Chapter 5
There was half a second during which she contemplated running the pair of them through with a sword. It would stop the noise and the flying fists and feet, at least. But this wasn’t Hadalyn, or Kastonia, or a target after which her king had sent her.
So instead of drawing her blade, she dived into the middle of the fighting and for the first time in her life, tried to stop it.
Hands flew at her face, the crack of knuckles a driving force as she attempted to get in between the tangle of men.
Her hair caught on something – or perhaps someone pulled it – and yet she couldn’t shake the giddiness that came with being involved in something violent.
She had missed it in a strange sort of way, and when the bearded man landed a fist against her cheekbone, the sight of her blood on his knuckle sang to the violence inside her.
Arla threw her own fists back, relishing in the splitting of skin beneath her blows. More people joined in, but all she could see was the man who had spat at her – the man who had accused her of hunting the magics and slaughtering them.
She hadn’t known.
‘I hope you die, you traitorous bitch!’ he yelled at her, and Arla had to resist the urge to laugh. She had been called far worse.
‘Death tried to take me,’ she said between the pull and push of the fight. ‘She failed.’
He came at her again, and everything was beginning to quiet, the crowd calming as if they thought the danger might have passed.
She was aware that the other man – the one who had been arguing initially – had been pulled away, a group of people branching off to tend to the broken nose she knew he had sustained.
‘Stop, now!’ she said.
To her surprise, he did, panting as he stood there, eyes tunnelling into her as if he could kill her just from that stare alone.
‘I am sorry for the things I have done, but I am here to help you. If you want to blame me, fine, but know that I will protect this kingdom and its people with or without your support.’
He said nothing, only looked at her as if she had crawled out of the depths of hell. She almost liked it. She turned to face the first man who, despite his bloody nose and the blackening of his eyes, raised a fist across his heart. A mark of respect, of support, for her.
She didn’t see the elbow that barrelled into her side.
There was blazing white pain, the screaming of the scar where he made contact and the wave of nausea that overtook her as the bearded man stepped back. She couldn’t breathe.
The man with the broken nose launched himself forwards again, barely held back by the people tending him. ‘You fucking—!’
The pain burned in her side. It was a stark reminder that she wasn’t fully healed; that she wasn’t ready to thrust herself into a fight she would ordinarily be more than capable of winning.
‘Your parents deserved what they got! I only wish you’d had your pretty little throat cut too!’
Less than a breath later, she was running at him, blade outstretched.
He’d die for it. He’d die for bringing her parents into it. He’d die for saying that the people of Hadalyn deserved what had been done to them.
She’d kill him, she’d kill him, she’d kill him—
‘No, you don’t.’
Arms wrapped around her waist, hauling her backwards with a strength that shouldn’t have come from such a slight body.
She didn’t care who held her, only that Lovell was in front of her, and she’d carve his fucking eyes out—
‘Enough, Arla. It’s enough,’ a voice said in her ear, pulling her back despite the strength of her attack.
She’d cut his limbs off his body and keep him alive whilst she did it!
‘Arla, stop. I’ve got you.’
She didn’t care, didn’t care, didn’t care—
‘Dragonhart.’
The ancient voice in her head was the only warning before a mass of dark green, scaled claws landed on the bridge.
People screamed, some of them collapsing where they stood – Lovell one of them. Bodies scattered, the sight of Thara too much up close despite how many times they’d seen her from afar.
Arla relaxed in the grip of … Kase. It was Kase who held her back.
‘All is well, Dragonhart?’
She held the dragon’s eye, magic swirling through her irises as Thara watched her back. Slowly, Arla sheathed the blade at her waist and felt Kase release a breath against her.
‘I’ll make sure he’s dealt with,’ Kase said softly, nodding at a pair of soldiers Arla hadn’t seen arrive.
They hooked Lovell’s arms between them and lifted the unconscious man to his feet, dragging him away in the direction of the barracks.
She didn’t know what would happen to him – didn’t care, actually.
‘Dragonhart?’
‘Sorry, Thara,’ Arla thought, running a hand down her quickly unravelling braid. ‘All is well. I … I got carried away.’
‘Matters of the heart often hurt the most, Dragonhart. Next time, I will burn him to nothing.’
She didn’t deserve the dragon that had chosen her, that had carried her dying body out of Kastonia and kept her warm as she lost too much blood on the way into Flambriar. Thara’s voice was a comfort in her head, a reassurance that the dragon had not abandoned her.
Kase shuffled uneasily beside her, an indicator that she was still uncomfortable around the dragon, no matter how many times she had seen Arla converse with the creature of the gods.
‘Why were they fighting?’ Kase asked.
‘Because of me.’
Kase sighed, scanning the quickly dispersing crowd as if they would give her the answers Arla would likely keep from her.
‘You can’t fight with them, Arla. They’re just beginning to trust you.’
Arla whirled on Kase, and she wasn’t sure if Thara’s low rumble was just inside her head.
‘I won’t hesitate to break their trust if they behave like that again. If they want to blame me, fine, but to attack each other is unacceptable.’
‘They fight because of who you are. Of who you could be.’
Thara growled in warning, and this time Arla saw Kase’s already pale face turn visibly white. Arla knew what Kase was hinting at: how they all wanted her to step into her power as dragonhart and rule these people with magic in their veins.
She wouldn’t do it.
She didn’t bear a kernel of magic; didn’t have any power of the gods; didn’t have anything to make her different aside from the dragonhart namesake and a brooch that warmed to her touch. The message the gods had left, that the last dragonhart would unite the kingdoms…
She would unite nothing.
Not when they had each wronged her, not when she couldn’t get Flambriar to accept her fully. There would be no unification, no matter what the gods had said. If they wanted it doing, they could do it themselves.
‘They don’t fight because of me,’ Arla said softly, looking out over the winding stretch of water that ran through the centre of the city.
‘They fight because they have no leader. They fight because Hark brought them here and spends all his time in the mountains. They’re scared and they have no one to rule them. ’
Her stomach flipped.
She knew Hark was in the mountains because he wanted to keep the people safe. And she knew, deep down, that there was a reason he wasn’t stepping into his role as leader, that the fear of it plagued him. She’d just have to fix that, wouldn’t she?
Kase shook her head slowly, straightening the collar of her jacket before heading back towards Claret Hall. ‘I’ll see you at dinner.’
‘To the skies, Dragonhart?’
Arla regarded her dragon and felt the chill that always pebbled her skin whenever she looked at the creature she had found sleeping beneath Castle Grey. A creature that had known her for her entire life, despite never making contact.
‘Yes, to the skies.’
Arla didn’t think she would ever get used to the feeling of riding a dragon.
The solid, burning mass beneath her, the wind tearing through her hair and her cloak, the magic that swirled around her, its static energy a serenade to her blood.
They flew for hours, weaving through clouds of thick fog and diving between the mountains.
She could do it forever and never tire of it.
‘Your anger is burning straight through you, Dragonhart.’ Thara’s voice in her head was both a relief as well as a scolding. She had missed the dragon and felt the absence of her all too keenly when she wasn’t there to comment on every emotional variation in Arla’s mind.
‘They’ll never trust me, and Hark refuses to lead them.’ Her voice was lost on the wind, but she had no doubt the dragon had heard her.
‘Yes, the boy does refuse to take responsibility for the kingdom he has carved out. He will learn in time, or he will be forced to.’
‘What does that mean?’ Arla suspected the dragon knew more about the fates and future of their world than she shared – she was a servant of the gods, after all – and it bothered Arla that a bond as close as theirs still contained secrets.
But, rather than answer her, Thara dived deeply between the mountains, stealing Arla’s breath as her stomach was left behind.
Her eyes streamed as Thara plummeted towards the valley, her heart pounding wildly in her ears as the ground inched closer.
The dragon banked upwards at the last second, spreading her wings wide and powering up, up, up. The laughter that burst free from Arla’s throat was a sound foreign to her own ears. She wished Hark could hear it.
‘Worried, Dragonhart?’ There was an amusement to Thara’s voice she hadn’t heard before, and through the laughter that kept bubbling free from her lips Arla forced the words out.
‘You don’t fill me with confidence when you disappear to sleep for days at a time. Forgive me for the lack of confidence as we tumble to the ground.’
Thara made a sound beneath her that was as close to a laugh as she thought a dragon might be able to make before turning back towards Flambriar.
Claret Hall was a beacon on the top of the mountain, the lights from within shining against the sunset.
She could only imagine how beautiful it was inside the building right now.
With the oranges and reds and pinks of the sunset, and the glass ceilings of the palace, it would be like standing inside a rainbow.
‘Then we will grow your confidence along with this kingdom.’