Chapter 11
Thara’s presence in the back of her mind was like a slab of marble – cold and unyielding. The dragon had kept her awake all night, even though Hark wrapped her in his arms and whispered lovely things into her ear, and held her while they slept.
‘You humans sleep too much,’ Thara said as Arla lay tangled in the bedsheets. It was far later than she was used to sleeping in, though she would likely still be the first up and about the hall. The sun had only just risen.
‘It’s not like you slept beneath a castle for decades, is it?’
A rumble vibrated down the mind bond and Arla chose to interpret it as amusement from the dragon. She didn’t dare admit she was still slightly afraid of Thara.
She dragged herself out of bed and onto the balcony before she could regret it.
Flambriar was coming to life. There were horses pulling wooden carts laden with wood and food and …
silk. Silk. Her chest hurt to breathe because …
because it meant that one of the trade deals had gone through.
Flambriar was actively trading with the continent.
The flutter of hope was quickly smothered by the worry of what it meant. Other kingdoms knew they existed now. They would have to be cautious whilst they were still establishing themselves – a new kingdom was the ideal target for someone more powerful to take over.
‘There is nothing more powerful than those with the blessing of the gods.’
Right.
It wouldn’t stop an army from attacking though, would it?
A tiredness was settling in her bones already. She was supposed to unite them all. The very thought of it made her want to crawl back beneath the sheets.
But she would begin anyway.
First, she would tackle Flambriar and its lack of leadership, then she would help Jaz in the library. There had to be something to give her an indication of what she was supposed to be doing as a dragonhart, seeing as her actual dragon would give her no clues.
‘I have no right to interfere with the fates and their plans. And nor do you.’
‘Is everything alright?’ She knew Thara was off in the mountains searching for the source of the strange magic she had felt last night. She could feel the physical distance in their bond.
‘It is better than before, but the balance is off.’
Arla went to speak and found the bond between them blocked, as if a huge wall stood between them.
Fine. If Thara wanted to be left alone, she’d let her. Perhaps Thara was tired of how often Arla actively sought out the bond between them just so she didn’t feel quite so alone in a new kingdom so far from Hadalyn.
Get a grip, Arla.
She chose the warmest clothes Rheia and Lilith had found for her – knitted sweaters and thick leggings instead of her usual leathers – she couldn’t be King’s Assassin today. She pulled her cloak around her shoulders and set off for the city.
The people watched her all day. They watched as she helped set up the beginnings of an apothecary where the healers could mix and sell medicine.
They watched as she made sure there was somewhere the pregnant women could deliver their babies safely.
Flambriar might have been set up nearly two years ago under Hark’s instruction, but it had been created as a refuge, not as a prosperous kingdom with an efficiently functioning administration.
By the time she left the city and began the long walk up to the hall, her body ached and her toes were numb right to the bones. She felt like she’d never be warm again.
The sun was setting quickly, as it always did this far north, and she longed for spring so that she might get a glimpse of something green rather than the endless ice and snow that turned everything into various shades of white and grey.
She was so preoccupied with trying to tease Thara along the bond in her mind that she almost walked straight into Jack, who was leaning more heavily on his walking stick than he had been three days ago.
‘You’re working too hard. Let the grooms sort the horses. Vetta will tolerate them the more time she spends with them.’
Jack smiled softly at her and her stomach clenched uncomfortably at how tired he looked.
He was barely older than her, yet he looked more than double the twenty-two years he’d walked the world.
She knew he’d been seeing healers to try and reverse the magic that had damaged him, but it was weeks later and if anything, he looked more exhausted than ever.
Arla knew it worried Kase – that she spent hours in the library with Jaz when she could, researching the effects of magic on a mortal body.
‘I heard you made quite the stir in the town today,’ Jack replied, ignoring her lingering gaze as he fell into a shuffling step beside her.
‘The people will like that. They need someone to give them direction. We tried when we brought them here two years ago, but … we were never here for long enough to establish anything solid.’
She didn’t blame him. She didn’t blame any of Hark’s crew or Hark himself for not being able to manage Flambriar and keep it a secret whilst also smuggling Elrod’s slaves out from under his nose.
Thara chuffed softly down the bond.
‘I haven’t seen you much lately,’ Arla said, holding the door open for Jack as they stepped into the warmth of Claret Hall.
‘I’ve been trying to sort the trade agreements with Kase. She can be … harsh on those who are scared to trade with us.’
‘I hear we’re trading silk,’ Arla said, the hope of it still a burning ember in her chest.
Jack grinned up at her. ‘We are indeed.’
She tried not to let her eyes stray to Noah’s office door as they strolled past it, but she couldn’t ignore the pull behind her navel that urged her to break the door down and tear through every scrap of paper on the desks until she found one that bore Hadalyn’s seal.
Until she found one that bore Halos’s name.
‘Patience, Dragonhart.’
She said goodbye to Jack then went to her bedroom, trying her best not to allow even a prickle of pity to mar her face. She knew Jack hated it and that he wanted them all to stop looking at him like he was going to break at any moment.
When she opened the door to her rooms and a bony hand gripped her wrist and yanked her inside, it was the first time in her life that Arla was glad she didn’t have a blade that was easy to access.
Lilith pulled her into the room, kicking the door closed behind them and ushering Arla further inside. Only when she had Arla backed into a corner did the maid finally speak.
‘Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to lie for you today?
’ Her grey eyes burned with urgency, and the scar on her jaw stood out starkly in the dimly lit bedroom.
Arla’s heart fluttered in her chest and heat rushed through her veins.
Lilith had never spoken to her this way – had never laid a hand on Arla unless it was to try and tame her hair.
‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, but please don’t let me stop you from explaining, Lilith,’ Arla said, already pushing her way out of the corner and removing the blade pinning her hair up so it fell in loose tangles below her shoulders.
The maid grabbed her arm again. Arla snatched it back before whirling on her. ‘Don’t ever touch me without my explicit permission,’ she growled through her teeth. A flicker of fear passed across Lilith’s face as she snatched her hand back to her chest.
‘Forgive me, but this is important.’
Arla sighed, unclasping her cloak before collapsing into the seat beside the fire and beginning to unlace her boots. ‘Go on, then.’
‘You killed someone the other night, didn’t you?’
Arla thought her heart might have stopped beating.
Arla kept her eyes concentrated on her boots when she finally spoke. ‘Well, I do hear you’re all calling me a demon.’
Lilith exhaled loudly, throwing her hands up. ‘Arla, we all expect you to come back covered in blood – you are who you are. But no one is missing from the city. I checked today.’
Gods! How had she been stupid enough not to have covered her tracks?
She sat up slowly, meeting Lilith’s serious eyes as the maid stepped closer to her. ‘The other maids in this hall talk, you know. I had to tell them you got into a fight with Thara. That you fell off her in the mountains. That it was your blood you were covered in.’
‘Well, if I ever need an alibi, Lilith, I know where to go.’
‘It’s not funny.’ Desperation had crept into her voice, and when Arla really looked at her in the light of the fire, silver lined the bottom of Lilith’s eyelids.
‘Lilith.’
The maid turned away, raising a hand to her eyes as if she could avoid the inevitable scrutiny of the assassin before her.
Arla reached for her arm and turned her gently. ‘Sit down.’
Lilith took the seat opposite her, and Arla tried to fight the blush that crept into her cheeks at the memory of who had sat in that chair the previous night, and how he had looked at her as if she were a goddess.
‘If I tell you the blood was mine—’
‘She wouldn’t believe you,’ a voice said, hurrying out of the bathroom with a blue silk dress scrunched in her hands.
Rheia looked as flustered as her sister, but with a sharpness to her tone that Lilith had been lacking.
‘Arla, we’re not stupid. I found your dress shoved beneath a stack of towels. ’
Ah. She’d meant to dispose of it earlier.
‘Right, seeing as you’re both incapable of staying out of my business,’ she began, offering her chair to Rheia, who took it gratefully. ‘I’ll have you know that … well, obviously I killed someone, but I was nowhere near Flambriar when I did it.’
Both maids’ faces paled.
‘Don’t tell me you flew—’
‘To the northern border, yes. I wanted to check out the camp there to see if there was anything important I could learn. There happened to be two Kastonian soldiers posted there. They deserved it.’
Too easy.
It was too gods-damned easy to lie through her teeth to the two women who had cared for and trusted her the moment they had met her.
The worst part was that they actually seemed to believe her.
Rheia visibly relaxed and colour began to return to Lilith’s cheeks as they listened to the fabricated story.
‘Don’t forget your lies, Dragonhart. They will fell you when you least expect it.’
She didn’t heed Thara’s warning. Mostly because she was so glad the dragon had opened the bond back up again. Not being able to communicate with Thara had eaten away at her all day.
‘But you can’t tell anyone. Hark would lock me up and throw away the key if he knew I’d done something as dangerous as that.’
‘He’d be bloody right!’ Lilith scolded.
‘Lilith, I’m serious. You tell the maids that it was my blood, that I got hurt falling from Thara. Make it up. But no one can know I left Flambriar.’
It was only after the maids had stoked the fire and left her that she wondered why she hadn’t told them the truth – that someone had indeed been spying on Flambriar and she’d done Hark’s job for him. She’d sworn them to secrecy anyway.
But no.
Today she had made a difference. She had helped establish the roots of what would grow into a beautiful kingdom.
She wouldn’t upset them all with this news yet.
Hark had enough on his plate without her interfering.
He was already so stressed, and her not settling in properly, her arguing with him about stepping up as leader was adding to that stress.
He needed to relax, needed to stop worrying before he gave himself a heart attack – the gods knew she’d kill him if he dropped dead on her.
She made herself ignore the shadow in her chest that told her she was being selfish.
That she was keeping it from him not only because she didn’t want him worrying about a threat she had already neutralised, but because if she told him …
well, it would be real then. They would be at war, and she had hardly made it out of the last one alive.
Nine years the battle of Grey Hill had haunted her. She wasn’t ready to do it all again…
And besides, Hark was up there every night anyway. If there were still people hiding in the mountains, he’d catch every one of them.
It wasn’t her job to worry him.