Chapter 21
The valley was awash with starlight and flickering torches as Arla led the court down the mountain and into the city of Flambriar.
There was music somewhere in the distance, and she could just about see the roaring flames of a bonfire beyond the peaks of lovingly constructed houses.
There was magic in the air – a floating, gilded thing that injected giddiness into the court despite what tonight represented.
This night might have been a chance to honour the dead, but Flambriar had come alive.
Claret Hall’s court trailed behind Arla, their footsteps soft against a ground finally clear of snow. She hadn’t thought the frost would ever fully thaw this far north, but it was as though the gods had saved this night for them and allowed bare arms not to feel the biting wind of the mountains.
Hark’s fingers wound through her own, and Arla held them tight. Oh, the singing, it sank into her bones! Something ancient and fervent and magic. She knew it ran in her veins, this song of old. A song perhaps crafted by the gods themselves to honour those who had fallen.
And then Flambriar’s square stole her breath clean away.
She had expected mourning black. She had herself chosen to wear green because those who had fallen at Kastonian hands deserved something bright to hold onto.
But no.
Flambriar had come together in a cacophony of colour and gems and soft flame that burned in the palms of every mage.
They sang a haunting melody, every note hauling a lump into her throat.
It was a song for them all. For the mages who had been held captive.
For those who had lost their lives during the imprisonment.
For those who had been slaughtered on Grey Hill all those years ago.
It was a promise.
That it would not happen again. They would not allow it.
The court filtered in behind her and Hark, positioning themselves in the circle that had formed in the cobbled square, a blazing bonfire at its heart.
No one paid them any attention; tonight they were all there to honour those who had given their lives to keep this secluded corner of the world safe.
Arla gripped Hark’s hand tighter, as if his solemn strength could keep her upright. She knew how much this meant to him, too. They may not have fallen at the end of a sword, but he had lost a brother. A mother. A … father.
Because she failed to believe that the same man who wore the Kastonian crown had ever truly been this evil.
She wanted to believe that he had loved Hark once upon a time.
That he had been a king and a ruler and a father before his greed had turned him into something the gods condemned. She squeezed Hark’s hand. I’m here.
The final lingering note wound through the crowd, the flames in their palms flickering out as Flambriar was enveloped in silence.
There was nothing for long minutes, only bowed heads and linked hands and a prayer that the souls of the dead had found their way home.
It was like an oath, and Arla didn’t think she had ever been prouder.
‘They are yours. Your pride is well placed.’ A shadow passed over them, the tug in the bond stronger than ever as Thara looked down on her.
‘Are you ready for tomorrow?’ Arla replied, her eyes still trapped in the flames of the roaring fire.
‘Enough talk of tomorrow’s journey, Dragonhart. Tonight is about remembering the past.’
Her dragon always knew how to make her feel minutely small.
‘But yes. As if my capability was ever in doubt.’
A smile crept onto her lips.
As though they moved as one, the people of Flambriar bowed before the bonfire, reciting words of an ancient language Arla knew she would find in those books at Larkire with the strange symbols etched on their spines.
It shocked her sometimes, the weight the old religion still carried and the continuation of it amongst a people that had been ruthlessly hunted.
There would be no speech from Hark, or from her, or from any of them. Tonight, every being that stood in the square was equal. There were no kings or queens, no leaders or rulers, no dragonharts and no gods-blessed. Tonight was not about them.
One by one, the crowd began to disperse, smaller groups branching off to speak quietly whilst a quartet of musicians began to play soft music on stringed instruments.
There was food being brought out and laid on huge slabs of wood that had to have come from the men that worked the forests, and Marianne tended to it all, handing out hot breads and cheeses to children, pouring glasses of warm, spiced wine that reminded Arla so vividly of the market festival in Vorstrum.
Gods, it felt so long ago. Like years had passed when it had only been … could it really only have been three months ago?
A hand snaked across her waist. ‘Come and sit by the fire. You’ll catch a chill.’
Hark looked … entirely delicious tonight. He was freshly shaven, and the way that black suit hugged every inch of his body? There was no way he wasn’t spending the night with her once they returned to the privacy of Claret Hall.
‘Stop looking at me like that or else I’ll show the entire mountainside the wicked things I want to do to you,’ he purred in her ear, and that sound, those words, dragged warmth to her core. He was enough to reduce her to ashes.
‘I’d light him up before he ever got the chance.’
Arla disguised a laugh, and from the way Hark rolled his eyes before gifting her with a wide grin that showed off those secret dimples, she knew he was aware there was a secret conversation going on with Thara.
She followed him closer to the fire anyway, where their court mingled with the people, sharing stories and listening to the ways in which the mages had been expanding the kingdom.
It was fascinating, truly, the ease with which they were beginning to wield their magic, as if all they’d ever needed was permission to tap into the gift they had been forced to hide their entire lives.
Food and drinks were handed out and dancing began around the fire, the people moving so gracefully and meaningfully that it pricked Arla’s eyes with salty tears. There was a tug on the bond then, a reassuring arm that leant its way across her shoulders.
‘I am with you.’
She didn’t know why those four words almost had her choking back a sob. Perhaps because as she looked around at the court and their people, at the family that had been formed, it was the first time in almost a decade she had not felt so alone.
She knew the girl had crept beside her despite the silent way in which Elin always moved.
‘Hello, Elin.’
If the girl was surprised Arla had noticed her, she didn’t show it. ‘Hello.’
Silence hung between them, and Arla had spent enough time watching townsfolk stutter at the feet of her king to know the girl wished to ask her something she was perhaps too scared of the answer to voice.
‘I don’t bite. You can ask me whatever question is burning a hole in your mind.’
The girl laughed. ‘Will you train me?’
Something heavy swung in the pit of Arla’s stomach.
‘Train you to do what?’ She already knew what was coming next, her mind scrambling for a way to get out of this situation.
‘I want to be like you. I want to be as strong and quick as you are.’
Unlike some of the other children, Elin had never been scared of her. She didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing that Elin had no qualms about looking her dead in the eyes and never once flinching.
‘Elin, I—’
‘Don’t tell me I’m too young. Don’t tell me it’s not something I want to do. You were younger than me when you were allowed into Castle Grey.’
Elin was twelve. Three years older than Arla had been when she’d first felt the blooming of an idea in her heart: to be the best assassin the world had ever seen; to work herself to the bone so that no one could ever take something precious from her again.
Elin had lost her mother, too. Who was Arla to tell her she didn’t have the right to channel her pain into the solid swing of a blade or the burning tear of muscle?
Arla looked at the girl. Really looked at her. She took in the soft eyes and angled face, and Arla could see the resolve there. The need for an outlet to release the things that had hurt her. It was like a call to something she recognised in her own blood.
‘Do not look at the child and deny her the very things you were gifted, Dragonhart.’
‘Her uncle will kill me if she gets hurt.’ It had been Arla’s first thought.
Seb had already lost his sister; Arla didn’t know how he would react if his niece got hurt in what she could feel was a looming battle.
Elrod hadn’t made a move yet, but there was an unease that pricked her skin each time she thought of Larkire and the man inside its palace.
Something was coming, she was sure of it.
And who was she to deny a child the ability to be able to defend herself if that battle came?
‘Her uncle won’t dare to draw the blood of my hart.’
A chill snaked down her spine.
Elin shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and that single action persuaded Arla to look the girl dead in the eyes and say, ‘First lesson, stop shuffling. Your body is strong enough. It can stay where you put it.’
The ghost of a smile brushed Elin’s lips before disappearing. She stood straighter, stiller, before inclining her chin so slightly it was as though she hadn’t moved at all.
‘Come find me when I’m back from Malarye and maybe we can both learn how to fire a bow properly.’
The girl did smile then, a stunning, delicate thing that Arla found herself reciprocating. Maybe they could learn something from each other.
‘What’s going on over here?’ a rumbling voice said, and they both whirled to find Sebastian marching towards them, a wide grin parting his lips and a toddler hanging off his hip. Vivianne reached for Arla the moment she was close enough.
‘Girl talk. Not for the ears of brutes like you.’ Arla beamed.