Chapter 17
It was still dark outside when she pulled her cloak tightly around her shoulders and met Hark saddling the horses.
Their conversation had kept her awake last night; had kept her turning over the pieces of themselves they had laid bare.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
She had been hungry and tired, and … in need of a friend.
But Hark Stappen was not a friend. He could never be a friend.
His blood ran scarlet; hers ran grey – they could never, ever be mixed.
He too looked tired. Dark circles hung under his eyes and the icy blue of his irises was a steely grey this morning. She wondered if he regretted the olive branch carefully laid between them last night or if he wished to snap it in half like she did?
‘I hope you packed warm clothes, Reinhart. The frost is unlikely to thaw today,’ he huffed.
‘Here,’ she said, tossing a pair of leather gloves towards him. They weren’t fleece-lined, but they would keep the frost from biting at the bare skin of his hands. Her fingers were already warming in her own pair.
‘Where did you get these?’ he questioned, and she knew he was already regretting asking.
‘I bought them,’ she replied.
‘Sure you did.’ He rolled his eyes, knowing as well as she did that no merchants operated before the sun was up. Nevertheless, he forced his hands into the leather anyway.
‘Let’s go.’
* * *
Some days, she regretted becoming the King’s Assassin. Today was one of those days.
She’d have much preferred to be clothed in silk and jewels, and to be reading books in front of a fire in the library, away from everyone else.
Of course, she enjoyed court life, too; that couldn’t be denied.
She felt a certain draw to the perfect superficiality of it, and she wondered sometimes if perhaps being a courtier was a deadlier profession than her own.
She had seen the way the women fought using batted eyelashes, or an elegant stumble over a non-existent obstacle, to capture the attention of the king or another of the nobility that frequented the palace.
The king would never marry. A distant cousin was next in line for the throne, a man significantly younger than Cyrus who was having what she imagined to be a lot of fun studying on the continent, ready for his ascension to the throne one day.
Cyrus hadn’t shown any interest in marriage in his fifty or so years, and though he was kind and fell into every single trap the ladies laid for him, his heart belonged to Perry.
She thought of the king’s advisor with a special fondness.
Perry had raised her on behalf of the king when she’d been brought to the castle, and since hitting her teenage years, she and Perry had squabbled almost every day.
There was an enduring love between them that was untouched by the snipes and horrible things they said to one another when Cyrus’s moods rubbed off on them both – which was often – and only Perry seemed able to chase them away.
‘What are you smiling at?’ Hark asked, looking over at her from his seat atop Eros. The sun had risen, finally, but it had done little to chase away the damp fog and the utter misery of the weather. Perhaps it was just too cold for the sun’s rays to reach them this far north.
‘Nothing. How far away are we?’
She knew exactly how far away they were. She’d been to the northern border enough times to recognise the sharp uprisings of rock and barren landscape that told her exactly where they were.
‘Close. I’m hoping whoever is stealing supplies is stupid enough to do so in broad daylight,’ Hark replied.
She scoffed. Not likely. Whoever was stealing the shipments was organised enough for Elrod to request the assistance of Hadalyn’s assassin and to send this useless ambassador along with her.
Not useless. He nearly bested you, remember?
‘What’s so important about these shipments to warrant Elrod and Cyrus getting involved?’
Hark’s shoulders tensed, and Arla wondered what he knew that she didn’t.
‘Surely Elrod could have used his own soldiers to handle this without requiring me to leave Castle Grey? she continued. ‘Or is Kastonia so poor that they don’t have soldiers anymore?’
Wishful thinking. She knew their army would be fit and ready to march at a moment’s notice.
‘No idea. Perhaps some kingdoms can’t afford to lose even a single crate of food, Reinhart.’
‘I thought the shipments were iron?’
Hark paused. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought there was something more to these shipments than the raw material for weapons.
‘Iron, mainly. But there are crates of grain and food brought in from other kingdoms alongside it. Elrod is most concerned with the iron and the money that both he and Cyrus have invested in getting it here. The food is secondary.’
Right.
‘Perhaps, if your king weren’t so greedy, then your kingdom wouldn’t feel the effects of a single missing crate,’ she finally replied, mentally readying herself for the next argument that would form between them. It truly was exhausting being around him.
‘That’s not the reason the kingdoms are suffering, and you know it.’ He didn’t look at her, just kept his eyes fixed on a point in the distance.
‘Oh, enlighten me, Stappen, as to exactly what you think is making your country so poor, because it’s certainly not ours. We were coping just fine until we had to start taking in your citizens because your king was too greedy to be able to support them!’
It would all come out, then. Just how frustrated she was at trying to help rebuild her own kingdom and protect its people whilst also keeping track of the hundreds of Kastonian refugees that were arriving in Hadalyn each month.
It filled her with a fury that often carried her to the training rooms so she could take that anger out on whoever was available to duel with her.
She hated that Cyrus even entertained the treaty between Kastonia and Hadalyn.
How he could stomach allowing Kastonia’s refugees into Hadalyn after what their forces had done?
She would never understand the political chess game involved in ruling a country.
‘Oh, stop it!’ he snapped, turning in the saddle to face her. ‘The kingdoms are suffering because the gods demand it so. We’re being punished. It’s clear as day.’
Oh gods, she really was going to start laughing.
‘Do you think for one moment I’m going to believe that? The gods disappeared a very, very long time ago – if they ever existed at all – and to think they care enough to punish us? Don’t be so ridiculous.’
Hark’s eyes turned dark as she spoke, and for a minute she contemplated gripping the blade sheathed at her thigh for fear he was going to throw his own at her. The thought sent a thrill through her blood. He truly did believe in the old religion, then.
‘The sooner this is dealt with, the sooner you can return to killing people, and thieving off your own citizens, and skulking around with those vultures! I’ve about had enough of—’
‘I don’t think we’re too far off your wish coming true, Stappen,’ she interrupted, her gaze focused over his shoulder to where the rock dropped away and revealed a drop so deep, she didn’t think they would ever see the bottom of it.
They did, though. Because at the bottom, on the flat plains of some barren, frozen landscape, were the shipments.
* * *
‘Slaves? The shipments are slaves?’
She couldn’t believe it – wouldn’t believe it.
Keeping slaves was forbidden. So to trade them like this, on this scale…
But the man at the market … the man she’d wagered her necklace to question … he had mentioned the slaves. He’d told her Elrod was making money from them.
She’d believed it was a lie. Believed he couldn’t possibly have any of Hadalyn’s people so many years on.
Gods, she had underestimated what her King was capable of.
Or did Cyrus even know? She couldn’t imagine he did.
He had been outraged in the months after the war at the knowledge that groups of his people had been rounded up and dragged to Kastonia as slaves after the raiding of Castle Grey, and he had been furious enough that he had banned anyone, ever, across any kingdom in any continent, having slaves.
He would bring the might of Hadalyn to their doors, he had said.
So to send her on a job to protect the shipments of slaves…
None of it was right. And Halos—
Bile rose in her throat. If her friend knew that this was happening, that people were being kept the same way her grandmother and relatives before her had been…
A roar filled Arla’s head, a cacophony in her ears rushing with the force of it. This was wrong.
‘I— I’m not doing this,’ she stammered, digging her hands into the gravel on which they knelt. They had tied the horses far away from the ledge, and they had pressed their bodies flat to the floor to peer over the ledge and watch what was unfolding below them.
This was organised. Protected. Well-funded.
Only royal money could afford to create a settlement like this.
Brick buildings had been erected – so strange to see that here, far away from …
anything. And there were tents guarded by armed soldiers with more blades than she had ever seen soldiers carry, ever.
They wore black uniforms, not the scarlet of Kastonia or the grey of Hadalyn.
And the people… The slaves…
Never had she seen people chained together in such a way. Manacles circled their wrists, and long chains ran between them. There was no need for such security because they had no chance of ever being powerful enough to overthrow the guards.
And…
Oh gods…
She wasn’t sure if she’d made it up in her head but … but she thought she recognised the face of a man down there. A man who had been a friend of her father’s all those years ago. His face was aged and he was thinner, but she never forgot a face, and she knew that face had come from Hadalyn.
There were people from Hadalyn down there – her people.
Halos could have been down there…
Arla suddenly understood the fear her friend harboured – that the soldiers would come for her and her children one day and chain them up as they had their ancestors.
Arla couldn’t explain the feeling in her chest. Something in her very blood was roaring. The way there was a primal urge growing, growing, growing—
She needed to get them out.
Huge transports holding cages with thick iron bars – iron – were parked in organised rows, each of them pulled by heavy horses and each playing host to two armed guards. What had the King of Kastonia got going on here?
‘I didn’t think I could hate your kingdom any more, Stappen,’ she breathed. She thought her words must be barely audible over the pounding of her heart. ‘But this, this makes me want to burn it to the ground.’
She was seething, boiling, furious with them – with him. He had to have known. Gods, there was no way he didn’t know what his King was up to. He was the ambassador for fuck’s sake! And Orson – did he know?
She hadn’t dared turn to face Hark yet, and he hadn’t spoken either, but she could feel him lying next to her, his heavy breathing causing his elbow to brush hers slightly. She wanted to kill him.
‘I didn’t know…’ he whispered, trailing off into a silence that caused her to turn and face him.
He looked … pained.
‘I’m getting them out,’ she said, scrambling to her knees and counting the blades she had on her.
She wouldn’t allow it. She had seen the state of the slaves that had been recovered after the Siege of Grey Hill and she would not rest until every manacle was cut, until every guard, and slave master was killed.
She wouldn’t rest until she’d brought the Kingdom of Kastonia to its knees.
‘You are not,’ Hark growled, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back to the ground. Dangerous move.
‘You ever touch me again—’
‘You’ll kill me, yes I know. Now shut your fucking mouth and listen.’
It stunned her enough to bite back whatever nasty retort was burning on the tip of her tongue.
‘You go down there, and I don’t care how good you are, how sparkling your reputation is, you will get yourself killed.’
‘I’m not leaving them—’
‘I’m not saying we leave them, Reinhart. I’m saying you’re going to get yourself killed and your king will have my head if you do. A storm is coming and we won’t succeed if we charge in there blind with rage. We go back and make a plan. Then we get them out.’
He was right. Gods, he was right, but she couldn’t stand to watch for a heartbeat longer.
She was chilled to the bone. Annoyingly, Hark had been right; the frost hadn’t thawed at all.
The slaves down there – women, men, children – wore less clothes than she did, some of them only rags.
How they still stood upright in this biting cold she didn’t know.
‘Get me as many blades as you can. I can hit the guards from here,’ she urged, tugging her wrist against his grip. He only held her tighter.
‘You do not have a hundred knives, and you cannot fire them all at once. They’ll shoot you down before you can finish the end of the first run.’
‘Arrows, then. I’ll hit them from here—’
Hark’s voice was too soft when he spoke. ‘You will die, Reinhart.’
She knew. She knew that to throw a single blade could land her with an arrow through the heart. But she wouldn’t leave these people.
‘I can’t—’
‘I’m not asking you to leave them,’ Hark urged, eyes burning into hers. ‘But you are no good to them right now. We go back and we make a plan.’
He looked desperate, and his eyes pleaded with her. They were a sparkling, distracting blue against the grey of the picture below them. She believed him. He hadn’t known Elrod was trading slaves, and she hoped to the gods that Cyrus didn’t know, either. She would kill them all if she had to.
‘I am trusting you, Stappen,’ she whispered angrily, though the venom didn’t reach her voice. It had shaken her, seeing them there, chained to one another on such a scale. How many of them had come from Hadalyn? How many were still prisoners from nine years ago?
‘I’m not asking you to trust me – gods, I doubt all the silk and books in the world could buy your trust – but I’m asking you to be sensible. Please.’
Something was hiding beneath Hark Stappen’s stony exterior, and for a few, fleeting seconds she saw its form. He cared. And he cared enough not to let her kill herself for them if he could use her to help.
‘I’ll kill them all,’ she whispered, vowing upon gods she didn’t believe in, upon the kingdoms, and upon herself that she would not stop until she had burned this entire place to ash.
She would be unstoppable when she started.
The streets would run red with Kastonian blood, but this time, there would be no survivors.
He was gripping her wrist, still.
‘I know. I know.’
It seemed to her that Hark had made a very similar promise.