Chapter 26
‘Where have you been all day?’ Hark demanded as he entered her room at the inn, clad in a dark green shirt and gleaming leather boots.
‘None of your business,’ she snapped, forcing an earring through the hole in her earlobe.
It had taken a long time to find jewellery in such a town, and in the end, she’d swiped them from a merchant’s stall as she flirted with him.
She doubted they were real gold – they were too shiny and the metal felt light in her fingers – but she pushed them through her ears anyway, biting her lip at the familiar sting of breaking the skin.
Too many months without fine jewellery meant the holes had begun to close, thanks to the endless jobs Cyrus kept sending her on.
If there was one thing she hated more than not wearing nice jewellery, it was losing it in a tavern brawl.
She’d not done too badly in finding a dress.
In fact, it seemed dressmakers and tailors were just about the only skilled tradespeople in this lowly town.
It had taken her most of the morning to hunt through the shops and stalls, but she’d come away with a white, silky garment with green vines stitched into the fabric to create something that might have been pretty had it been crafted from real silk by Hadalyn artisans.
She had washed her hair, too, and though the water had been cold and unpleasant, she’d made sure to pack her jasmine soap in her saddle bags so she could at least smell like she hadn’t spent days on the back of a horse.
‘It is my concern when you’re supposed to be working with me and you’re taking any opportunity you can to disappear from sight,’ Hark snapped. When she finally turned to face him, his eyes widened slightly before returning to that pissed-off stare he saved just for her.
Arla laughed, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘You’re mistaken, Stappen. I don’t work with you. I work for myself and for the King of Hadalyn. Don’t mistake my willingness to aid in rescuing these people as a surrendering of my freedoms to you.’
A muscle flexed in his jaw. ‘I don’t believe for one moment you’re surrendering your freedoms to anyone – your king included,’ he began. ‘But whilst our interests are aligned, I think it would be … appropriate that you don’t disappear.’
He didn’t trust her, then.
Clever man.
She didn’t trust herself most of the time; she wasn’t sure even now what she was doing.
She wanted to stop any scheme Elrod’s soldiers had planned for tonight.
She wanted to rescue the slaves and get back to Hadalyn to confront Cyrus and find out whether he had been lying to her.
And for the moment, she needed Hark Stappen and his crew to do that.
They would stop the soldiers taking anyone tonight and then they would free the rest of the slaves in the morning. Simple.
But she didn’t know where that left her. Was she supposed to go home to Castle Grey and pretend there wasn’t a booming slave trade in Kastonia? Of course she couldn’t.
And that meant war.
Enough, Arla.
All she had to do was save the slaves and go home.
Cyrus could be manipulated, and if he had any involvement in this, she would find a way to turn him against Kastonia and shut down the entire trading system.
Cyrus would not have done this without persuasion, or perhaps coercion, and she would need to work harder to persuade – or coerce – him that Kastonia and its king needed to fall.
Hark was watching her again; watching the battle she fought between her head and her heart.
Hadalyn came first. She’d sworn on her sword to serve Cyrus and his kingdom, but her heart would not let her tolerate the trading of slaves – of her people.
She couldn’t explain the feeling. It was like a primal tugging in her very core that felt ancient, and had continued to grow until all she could think about was protecting them. Getting. Them. Out.
But she couldn’t tell Hark that. He’d think she was mad.
‘It all seems a little … dramatic, getting so dressed up.’
‘Because your parties in Hadalyn are nothing like this,’ Hark said as he leant against the door frame. ‘The festivals here are beautiful. They don’t happen often, Reinhart, so it will be filled with thieves, and soldiers, and slave traders waiting to snatch people on their way back into Vorstrum.’
‘We’re leaving Vorstrum?’
‘The market’s just outside the town. We’ll need the horses to get there.’
‘And you let me stand here in a white dress?’
Hark laughed. It was a warm, lovely sound, the kind she so rarely had the privilege of hearing. ‘If you hadn’t walked away this morning, sweetheart, I could have explained how this evening would go without you having to eavesdrop in the streets.’
She smiled, and for a few fleeting seconds forgot that this was Hark Stappen, the Kastonian prick she had been forced to bring with her.
Since being promoted to the position of King’s Assassin, she’d worked entirely alone.
For those few fleeting seconds, she wondered if all the time by herself had made her hard and cruel.
She dismissed the thought immediately, knocking Hark with her shoulder as she squeezed through the door beside him.
‘You cut your face,’ she said, and watched him out of the corner of her eye as he reached up to rub at his freshly shaven jaw.
* * *
The people of Vorstrum, it seemed, were well-rehearsed in their festivals, and Arla immediately understood Hark’s praise for them. Her eyes were alight with the colour, and music, and sheer volume of people that swarmed before her, far more than could possibly fit into the simple town itself.
‘People travel from all over Kastonia to come to Vorstrum’s festivals,’ Hark murmured in Arla’s ear, leading her between makeshift barriers of ribbons and hay bales signalling an entrance to the hustle and vibrancy of the evening’s festivities.
‘They are well known, then?’
‘Very. Even you might find a smile tonight.’
She shoved her elbow into his side in response and tried to hide the smirk that was born of his low chuckle. He hadn’t moved an inch, and the memory of him shirtless with his hands on her sprung to the front of her mind.
Gods, she needed to stop. She hated him.
‘You think the soldiers will be here?’
‘Definitely,’ he replied, a grim line setting his mouth into something sharp and worrying.
Arla caught herself before her hand could reach for the blade strapped to her thigh.
She couldn’t give them away tonight; they were here to observe and, if need be, intercept those who would try to snatch vulnerable villagers on their way home.
No matter if all she wanted to do was gut each and every man that had been responsible for capturing the people chained at the northern border.
Hark led her through the mass of people, his tall frame forging a path through the rabble, and brought them out into a square of wooden, market stalls and people playing instruments.
It was … beautiful – the first true flash of colour she’d seen since the inside of Kastonia’s palace.
Children danced to the music, each of them twirling coloured ribbons in their wake to form a twisting, writhing picture of joy and laughter.
People pushed their way through to the fronts of the stalls, haggling for the best jewellery or hand-carved wooden trinkets.
Hogs were being roasted over open flames, and ale and hot wines were being consumed by the gallon.
The sun was retreating slowly, bathing them in a golden light and, for now, keeping the cold at bay.
Not that it would be a concern once the sun descended fully; men were hauling branches and wooden pallets to form a huge pyre which was surely to be lit as soon as the sun bid its farewell.
There was chatter, and laughter, and life, and it was more than she had seen in years, more than she had known was still possible in the struggling kingdoms of Hadalyn and Kastonia.
No wonder people flocked here. The joy was …
infectious. She hated that he was right, but a smile was causing her cheeks to ache and there was an uncomfortable pricking sensation behind her eyes.
It was beautiful. This was what was keeping people from giving up and from storming Hadalyn again in search of the gods and their dragons.
‘So what now?’ she said. She felt slightly in awe of such a place and irritated that she couldn’t enjoy it.
‘That’s up to you, assassin,’ Hark muttered in her ear. ‘You’re the one who spies on people for a living.’
She wound her way through the crowds, twirling with children that tugged at her dress and smiling at those who grinned openly at her. No, working alone hadn’t made her hard and cruel; it had made her clever.
They settled in the shadows of the makeshift tent, commandeering a pair of high wooden stools placed behind a rickety table.
Though the amount of people drinking under the cover of the canopy blocked them from view of the market square, Arla could clearly see the stalls and surrounding areas.
A sweet scent met her nose and she moaned at the warm glass being pressed into her palms. Hark’s own hands gripped a much cooler tankard of ale, though he didn’t seem to mind as he took a deep swig of the alcohol.
‘As grateful as I am for the wine, I don’t drink when I’m on a job,’ she murmured over the noise of chatter and bets being placed by the players of a rather complicated-looking card game on the table beside them. Hark scoffed, nudging her with his shoulder as he took another deep gulp of ale.
‘Horseshit. Your most honest work seems to happen under the influence of alcohol, Reinhart.’
‘Meaning?’
‘That bar brawls seem to be your speciality,’ he said wryly, and she couldn’t help but snort at his words.
‘You have your fun, and I have mine,’ she murmured, and cursed at how easily she’d fallen into the easy banter of being with him again. She should hate him – she did hate him.
He had seen her almost breaking herself this morning, and the thought of it curdled in her stomach.
She’d packed her saddlebag with rubble and sprinted up and down that hill until she could taste blood.
Anything to stop her feeling that sour, burning rage.
Anything to stop her feeling the utter despair and heartache at what had happened to her family – and now to these slaves.
Anything to stop her feeling how alone she was in this world.
She hadn’t meant to cry in front of him – and she hadn’t, really.
The tears that had clawed at their watery prison hadn’t been given permission to fall, but she knew he’d seen them all the same.
She wished she could take the tears back; that she could have run one more length of that hill to stop any and all feeling.
She wished she hadn’t felt relief when he’d come to find her…
‘I only kept it from you to keep them safe,’ Hark said in a low voice, dragging her from the misery to which she had let her mind wander. ‘I couldn’t risk telling you in case you went straight to Cyrus and demanded an army. I needed time to rescue as many as I could.’
She could understand it, almost. But it didn’t ease the sting. The fact that she hadn’t known any of it.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I’d have given everything to help them if you’d told me the truth. The gods know I owe them that.’
Hark nudged her gently. ‘It’s not your fault, Reinhart. You don’t owe anybody anything. You were a child when my kingdom came for yours. There was nothing you could do.’
There was nothing you could do.
Didn’t she know it.
‘It’s easier to bear now, but there are still days where I think I won’t be able to draw a breath without feeling like I’m drowning. I lost everything, Hark. I had no other family. I still wake up in the night aching for them. I’d have given everything to help you rescue the slaves if I had known.’
Silence filled the space between them, and for half a second her chest felt tight at what she’d revealed to him.
But then it passed, and she was glad he’d stayed silent. That he’d listened to the things that plagued her so deeply. Perhaps if the world weren’t so cruel, they could have grown to be friends.
Hours passed, and the festival lit up in hundreds of orange lights strung together with thin electric wires, bathing the scene in a warm colour that reminded her of egg yolks.
She bit back the comment, aware that Hark was not Perry, or Halos.
She had sipped steadily on the wine Hark had bought her – so steadily that it had gone cold and now she longed for another steaming glass of it to chase the numbness from her bones.
They hadn’t moved in hours. They’d watched the dancing, and singing, and movement of people as they waited for the slave traders to show.
There were plenty of young women here – men, too – who would make ideal targets on their way back to Vorstrum or whatever far-flung corner of Kastonia they had come from, but not one trace of trouble had arisen.
The lack of any sort of danger made her anxious, kindled the flame in her chest that begged to go and help the slaves at the border.
Just when she’d about given up on anything amiss occurring at this spritely little festival, a shadow flickered in the corner of Arla’s vision – the brief curl of a cloak at the very back of the tent.
So quietly and smoothly that no one would detect her, she slid a hand under the hem of her dress, creeping her hand up her thigh to free her blade of its sheath.
The sharpness of the steel whispered against her flesh, and she winced as it nicked the soft skin on the side of her leg.
‘I could have cut a gap in the side of the dress, you know,’ Hark murmured softly in her ear, mimicking her move by reaching inside his jacket to retrieve his own dagger.
‘You certainly will not.’
‘Hmm … you’ve never been afraid to show a little flesh before, Reinhart.
What makes tonight any different?’ he whispered back, not caring to hide the amusement in his tone despite the looming threat gathering at the rear of the festival.
She resisted the urge to elbow him. Of course, it was true, she had worn daringly low-cut dresses to state dances and dinners, and she was no stranger to what so much exposed flesh could buy her, but none of that had been for him to see.
‘Because tonight, Stappen,’ she said, lowering herself from the stool and edging slowly backwards into the darkness, ‘I don’t intend to charm anybody.’
She spun just as a hand reached for her.
Hark was there in an instant, his blade flush against Arla’s where they pointed at the throat of a figure shrouded in black.
‘Good evening, Miss Reinhart.’