Chapter 33
For the next few weeks, Arla’s life was consumed with training Malarye’s army, having Mason teach her to fire arrows in ways she could never have mastered alone, and practising a flying dismount whilst Thara flew with increasing speed.
For once, everything was working out, if she blocked out the fact that she should be figuring out how to unite the kingdoms. She’d overheard one of Mara’s advisors reading aloud a letter from another kingdom on the continent begging for more food, more medicine, more building materials as their kingdom fell victim to a wasting sickness no one had managed to identify yet.
Mara had refused to send a single healer, insisting that they needed to be here, close, in case Malarye should begin to suffer in the same way as everywhere else.
It had filled Arla with a cold dread. Flambriar wasn’t immune to this punishment from the gods, either, so how long until they, too, would begin to suffer?
Hyacinth had filled Arla’s evenings with walks through the forest and the town and had two nights ago taken her to the royal box at a theatre built inside an old temple.
They had laughed and drunk sweet wine, and Arla knew she would be sorry to leave the princess behind when it came time for her to go home.
Which, judging by the progress the army were making, would be soon.
She may not have come to Malarye for such a purpose, but at least she now had the promise of an ally that would supply their kingdom with whatever they needed should they have to fight.
She ignored the voice in her head that said she might have preferred Malarye’s troops over their weapons.
She had heard nothing from Hyacinth about dragonhart magic or what those books in their libraries contained, and Thara had been bound by the fates not to breathe a word of it either.
Before, that might have angered Arla, might have felt like a betrayal by the one who was bonded to her very soul, but now she could feel the pain and frustration Thara felt in keeping it from her.
Arla found she was beginning to hate the fates increasingly often.
She couldn’t dwell on it too much because if she did … well, she might force her way into those libraries and break Malarye’s trust. And for what? It would not be so simple – the answers she sought would not be conveniently lined up in plain view.
So she threw herself into training. Her arrows hit their targets, she managed to jump from Thara’s back mid-flight and land without Diath having to patch her back together, and the priests and priestesses improved their swordsmanship daily.
It was a deadly combination, but it wasn’t going to be enough, was it?
There was still too much she didn’t know.
She had finished her final dismount of the evening when a priestess approached, a curious smile etched on her face as she made straight for Hyacinth who perched on the outcrop of rocks where Arla had almost broken her spine on that first day.
The priestess whispered in the princess’s ear and Arla watched a grin breakout across Hyacinth’s face.
‘There’s a court dinner tonight, and my mother would like you to attend.’
Arla had expected all the grandeur she had been used to at Castle Grey for a court dinner.
There was no long dining table set with approximately eight different forks.
In fact, no one sat at all. The hall had been cleared of the desks, and long tables had been placed around the room piled high with bronze platters of food.
People stood around the hall, speaking in small groups or eating, and Queen Mara stood at one end of the room in a simple grey dress speaking with the man Arla recognised from the restaurant in the town.
Hyacinth stood beside Arla, their arms close enough to touch as they scanned the room. Hyacinth twisted her hands in front of her, and when not a single person acknowledged the arrival of their princess, Arla couldn’t help the burst of irritation that flew through her.
This was nothing like a court dinner. It was …
a simple gathering. Not dissimilar from the evening of the wedding on her second night here, except this time she felt at ease amongst these people.
She had been accepted into life in Malarye quickly, and she had come to learn its ways just as fast. So Arla wasn’t concerned when Hyacinth left her to go and speak with a group of women Arla had sometimes seen her mingle with.
Good. She needed Hyacinth out of the way tonight. She had come here for one thing and one thing only.
The library tunnels were eerily dark without the glow of the priestesses’ torches to light them.
Arla had successfully crept out of the court dinner because no one was paying enough attention to her to notice her absence.
She waited for the priestesses to leave for the evening.
There would be a new, smaller group to watch the texts overnight, but the tunnels would be silent for an hour yet – Arla had learned from Hyacinth that this was a tradition to honour the gods and their ancient texts by giving them an hour of solace.
The air was cool and dry, the scent of old parchment and smoke from where the recently extinguished torches still lingered.
Her feet made no sound – an assassin’s trick she had spent years perfecting.
Her blood positively vibrated with the sneakiness of it all.
How she’d missed spying and hiding in places she shouldn’t be!
The stone steps beneath her feet were worn smooth by the thousands of feet carrying people down into these tunnels to protect the books she could only imagine were inside.
Would any of them date back to when the gods themselves walked the earth?
‘The gods weren’t fond of writing, Dragonhart. Do not be disappointed if you do not find what you seek.’
‘The gods didn’t seem to be fond of much,’ she replied down the bond.
Thara didn’t bother to answer, so Arla kept walking, the steps taking her deeper and deeper into the earth until at long last she stood in a long corridor leading to a vast chamber.
The lantern was easy to find and easier to light, the priestesses’ habits too easy to observe and imitate on the night Hyacinth had first showed her the entrance to the tunnels.
She kept her steps light and slow. She had come this far without being discovered and she wasn’t about to trip and set fire to everything down here. She couldn’t afford to be discovered.
When she finally found herself standing in the entrance to the chamber, she lifted the lantern higher, letting soft light wash over the hundreds of books stored on stone shelves.
And this place … she could feel it was magic.
Ancient. Like the forest in Flambriar where she had felt it shield her from the rest of the world.
This place had been touched by magic, still lived in it, breathed it.
‘I wondered how long it would take you to find your way beneath our temples.’
Arla counted Crea’s steps until she was close enough that Arla would be able to see her face in the light.
‘And I wondered whether you were actually stupid enough to fall right into what I had planned for you.’
The priestess had forgone her pearl vest, the sickly thinness of Crea’s frame making her look too breakable in this hidden part of the kingdom.
Shock rippled out across the priestess’s features, before her face contorted into a frown filled with disgust as she eyed Arla and the chamber of books beyond her.
Arla had known the second she’d left the dinner that Crea was following her – in fact, she’d hoped the priestess would follow. Now she might finally get some answers.
‘The Queen will have your head for breaching these walls. They are not for the likes of stuck-up little assassins like you,’ Crea snapped, the veins on her head bulging beneath her thin skin. The woman looked sick, truly.
‘Your queen,’ Arla mused, beginning to wander through the shelves of books in that vast circular chamber, ‘is too scared of war to lay a finger on me. She won’t promise to send troops to my aid in a battle that might not even happen, so forgive me, priestess, if your threats don’t scare me.’
A different woman – and weaker woman – would not have turned her back on Crea and begun to run her fingers over the spines of texts so ancient she thought they might disintegrate beneath her touch.
However, for Arla, it was simply too much fun to goad the woman into lashing out.
This woman had come for answers, after all.
The swish of a gown across the stone floor of the chamber was the only indication that Crea was following her. ‘This is a sacred place.’
Arla laughed wickedly. ‘Am I not the most sacred of all?’
There was no warning as Crea unsheathed her serabti and threw herself at Arla.
The assassin put the lantern down with such force she was surprised it didn’t shatter and unsheathed her own blade to meet Crea’s in a deafening clash.
The curve of Crea’s blade presented its own challenge, and had Arla not trained with Malarye’s army and begun to learn the subtle differences of fighting against it, she may have faltered. As it happened, she’d been working out their technique from the moment she had stepped foot on these shores.
‘What’s so precious down here that you have to hide it from someone who’s gods-blessed, Crea?’ Arla taunted, her body moving with the expert fluidity she had developed as a child.
Crea matched her every move, the mask of a religious devotee falling away to reveal a keen swordswoman. Oh, how she’d missed this.
Crea lunged for her, the curved blade snatching the tip of Arla’s sword at the last moment, hauling her forwards with the momentum of the swing. Arla ducked and pivoted, avoiding the sharp side of the blade and arcing her own sword high above them.