Chapter 34 #2
Her voice was strong when she finally replied. ‘Then I had best not keep her waiting.’
Thank the gods for the roaring fires in the main hall of the palace.
Climbing back up the cliff had been a lesson in stamina and how not to fucking die from the cold.
The storm had well and truly settled in, and it had taken every last bit of strength to climb the cliff as her frozen body shook.
Hyacinth had stayed with the soldiers, clever enough not to attempt the climb until the rain settled.
Thara had been all too insistent on flying Arla to the top of the cliff, but the thought of climbing onto the dragon’s back and sitting in that position for any longer had been a worse prospect than climbing.
So she wasn’t surprised when every person in the hall turned to look at her as she strode through the doors.
Queen Mara was sitting at her usual desk, her eyes widening slightly as she took Arla in.
She could only imagine what she looked like.
Her hair had come unbraided and lay in a matted knot across her shoulders.
She was dripping water everywhere and the woollen blanket Hyacinth had given her weighed enough to make a loud slap as she discarded it on the stone floor.
‘Goodness, Dragonhart. Come inside and get warm. Someone will bring you something hot to drink,’ the Queen ordered, her eyes flitting for half a second to a young man who scurried off quickly to get Arla some hot tea, she hoped.
Her boots squelched as she walked the length of the hall to collapse into the chair opposite the Queen. Mara was as perfect and lovely as usual, her hair shiny and straight and those cunning eyes shone in the light of the fire beside her.
‘I do believe congratulations are in order,’ the Queen began, leaning back slightly in her chair. ‘I watched your display this morning from the top balcony of the palace. “Impressive” is too modest a word.’
Mara was smiling, and not for the first time Arla struggled to work out just what game the Queen was playing. Today, however, she was too elated to let the Queen’s games irritate her, and she was content to accept the steaming tea handed to her.
‘Mason is the one to thank. I don’t think I’d have had the nerve to attempt such a thing.’
Mara blinked lazily. ‘And yet you have. A formidable team, you and your dragon.’
‘Made even more so by your archers,’ Arla said softly, gazing into the tea.
The Queen stopped her right there. ‘I will not revise my position, Dragonhart. My troops will not fight in a war, no matter how well you complement one another.’
‘Who said there was going to be a war, Your Majesty?’
Mara’s gaze seemed to pierce the very depths of Arla’s soul.
Arla didn’t think she was going to answer until the Queen sighed and leant back even further.
‘You did. When you wanted my army to form an alliance with yours. Do not insult us both by denying that there will be conflict. You know as well as I that it is unavoidable.’
At least they agreed on that.
‘I didn’t call you up here to compliment you on a feat at which you are already well aware you have excelled,’ Mara said. Arla’s eyes shot up from her tea to meet the Mara’s. ‘I called you up here to ask why there is blood on the floor of one of my libraries.’
‘I’m not sure I know what you mean,’ Arla replied.
‘That may be true, but I know who you are and what you’re capable of.
I know what questions you came here to answer.
I also know Crea was absent from our morning meeting and has declined my offer of dinner on the excuse of a headache.
Do not lie to me, Dragonhart. Tell me why you were in the tunnels last night in the middle of a court dinner. ’
There was no anger in the Queen’s voice. No malice in her eyes, either. Only a keen curiosity.
Arla leant across the table, lowering her voice so that only the Queen might hear it.
‘I came here because I thought a kingdom so devoted to the old religion would be able to tell me how to unite the kingdoms, according to the wishes of the gods. Instead, I have trained an army that will not fight alongside me, leaving my own kingdom without the aid of a dragon should we be attacked. For all I know, my people could be dead, every single one of them. How long would it take the news to reach here? Four days, perhaps? Long enough that there would be no survivors.’
She hadn’t allowed herself to contemplate the truth of this idea because there was no room for that way of thinking.
She’d squashed the thought every time it rose because of the fear it might sink its claws deep inside and ruin her.
But now … now things were different. She had been away for eight weeks and because she had told Hark and the court not to send a single letter in case they were intercepted, she had no way of knowing if they were alive. And it was slowly killing her.
Mara leant forwards then, the volume of her voice matching Arla’s.
‘I understand your worry for your people. Please know it was never my intention to drag you away from them to prevent you aiding them. But if you think you might find the answers you seek in my libraries, I am willing to offer you a deal.’
Another deal… Arla had learnt political games as a child. Had witnessed her king manoeuvre foreign rulers as if countries were chessboards. She had contemplated making such a deal with Mara when she’d first set the terms, but … well this was a clever queen she was dealing with.
No matter. Arla was clever, too.
She had played along so far, had accepted a deal heavily weighted in the queen’s favour so that she might earn her trust. Might be able to make a second, more favourable deal, too.
Arla ran her tongue over her teeth. ‘I’m listening.’
‘I cannot allow you access to those tunnels. Dragonhart or not, only those who have studied in the temples are permitted to enter. But the books inside them may be brought to you here in the palace.’
Now that she could agree to.
‘What’s in it for you?’ Arla probed.
The Queen’s face paled slightly, as if what was coming next hurt her. ‘Take Hyacinth with you when you leave.’
‘WHAT?’ The word exploded from Arla’s lips before she could stop it, and it drew the attention of a group of courtiers. Mara dismissed them with a brush of her fingers. ‘What do you mean, take Hyacinth with me?’
Mara pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. Arla would never understand this woman…
‘You know as well as I that Hyacinth doesn’t have the iron spine needed to rule a country.
Perhaps with you, she might develop one.
I cannot keep her here, Dragonhart. The people have no respect for her.
They see her as the young girl she was when her father—When what happened, happened.
But this has to change. I need her to be strong and capable, like you.
Her beauty won’t help her if she is to inherit my throne.
Let her see what it is like to build a kingdom and keep it safe. Take her to Flambriar with you.’
Arla tried to speak but found her tongue wouldn’t form words. She lifted a hand and wiped it across her face, not surprised when her fingers came back tinged with red as her cheek stung again.
‘You want me to teach your daughter how to rule a kingdom when we are at risk of being crushed?’
Mara blinked rapidly, her eyes desperate and pleading. ‘I don’t ask this of you lightly, Dragonhart. She is my sole heir. If anything happened to her… But I need her to command people the way I have done – the way you do. I won’t let her lose the throne I worked so hard to claim for her.’
It all made sense now. This was why Arla had been invited here. Queen Mara had wanted to feel her out; to see if she could be trusted to become Princess Hyacinth’s mentor.
The realisation tasted sour on her tongue. She could say no, but she couldn’t leave here without answers, and she was tired of not knowing. So where did that leave her?
She wished Hark were here.
‘I knew there was deception in your blood the moment I met you, Your Majesty. I just didn’t think it was a trait you’d handed to your daughter, too.’
Mara’s eyes widened and she grasped Arla’s wrist over the table. It took everything in her not to snap the Queen’s fingers for her insolence.
‘Please, Dragonhart. Hyacinth did not know. She thought you were coming here to negotiate an ally, that’s all. I did not tell her she would be leaving with you. Your friendship is perhaps the only real thing in all of this.’
Arla didn’t know if she believed it. But what was the alternative? She had to accept the Queen’s terms.
She stood up, resisting the urge to squirm in her wet clothes.
‘Don’t try to deceive me again, Mara. Queen or not, I won’t hesitate to kill you.’
She left the queen gaping as she exited the hall.
Hyacinth, as Arla had predicted, was overjoyed to know she would be travelling to Flambriar when the time came for them to leave.
Thara, as Arla had predicted, was not.
‘I am not a mule. I don’t remember agreeing to any such arrangement,’ Thara growled as she took off from the ground, leaving Arla scrambling to find her grip before she fell at an increasingly quickening pace.
‘I didn’t expect it either,’ Arla called above the noise of the wind. ‘But I need this information and the only way I’m going to get it is by taking the princess. And besides, she’s … nice.’
Thara scoffed. ‘You and your human heart.’
Whatever Arla tried to say next was snatched by the wind as Thara dived, aiming straight for the forest floor. Arla jumped with practised precision, rolling the moment her feet made contact with the earth and rising in one swift moment, sword drawn.
The wash of approval that came careening down the bond caused warmth to spread across her cheeks as Diath and Hyacinth stood up and cheered.
‘I daresay you don’t need my skills anymore, Dragonhart,’ Diath said, beaming ear to ear as their eyes glanced over Arla for any injuries.
‘You won’t be saying that when you’re picking arrows out of my back, Diath,’ Arla chuckled, already making her way toward the training rings where the archers waited for her.
The nerves that had wriggled beneath her skin yesterday had been replaced with a buzzing energy, and now she was eager to take flight and feel the world fall away in a mirage of coloured arrows. If only Hark could see her now…
‘Oh, don’t say that,’ Hyacinth said, laughing and smacking Arla’s arm playfully. ‘You can’t die before I get the chance to see your kingdom.’