Free Dragonoak by Sam Farren

flight of stairs
clinging to the side of the building she lived in.
    Katja
had moved beyond asking what I was doing, what I needed the fish
for. She fumbled for her key, as confused as she was excited as the
door clicked unlocked, and I shouldered it open, stomping into the
living area. The apartment was a far cry from what she was used to
– the walls were bare and I strongly suspected that nobody within
Mahon knew what a carpet was – but I found everything I
needed.
    I
grabbed a pitcher of water, placed it on the table at the centre of
the room, and dropped a fish into it, letting the other two slide
across the table.
    “Bring
them back to life,” I said bluntly.
    “I can't—” she began, but I cut her off before she could
add not yet .
    “Of course you can't!” You're not a necromancer,” I said,
slamming a hand down against the table. The water trembled in the
pitcher and Katja had finally done it; she'd finally forced me to
use my powers, after all this time. The fish twitched, calmed down
once it realised it was alive, and panicked all over again thanks
to its confined quarters. “If there was any chance of it happening,
you'd be able to do it by now. You can't learn this. I can't teach
you it. I wanted the fish to come back to life and it did . That's all there is
to this!”
    Katja
was paler than I'd ever seen her. She shook her head over and over,
and with trembling hands, picked up another of the fish. Twice she
tried to ease it into the pitcher and twice she failed, until
finally, the fish slid in, causing the other to flail all the
more.
    Her eyes
shone with the promise of tears, and with a deep, unsteady breath,
she held her hands over the pitcher and did exactly nothing.
Nothing but frustration built up within her, and I relished in it.
Maybe this was all it took; maybe this outburst would finally get
through to her. The fish refused to move, and Katja gripped the
sides of the pitcher as though it would make any
difference.
    “I've almost got it,” she said, voice painfully high. “I can
feel... something . Something that's different to anything else I've ever felt.
Please, Rowan. Please. If only I could cling to whatever it is. If
only you would tell me how it feels for you.”
    Her eyes
were all but black, and as she trembled with the impossible task
she'd assigned herself to, her skin too changed. It became sickly,
reflecting the grey of Felheim's sky on a dreary day. She was
desperately trying to twist her power into something it wasn't,
burning herself from the inside out as a consequence.
    Seeing
her like that caused all of my anger to rush out. I wrapped my
fingers around her wrists, easing her hands away from the pitcher,
but the part of her nature that had always tried to repel mine got
the better of her. I couldn't hold on without feeling as though my
palms were burning, and as my stomach twisted in on itself, I
looked around, needing something to break her out of the trance
she'd forced herself into.
    The
glint of a kitchen knife caught my attention. I darted over and
grabbed it, took hold of the last fish and sliced it
open.
    “Katja. Katja, look at me. You're forcing yourself to bring
that fish back to life, and you're only hurting yourself,” I said,
picking up the bloody fish and dropping it into the water. “It
shouldn't be difficult. It should exhaust you, but not like this . You shouldn't have
to think about it. It should be so much harder for me to bring this
fish back, and yet...”
    I held
my hand over the pitcher, lest Katja convince herself that the two
dead fish had come back to life through her own brutal efforts. I
blinked and they were back, fighting for space within the pitcher,
and all at once, the spell was broken. Katja stopped staring, arms
falling slack at her sides, and I put the knife down, pulling her
into my arms.
    “My
mother's dead,” she said in a small, broken voice. “Everyone. My
entire country. They are lost to me. I did nothing for them, and
even