Chapter 16
HARK
Sleep didn’t find him for many hours after he left her.
The image of her curls tumbling around her shoulders as she watched him leave was burning a hole straight through him.
Those deep, dark eyes he knew had been tracking him across the room like she was preparing to pounce at any moment…
She could have easily been a courtesan – could have married well and ruled over kingdoms on the continent.
But she hadn’t.
Arla Reinhart had decided a profession of blood and violence was better suited to her fiery heart, and Hark didn’t know what sort of damage had to be done to someone for them to decide they were worth nothing more than the king’s crest and a leather uniform.
He knew she regretted the rare moments she had been honest and open with him, but he had seen something else pass over her face when she finally spoke about her life. Relief.
He had heard of the dark moods that often saw her go missing from the palace.
He didn’t know where she went. He only ever heard the whispers of the servants saying Arla was affected by the same low moods as her king, by which he often found himself trapped.
The first time she disappeared, Hark had found himself walking the streets of Grey Hill in the middle of the night half expecting to find her—
No. He’d stopped himself thinking it then, and he wouldn’t now. Arla was sensible; she wouldn’t do anything.
He’d known even back then that he couldn’t truly hate her, no matter how much vitriol she hurled his way. He’d lain awake every night she went missing after that, unable to let himself fall asleep until he heard the telltale sound of her window latch down the hall.
Gods, what was he getting himself into? Arla was a trained assassin.
She had been groomed to be a killer, a discoverer of secrets, a manipulator.
And that was exactly what she had done tonight.
She was teasing him with glimpses into her life to make him trust her; to make him see her as a person and not a weapon belonging to Hadalyn’s king.
She would make him trust her, and then she would drive a knife through his back.
Maybe he’d let her.
It might stop the fucking pounding of his heart that hadn’t let up since leaving Hadalyn.
He’d known it was coming of course – he couldn’t be holed away in Castle Grey forever whilst Kastonia was falling to sickness and poverty.
And there was the case of these shipments Elrod had got himself involved in that had inevitably snared Hadalyn’s king, too.
But this journey, this job they’d both been sent on…
Well, nothing good could come of it. Arla would curse him all the way to hell and probably fucking beyond it when she found out the sorts of things Kastonia was dealing in.
Cyrus was out of his mind if he believed she’d go along with it, though the old king was likely senile, anyway – or heading that way at least. Cyrus was a strong leader, yes, but the edge that had granted him victory in the battle of Grey Hill all those years ago had smoothed with age.
He trusted too easily. He’d agreed to work with Elrod on these shipments, for fuck’s sake!
It was the beginning of the end for Hadalyn’s king, and Hark could see it a mile off.
He’d try not to think of it though. He’d keep his focus on the journey to the border.
Not that the thought of that filled him with any less dread.
Journeying to the border never came without its challenges.
Always too cold, too wet, too many towns they needed to stop in at on the way with people that looked at him through narrowed eyes.
Kastonia’s people weren’t happy; they hadn’t been for a long time.
And with him being so close to the king, he was an easy target – someone on whom they could take out their frustrations.
He hated his position sometimes.
But maybe this would be the last time he’d have to make the journey.
Perhaps, if he didn’t die at the hand of Hadalyn’s assassin, he could go somewhere far away – the continent, maybe.
He ignored the voice in the back of his mind telling him there was no way.
No way, no way, no way that he could ever cross the sea.
Too much responsibility here. Too many secrets he’d sworn an oath to protect.
But … he had dreamed once. Of what it would be like to be a sailor.
To captain a ship. The sea had called to him from the moment he was born, as if his blood moved with the tide.
What if he ran? What if he left all of this behind and fled on a ship to map the wildest of seas and maybe, if he was lucky, marry the daughter of a fisherman? What a simple, lovely dream.
That he could never fucking have.
He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair, swallowing at the memory of Arla’s face in his mind, so soft and open tonight.
He fell asleep to the dream of boats and women that would lure him to his death.