Chapter 30
It didn’t matter how many times she felt the wind in her hair or the locked plates of scales beneath her thighs; Arla didn’t think she would ever get used to the feeling of flying.
Malarye stretched out beneath her like a map of bruises and spilt ink, all cliffs and dark green forests.
The queen’s words had kept her from sleep for too long as she turned them over in her head.
She was to train here, with Malarye’s army, in return for them not marching against Flambriar if the world descended to war…
She was beginning to think she’d made a bad deal.
‘Not all bargains are meant to benefit you, Dragonhart. Be glad that they have vowed not to stand against you.’
Thara was right, of course, but Arla still needed answers. Her dragon’s revelations yesterday, though surprising, had not told her enough.
‘It would be easy to leave, you know. We could keep flying west and not look back.’ Her voice was almost lost on the wind, but from the rumble of the dragon beneath her, she didn’t doubt Thara had heard her.
‘I do not have answers as to what it is the fates have planned for you, Dragonhart, and neither do you. Patience is not a quality you have been gifted in abundance but as I have flown you thus far, perhaps you might learn some.’
A grin tugged the corners of her lips. ‘You wish for us to stay here?’
A wave of warmth pulsed down the bond. ‘For now.’
‘Did the other dragonharts have to deal with all this nonsense? And fates that plotted against them?’ It was a risk to ask the question – she didn’t wish to spark another argument with her dragon.
But instead of the silence Arla had expected, Thara’s voice was steady in her mind.
‘The ones that came before were strong of heart, but they were not like you. The fates left them alone, for the most part. They did their jobs well, communicated between dragons and mages, kept the mages safe. Until Damon, the fates were content to leave the dragonharts alone. And after Damon, there is you. It seems the fates enjoyed their meddling too much to give it up just yet.’
‘What makes me and Damon so special?’
There was a pulse of silence, a warring through the bond, as if Thara battled with what she could and could not speak of.
That furious spark in Arla’s chest revolted at it.
‘I don’t know why they chose you and Damon. But know that I will not allow what happened to the one that came before happen to you.’
Damon…
‘What happened, Thara?’
Only silence rippled in the bond. ‘Thara, please.’
It was like waves crashing against sharp, jagged rocks. The bond thrashed, Thara’s fight against what was forbidden to be spoken of, a wild, tumultuous thing.
The world split open.
Flashes of a boy with dark hair. Fire. Gods with faces she couldn’t quite make out, battling with magic that was powerful enough to shatter the stars.
It all came, quick, unrelenting. Images of the past – memories that Thara had lived through. ‘He used—’
Pain shattered through the bond, and the dragon fell ten feet through the clouds, Arla’s hands flailing for grip as Thara fought the prohibition the fates had created. ‘He used too much. It was never enough, and he wanted more.’
Another billow of blinding pain through the bond and this time Thara screeched a sound so hideous Arla wished to never hear it again for as long as she lived.
Still her dragon fought to get the words out. To tell Arla what had transpired a century ago despite the pain the fates flooded her body with.
‘Damon wasn’t himself. The things he did … it broke him.’
This time, when the whip of pain came slicing through the bond, Thara unable to shield Arla from it, they fell so quickly she was certain they’d end up a pile of ash and scales upon Malarye’s shores.
‘Stop,’ Arla panted. ‘Don’t tell me anything else. If this is the price, I won’t let you pay it.’
The fact that Thara didn’t answer spoke enough of the dragon’s pain that Arla instantly hated herself. The pain through the bond … it was a fraction of what Thara must have felt. This punishment from the fates, the way they’d banned them from speaking of the past …
It wasn’t worth her dragon’s pain.
Thara flew in silence for long, long minutes, an unspoken agreement that Arla wasn’t to mention what had just occurred.
Good. She didn’t want that to happen ever again.
Arla coughed, clearing her throat as the wind ripped through her hair, her dragon’s scales hard beneath her thighs as Thara finally regained the altitude they’d had before.
‘If we’re going to be training with Malarye’s army, maybe we should start learning how to … well, fight together. They nearly shot us out of the sky. If we have to fight against Kastonia, who says they won’t do the same?’
Thara chuckled, though rivulets of pain still tricked through the bond.
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
‘For the gods’ sake,’ Arla snapped, dropping the bloodied bandage at her elbow as someone tapped on the wooden door to her room.
She’d spent the morning with Thara, flying high above the forest, practising not vomiting as Thara dived whilst Arla tried to keep a sword in her grip.
She had made the mistake of not paying attention – despite Thara’s many warnings – and had failed to duck her body close to Thara’s in time for a branch to take skin off her arm. She was damn lucky she hadn’t fallen.
‘As if I’d have let you.’
Someone was tapping on the door again.
‘Ugh, fine, come in.’
‘Sorry to disturb, it’s just we said we would have lunch—Oh, gods, let me do that for you.’ Hyacinth entered the room, bending to pick up the unravelled bandage and reach for Arla’s elbow.
She stopped herself before her fingers could so much as brush the bloodied skin.
‘I can do it myself,’ Arla protested, spinning away from the princess who was looking at her with scrunched brows.
Hyacinth moved around Arla, the scent of peonies making her nose itch in the cramped room. ‘Let me, please. That’s what friends are for, right?’
She wouldn’t know, would she? The one friend she’d had wasn’t answering any of her letters.
Arla cleared her throat. ‘And are we? Friends?’
Hyacinth smiled in a lovely, girlish way, and Arla hated how something in her was beginning to soften towards the princess.
‘Of course. If we aren’t friends, then we are enemies, no? Someone who is willing to train with our army doesn’t sound like an enemy.’
Arla hissed as the princess pulled the bandage tightly around her elbow. ‘Enemies no, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve been coerced into something I did not agree to. Tell me, Hyacinth, why your mother refuses to send troops to my aid should I call for it but expects my skill in return?’
The princess chewed her lip as she finished knotting the strip of fabric. Arla didn’t expect Hyacinth to answer, but when she did speak, there was confidence and certainty in her voice that lifted the hairs on Arla’s arms.
‘Know that you have our support against any and all that come for Flambriar. We recognise the blood that runs in your veins and the title bestowed upon you by the gods, Arla Dragonhart. That is why you have our support. But know that this fight is bigger than us all – bigger than you and your new kingdom. We will not send our people into a war between gods – because it will come to war, you know that. Elrod has twisted and bent the rules of magic, and the gods are displeased. You can’t believe he isn’t still offending the gods – the kingdoms are still falling, after all.
You are the one the gods have chosen, so if there is to be a war it is to be between the two of you. ’
She knew that.
Had known it for weeks now, since the first letters had started arriving saying that sickness and poverty were still spreading.
She couldn’t ask anyone to go to war for her, especially not those from the continent who had stayed their blades in the battle of Grey Hill. They had remained neutral then; she couldn’t ask them to fight now.
Hyacinth was at the door now, bright-eyed and ready for the lunch Arla had promised to take with her.
It didn’t matter that it felt like there was a shadow spreading within Arla’s chest, that although she had known for a while now that Elrod was still up to something, that she had been named Dragonhart for a reason, it still felt like drowning to hear the words come from someone else’s lips.
‘I do hope you have good wine here,’ Arla said lightly, ignoring that gaping feeling in her chest. ‘If I am to train within a hundred meters of Crea this afternoon, I’ll need to be at least three glasses deep.’
Hyacinth laughed, holding the door for her. ‘She has that effect on people.’
Malarye’s main town was exactly the coastal, quiet place Arla had expected when she had last been in the queendom with Cyrus – not that she had ever got to see it, mind.
Lunch was a peaceful affair, a selection of seafood laid out on a platter between Arla and Hyacinth as they sat outside a restaurant owned by a frail-looking man.
The sun had basked everything in bright hues, and it was the first time in nearly a year that Arla had felt the warmth of its rays on her face.
The sea crashed against the rocky shore in the distance, the air salty with its proximity.
People shopped at stalls and markets with pale blue awnings, and children traded shells wherever she looked.
Here, away from the palace and the border, it was hard to believe that Malarye was anything other than this quaint little town hidden beyond a forest. Arla couldn’t help but admire the defences in place to keep the people safe.
Any enemy would have to endure the archers on the cliffs and manage to cross through the forest before Malarye’s people were subjected to fighting.
The shoreline that Arla could see from the restaurant was so treacherous and littered with deadly, hidden rocks that no ship would be able to get anywhere close.