Chapter 32
There was hardly time for her to think as she shed her training leathers and pulled a loose-fitting shirt over her head.
It would be easier to manoeuvre whilst she trained with Thara.
The leggings she’d packed were black and tight and perfect for concealing blood should she fall from a great height and impale herself on a rock.
‘You will not because you will concentrate.’
Arla sniggered as she braided her hair into a crown on top of her head.
There wasn’t much time to think of anything, let alone the libraries they had passed which had stone steps descending into tunnels below ground, all lit with soft, golden light.
Crea had scowled when Hyacinth had led Arla to the entrance of the tunnels.
There wasn’t much time because she needed to be on Thara’s back before the sun set – it would be harder for her to judge distance in the dark – and she had asked Diath and Hyacinth to be there too in case she really did hurt herself.
The princess had lit up from within, a beaming smile spilling across her perfect face as she promised to be there the second Crea was done with her.
Arla didn’t want to ask why Crea had such a hold over the princess.
Diath would be waiting though, their eagerness obvious the moment Arla had asked.
Dinner was a hasty affair, her teeth tearing into bread and cheese as she jogged through the castle, ignoring the disapproving stares from maids and courtiers alike. The queen was nowhere to be seen.
Diath would be waiting for her at the edge of the forest where there was sufficient clear ground for her to practice dismounting in motion, and enough coverage from the trees that they couldn’t be spied upon from the palace.
This time, when the power in the bond grew stronger, signalling Thara’s proximity, Arla didn’t hesitate as she jumped from the ledge of the cliff.
She landed more gracefully this time, her body already adapting to the way her dragon would swoop beneath her and send them high into the clouds.
Again, a peal of laughter burst from her lips, the sheer joy of it sending waves through her blood.
This time, she didn’t grip with her hands, instead opening her arms out like her own personal wings.
The wind tore at her, the sunset in the distance bathing everything in soft, colourful light.
And for a moment, for just a tiny moment, she forgot that she was missing Hark and her people and Flambriar.
Because up here, in the clouds where no one could touch her, she was completely free.
All too soon they were careening towards the edge of the forest. Thara weaved between the cliffs, forcing Arla to keep her body tight against the dragon’s as she twisted and turned and pulled on every ounce of strength Arla had to keep herself upright.
It was … exhilarating. There was no other word for it.
She was panting by the time Thara landed by the trees, her brow slick with sweat from the strain of holding on. Her hair was matted, and her legs ached like nothing else, but the grin she knew was lighting up her face was reflected back to her in Diath’s face.
‘That was impressive! No one alive has seen anything like that,’ they said, handing Arla a canteen of cool water as she slid from Thara’s back.
‘I fear what comes next won’t be half as elegant,’ she said, laughing and stretching out her muscles.
Diath eyed her, their hands twitching at their sides as if they were resisting the urge to place them on Arla’s weary muscles and heal her.
Arla wouldn’t allow it; this pain meant she was getting stronger.
‘Forgive me, Dragonhart,’ they said, ‘but why is it you are almost risking your neck to train this way?’
The response came out of Arla’s mouth before she had time to think.
‘Because whatever is happening in Kastonia is enough to upset the gods. I don’t believe for one second that there isn’t magic involved, and if I can protect my kingdom from the skies as well as I can protect it from the ground, then at least I can die knowing I did everything to help.’
Thara rumbled down the bond. ‘You will not die.’
She couldn’t know that – the fates didn’t divulge their plans.
‘I don’t imagine you’ve called me here to simply watch. I assume there is a significant risk of broken bones?’ Diath asked, raising a dark brow.
Arla was already hauling herself back onto Thara’s back.
‘If I get through this with only a broken bone, I’ll consider it a success.’ Her words were lost on the wind as Thara launched into the air, stealing the breath from her lungs as the ghost of a gasp left Diath’s lips.
The speed with which her dragon darted between treetops and cliff edges meant all Arla could do was hold on and rely on instinct.
Her body ducked and weaved with the solid mass beneath her, but she grazed her cheeks and elbows on branches whenever she became careless enough not to keep herself tight against Thara’s body.
Her lungs burned, her fingers were numb with the chill of the wind rushing by and yet her body felt alive.
Laughter burst from her at every dive, every twist, every time she narrowly avoided slamming herself into the side of a rockface.
‘You laugh now, but if you do not concentrate, Diath will be scraping you off the ground,’ Thara warned.
The thought was sobering enough for Arla to grip the dragon a little tighter.
‘As we approach the ground, look for an opening and jump. I take it I do not need to instruct you on the execution of landing without snapping your human legs?’
At that, she could smile again.
‘No,’ her voice felt small against the sky. ‘That, I can do.’
‘Might I remind you that you have not attempted such a thing from the back of a dragon before?’
Indeed.
But there was no time to think about that or how indeed she would land, because the edge of the forest was in view again, the ground growing larger as Thara descended. There were two figures watching her now, Diath and the slight frame of Hyacinth, who was waving at her.
The ground was rushing at them now so fast that a flicker of panic flared in Arla’s chest. She tamped it down in a heartbeat. She was good at these things; she had jumped off buildings and honed her body to work for her. It would be fine.
But the speed at which they were swooping toward the ground…
There was barely a second before Thara pulled up from the earth, her wings flapping backwards quickly as Arla jumped…
And then she was falling.
The ground came hard and fast, a solid smack of loam-scented earth as her feet connected and her knees bent. Everything else came as second nature.
Her body rolled without her thinking about it, her head tucked in so she wouldn’t break her neck.
Twigs snapped, a sound frighteningly similar to bone, and rotting leaves and brambles pulled at her hair as she rolled through the dirt.
The momentum of the roll kept her tumbling, her body so used to the movement that she wasn’t expecting the wave of sickening pain that burst through her spine.
She tried to get to her feet as her body came to an abrupt stop, gasping as sharp pain flooded her senses. She opened her eyes – hadn’t realised she’d closed them, actually – and reached a hand out for something to indicate she was still alive.
Her fingers brushed over the rough surface of rock and entangled tree roots. She didn’t have it in her to cry out. She could only breathe through the waves of pain that rippled through her spine where she had rolled directly into the rock.
She didn’t think it was broken because she could move her feet, but fucking gods it had been a long time since she had felt pain so acutely!
So she kept breathing. Deeply. In and out, in and out, as the rustle of movement sounded around her.
A whisper of concern flared through the bond, but she couldn’t focus on it as Hyacinth’s face peered down at her, the princess’s worried gaze unnerving enough that she wondered if she had indeed broken her back.
Diath’s hands were like lightning as they touched her skin, and within seconds that pain began to ebb, leaving only a dull throb at the base of her back. She tried to stand, glad when the movement didn’t render her a squirming mess on the floor.
‘Are you all right?’ The panic in Hyacinth’s voice was … embarrassing.
‘I’m fine,’ Arla replied, stretching her limbs and ignoring the pain.
At least this was bearable. When she had broken her ankle in training at Castle Grey, she had been unable to stand the constant pain of it as she kept working through the training of the king’s guard and had resorted to taking those strange powders they sold down in the slums.
‘It was unlucky,’ Diath said, their eyes scanning Arla’s body. ‘But impressive, nonetheless.’
It was sad, really, the burst of pride that erupted in her chest at the words of a healer. Impressive. She had worked her entire life to be just that.
‘Impressive, yes, but you could have died. Hopefully tomorrow should prove less lethal,’ Hyacinth said softly, her voice like melted butter.
‘You would hope,’ Arla said, straightening her shirt and brushing off the remnants of forest that clung to it. ‘This should be second nature by tomorrow.’
Diath and Hyacinth met each other’s eyes before they looked at her with an exhausted understanding.
The healer’s voice was tired when they finally spoke. ‘And why would that be?’
Arla felt Thara drifting closer, the surge in the bond more powerful as her dragon circled back around. ‘Because we’re doing that again.’
Diath and Hyacinth didn’t have the time to protest before Thara swept in from above them, her wings scattering the loose earth and whipping the loose strands of Arla’s hair around her face.
She’d treasure the look on the healer and the princess’s faces for the rest of her life as she jumped and reached for the spikes on Thara’s back, using the momentum of Thara’s upward surge to fling herself onto the dragon’s back.
She’d treasure the yelp of laughter that followed her, too.
They practised the manoeuvre a further eight times, each one better than the last. She only broke three fingers during the course of the evening, which, all things considered, was a triumph.
Diath set the fingers almost immediately, and though they ached on the walk up the cliff to the palace, they were certainly no longer broken.
Hyacinth watched her the entire time, picking leaves and sticks and mud out of Arla’s hair each time Diath had to heal her.
She left before Arla’s final attempt – which had been by far the most successful – to carry out whatever princess duties she had been assigned.
Arla had never been so grateful for a hot bath.
She let the bubbles and the lavender oils soak away the ache in her muscles, resisting the urge to close her eyes in the low light of the room.
The bed was too inviting, calling to her to climb beneath the soft blankets and fall into a dreamless sleep.
She’d only been in bed for five minutes when there was a knock at the door and Hyacinth’s cheery face peered round the doorway.
‘I brought you a gift.’
Now that was a welcome surprise.
The princess entered the room smelling of spring and looking like a rose. Her hair was still slightly damp from having washed it, and it lay loosely around her shoulders. But the gift she carried?
Gods, it had been too long since Arla had had the pleasure of eating chocolate cake in her rooms at Castle Grey. Just the sight of it… She didn’t know why a lump rose in her throat.
‘Well, usually people look happier than that when they receive cake as a surprise,’ Hyacinth said.
‘I think it might just be the best surprise anyone has ever brought me,’ Arla said, snapping out of the nostalgia that rendered her motionless. Her time at Castle Grey was over. The sooner she learned to accept it the better.
Arla didn’t know at what point her relationship with the Princess of Malarye had deepened so that she was now comfortable for them both to be sitting on her bed, the chocolate cake long since devoured, laughing over trivial matters such as why Crea always looked like she would bring the wrath of the gods down upon them, or why it was so damned dark in this palace.
But that shift between them? Arla cherished it.
It was a lonely existence not having Halos as her friend anymore and though Hark was the other half of her heart and she would die for the Flambriar’s court, it wasn’t the same as having a friend that was just hers.
The night slipped by until Arla was sure it must be nearly dawn. Hyacinth’s eyes had turned soft and droopy, her head resting against the headboard next to Arla’s as an easy silence fell between them.
The question came from nowhere, but it was a subject she had pondered repeatedly and yet she was still none the wiser.
‘Did the dragonharts have magic before?’ She knew the answer because Jaz had researched it, but it didn’t explain that strange power she had felt surge through the bond with Thara when her life had been in danger twice before.
Hyacinth turned to look at her, a curious frown creasing the skin on her forehead. ‘I’m sure they used to, yes. But … you don’t have magic, do you?’
It scalded her like a brand in the centre of her chest. The words felt bitter and stinging on her tongue. ‘No, but something happened and … for a moment I think I did.’
Hyacinth sat upright, the tiredness vanishing from her eyes like the gods had erased it themselves. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Back at Larkire, when Hark and I were surrounded and there was no way we could have made it out alive, something happened. It was like the bond between Thara and me opened up and I could access her magic too. The same thing happened when we first came here and the archers tried to shoot us out of the sky.’
‘The wave…’ Hyacinth murmured. ‘But we all thought Thara was responsible for that.’
‘No … at least, I don’t think so. Her magic doesn’t work that way. But I felt her magic in the bond and could use it, I think.’
‘I can’t say I’ve ever heard of something like that happening,’ Hyacinth said slowly. ‘But I will check the libraries. I’m sure there will be something in there that can explain it.’
Arla hoped so, too.