Chapter 38
HARK
The soldier standing in front of him looked ready to forego his oath to Flambriar and disappear into the mountains, never to be seen again.
His uniform was ripped, his navy jacket now speckled with grey horse hair as he wiped at a bloodied lip.
This was the fourth man to stand before Hark Stappen this afternoon and recount the events that had happened down in the stables. Six, if you counted the two maids.
‘Take the rest of the day off. I’ll deal with it,’ Hark said with a sigh, dragging a hand through his hair. The soldier bowed curtly before spinning on his booted heel and fleeing the formal sitting room quicker than blinking.
‘You can come out, Elin. Those curtains won’t hide you forever.’
The speck of a girl slipped out from behind the gauzy curtains, her hair wild, her soft eyes alight with a mischief he had only ever seen in one other person.
A person he missed desperately.
‘You know it’s wrong to spy on private meetings,’ Hark said as he collapsed into a leather armchair.
‘It’s wrong for them to lie about me. I did nothing wrong.’
Hark couldn’t help but snort at the words, so strong, so sure from the girl who was proving to be a real pain in his arse.
‘I’d hardly call stealing Arla’s horse from the stables and disappearing into the mountains doing nothing wrong, Elin. You know how dangerous it is right now. The soldiers were out looking for you for hours.’
Elin laughed then, a twinkling thing that was so familiar it wrapped a fist around Hark’s heart and squeezed.
‘They didn’t spend hours looking for me,’ she said, flopping into the chair opposite him. ‘They knew exactly where I was. It was catching me that was the problem.’
Hark chewed the inside of his lip, breathing deeply as he truly looked at Elin for the first time in months. She wasn’t as slight as he remembered her. She looked … strong. Like she had been training. Like she had been wielding a sword.
She looked like Arla Dragonhart.
‘Tell me, Elin, how is it you managed to steal Vetta from the stables? Jack tells me she’s been extremely temperamental since her owner left the kingdom.’
A smile twisted Elin’s pink lips, her eyes widening with … pride, Hark thought.
‘Vetta likes me. She always has. I want to be like Arla and Vetta knows that.’
Gods he really didn’t think he could cope with two of them.
‘Elin, this can’t continue. It is dangerous now. You could have been killed—’
Hark’s words were cut off by Kase barrelling through the doors to the sitting room, her chest heaving with the strain of running.
Hark’s stomach dropped. He couldn’t cope with another attack. There had been too many. Too much fear, too. He didn’t think his soldiers would want to keep fighting an unkillable army.
‘Where?’ he asked softly, already finding his hand straying to the sword at his hip.
‘No,’ Kase panted, resting a hand against the door frame. ‘Dragon.’
He didn’t think as he slammed through the glass doors onto the balcony.