Chapter 46
Hark’s fingers threaded through hers as he gave her hand a tight squeeze.
His eyes didn’t leave the approaching army as he said, ‘Carry on straight and don’t stop. It’ll bring you out onto the battlements and you can escape from there.’
Self-sacrificing bastard!
‘And you?’
‘I’ll keep this lot distracted.’ His eyes didn’t leave the approaching army – dozens upon dozens of soldiers, filling the hallways.
Too many for them both to take on, let alone just him.
It was more than she had ever expected Kastonia to have, a wall of red and gold marching towards them, swords at the ready.
Arla could hear Thara’s roars, the sound both outside the castle and inside Arla’s head.
Gods, what had she done by coming here?
‘Absolutely not,’ she snapped in response to Hark’s ludicrous plan.
‘For once in your life, Reinhart, just do as you’re fucking told.’
‘No, Hark. I almost lost you before. I’m not going to do it again.’
His eyes softened then, his fingers smearing the splatter of blood on her cheek. ‘Show them exactly who you are, then.’
Something grew in her chest and crawled higher to lodge in her throat. ‘Together.’
He gripped her hand. ‘Together.’
The first wave of soldiers was upon them in seconds, their cries echoing off the stone, merging with the harsh noise of swords clanging. Hark and Arla moved together as one, an unwavering wall of violence that cut down any who stood before them.
Where her blade missed, his was there to strike true; where his feet stumbled over the bloodied carpets, she was there to steady him.
Their bodies moved as though they were two halves of a whole, destined to move with a synchronicity she couldn’t have imagined.
Bodies fell in their wake, and when there was finally a moment of respite, they took it and ran towards the battlements.
Hark was there beside her, his bloody fingers entwined with hers. It was perhaps the only thing holding her up at all as she tried to breathe past how heavy her sword was, how her arms ached, how her breaths weren’t coming quick enough.
A shadow passed by the window, something big enough to block the sun for a few seconds as it passed.
‘Don’t you dare drop that sword. You’ll make us look bad.’
Somehow Arla found it in her to smile. She didn’t have a clue who’d be left for them to look bad in front of.
* * *
Arla thought she knew chaos; thought she had caused it, been it, fought through it.
But this was something else. Fires burned across the battlements, arrows were being fired at the dragon who was twisting through the sky above them, picking off any she could get close to and ripping them off the ledge.
The dragon’s huge, clawed talons rattled the very structure of the towers, showering Elrod’s army in rubble large enough to kill them.
Two dozen warriors waited for them, stationed equally across the parapet.
Arla didn’t know which corner of her mind had thought to slam the door behind her and snap one of her knives in the lock so that no one else could gain access to the battlements, but she was grateful that some semblance of the assassin was still in there.
‘About time, Dragonhart,’ Thara grumbled through the bond.
The soldiers were upon them immediately, not recognising or not caring that their prince fought them.
She wanted it to be over.
Arla didn’t know for how long she kept swinging the blade, only that these soldiers were not falling. Then she saw Hark, his back to a guard armed to the teeth with blades so wicked she herself had never had the privilege of owning one. And he wasn’t looking.
She moved as though the very gods had blessed her feet.
Moved like fire, and water, and death as she ploughed through the soldiers, striking with her sword and screaming at Hark to move.
A sharp pain registered in her side, but she was moving too quickly to care.
Her feet flew over the battlements, a death waltz if ever there was one.
Arla whistled, a shrill sound that paused everyone on that gods-forsaken castle for a fleeting second before she struck down the sole remaining soldier between her and Hark.
She didn’t stop, wrapping her hand around his free wrist and tugging him after her, closer to the edge, closer to a bloody death if they fell.
A ringing clang of metal lit up the sky, and then more soldiers were storming through the door she had shoved her blade into. It had only been a temporary hold.
She knew she held Hark’s hand because he was squeezing hers tighter. Their hands joined but she couldn’t see where because there was so much red – blood, uniforms, more blood.
Her chest was too tight, her ears rushing with her own heartbeat as she struggled to breathe in and out.
They were going to die here. She’d caused all of this and they were going to die here.
Her breaths came too quickly then, her fingers trembling around the hilt of her sword, its weight long forgotten.
But then there was a voice like deep night in her ear, sinking beneath her skin to rest just above her heart. ‘I’m here, I’ve got you, I won’t let anything happen to you.’
She didn’t know how long she’d waited to hear that. To hear that she was safe; that someone cared. She didn’t let herself think as she turned and pressed her lips against his cheek, revelling in the heat burning through her as he pulled her closer.
She smiled against his skin as she saw out the corner of her eye his sword had impaled a soldier through the chest. She couldn’t help the thought that he was made of the same thing she was – that their souls already knew each other inside out.
‘You’re going to get killed if you keep succumbing to the boy’s inability to keep his hands to himself.’ Thara’s voice rattled through her skull.
Right. Battle.
Arla blinked slowly, as if that single act could pause the world and the madness that had descended.
A huge shadow crossed behind her shut eyelids, and when she found the strength to open them again, she stopped swinging her sword and called up the last ounce of her courage.
She didn’t know why her fingers closed around the golden symbol pinned to her jacket – perhaps a reminder that this was real and she was still here – and as she felt that metal beneath her touch, something in her chest ruptured.
A foreign strength coursed within her, power surging through the bond between her and Thara. She knew as she raised her sword again that anyone stupid enough to challenge her would fall at her feet.
Arla swung the blade as if something ancient guided her. Hark was at her side, barely keeping up, but he hadn’t let her down yet and she knew he never would.
Thara was above them, setting light to any who emerged onto the battlements.
There was a strength in Arla’s body she’d never known existed, as if she shared the dragon’s power. It had been there for only a second, but it was enough for her to clear a path for her and Hark, for them to escape because this was a fight she couldn’t win. Not today.
‘Don’t hesitate,’ she called over the shouts of soldiers and the wind tearing through them, whipping her blonde curls into a matted knot she knew would take forever to comb out.
Hark looked at her as if she’d gone mad – she thought perhaps she had, because no one in their right mind would do what she was about to do. But he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t pull her back from the edge of the roof as they reached it and carried on.
Into the sky. Into an endless, open drop.
She squeezed her eyes shut as they fell, Hark’s hand locked in hers.
Only when she met the solid mass of scales, did she finally open her eyes.