, about tonight marking another returning crescent. Half of June is already behind him, and Orsie has wasted another scale.

He shares the room above the tavern with the other servant, so he doesn’t return there after the last customer has left. Instead, he walks the narrow streets until he’s in the small square a few houses over, the one where a long bench rounds an ugly statue. But the stone pavement and the silence remind him of his lost home under the darkness of night, so Orsie sits on the bench, clutching at his arm. The skin there has been itching all evening.

He waits for the ache.

Waits with his chest heavier than ever, and he misses it so much.

His dragonsoul.

He knows it’s weakness that drives him, but he needs to know it’s safe. He closes his eyes, opens his mind.

Surprise greets him, and glee, and then a sob that flips Orsie’s stomach. There’s regret, sorrow, a deep-seated misery streaked with painful loneliness. And above all, there’s gratitude, that Orsie’s still here, that he’s alive.

That he’s back.

The thoughts of the whisperer run around in his head, chasing themselves between guilt and promises Orsie can’t hear but understands. He tries, oh how he tries to reassure him. Yet the tumult of the whisperer’s relief and desperation is too strong. For hours, all Orsie can do is respond to the only four words that make any sense as they come to him over and over again.

“Please don’t leave me.”

“I won’t.”

Near dawn, he makes his way back to the room. Orsie smiles, despite having just lost another scale. He stands near the window watching the rooftops while the other server is unaware, sleeping in his bed. Outside, rain is finally falling over the heated city, a thin drizzle that most likely won’t keep it cool, but at the moment everything is shiny under the fading moonlight. If Orsie watches through his eyelashes; it almost looks like a thin sheet of frost.

“Dear one—”

The whisperer calls, and Orsie answers, returns this joy of reconnection. He tried explaining that they shouldn’t indulge this affection. That his devotion won’t fade, that Orsie will find him.

The whisperer, however, welcomes him.

Maybe he should try again to pinpoint his anaskett. So far, he hasn’t seen any recognizable landmarks. Powerful magic seems to be guarding the place where the whisperer lives, keeping its location a secret, along with the man’s name.

He draws a deep breath before closing his eyes. He feels a room, its large windows open, a warm breath nearby. He tries to catch sight of the whisperer’s face, but just like before, it slips through his perception. The room tilts around until Orsie is looking through the man’s eyes. Another safeguard in place. This particular one, though, has a perk, because when it happens, Orsie can see his anaskett, still shining darkly.

The whisperer moves to his own window. Outside, the landscape is unclear, and Orsie focuses—a loud hiss runs through, momentarily interrupting the connection.

He sends back the regret of not being there, his yearning.

“That’s all right. I can wait.”

Orsie will find him, of this he is certain. In a week, or a month, or even five, but Orsie will reach the whisperer before the last scale fades. He must.

Contentment from across the connection brings his smile back.

“I read a story today about a young princess and an evil witch. Would you like to hear it?”

Yes, Orsie would.

*

He has a decision to make as he stands outside of Ses, backpack filled with supplies. He can either go further south, or travel back north. Despite his efforts, nobody he asked remembered a dragon flying over the city in the past few years, so he figures he’d track back to the last place the dragon was seen. There is also an old, larger forest east of Haumir, next to even older mountains. There are trees where the whisperer is, many of them on land sloping outside his windows, so perhaps Nevmis built her lair there.

And so, Orsie turns north, the summer sun shining on his face, and he walks, hopeful once again.

*

Hollowness has carved its way within Orsie, one not even the whisperer can fill, not tonight. He sits on the small bed, thankfully alone in the servants’ chamber, shivering from more than the cold, and he still can’t bring himself to roll his sleeves back down.

His arms are—

He has only twelve left, six on the outside of each forearm.

Orsie can’t move, not even to wipe the wetness off his cheeks.

“Dear one—”

He shakes, fingers fisted in the blanket covering his legs, wishing for his claws, wishing for the whisperer. Hoping against everything the man won’t tire of waiting.

“I am here. I opened the window, as you like it.”

Orsie’s jaw trembles.

“It’s so warm this summer, but there’s a nice draft going now. Can you smell the trees?”

He’s made it all the way to the eastern Red Forest only to find that it never snows here. It rains and hails, but the ground is never white. The great oaks of the forest are caught in eternal autumn, a remnant of a curse brought by the selfishness of its dwellers. Serves them right, to betray a nymph. It’s been more than half a century since this happened, so the whisperer can’t be here and has never been around these parts. Nobody saw Nevmis either.

“I’m sorry,” Orsie croaks.

“Dear one.” The whisper twirls inside his head, caressing. Need and determination flood Orsie’s mind, and he closes his eyes.

He doesn’t deserve this, not after fruitless months of slow journey. He’s coughing again, but he refuses to believe he’s destined to die far away from his soul and the whisperer. Orsie wants to see his face, feel his skin, taste his lips. He shouldn’t do this, but he chases the feeling, allows the fantasy to bloom.

He imagines offering his anaskett and being accepted, then sharing it with his beloved whisperer. He thinks about teaching the man the ways of dragons, anticipates his wonder at all a dragon sees and feels outside the perception of mortals. He yearns for their wings around each other in a cocoon that hides them from the world, that keeps them safe so they could—

Heat rushes to Orsie’s face as his affection is reciprocated.

The whisperer doesn’t understand the whole extent of Orsie’s want. Whenever Orsie tries relaying his dragon nature, the connection distorts, echoing into itself. More impediments from Nevmis’s magic, no doubt.

Still, it’s satisfying to be answered in kind and new tears stream down his cheeks.

*

With a hand over his squinting eyes to shield them from the midday sunlight, Orsie surveys the horizon. He should be arriving at the next village in a day, two at most. He’s been traveling back south through an arid land, right at the outskirts of the sands. The summer air stifles, his water almost finished. A hunter he met on the way told him a caravan is resting at the village, one set to depart in a fortnight. It came from the dunes and is bound west for Uvalhort before making its way back home. Its path will be different than Orsie’s has been, going through different villages as it crosses Sesgrond, and if he can get himself hired as a helping hand, his travel will be easier. A caravan the size described by the hunter would have food, water, and plenty of carts and horses, so Orsie might get lucky enough to steal a ride from time to time as well.

Hefting his backpack higher on his sore shoulders, he quickens his pace.

The whisperer’s been quieter than usual lately, anguish permeating through the connection. Orsie’s been trying, but he can’t reach the whisperer as well as the other way around. Today, he’s distracted and wary, defensive even.

Orsie sends a caress.

“Dear one—”

“I’m here,” Orsie says. “I’m searching for you.”

*

A few days later, the whisperer is relaxed and content for a change, and Orsie allows his good mood to spill over. He’s tired and dusty, but he’s made it to the village in time to catch the caravan, with a few days to spare, even though at one turn he wandered the wrong way and had to backtrack. Only Orsie could get lost on a flat plain. He wishes he could still fly.

He’s managed to get himself hired quickly because he can cook, and now Orsie indulges in a hot meal at the local tavern. He’s at the end of a long table filled by the merchants’ aides, listening to their drunken ruckus.

Someone sits next to Orsie and a carafe is set in front of him. Ale. It’s cheap, and Orsie sneezes at the smell, immediately followed by laughter.

“You don’t have the habits of youth,” Fenna says.

She’s the caravan’s experienced guide, a woman accustomed to life on the road. Her skin is darkened by the sun, dried by the winds, creasing around her eyes and mouth with her mirth. Orsie is again reminded how half a century is a long lifetime to mortals, but he can’t disagree with her.

Instead, he shrugs. “I find no pleasure in it.”

“Well,” she says as she pushes the drink toward the next man over, “we do need a sober cook. Why is a nice boy like you traveling the Plains?”

Here’s his chance to fish for information.

“I’m looking for a dragon,” he says.

Fenna’s eyebrows raise, and she purses her lips in thought. “All the way out here?”

He shrugs again.

“You must be lost, kid,” she mutters, incredulous. “There hasn’t been a dragon here since before my grandmother was alive, Havesskadi frost her bones.”

Orsie chokes on his own spit. “You know of the black dragon?”

“Me?” Fenna asks, patting Orsie’s back awkwardly. “Psh, no. But my great-grandmother saw him once, up in Hriss. He gave her an amethyst so pure she had to break it into pieces to trade, but it’s how she afforded to take her eight daughters and move down to Uvalhort where it’s warmer.”

He remembers a woman, long ago, on a road. He’d fumbled his landing, apples absorbing his thoughts, and he’d destroyed the poor woman’s cart. Huh.

“Anywho,” Fenna says, rustling through her pockets for her pipe, “my family believes in dragons.”

“And you don’t?”

“Do I ever,” she counters. “I saw one with my own eyes, big and red. It scared all the damn horses.”

Orsie stills. “Where?”

“By Nok, near the border with Danv. I was leading a merchant back east when it flew above us toward the dunes.”

“So it went east,” Orsie says.

“Nah, the other way around,” Fenna tells him as she leans back. “We met another caravan on the way to Ses. They saw it come at them from a distance, but it turned around back west at the last moment.”

Fenna scratches her cheek. “Must’ve been the doing of that witch traveling with them, but who knows why it changed its mind. Dragons are fickle,” she finishes with a sigh.

Orsie, however, feels as if the blood has drained out of him. All this wasted time, searching east when he could’ve—

“You don’t look well, kid. Don’t make me hire another cook.”

He forces an inhale. “I’m not sick,” he defends, grateful he isn’t feverish for once. “Just surprised about the dragon. Did you say it went west?”

“Yeah,” Fenna says, squinting. “Why d’you want to find a dragon?”

“It was Mother’s dying wish,” he lies. If he’s learned anything these past few months, it’s that mortals are more susceptible to tales of death.

“Oh, poor thing,” Fenna says, already distracted. “But the red one is a terror, maybe you should look for another.”

Orsie shrugs, feigning innocence. “Maybe it flew to where the dragons live?”

Fenna’s smile is motherly as she puffs some smoke out before she starts telling him about the dragons. Well, she does know a few truths, but the rest are tall tales.

Orsie listens, asks questions, and at the end of the night, he knows he must return west.

Dawn finds him still awake, watching the dark horizon as the sun climbs into the sky behind him. The caravan will take him to Uvalhort. Fenna is traveling through the orchards after the caravan reaches its destination, toward home for a while, and Orsie jumps at the opportunity to accompany her, at least until he hears more about Nevmis’s path. With her, it will be less likely that he gets lost.

*

Ark closes the book with a long exhale. His companion is silent today, but that’s fine. He never did like to celebrate his birthdays.

His thirty-fourth.

Who would’ve thought Ark would live this long—no, he expected to die on the battlefield. Instead, here he is, drowning in magic. The summer breeze drifts in from the open windows, carrying over the smell of wet earth. It’s been raining during the day.

He’s been sleeping on the cold stone of the chamber for the past three months, his bed forgotten. It feels better here, anyway, where the voice can’t follow. Why, Ark doesn’t have an explanation, but the magic is different in this room. The air is sweeter, sharper, even with the windows closed. And really, if he can sleep on the ground, then Ark can sleep next to him on the stone floor.

Many nights Ark has spent lying under the windows, watching the sky with him. Many days feeling, hurting. He yearns for something he can’t name but feels akin to freedom. It’s not that he wants to be untied from his home. On the contrary, he still needs to be here despite the overwhelming malice.

Like the two doors, one drowns him, the other lifts him.

When his dreams aren’t nightmares, he flies. Soars high above the clouds, a myriad of suns surrounding his essence, like the world bending to his will. When he lies awake, here in this safety, he is cherished.

It strikes him, sometimes, how a lot of this only happens in his head. With the quietude at its peak, straining his senses with the lack of life, that’s when he feels. His companion is closer, livelier, vibrant. The transfer is seamless between Ark’s thoughts and these incoming sensations he doesn’t recall experiencing in his own skin.

He has to ask, although he already knows the answer.

“Do I really love you, or am I just insane?” The air is still, his thoughts unmoving. “I love you.” Ah, there it is, poking at the edge of consciousness.

Mine.

Ark gasps. Of course he is, of course.

“You, too,” he whispers. “You’re mine.”

He closes his eyes, the glint of the moonlight still dancing around his vision. His chest tightens, wishing, hoping.

Waiting.