Joan I

  I dreamt of fire and smoke. Of daughters and wives. I dreamt a waking dream, a sleepless hell. I saw the sky crack and the earth shudder as reality folded in on itself. I heard the harpies whimper and screech their lives away as the clouds grew black and filled with smog. I dreamt a dream of death.

  There I saw the king sat dead upon his grandfather’s throne, and the king’s son, after his father’s own heart, laid waste to his king’s dream. In the belly of the world, I saw the fallen son, that would-be angel, come to blows against the kinslayer, and like a harpy myself I whimpered and screeched as I saw the skies and the heavens cry out for vengeance against a sin brokered so long ago that none but the sinner lived still.

  And a great daemon who knew my name cried out: “Joan!”

  In the green-pools of an old haven, I saw batches of false humans strung about, and to help them awake I sang a piercing lullaby. Once and twice, two times over. These were the named and the honoured. All who came after never heard my songs.

  Across my heart was carved the traitors names: angels they were, greatest was their name. And the score who bore the fallen’s word rectified their name as the world came undone and the seas became happy and the sky became blue and the world became undone.

  And a great daemon who knew my name cried out: “Joan!”

  Did you see the Bishop, a prisoner no more? When I saw his eyes, I cried out for lore. And Rook! Rook! Rook by his side! It called me Queen and the one who died King.

  Oh how I saw a man, so battered by regret, that he took up his sword and faced his fate and died by the flame and lent a new name to the order he once reigned like a king with no name but he called himself a consul, not a thane, not a duke with no fame or a lion with no mane!

  AND A GREAT DAEMON WHO KNEW MY NAME CRIED OUT: “JOAN!”

  …

  I blinked once or twice and rubbed the sleep from my eyes as the world came into existence.

  Standing at the door to my room was my dad. He was still dressed in his blue uniform, although he wasn’t wearing his hat, allowing his long, brown hair to curl past his temples. He didn’t like that hat—and neither did I.

  “Joan?” he called out.

  “Daddy?”

  Leaning on my door, he tilted his head and smiled. “Your mum’s asleep… and you know how she gets when I come home late. Wanna come make dinner with me?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Sure,” I yawned, stretching my arms.

  “Lovely,” he whispered as his voice faded down the hallway.

  Tearing off my blanket and re-adjusting my pink pajama shirt—which had ridden up my belly—I got out of bed and followed the humming of my dad to the kitchen.

  In the damp, yellow light, Daddy was stirring a pot of noodles and boiling water. To the left of the pot was another, this one more flat than tall, and to the right, submerged in smoking water, was a frozen leg of imp.

  “Ah,” he threw his eyebrows up when he saw me. “Stir this pasta while I start cooking the imp.”

  It was a bit hard to reach up there—I was small for my age—so I dragged over a chair and placed it next to the stove. With powerful effort, I stirred the noodles and made sure none of them were sticking to the bottom. Pretty soon, the delicious smell of burning imp exploded through the kitchen as Daddy got to work on the meat.

  “So how’s school going?” he asked me.

  “Good!” I beamed. “I’m learning about Joan of Arc—Mum said I was named after her.”

  The creases of his forehead scrunched together. “I’m pretty sure you were named after your mum’s mum—and from what I recall, she was Joan of Eden.”

  “Oh.” It wasn’t the first time she’s lied to me, but it still hurt.

  Daddy looked at me a couple times, and with each look, his face got sadder. “Even if you were named after her, Joan—or even with the fact you’re named after your grandmum—it doesn’t matter. You’re Joan. No one else.”

  I nodded, and content, he returned to the imp. “If only we had onions.”

  “What are they?”

  “The see-through stuff we usually put in this.”

  “We do have that?”

  He threw an eyebrow up. “We do?”

  I smiled and jumped off the chair, making my way to the potato box—but something else caught my eye. On the table, opposite the stove, there was a coin. You could barely notice it, because it was the same metal the table was made out of—or the same colour, at least.

  Wandering over to it, I saw the head of a feline engraved on the side facing up. That was pretty odd, considering they’ve been wiped out since the Fall. OH! It must be a coin from before!

  “What’s this, Daddy?”

  “Hmm. Oh, some kid a bit younger than you came up to me today and gave me that. Said it ‘reminded him of me’ or something. It was pretty odd, honestly, but I thought you’d like it—now get that onion and get back to the pasta. Quick.”

  Huh. Daddy’s nothing like a cat!

  Deciding to look at it once dinner’s ready, I went over to the potato box and grabbed a pink onion out. Apparently onions didn’t used to be pink—or this pink, anyway—which I think is pretty odd, because if traces of the Rot in the air made onions pink here, what was making them purple and white on earth?

  I handed him the onion and scrapped the bits of noodles that had stuck to the pot from the bottom. Those were the worst ones, but once Daddy mixes it, you barely notice them.

  “Joan!” a voice that knew my name called out.