Chapter 17 #2
He had. Hark’s lips had parted, and he had been unable to form words when she had strutted through the hallways of Claret Hall.
His eyes had darkened, a wild, primal urge brewing there that she was sure she had incited earlier in the day.
If there was one thing she loved more than fighting with females, it was seeing what her words could do to men. Specifically, Hark Stappen.
There was a rightness to flying a dragon, something inside her that approved and craved the bond between them.
Like she had been born with it in her blood.
Arla hadn’t ever given much thought to the fates – had vehemently denied the existence of the gods and their dragons until a handful of months ago.
Her fingers drifted to the brooch pinned to her cloak.
Arla had always felt watched inside Castle Grey, had always felt a presence drawing her to the tunnels beneath the palace, no matter how often she was scolded for wandering down there. And for her to even end up inside Castle Grey… For her to have become the King’s Assassin…
There was no way the fates hadn’t planned it all. Hadn’t written it in the sands and the stars.
And she’d never been more grateful for it.
Thara landed softly in the cobbled square and Arla hopped from the dragon’s back as easily as if she had been doing so her entire life.
Her friends waited as their horses were led away by grooms that appeared out of stone buildings with softly glowing lights in their windows.
Her boots, hidden beneath the flowing length of her dress, clipped across the cobbles, and Arla took comfort in the weight of the dagger strapped to her thigh.
Hark would tell her off for it. He would tell her it was unnecessary and that it made it seem as if they didn’t trust their own people.
Arla knew better.
She had seen trust and the complacency it bred; she would not become it.
‘Where’s Sebastian?’ she asked as a firm hand snaked around her waist, wrapping her in an embrace of woodsmoke and whiskey.
‘Here,’ a voice called from behind them. Arla turned to face her friend and … the two children that were with him.
A girl with soft brown hair and eyes the colour of owls walked at his side. ‘Elin?’ Arla said.
‘Hello,’ the girl answered, a sheepish smile breaking across her face.
Arla looked back at Seb who winked at her and carried a child no older than two years old.
She had tumbling curls a shade darker than Elin’s that fell down her back as she nestled her face into the crook of Sebastian’s shoulder, a teddy clutched in a fierce grip even as the hand lay slack at the child’s side.
‘Your sister, I take it?’ Arla asked Elin, who was looking at her as if she couldn’t understand what she was seeing.
Arla felt the same, actually.
‘Don’t look as though you wish to stab me, Dragonhart.’ Seb chuckled, making his way closer. Arla could just make out the tanned skin of the sleeping child he carried, and she struggled to piece it all together.
‘I might not wish to stab you if you had told me you were a father.’
The court erupted into laughter.
‘The day that prick becomes a father is the day I walk straight,’ Jack laughed, leaning heavily on his cane. Even Elin laughed.
‘I’m glad you all find it so amusing,’ she growled, failing to tamper the annoyance rising with every echo of laughter that came from her court. Hark laughed too, and she shrugged out of his grip, suddenly finding that sound the most annoying thing she’d ever heard.
As if she’d ever compared it to fucking sunlight.
‘They’re not mine,’ Sebastian finally said, shifting the sleeping girl’s weight in his arms. She didn’t so much as stir.
‘My nieces – Elin, I believe you’ve met, because she’s often in places she shouldn’t be.
’ The girl narrowed her eyes slightly, and Arla shot her a quick wink.
She knew all too well the lure of places you weren’t supposed to be.
‘And Vivianne – Vivi, we call her. They’re my sister’s girls but…’
‘I’m sorry,’ Arla said softly, recalling what Elin had told her about their mother and the wasting sickness.
Sebastian said nothing, only inclining his head and offering her a smile that was too sad to belong on his face. She wished she’d known. She’d have made sure the girls had places in the hall, had been offered anything they could have wanted—
Seb seemed to know what Arla was thinking before she could say anything. ‘They split their time between me and my sister’s friend. Cardia looks after them when I’m busy. Makes sure Elin goes to school instead of sneaking off to visit other people’s horses.’
Arla swallowed thickly. She hadn’t known… ‘Yes, well, I’d rather be at the stables than school too, so I guess we have that in common.’
Elin’s face lit up, and Arla thought she might be one of the prettiest girls she had ever seen. Vivi stretched in Seb’s grip, nestling closer to him.
‘Can we eat? I’m starving,’ Kase finally interrupted, and truly, Arla was hungry, too.
They didn’t have to answer because a lady with wiry black hair emerged through the restaurant’s doors, the scent of spices and roasted meat reaching Arla almost immediately.
‘Had I known you were intending on eating out here, Mr Stappen, I would have set some tables.’
The woman winked at Hark, and Arla had the unnerving feeling she’d seen this woman before. Perhaps she had come from Hadalyn and Arla had passed her in the streets. Maybe she had been one of the slaves she had helped free from the camp at the Northern Border.
‘Shall we?’ Hark said, linking Arla’s arm in his own and leading his court through the double doors of the restaurant.