Chapter 41
Dragonhart? She liked the name. It sounded so … impressive? And for what it meant. To be bonded to the dragons; to have a connection to the gods.
She’d felt the pull, though, hadn’t she? She’d felt that strange connection to the magic-wielders and the instinctual need to protect them. It all made sense – that very need was in her blood.
And now she was going to ride a dragon.
A gods-damned dragon.
‘I never asked your name,’ Arla said, moving close to the tunnel wall as the dragon shifted its huge body, its tail dragging in a movement she had seen grass snakes make.
‘Abredus. Though it has been many centuries since that name has been uttered.’
Centuries.
Gods, how old was he?
‘When did you last fly?’
‘It doesn’t matter; I will not be making the trip with you.’
She had expected as much, though she had thought— For a minute she had thought he would help and she wouldn’t have to take down Kastonia by herself.
Not that she was scared – she harboured enough confidence and swagger to feed an army – but she wasn’t stupid.
No, not even she could hope to tackle an entire army unaided.
‘Oh, well,’ Arla stuttered, ‘sorry to have wasted your time.’ She turned on her heel, shielding her disappointment with the respect that a creature of the gods commanded.
‘You misunderstand me.’
She turned again to find shimmery, glazed eyes staring back at her.
‘My daughter will be your guide, Arla Dragonhart. Thara has missed the wind on her back for too many moons now.’
A shiver ran over her skin, and she tried to ignore the Dragonhart namesake – whatever the hell it meant.
‘There are more of you?’
‘There is more than one god, is there not?’ Abredus answered, his eyes twinkling in the dull light of the tunnels.
‘I can’t say I believe in them,’ Arla replied, shame suddenly coating her tongue in a thick, oily taste that couldn’t hide her regret. How foolish she had been.
‘Then you’d best hope they believe in you.’
Arla jumped at the rich voice echoing through the stone – through her bones – as she beheld a second body, this one slightly smaller, though no less impressive.
The dragon was the colour of the reeds that grew in the ponds surrounding Castle Grey, a deep, darkest green, almost black in the muted light. Her eyes were glittering, oval-cut emeralds boring further into Arla’s soul than even Abredus had.
Her heart raced, her mind unable to think clearly as she felt herself at the mercy of another, as she felt her own decisions hang in the grasp of another being. Something grander and more majestic than she was.
Gods, magic, and dragons. Well.
‘Thara will accompany you on your journey, Arla Dragonhart, while the rest of us ride in your heart. The gods’ prophecy has long spoken of one with a heart of flame to unite this world, who will end the torture of those who bear magic in their blood.
That it would be the last Dragonhart that would take on the task of ending the evil that has leaked into the world. ’
Arla didn’t think she could be any more shocked.
‘Your kings speak of the imbalance of power, Arla Dragonhart, but the man who wears the Kastonian crown was the one who disrupted that balance in the first place.’
She’d been right, then. Elrod had started it because he wanted more.
‘Go and save those people, Arla Dragonhart. The gods ride with you.’
* * *
‘You’ve been able to leave this entire time?’ Arla asked in disbelief.
She had to shield her eyes from the stark contrast of near darkness to bright sunlight as she followed Thara’s body which snaked through tunnel after tunnel and out to the mouth of a cave so enormous she couldn’t fathom how anybody, including herself, had missed it. More magic, perhaps.
The dragon huffed a sound that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Arla’s fingers tightened into a fist.
‘Even dragons can’t sleep forever. We have awaited your arrival for almost a century.
So long that the veil over our resting place has become indistinguishable even to those who carry magic.
Before we went to sleep, the gods spoke of a prophecy that said there would be one who would come to unite the kingdoms. The last dragonhart.
We slept deeply after that… Until some of us began to feel you.
The day you were born, eighteen years ago, was the beginning of our waking.
My father woke first and I was not long behind.
We have felt your presence in Hadalyn from the moment you took your first breath. ’
Thara’s voice rumbled inside Arla’s head. There was a tugging in her core, too, something that felt old and primal. Something that told her this was where she was supposed to be, side by side with this creature whose existence she had denied all her life.
‘The gods’ message kept us clinging to the hope that humans are worth saving, that they don’t all deserve to die for the mindless slaughter of those who bear magic. We have waited all these years for you and you alone.’
Arla was finding it harder to breathe, and yet she couldn’t deny the peace that had settled over her the moment she had heard Thara’s voice inside her head.
‘Why me? Why was I chosen out of everyone else?’
‘We dragons do not know the factors that influence the fates, nor why the gods deemed you worthy of carrying the burden of such a task. You are of an old bloodline, Dragonhart, one that was passed down through generations. But you are the first in almost a century to feel it. Your parents and your ancestors before them carried the blood, but it is you the fates have chosen. It is not for us to question it.’
Her parents. They had been born of this strange bloodline too? Had they known it? Had they known she would be the last one?
‘Your parents would not have known what blood ran in their veins, or that their daughter would be the one spoken of in the prophecy.’
Had Arla spoken out loud? Had the dragon somehow read her thoughts? Could she speak to dragons the way they seemed to speak into her head?
‘It is a bond as old as time,’ Thara continued.
‘Many have sought to explain how the bond between dragons and the gods’ chosen works, and still have come no closer to understanding it.
Just know that we are connected now until death.
You will learn to tune me out, eventually, but I will always be a presence in the back of your mind. As you are now in mine.’
Arla’s mouth was dry. This was too much at once. Too much she hadn’t expected.
And yet the thought of Thara being with her until her death didn’t fill her with the terror she had expected. There was something that felt inherently right about the bond between them.
‘So I’ll be able to talk to you whenever I like?
’ She tried out thinking rather than speaking her question.
It was a strange thing to comprehend. That they would exist with one another until the end.
Thara’s steadying presence soothed Arla’s fears about what was to come, and what she must do.
They were hers to deal with another day.
The dragon made a noise that was either frustration or a huff of laughter. Arla hoped for the latter.
‘I suspect you will have trouble speaking to me through the bond at first, and find it almost impossible when we are apart, but you will find your way, Dragonhart. Like those before you.’
‘What do you mean, those before me?’
‘Another day,’ Thara said. ‘For now we have a pair of kingdoms to unite.’
And a pair of kings to punish, too.
‘I don’t imagine you’ve ever flown before?’ Thara questioned. Arla shook her head. ‘Then please do be careful not to poke me with the obscene number of blades that are strapped to your body.’
Arla smiled, the first kernel of humour she had found in hours.
Thara lowered her enormous body as close to the ground as she could manage, and with a fluidity she couldn’t explain, Arla pulled herself onto the dragon’s back.
Her thoughts strayed briefly to Hark, and to what he would think if he could see her atop a dragon.
She hoped she wouldn’t have to wait too long to find out.
The creature beneath her was deadly, and old, and entirely capable of killing her. Arla couldn’t describe the feeling that came over her as her thighs gripped the smooth scales beneath her. Couldn’t describe how she’d managed to climb aboard and not have a panic attack.
But it felt right. Like something long hidden within her was finally singing.
It felt like finally feeling the warmth of the sun after years of only knowing darkness.
Thara moved, the dragon’s muscles rippling as she stepped out beyond the mouth of the cave, feeling the open sky on her scales for the first time in a century.
The dragon shook her huge head, the movement purely feral as she breathed deeply, her body expanding underneath Arla as she sucked in fresh, cool air.
‘Can you remember how to fly?’ Arla asked tentatively. It had been a hundred years, after all.
Thara’s body shook beneath her, the voice filling Arla’s head filled with a tone she couldn’t quite unpick.
‘Do you forget how to breathe, Dragonhart?’
Point taken.
‘What about the others? Aren’t there more of you down here?’
‘They will sleep a while longer. Don’t fear; they will come when you call.’
‘How many of you are there?’
‘There have always been twelve that serve the gods, Dragonhart. You have woken two of us.’
Twelve.
Twelve dragons sleeping beneath Castle Grey for longer than anyone she knew had been alive.
She desperately wanted to tell Hark all about it.
‘Where do we fly to, Arla Dragonhart?’
Gods, it sent shivers over her skin. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to hearing that name.
‘To Kastonia. This ends today.’
Thara beat her wings, the leathery mass of them cutting through the air with ease until the ground began to sway and … and they were no longer on the ground. Arla gripped with her knees, her hands digging into the horned spikes that decorated Thara’s shoulders.
Thara beat her wings again, the movement rocking Arla gently on the beast’s back, and then they were up. Up, up, up above the Canus, above Grey Hill, above Hadalyn. She was flying. She was really flying.
It was both horrifying and invigorating at once, the rising altitude stealing her breath as Thara climbed higher and higher, the rush of wind against Arla’s face was exhilarating in a way she had never experienced before.
She gripped tightly as the dragon lurched beneath her, twisting her body before righting herself.
Arla was sure the dragon was toying with her.
‘It has been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of open air across my back. You’d do well to hold on.’
It was the only warning the dragon gave before she picked up speed, her wings beating rapidly, brushing against Arla’s legs in a way that made her certain she’d go tumbling to the blur of earth below.
‘I won’t allow it.’
Arla’s face split into a grin. This was … this was something beyond her wildest dreams.
She wondered if magic kept them shielded from the view of the people, or if all of Hadalyn could see the enormous dragon in the sky above them. She didn’t care. Let them see her. Let them know that help had come for Hadalyn.
Laughter erupted from her throat, a childish, howling thing that seemed to heal all her wounds.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as they cut through the sky, the sun steadily descending and spilling oranges, pinks, and reds in its wake.
She told herself it was the wind, and not that the tears were of joy. Of fear. Of hope.
She had fought her entire life to get to where she was, and all it had done for her was grant her a position close to a king so brainwashed he was supporting the downfall of his own kingdom. And worse, its people.
Thara let out a sound that trembled through her body and through Arla’s, too, a roar into the steadily darkening sky. A promise of vengeance, of wrath, of fury. Arla laughed. It was a pitiful sound, but a promise of her own.
Never again would she be alone.
Never again would she kill in the name of the Crown.
Never again would she tell Hark how much she loathed him.