Chapter 24
Cryus knew.
Two words that brought her world to a halt.
Cryus knew.
He simply couldn’t. They were his people – Hadalyn’s people.
Why would he send her out here to find slaves he already knew about?
It didn’t make sense… Had he sent her that note to come home because he’d finally realised there was no way she would go along with this?
Did he regret sending her out here, now that he’d had time to think on it?
Did he hope the note would catch up to her before she found out about the slaves?
‘Why would he know…? Why would he send us here if he knew?’ She was mumbling now, trying to piece each part of it together.
What had Cyrus thought she was going to do?
He couldn’t for a moment think she would be okay with this, that she would actually dispose of whoever it was stealing Kastonia’s slaves and then go back to Castle Grey as though nothing had happened?
He certainly couldn’t know that it was Hark that had been stealing slaves.
Unless…
Unless Cyrus had thought she would kill Hark.
‘He thinks I’m so loyal to the crown that I would kill you for this, doesn’t he?’
Hark’s face revealed nothing, and it only confused her more.
She was beginning to think she wouldn’t have it in her if it came down to it, and that …
that was something she needed to sort through.
That was something she needed to harden her heart against because they were supposed to hate each other.
Forget last night and the slimy regret that now coated her skin, because, in truth, she had begun to feel that hostility between them slipping long before last night, hadn’t she?
‘Just so we’re clear: I did not expect this to happen the way it has,’ Hark said.
‘What?’ She laughed in disbelief. ‘You didn’t expect that I would find out that you were rescuing slaves from under the noses of both kings? Gods, Stappen, were you planning on telling me at all?’
She couldn’t think; this was too much too fast. Her own king was in all likelihood counting on her to kill the Kastonian ambassador for rescuing slaves that were part of an illegal trade. Who did Cyrus think she was? Who did Hark think she was?
Inhaling deeply, she stared into his now icy blue eyes and willed her own to clear of the angry tears she wouldn’t let fall.
‘I sincerely hope you have a plan.’ She certainly didn’t and, truthfully, her head was spinning with the betrayal of her king.
She’d trusted Cyrus; had grown to love him as a father, almost. But in the end it wasn’t enough.
He’d broken every ounce of trust she had in him and now she was stuck behind enemy borders about to betray both kingdoms. She didn’t believe in the gods, but she wanted to pray to them anyway.
‘Come on,’ Hark said. ‘It’s time to meet my crew.’
* * *
She could barely keep her hands still as Hark led her through the winding cobbled streets.
Pull yourself together.
She couldn’t very well walk into a den of Hark’s so-called crew whilst shaking with rage and on the verge of angry tears. Taking a deep breath of cold air, she rolled her shoulders back and blinked away the tears.
She hadn’t taken notice of where Hark was leading her, only that she could see water and fishing docks. She followed him down a narrow alley beside what she could only conclude were the dockmaster’s offices. It was a filthy, miserable place, and for the first time in nine years, she hesitated.
Hark was lifting an iron handle from where it appeared to be secured in the ground, and beneath it was a thick, solid wooden door.
A trapdoor, in the docks. Wherever he was taking her wasn’t somewhere she was comfortable with, but she couldn’t seem to force the objection through her lips.
She watched as he lowered himself into an unfathomable darkness, and her fingers began to tremble again.
Enough, Arla.
He hadn’t said a word to her, and for that she was grateful. She might be able to trick herself into some semblance of calm if he kept his mouth shut.
This was different to the underground market in Larkire. There, she’d heard the voices long before she’d descended the steps and had known she couldn’t be trapped down there.
She didn’t look as she followed Hark into the oblivion, breathing hard through her nose as she descended into a warm, murky hole. At least it was dry.
‘Watch your step. The floor is uneven,’ Hark mumbled, jolting her in the darkness.
Even his whisper seemed loud beneath the docks, and she could smell the whisky and leather scent of him as she inched closer to his back.
The walls were close down here, and she didn’t want to know what this tunnel was or what it had been used for.
Her fingers brushed the cool stone either side of her, and she bit her lip against the pressing fear that accompanied the tight space.
This was what had almost broken her in training.
It was the worst kind of torture – small spaces. They whispered to her in her darkest hours and dragged her back to the nine-year-old girl locked in a dresser, covering her ears against the sound of swords clanging and the sickening thud as her parents’ bodies hit the floor one after the other.
They had locked her in there to keep her safe, she knew.
But it had been hours in the cramped darkness of the dresser, smothered by her mother’s rose perfume that was embedded in the clothes draped over Arla’s tiny body.
It had been hours before someone had found her, hours of hiding in the dark and peering at her fallen parents through the narrow crack in the dresser.
It had taken two years before she could lock a door behind her.
‘Reinhart?’
‘Hmm?’ She hadn’t realised he was speaking.
‘You okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she ground out, tightening the mask of King’s Assassin around her heart. She would not falter. She would not fall.
‘It’s not far now.’
She knew that. The air was getting warmer and there was a low rumble signalling voices perhaps two hundred yards ahead.
Still no light, though, and for a moment she cursed herself for being so trusting.
She was trusting him not to lead her into a trap.
Stupid, stupid trusting heart! She was becoming too soft; she needed a stern reminder – perhaps blunt force to the head or a light poisoning would do it.
‘There are tunnels all over Kastonia, you know,’ Hark said, his voice echoing against the stone. ‘The ones in the capital are closed up now; they were exploded to stop smugglers from getting into the city.’
She knew what he was doing, and in another life, she might have reached for his hand – something in her wanted to, actually.
She had felt the softness of his hands, had experienced how gentle and exquisite his touch was on that night they’d spent together.
Perhaps that other life wasn’t such an absurd notion—
Arla shook her head clear of the thought. None of that could ever happen again.
‘The other tunnels still operate?’ she asked, aware of how quick her breathing had become.
‘Some. Most collapsed over time, but the ones in Vorstrum are well maintained. They’ve been integral to the slave extraction process.’
She didn’t know what to say. She’d been caught off-guard with the revelation of the slaves and Hark’s involvement in their liberation.
She didn’t know how she felt about his clearly extensive involvement and his unwillingness to tell her before.
How had he been running such an operation from all the way in Hadalyn?
Was this what he’d been doing when he told Cyrus he was returning to Kastonia to meet with his own king?
There was light ahead – a soft yellow glow that illuminated the tunnel and cast long shadows of herself and Hark against the stone. The low rumble of voices increased as they strode closer, and for every step they took she had to steady her breathing.
The tunnel opened out into a circular chamber with a firepit in the middle, and wooden chairs and tables peppered throughout the space.
Half a dozen tunnels branched off the chamber, each of them covered with a dark sheet nailed above the archway.
Her eyes followed the strings of torches burning gently around the edge of the chamber.
It was warm in here, and it smelled heavily of smoke and sweat.
She had purposely kept her eyes from landing on the four bodies lounging on wooden pallets by the fire, as if her refusal to acknowledge them immediately would make her the most important being in here.
But eventually, once she was satisfied that the chamber was not about to collapse on top of them, she greeted Hark’s crew.
‘I’m surprised a group daring enough to steal slaves from the king hasn’t found anywhere better to base itself than an underground lair where you huddle like rats.’
‘I’m surprised the King’s Assassin looks so … twig-like.’ The voice had come from the silver-haired girl now standing with her arms crossed over her chest. Arla smothered a grin. It had been a long time since she’d had the opportunity to enjoy the sting of female bitterness.
‘Funny, I thought Hark was into red, not silver.’ It was a sly move, and one that delivered her the reaction she’d wanted.
The silver-haired bitch’s eyes widened slightly, and her fists curled.
This had to be the girl she’d seen Hark sneak away with in Larkire.
Arla didn’t know Hark’s preferences in women – he’d brought all manner of girls back to Castle Grey in the past – but she didn’t need to know that.
Something in the centre of Arla’s chest twisted, a churning, irrational emotion that made her instantly hate the silver-haired girl.
The thought of her touching Hark, of Hark touching her—