Chapter 5
Something was stopping her from moving.
Arla had marched beside Hark to halt at the bottom of a dais, and her eyes had refused to rest on the stationary monarchs until she had scanned each corner and crevice of the room for potential threat – or escape, should this go very south.
It was an ordinary room, high windows allowing dazzling sunlight to stream in, and decorated in red and gold – a signature of Kastonia, then.
What had stopped her still, was the face of the King of Kastonia.
Staring down at her was the same set of ice-blue eyes that she had spotted through the crack in the side of a dresser.
Her heart thundered in her chest, her breath catching in her throat as she replayed the scene over and over again.
Arla’s hands trembled slightly – a telltale sign that she was coming undone and she was struggling to find her way back.
You can do anything.
She inhaled steadily, her nostrils flaring as she slid the mask of King’s Assassin back into place.
She tilted her chin down, not allowing herself to look directly at the face that haunted her dreams. If she looked at him now …
she may lose herself entirely. She would not allow herself to give in to that panic here.
She had got through it once. She could do it again.
The King of Kastonia smiled.
They were wise to have stripped her of her sword.
‘A pleasant journey, I hope?’ His haunting, deep voice ran through her, silencing every sense until all she could hear was the thundering of her own heart.
‘Uneventful, at least,’ Hark replied.
‘As I should hope it was. The horses will be well tended, and you both properly fed and rested before your departure tomorrow. I trust this little problem will be eradicated quickly.’
Arla bit back the retort she wanted to voice, the accusation that he had eradicated her parents and those who had slept peacefully whilst her kingdom had been raided.
If she spoke, blood would be spilled, and with the number of soldiers in the room, she could guarantee much of it would not be her own.
She wondered, briefly, where Orson, Hadalyn’s ambassador to Kastonia, was hiding.
‘And the lovely Miss Reinhart. I have heard much about you.’
Arla raised her head slowly to meet the gaze of the King of Kastonia. He was a rather plain man, with short dark hair, greying at the roots, but she could not mistake the watery eyes and cruel smile that had haunted her nightmares for years.
‘I have heard much about you too, Your Majesty,’ she managed to say, her voice couched in that important tone Cyrus had required her to craft through hours spent at royal balls and hiding in the eaves, listening to meetings that needed an assassin’s perspective.
‘I do hope our facilities are up to your standards. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that our kingdom is not as well financed as your own,’ the king continued, eyes boring into her as if he could see all of those dangerous, wicked thoughts she kept concealed.
‘I’m sure they will be more than satisfactory, Your Majesty,’ Arla said sweetly, and only Hark, who stiffened beside her, seemed to realise that the sweetness came not from politeness but from a sarcastic mocking of the king, who was forcing his kingdom’s poverty down her throat.
She had been surprised at how impoverished the kingdom looked – she didn’t think anyone in Hadalyn knew just how desperate a situation Kastonia had found itself in – but she wasn’t buying it for a moment.
The king was too finely dressed; his pristine clothes half-covered by a heavy red-velvet cloak with fox fur stitched around the collar.
And the queen, half-hidden by the space the king took up, was dripping in pearls and diamonds.
Arla didn’t mind her so much. The queen had kept her eyes trained on her clasped hands and was yet to meet Arla’s gaze. She was not a monarch; she was a woman who had been sold into marriage and made to sit pretty.
‘The northern border is a two-day ride from here, though if your assignment…’
The king’s eyes flickered between them and his soldiers, and it was clear that he did not wish for anyone to know of this task that had called Hadalyn’s prized hunter from her castle.
Interesting.
‘… requires a lengthier stay, the palace staff are aware you have full clearance to come and go.’ There was an oddness to the king that set Arla’s teeth on edge, and it wasn’t because he had killed her family and it was taking everything in her not to gut him with her bare hands, but because of the way he was looking at her, as if he could see into her mind. As if she couldn’t hide there.
‘Thank you, Your Majesty.’
‘Please, call me Elrod.’
Gods, she needed a drink.
* * *
Arla was led by a burly red-and-gold-suited guard to a room that rivalled her own back in Castle Grey. Huge arched windows looking out over gardens too-well tended for the struggles of a kingdom such as Kastonia. What was going on?
The bed was calling her, the size of it tempting her to lie down and never rise again, and she should like nothing more than to close the crimson curtains around the four-poster bed and shut herself away from the world.
A bathing chamber was concealed by a heavy wooden door connecting to her room, and the scent of lavender lingered in the air.
She was glad, at least, that this kingdom had managed to install water pipes and taps rather than relying on buckets being carted by hand through the palace to fill the bathtub.
Returning to the bedchamber, she saw there were rows upon rows of books displayed on polished wooden shelves.
They were perhaps the only thing that won her over to the thought that just one night in the castle may not be so bad.
They were leatherbound and included stories about the non-existent dragons as well as more prosaic treatises on tax systems in the kingdom; there were at least three on the ancient rules of magic.
That made her scoff, though she was drawn to the symbol of a flame inside a heart which had been embossed in gold on those spines.
Ridiculous.
Arla sighed, undoing the hastily woven braid she favoured for keeping her locks under control while on the road.
Hark was staying on the other side of the palace – his usual quarters, he had said – so she guessed that soaking her aching muscles in the bathtub would be the best use of her time before dinner.
Besides, if she was going to search this palace from top to bottom for information on how its royal family had managed to stay so wealthy while the rest of the kingdom fell into disrepair, she would need the cover of darkness and the family in question to be so deep into their cups that they would sleep like the dead.
The water was hot, and the lavender strong, and by the time she had scrubbed two days’ worth of dirt off her skin and climbed out of the bathtub, Arla’s eyelids were heavy and the bed too inviting to resist the call of sleep.
One hour, no more, she thought as her head sank into pillows softer than her own back home.
* * *
Arla had spent too many hours wandering the hallways and empty rooms in the upper levels of the palace – her only entertainment when Perry was assisting the king, and her maids were too busy in the kitchens.
There weren’t ever any other children in the palace, and she hated that her friend Halos hadn’t been allowed to visit.
Arla wondered if Perry thought Halos, a few years older than Arla, would want to be in the company of someone younger than her, but Arla knew Halos didn’t mind; they were old friends, and had attended school together back when their parents had been alive.
She only hoped her friend wouldn’t forget about her now that Perry’s rules on who could and couldn’t enter Castle Grey prevented them from seeing each other.
Arla had been staring at the paintings for too long again.
They were making her think of her family and the people she had lost last year.
So she had wandered down to the lower levels of the castle – below even the kitchens.
It was dark down here, but it wasn’t the dark that scared her; it was the strange tugging sensation she had right behind her navel that kept urging her to walk deeper into the shadowy hidden hallways beneath the palace.
Perry would be angry with her if he found her down here. He didn’t like her going missing, especially when he had told Cyrus he would watch her.
It was his own fault for passing her off on the maids, then. She was bored.
She kept walking, her fingers brushing the rough stone walls as she followed that tugging in her core. There was a door ahead of her, a dark, ancient thing that made her hesitate.
A low rumble spread through the corridors, and it was enough to send Arla spinning in the opposite direction. Back towards the kitchens, back towards Perry and his kind smile.
* * *
Someone was in the room with her.
Arla snapped upright, hand clenched around a blade she had found in the bathing chamber – presumably for males to shave with – and which she had fallen asleep gripping.
However, instead of finding herself under imminent violent attack, she watched as the fireplace in the room was lit by two maids in grey gowns.
Neither had turned when she had almost launched herself from the bed, and she cursed herself for being so careless.
She hadn’t checked the door was locked.
She hadn’t checked the windows.
She hadn’t checked the floorboards.
She hadn’t checked anything.
You’re getting complacent, Reinhart. Perry’s words were now her own. She’d been finding these jobs too easy and had begun to think herself invincible, almost.
‘Excuse me?’ She summoned her most regal voice – as if she could pull off the role she so often imagined herself in back home – and the two maids spun immediately to face her.
Twins. So identical it was unsettling.