Chapter 4
The clang of steel echoed through the training chambers of Claret Hall with a viciousness that sang in her blood. She’d been up before the sun, forcing herself to run the perimeter of the grounds and biting her tongue against the ache in her side and the breaths that wouldn’t come quickly enough.
It had been too long since she had trained so hard, but the idleness of wandering the streets of Flambriar and lounging in the vast rooms of Claret Hall had finally irritated her enough to push her body beyond what it was ready for.
She’d done it once – at only nine years old she had begun to push herself to keep up with the royal guard – and so she could do it again.
Perhaps she wasn’t as fit as she had been a few months ago, but it would take more than a sword to the side to render her incapable of being as good as her reputation promised.
Now, she delighted in the wariness pulsing in the eyes of the soldier with whom she practised.
Sebastian had been absent this morning – not surprising given the fact he had likely spent all night following Hark through the mountains – so she had bullied the first soldier she could find into duelling with her.
She’d noticed the cocksure glint in his eye when she had asked – likely considering himself more than up to the challenge of taking on a girl with a sword wound – but the quicker she had swung her blade at him, the quicker that arrogance had faded.
She wondered, midway through lunging at her opponent, whether Hark and the guard were back yet. The thought of him ignited something deep within her.
She came at her opponent with a vigour that had long lain dormant, striking and lunging and arching her blade so fast it was a blur of steel between them.
How dare he leave her for days at a time.
How dare he bring her here and find any excuse to be out there.
How dare he create a kingdom and refuse to lead it.
The soldier’s blade clattered to the floor, the sound of it dragging her out of the conniption she had wandered into.
‘You’re as good as they say, milady,’ the soldier said, picking up the blade and sheathing it at his waist.
She scoffed, bending to stretch the ache in her side. ‘Do you know if they’re back from the mountains yet?’
He held the door open for her, and she floated through it with the swagger she had always commanded at Castle Grey.
Parts of her were coming back together, she thought.
Her whole world had been tilted on its axis and yet she still knew who she was and what she wanted.
Whether here or at Hadalyn, she was still the same.
‘They will be arriving back in the next hour.’
‘Good. Tell Hark I want to see him. Immediately.’
The solider hurried off, his figure growing smaller in the grandness of the hallway.
The sun had risen beautifully, a collage of pink and orange as light spilled through the glass panels of Claret Hall.
Arla breathed easier than she had for weeks.
It was a hand in the darkness, training.
Something that could always be relied upon to drag her out of a rut and remind her just who she was.
She probably owed Hark an apology for the way she had acted, but to force those two tiny words out of her mouth? No, he could come grovelling first.
The courtyard was blissfully empty, the frost crunchy beneath her boots as she crossed the cobbles to Vetta’s stable.
She was saddled, as per her instructions the previous night, and either Jack or another of the grooms had left her bridle hanging just outside the stable, the leather gleaming and soft.
The assassin and her horse were winding down the side of the mountain before anybody could stop them.
She’d always loved Vetta’s surefootedness – it was one of the qualities she had looked for when Cyrus had told her she could pick a horse from his stables, and even now, on this icy, rocky mountainside, Vetta navigated her way through as if she had been reared by mountain goats.
It was good to be back on a horse again, the movement so much more contained than that of a dragon.
Arla hoped Thara would wake today. She knew her dragon had needed the rest after exerting so much energy following a century sleeping beneath Castle Grey, but when the bond between them was quiet, it set her teeth on edge. How had she ever managed before?
There was a spark of unease in her chest that had been growing since her dragon had informed her she was going to be resting. Thara had once told her the dragons had become so weak after a battle between gods that they had gone to ground beneath Castle Grey.
Only, the dragons hadn’t woken for almost a century until Arla happened across them.
What if Thara was asleep now, too weak to wake, and Arla was unable to reach her…?
No. She wouldn’t let herself dwell on it. Her dragon was fine; she was resting like all creatures did.
The streets began to fill slowly, life resuming a routine she was no longer part of. But they weren’t ignoring her like they had done in the weeks when she had been wandering the city. Now, women smiled at her; men nodded … if not in a friendly way, then at least in a manner that showed respect.
Her interaction with Mina yesterday had clearly changed something amongst the people.
As Arla moved between streets, stopping to greet the vendors of shops and stalls, the people approached her, asking after Hark’s health and her own, too.
She entertained them all, donning the smile and pleasantness she had curated under Cyrus’s rule.
The people only grew in confidence the more she was there. They approached her for all manner of things. Could she inquire about importing sheep or goats into the city? Could she ask after the silk Hadalyn shipped in from other continents? Could she do this and this and this?
She tried to meet all of their demands, and if she could not deliver on their requests, then she promised she would ask the appropriate person.
Already a hierarchy was forming within the magics, and though she had yet to see any of them wield actual power, she understood things were decided based on the potency of the magic in their blood.
None of it eased the fact that she couldn’t feel Thara in her head.
She would have to venture up into the mountains and find her dragon tomorrow if Thara did not reach out through their bond.
The dragonhart brooch pinned to her cloak was her only comfort.
It was a strange, almost sentient trinket that Arla’s fingers brushed more times a day than she could count.
It still warmed beneath her touch, as if the brooch were a signifier that her dragon was okay.
She was just purchasing a dress, which even the gods themselves might have been envious of, when a commotion by the river caught her attention. Men argued, their voices carrying, and began to attract a crowd that joined in the fuss.
‘Please have this delivered to Claret Hall. I’ll make sure you’re paid for the trouble,’ Arla said to the woman in the dress shop before turning towards the crowd that was steadily growing on the bridge over the river.
‘You speak of things you know nothing of!’ a male’s voice roared, and the way the crowd moved backwards like ripples in a lake, Arla was sure the argument was about to turn violent.
It lit something in her blood, blowing on an ember that had always burned within her heart.
Her steps fell into that quiet, soft tread she often reserved for her victims as she approached.
‘And you defend her like she didn’t hunt us down and cut the throats of our brothers!’
Something heavy settled in her stomach. There was no one else they would be speaking of, not when she had flaunted herself through this new city like she had earned this position of power.
There was the sound of flesh on flesh, the dull thud of fist against jaw. The crowd gasped, some of them leaping forwards to pull the two men apart. Static hung in the air – the same feeling she had whenever Thara was close. Magic.
The crowd parted around her as if she had branded them, revealing two men double her size restrained by onlookers but still with flailing arms as they tried to reach one another.
‘I do hope you’re not going to get blood on these cobbles?’
Silence descended on Flambriar, each pair of magics’ eyes turning on her as she stepped onto the bridge and came to stand between the two men.
‘You have no business here, girl,’ one of the men sneered at her, spit landing in a beard of curling, dark hair.
‘You speak to her with such disrespect again and I will see to it you are banished from here, Lovell,’ the second man said, straining against the grip of those who held him.
‘She deserves it. That whore hunted us alongside her king for years. She doesn’t have the right to walk these streets, to speak to our people—’
Enough.
She stepped forwards, smiling sweetly as she faced the bearded man. ‘If we could refrain from such coarse language, I’m sure the parents of the children present would appreciate it.’
A glob of spit landed at her feet.
Before she’d thought about it, her hand was palming the blade at her waist, the silver glint of it catching the sunlight from beneath her cloak, but she didn’t see the other male come flying from behind her and land a fist into the bridge of the first man’s nose.
‘Men and their fucking egos!’