Chapter 56
Kiara
For a second after I wake, I can't work out what's going on. Everything feels too warm, too snug after all that time spent sleeping under the stars. A thick layer of material is settled over my midsection, something I quickly realise to be Geraint's cloak as I identify him as the body at my side. He looks happier as he sleeps, younger. It doesn't hit me properly until I roll over, discovering that the enveloping dragon heat belongs to a slightly amused-looking Ella.
Drake did not return in the night.
And for a second, I considered killing one of my only friends.
"Good, you're awake," Geraint murmurs, stirring in his sleep. I'm not quite used to him using Ella's eyes while she doesn't have her head on his shoulder, and his awareness makes me jump. "It's late, we need to go."
In an instant he's fully roused, striding across the room. I blink, bleary eyed, and reach out for the stolen heat of his cloak. Ella's amusement, in my mind, almost feels exactly like a chuckle. She's much more human than Drake is.
With a grunt, Ella stands, shifting me gently from her side and onto the cold floor. I shiver, upset that I have been given no choice in the sudden wakefulness the icy surface provides.
"Where are we going?" I ask the impatient Geraint. I think, in terms of last night, I am forgiven, or even that he doesn't blame me at all. He certainly doesn't seem any different.
But Drake is different, Drake is angry, and he still hasn't returned. Part of me just wants to mope around here all day in the hope that he'll come back and I can redeem myself.
Geraint's having none of it though. He has slept beyond the dawn, and it is time to go.
"Kill Geraint and save the world?" he says, "that sounds like too blatant a lie not to relate to something truthful. We're giving that dagger back to its owner, Kia, makes me sick just looking at it, and if I've got to wave it around first to get some answers, then I will."
"Geraint," I say, stifling a yawn, "I'm sorry about last night."
"Not your fault."
If Geraint keeps waving off my marginally attempted murder like it was nothing, I might begin to actually believe him.
"I tried to kill you," I remind him as we turn out onto the street and wonder why I'm so desperate for him to hate me all of a sudden.
"You're not the first."
He isn't joking.
"Your friends sound lovely," I mutter, dusting down my coat. I can't remember the last time I changed my clothes, or had a shower, and I'm starting to look just as travel-worn and dirty as he does. The only difference is that, somehow, he manages to look fearsome, and I just look homeless.
"I don't really do friendship remember," he grumbles, "or at least other people don't do friendship with me."
"You keep saying that," I say, "but one of your friends has given us a home, for an indeterminable amount of time, just like that. Ella would practically die for you, Drake idolises you, and I..."
"Tried to kill me?"
I just shrug.
"I never really had friends before; I'm still learning."
"Your teacher's awful."
"My teacher's you."
I wait for him to complain, but Geraint has become a lot more serious all of a sudden, and he refuses to rise to the bait. He freezes his purposeful gait, holding out an arm to bar my way.
"You can't come," he says, "I've changed my mind."
"What?"
Geraint holds out a hand expectantly.
"Give me the dagger," he says.
I narrow my eyes. My hand stretches instinctually down to my hip, where I have the dagger stashed in the band of my skirt, but I refuse to draw it just yet.
"Why?" I ask, "Why did you just change your mind?"
"Because you're right," Geraint snaps, "you're still learning everything, you're like a child. But I don't want you to learn friendship the way I did, twisted by Null and his false pleasantries. Stay here and look for Drake, it's what you wanted to do anyway."
Eyes still turned to slits in my suspicion, I draw the blade with a slow hand. Geraint's all fidgety and angry - he looks as though he wants to snatch it straight from my hand - but he holds back until I reluctantly press the bone handle into his palm.
"I'm not a child," I snap.
"Whatever makes you happy," he sneers, secreting the dagger away in some hidden compartment somewhere. The movement is so quick, I cannot follow where it went.
"I'm starting to wish I had killed you," I mutter as he turns away. "Is this just because I said 'teacher' again, Geraint? You do realise I'm allowed to make jokes. What is so disgusting about that concept anyway?"
"You don't understand anything," Geraint replies, lifting his voice over his shoulder as he walks away. "Child."
"Excuse me?"
I run to follow him, but Geraint has disappeared entirely. He must have switched through to the other side of the city, and all that remains is his voice, drifting alone and empty on the wind, but just as irritated as before. "Don't try and follow me."
"Wouldn't know how, even if I'd wanted," I mutter, turning back bitterly.
I came to this city to find my place in the world, and I decide that I do not want that place to be defined as 'at Geraint's side', so I fold my arms, scuff my feet a little, and eventually stride off in any random direction.
There's no point finding Drake: he can fly. And without his presence in my mind, I'd never be able to pinpoint him, even if he were bound to the earth.
When we settled down in the city, there just came a point where everything Geraint owned mixed up with everything I owned. It wasn't like we had anything that mattered sentimentally, and a few pots and pans don't really mean much. It just happened and I'm grateful for it. It means that now, when I dip my hands into my pockets, my fingers brush up against the firm surface of dragon scale.
I draw the glittering pieces out into the sunlight and spread them out with a finger, recognising one in deep lilac, and a further two of Drake's cerulean blue. Enough to buy some decent clothing.
I have no idea where I'm going but I know I'll have to stumble across a tailor at some point, so I remain happy in my wandering... or at least externally. Geraint still frustrates me, and I can't exactly say I'm proud of last night.
But the air is warming quickly as late morning pushes into early afternoon, and it is a pleasant enough sensation that it makes it easy to simply not think about my troubles. I have always found it easier to be content when the sun shines. And in the Mirror City, the sun certainly knows how to shine.
By the time half an hour has passed, the heat has become uncomfortable. It radiates up from the cobbles even as the sun beats down upon my back. I'm still wearing the heavy skirts and long sleeves deemed necessary in Harborne, and even though my coat remains back at the house, the sweat has begun to bead on my brow.
Worse, it appears as if everybody else knew this would happen. The streets have emptied in favour of daytime siesta and I'm starting to worry that even if I turn out to be lucky enough to find somewhere that might sell me appropriate clothing, it'll be closed.
I keep walking. A left, a right, it's only a matter of time before I start going in circles - I'm already lost.
And then it starts getting strange.
Nothing big, not at first, just a prickling sensation at the back of my neck. Every few steps I seem to pass through tiny void spaces, like the ocean but not as strong. It sends a shiver down my spine and seems to clutch hungrily at my stomach.
I shudder but keep walking anyway. I don't know if it's being Kin that gives me all this confidence , or if I just naturally assume that bad things only happen on the far side of the reflection, but the sensation doesn't exactly bother me. Not at first.
My curiosity builds. I feel like I'm walking through soup. The air gets thicker, heavier, hotter, and every now and again, I come across those invisible globules of nothingness that just feel oddly wrong.
The street, already wide enough, begins to open up further. There's a tick building up in the recesses of my mind, just tugging at the back of my skull, begging me to turn back. But I'm all buoyed up on frustration and the desire to prove myself as more than a child. Besides, I didn't kill Geraint, so human magic still has no hold over me.
The street ends up boarded by high walls instead of buildings, and eventually falls to nothing, opening out on a great swathe of open space. Silence pools in the pregnant air, seeming almost to stew in this overwhelming heat.
I whip an arm across my forehead and meander out into the space. My feet tap on familiar stone cobbles, but not for long. Cobbles do not fill this strange, empty space in an otherwise fully populated city. Just a few feet away the stone gives way to grass, yellowed and dead in this punishing heat.
And upon the grass? Bones.
Suddenly the atmosphere begins to makes sense - heavy silence, motionless air - it all adds to that suggestion of timelessness, an intoxicating mix that I have felt once before: Martha's wedding. This place is a holy place, no matter where it is or who presides over it, the land where those bones fell was always going to become sacred.
Dragons journey to the Dawnlight mountains and leave their dead in the rain. But not this one. All serpents are queens until proven otherwise, and so she is already female in my head. I wonder what happened to bring her down here; she looks old, centuries old.
I step closer, a little in awe of the great beast. Her remains have been yellowed by the merciless pounding of time and sun, but she is still a sight to behold. I understand that Drake has not quite finished growing yet, but she must be at least a half his size again.
Her skull is nearly as tall as I am, and I could sit inside her rib cage and not be able to touch both sides with arms outstretched.
I step over the delicate bones of her tail, circling around to her head. If anything it is hotter here, where the sun has space to boil and there is no friendly shadow, but the heat is quite thoroughly forgotten as I finally draw to a standstill, right in front of her nose.
Her eye sockets, as large as my head, seem strangely dark. There is no space in this grand expanse for the shadows to hide, except in those great chasms, and they cluster fearfully, filling her skull with night. It almost seems as though I can feel the dead serpent down there with them, gazing soulfully out at me.
I shiver despite the heat, passing the sensation off as folly, and something catches my eye. Subtle, almost invisible against the bone, lies a single handprint.
No, not a single handprint, but hundreds, layered over and over across every inch of her skull. They thin out at the top, where the surface becomes too high to reach with human hands, but down where I stand, they almost seem to clamber over the top of each other, like symbolic scales, returned to the great beast after her death.
I run a tongue over my dry lips and lean in closer, studying the intricate detail of seared on fingerprints, and ancient lifelines. Almost hypnotically, I stretch out an arm, comparing my hand to these others, too tempted to do anything other than press my skin against the bone.
It hits me instantly, a great shock of agony rocketing up my arm. It steals my breath, closes my chest, and sends stars across my vision.
I cannot pull free.
And it just seems to burn more. She's laughing at me, from deep within those empty sockets; I can feel it, almost as an extension of my own thought, like speaking with Drake.
I struggle, tugging at my scorching palm. I'll rip my arm free if I have to. Except I can't. I'm not strong enough, not until solid arms wrap around my middle, tearing me free.
We tumble backwards, dry grass crackling as we fall. For a second I just lie there and pant, cradling my stinging palm away from danger.
"Storm and sky," Geraint curses, removing an elbow from where it has lodged itself in the small of my back, "I literally cannot leave you alone for an hour. What is wrong with you? You can't just stroke her."
I roll my head over on the dry ground, just looking at him for a second. His cloudy eyes are creased up in anger once again, but I don't care. He just saved my life. Again.
Before I can wonder whether or not actual human compassion is likely to burn him, I throw my arms around his neck, burying my head in his shoulder.
"Thank you," I breathe, whispering the words into the material of his shirt.
Geraint stiffens, and eventually relaxes into the hold. I'm not exactly sure I can count it as an embrace because although he does wrap strong arms around my waist, he uses them to lift me up, and as soon as we're both standing, he lets go, patting an awkward brush down my back. I stumble forwards, scowling, but take what I can. The man just saved my life - probably - it would be the epitome of selfishness if I were not satisfied with that alone.
I clench my jaw as the wind blows across my sensitive hand. Lifting it to eye level, I study the raw flesh, already blistering. I can still hear that cruel laughter in the back of my mind, and I look up at the great skeleton with annoyance and a little fear.
There, on the smooth surface of her skull, the top layer of my skin sizzles slightly, fading slowly until it, too, is nothing more than a pale mark in amongst the others. Ella makes herself visible, stepping delicately up to the bones and sniffing them warily. I notice that she keeps herself at a safe distance.
"It's rude of her to take from Kin," Geraint mutters darkly, "not that she cares."
"Who is she?" I breathe, stepping away from Geraint and up to Ella's side.
"Who is she!? Are you serious girl? She was Viper, but she's dead now. She'd have sucked you dry given half the chance. You're damn lucky you're alive."
"She laughed at me," I breathe, eyes wandering over her bones, taking in the sight with new meaning.
"What?" Geraint suddenly seems far more interested, striding up to my side and peering in at her with equal scrutiny. Ella's unease seeps into my skull. "She's conscious of this world? I don't believe it," he says, and pauses, "mostly because I really don't want to. Don't go near her again."
"Don't worry," I shudder, "I won't."
Clumsy movement distracts all three of us, and even Geraint moves his head instinctively in the direction of the sound.
I barely have time to register who it is before I am tumbling backwards, surrounded by a cloud of brightest blue.
"Bit late now aren't we?" Geraint grumbles, stepping away as Drake covers every inch of my body in hasty apologetic contact and desperate concern.
"I'm fine," I splutter, unable to make out a single one of his panicked thoughts. "It's just my hand."
But by the time Drake's nose finds my palm, the sting has all but gone, replaced by a brand new layer of smooth skin.
"Would you look at that?" I breathe, bringing my hand to my face as Drake goes about trampling me in love.
In the end I manage to wave him off and pull myself to my feet. It is more difficult than it should be, because he keeps trying to wrap his tail around my legs, but eventually I stand up properly. Drake fills my head with so much worry and concern that I barely have enough space for my own thought, but I cannot help but think how similar he and Geraint sound when he starts complaining about how he cannot leave me alone, not even for a single day.
"Love you," I breathe, patting his nose, "happy?"
I want to apologise for last night, but I get the impression that what is forgotten is also forgiven, and I'm just so happy to have him back that I don't want to risk an argument now, even if I know that I deserve it.
Geraint is staring into those hollow eyes when I turn back to him, or at least it seems like he is; Ella is more concerned with Drake's return and watches the two of us openly. I want to join his side, I still haven't had my fill of studying the nefarious Viper, but Drake's having none of it, tightening his tail around my leg as I try to take just a single step forward.
I settle for shouting instead, drawing Geraint up from his strange, blind contemplation of dead eyes.
"Why are there so many handprints?" I ask, "Surely not everyone is as... clueless... as I am?"
"No." Geraint shakes off whatever the moment was that had him standing there, nigh on hypnotised, and turns back to face me. "It's just an old tradition. They're the prints of criminals, sentenced to death. The kids used to call it feeding the Viper. This place is warded by such a sink on natural magic, a Void similar to the ocean or the sky, that we only don't feel it because we're Kin. But if you look, even the grass can't live. It would take so much accumulated magic over such a long period of time for her to wake that no one ever really thought about it. It always seemed so much neater than that whole beheading business."
He pauses.
"But I guess if it ever did get to the point where she had gained enough sentience to know what was going on, she probably would laugh..." he shudders, retracting his words. "No, Kia. It was just your imagination. Go home. Don't touch anything, don't stray. I wasn't finished with Null."