39. Dimitri
39
DIMITRI
H arper. It was her. And that was impossible. But it was her . Dimitri reeled from the unexpected sight of her in the midst of such carnage and destruction. She had no place there. He could hardly breathe with the shock of it. With the worry for her. He had sent Harper away to keep her safe from Toroth—how had she wound her way into something even more dangerous?
And more than that, it had struck him just how much she had affected him—far more than he had realised. He had felt a bolt of worry for her so deep at the sight of her that the incandescent terror of it cleaved him in two. He had to find her, had to warn her, had to make her leave . She could not be caught in what was to come. He should not have cared. She was nothing more than yet another bystander—a casualty if necessary. Yet he knew he could not bear that.
He sent a curse up to the heavens, to the gods who had made him weak. Because now he realised that he cared for her—he could not deny it to himself any longer—and worse still he wanted her, this brazen young woman who would not cease challenging him. Even her gaze had burned him from across that cave, though they had not shared a word. That look had seared him where he stood, and if looks could have killed, he would be dead.
“Lord Ellarian!” Saradon snapped.
It broke Dimitri’s reverie, and he startled, coming back to the great hall of Afnirheim once more. Saradon glared at him—judging his silent lapse. Dimitri straightened.
“The thirl door .” Saradon tested the unfamiliar words on his tongue. He curled his lip, irritated. At a slice of his hand, the dwarf before him crumpled, dead before he hit the ground. Beside Saradon, Dimitri held himself rigid, wiping his thoughts blank. He turned as Saradon addressed him.
“Of course, the rats have a secret entrance. Confound them! But it matters not. The goblins have what they want, a dwarven city, though less sport to enjoy now, and the thirl door is destroyed. The dwarves will not venture here again, and when the time comes, I will show them how we treat unwanted guests.”
“I have no doubt,” Dimitri murmured. He knew Saradon thought of the dwarven king, a fearsome killing machine in his impregnable armour, wielding his giant, double-headed axe. But Dimitri’s thoughts lingered on the unexpected familiar faces in the crowd. Aedon. The nomad. The Aerian. And—something in his chest tightened anew—her. Harper. Why were they there? How? He could not understand how their paths had collided under such impossible circumstances—again. More fool him, but he still felt a shred of compassion, a shred of responsibility for her safety. There would be no keeping her safe from Saradon if she crossed his path. He pushed her from his mind as Saradon huffed.
“And the others,” Saradon mused slowly, pacing back and forth around the grand jarlshalle, the centre of power in Afnirheim, second only in grandeur to Keldheim’s konigshalle. One of the only spaces he had not permitted to be desecrated. The pascha had not taken kindly to that instruction, or Saradon’s destruction of his throne of bones.
“The others?” Dimitri tried to keep his voice neutral. Luckily, Saradon was too engrossed in his own musings to snag on his discomfort.
“The Aerian, the human, and the two elves. Who are they? What were they doing with the dwarves? What unusual company to keep—they stuck out sorely. They must be of some note.”
“I do not know, Lord Saradon.” Dimitri was entirely truthful on that at least. He had no idea why. Only that they had rescued some of the dwarves the goblins had kept for sport. He suppressed a shudder of distaste. Ghastly creatures. He had no love for the dwarves, but they did not deserve such treatment. This had not been part of the bargain. Dimitri knew there was a cost to any war, casualties, but this was past the line he wanted to cross. It was too late now, he told himself to try and alleviate the creeping guilt beginning to gnaw at him.
“The girl…”
Dimitri froze. He could only mean Harper.
“She sang to me,” Saradon murmured, as if in a daze. “It was as though my mother’s blood called to me once more. Why, had I not known better, known it to be impossible, I would have thought her my kin.” He frowned, staring into nothingness.
Dimitri swallowed. “It could well be so, Lord. Perhaps she is a distant relation. You know how the Houses intermingle.”
Saradon met his gaze, steel in his eyes. “I do indeed, yet the line of Ravakian is ash, dead and buried. There could be none of my blood.”
Dimitri squirmed. “If I may, Lord. I do not believe you to be correct. I have been the king’s spymaster for decades. I have known his innermost business, his most secretive thoughts… things that could have destroyed him over the years. There was one secret I knew that he only shared with perhaps one other.”
Saradon did not speak, but his attention commanded Dimitri to continue.
“You had a son, am I correct?”
Saradon stiffened.
Dimitri held up his hands to placate him. “I know it to be true. I know nothing more than that of him. I suspect no one living, save perhaps the king, knows any more than that. Your son had a daughter before he died, and no, I do not know the means of Arven’s passing. It was before my time. The daughter, Ilrune, was killed on Toroth’s orders.”
Dimitri shook his head, sensing Saradon’s anger growing. “I played no part in it. You may examine my mind to know I speak the truth,” he added hastily. Saradon gave a sharp nod for him to continue. “The general of the Winged Kingsguard saw that Ilrune met her demise upon the king’s orders. Afterward, there was just one question I heard the king ask that the general could not answer. Ilrune perhaps had a child. Her lover was already dead, but the child, a babe in her arms… No remains were found for the babe when Raedon executed the pair of them. It will be some twenty-five years past, give or take. No one could find the child. Not the king, not the general… not me.”
But now, Dimitri had a growing sense of dread as he finally, painstakingly, connected the dots. A mysterious woman of elven blood, about twenty-five summers old, from a land where she should not have existed… A missing baby twenty-five summers hence, sent far away by her mother in order to protect her. The Dragonheart finding her , instead of coming to him to bring about Saradon’s rise. How it had brought her home to Pelenor before she ever knew she belonged there. The charm on the bracelet that linked her to Saradon, to the line of Ravakian. As everything clicked, he wished he had never spoken the words. Even before Saradon declared it, Dimitri knew it to be true, and the blood drained from him.
He could not take his words back.
“The girl is the babe.” Saradon exclaimed, his eyes alight with an excitement Dimitri had never seen before. “Fate drew her here. Her blood called to me. That is why. She is the blood of my blood—my sole heir , no less—I must have her,” he hissed, whirling on Dimitri, fervent in his desire.
Dimitri’s knees threatened to fold as he stood, hollow, whilst Saradon celebrated the survival of his bloodline. She cannot be his blood , he thought desperately. It would irrevocably change her fate, change her safety. Now he had no way to keep her from Saradon’s attention.
“I have an heir!” Saradon crowed. “What a gift.”
Crushed, Dimitri bowed. He did not dare speak.
At that moment, the pascha and his chieftains burst in, cavorting across the jarlshalle, all drowning in dwarven armour, jewelry, weapons, and other spoils. Saradon’s jubilation tempered upon their arrival. Dimitri knew the pascha wanted more. More than Saradon was willing to give. Their disagreements never ended beautifully. Saradon’s magic always won. Dimitri had no desire to get in their way.
Using their entrance as a distraction, Dimitri slipped away, his heart thundering, into the ether, racing as far and fast as he could. Yet no matter how far or fast he fled, he could not outrun the doubt and panic crescendoing within him. Harper was Saradon’s kin—that was the missing piece of the puzzle—and now she was in more danger than ever, because Saradon knew it. The unfamiliar beast of his conscience haunted him, jarring in his bones and bitter upon his tongue. She had been safe. Without his meddling, she would have lived her days in Caledan, none the wiser. Dimitrius, you fool! This is all your fault.