Chapter 41
Flambriar slept as Arla saddled her horse and made her way down the mountain.
The city had grown in her absence. Small cottages made of wood and stone had been constructed by the river, half-built shops squatted around the market square, and what looked to be a new restaurant with blue window frames had cropped up opposite a temple to honour the gods.
All of it sparkled with the remnants of the magic used to build it, like static in the air that Arla had come to associate with the mages. She ran her fingers over the dragonhart brooch on her cloak, finding the quiet sentience of the symbol a balm to the apprehension of what she was about to do.
She had snuck out of Hark’s embrace sometime during the night, hastily winding her way through the lower levels of Claret Hall to Noah’s office, where she resisted the urge to leaf through the stacks of parchment and letters and instead scrawled a quick note and instructed one of the women working there to send it with a falcon.
Arla had returned to Hark’s bed to find him still sleeping, and, before dawn had fully broken, she was woken by the gentle tapping of a beak against the window.
When she took the scroll tied to the bird’s leg and read the two words written in loopy handwriting, she’d wasted no time lacing her boots and sneaking out of Hark’s rooms once again.
Hartswood. Sunrise.
Hartswood.
So the place had a name.
‘You have felt the draw of magic from those trees, have you not? I told you once it was a sacred place. After whom else should the wood be named if not those it was made to honour?’
Thara was a dark shadow above Arla as she made her way towards the forest, her dragon disappearing in and out of the clouds as if she were part of some game only she was aware of.
‘Is she alone?’ Arla replied in her head, stomaching the apprehension that grew the closer Vetta carried her to the meeting place.
Thara grumbled softly through the bond. ‘For now.’
Arla hadn’t been sure Sylvie would come. Wasn’t sure if she’d even acknowledge the letter Arla had sent the Red Blade in the night.
But as Vetta picked her way through the trees to a clearing that smelled of pine needles and earth, a head of auburn hair was clear in the muted light of the Hartswood.
‘I wondered how long it would take you to summon me,’ the young woman said. ‘Your arrival back here spread quickly through our ranks.’
There was a hostility to Sylvie’s voice that set Arla’s teeth on edge. The strip of red silk tied at her waist was so like the colour of blood that Arla had to blink to be certain of what she was seeing.
‘I’ll cut to the chase,’ Arla began, already twirling a small blade in her hand as she dismounted, her feet making a dull thud against the forest floor. She was sure the trees hummed in response. ‘What do you know of the soldiers that have been attacking Flambriar?’
A knowing smirk twisted its way onto Sylvie’s face, her cheekbones sharper than before Arla had left. Her eyes were more sunken, too, but the Red Blade’s voice was clear when she spoke.
‘I know that you’ll never beat them. Dark magic is at play, Dragonhart, and not even my mages can hope to fight it.’
Thara growled low and long down the bond, the sound deafening as Arla accepted what she already knew to be true. Indeed, there was dark magic at play, no doubt stemming from Elrod’s use of mage blood.
Arla cleared her throat, squaring her shoulders against the news she neither wanted nor knew how to deal with.
‘You spoke of wanting freedom for the mages, of being opposed to slavery, and yet you refer to them as yours. That’s not freedom, Sylvie. It’s just another sort of prison.’
‘It is not!’ Sylvie spat, stamping her foot like a petulant child. ‘Every single mage in the Red Blades fights against what Elrod did to them. We will kill him – and your king too, Arla Reinhart. He was complicit in Elrod’s schemes too, was he not?’
Cyrus had betrayed nine years of Arla’s trust. That betrayal ran so deep she wondered if she would always be trying to outrun it.
She’d looked at him like a father, and he had lied to her.
He had gone against the treaties, aiding and abetting Elrod in the persecution of mages, in the trading of slaves.
That stung like a thousand tiny wasps and yet …
the thought of him being killed filled her with a strange reluctance.
‘Is it not enough?’ she asked softly. ‘Don’t you think these people have been through enough without asking them to march on two kings? It is suicide, Sylvie. I won’t let you drag Flambriar’s people into it.’
A huffed laugh burst from Sylvie. ‘You preach freedom, you preach the value having choice, and yet you keep Flambriar’s mages so shielded and locked in that you won’t risk letting me speak to them.
You won’t risk the chance that some of them feel as strongly as we do and want to seek revenge on the kings who ruined their lives. Is that not a kind of prison, too?’
‘I grow tired of her nonsensical spouting. Kill her and be done with it.’
‘Believe me, I’m close.’
‘I won’t risk these people being sent to their deaths when they have only just been given the chance to live. You will leave my people alone.’
Sylvie laughed again, and this time Arla felt her control slipping away.
She was a hypocrite. Sylvie knew it, too.
Arla had been so angry that Mara would not lend her Malarye’s army in the case of an attack – had been so angry that Mara wanted to keep her people safe and free from war.
And yet here Arla was, repeating the same words back to Sylvie that Mara had spoken to Arla.
She wouldn’t let Flambriar’s people march on two kings.
She’d been born to protect them, she couldn’t ask them to march on two kingdoms … could she?
‘I know why you called me here, Arla. You want my army to fight against those soldiers Elrod sends your way. You think we will protect Flambriar out of the goodness of our hearts. Well, you have that wrong.’ The Red Blade’s voice settled into something soft and deadly.
‘We have no goodness in our hearts. That was beaten out of us by those who wronged us. If you want our help, then you must let me address your people. Give them the choice, Arla. Give them the freedom to choose revenge. You can agree to that, surely? Your kingdom will fall without the numbers needed to kill those who march against it. Don’t be stupid enough to deny me, we’re on the same side. ’
We’re on the same side.
They were, weren’t they? Only that Arla had come to understand the importance of peace – of keeping her people safe. She’d ask Sylvie’s army to come to her aid, but she would not offer hers in return. Selfish. She’d always been so selfish.
‘You are valuing defending Flambriar over actively attacking two kingdoms. That is not selfish, Dragonhart.’ Thara’s words settled into Arla’s blood and she swallowed thickly.
‘But what if Kastonia do come for us? We will need the Red Blades’ numbers. The only way we’re going to get their help is if I offer Flambriar’s army in return.’
The last kernel of control slipped away from Arla like a feather in the breeze.
Sylvie had her right where she wanted her.
Flambriar needed Sylvie’s help, needed her army of mages to defend their borders.
But to risk Flambriar’s people deciding they wanted revenge on Elrod …
something violent lurched in her chest at the thought.
Her blood screamed at the thought of any of her people being in danger. What could she do?
‘We don’t negotiate with those who try to back us into a corner, Dragonhart. Tell her I will burn her bones to ash for threatening you. We don’t need her army. You have a dragon.’
‘But what if it’s not enough? If they harm you, Thara—’
‘I won’t allow it.’
It was confidence and bravery, but no one could predict the outcome – or the collateral damage of such a battle.
Perhaps … perhaps she needed to speak with Hark. Speak with her court. Maybe the threat of Elrod’s soldiers was not as great as her dream suggested. Maybe they didn’t need to upend Flambriar and its people and inject fear into a kingdom that had only just begun to know peace.
‘I will put it to my court. I may be a dragonhart, but Flambriar is not my kingdom to rule.’
‘Isn’t it?’
Sylvie looked at her for longer than was comfortable, and it seemed to Arla that a silent decision passed behind the Red Blade’s eyes.
Eventually the woman spoke, her voice lined with irritation.
‘I will speak to our leader, too. I’m sure he’ll be intrigued to know you’re at least considering our offer now.’
Arla didn’t ask who their leader was. She wouldn’t give Sylvie the satisfaction of her curiosity.
‘You will leave my people alone until a decision is made. Or you will find my blade at your throat.’
The threat seemed to delight Sylvie, her green eyes sparkling in the dawn light.
‘I’ll look forward to it.’
‘Kill her. Our people will not march to their deaths.’
Thara hadn’t stopped announcing her dislike for Sylvie for the entire ride back to Claret Hall nor for the twelve sprinted laps of the grounds Arla had forced herself through on her return.
‘I don’t want them to die, either,’ Arla protested, marching through the hallways after she’d completed her run. ‘But I won’t let the kingdom be invaded because we didn’t accept the aid of the Red Blades’ army.’
‘Then why have you not told the boy?’
She’d been pondering the same thing. Why had she kept it from Hark and their friends? She knew the answer, deep down, but she couldn’t admit it to herself because it was selfish. Just like she’d always been.
Maybe she deserved whatever punishment she received when they all inevitably found out that she’d been meeting with strange girls in the forest that threatened her and threatened her people—
‘Arla, there you are,’ a soft voice called from the open doorway to the sitting room. Arla turned to find Hyacinth, her silk dresses discarded in favour of trousers and a tunic Arla was certain she’d seen Sebastian wear before. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’
She’d expected there would be a debrief at some stage – had been hoping for one, actually.
She followed Hyacinth into the sitting room, biting her lip to stop the smile escaping when her eyes landed on the chaos of the place.
There were books and clothes and glasses and a hundred other objects strewn about the room, all of it so thoroughly lived-in that Arla felt some of her earlier tension slide away.
She’d missed this. Missed the people, too.
She took the only space available to her: Hark Stappen’s lap.
‘You smell of dragon,’ he murmured into her neck, sending shivers down her spine. She shifted on his lap, dragging a deep breath from him that made her smirk.
‘You smell of me,’ she said, fighting the swoop in her stomach as she thought of the things they’d done last night. The feel of him against her, inside her—
‘Gods fucking spare us,’ Kase muttered, tossing a cushion at them. Arla snatched it out of the air without thinking. ‘Do you think you two could go for five minutes without making the rest of us want to be sick?’
‘And here I was thinking you’d missed me,’ Arla shot back as Hark pulled her close against his chest. Gods, she couldn’t wait to get out of here and repeat exactly what they’d—
‘I think it’s best we share all that we know, so we’re all on the same page?
’ Jaz’s voice cut through the room like an arrow, and all too quickly solemnity settled on them like lead.
It was easy to forget that they’d essentially instigated a war with Kastonia – and possibly Hadalyn, too – by freeing all of the mages Elrod had captured.
It was easy to forget that they were being attacked by soldiers that wouldn’t die and that the kingdoms were wasting away in sickness and poverty, and she was still somehow supposed to unite it all.
It was easy to forget it, hidden away in this frozen valley.
But Jaz was right. They did all need to be on the same page.
And so she told them everything that had happened in Malarye.
She told them what she’d learned about Damon and the corruption of an old god and how history was going to repeat itself.
And yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell them that a resistance group was spying on the kingdom – and that she’d known it for months, too.
It had been fear that had stopped her telling them all at first. Fear that everything would change and war would be coming, and she hadn’t wanted to deal with any of that.
Didn’t want to deal with the way she knew it would break her.
But then … well then it was too late to say anything at all.
She’d been stupid and selfish, and too much time had passed where she’d kept a secret to protect her own heart.
To tell them now … they’d hate her. Say she didn’t trust them as they had blindly trusted her.
She didn’t want to risk her own mages, but she was willing to risk Sylvie’s – and that was pure selfishness.
Arla didn’t want to look at the expressions on her friends’ faces when she told them that. And so she didn’t.
Instead, she listened. Listened to how her court – her friends – had been fighting waves of a dark army that didn’t die. They told her of Damon’s sword, too, and that they hoped to prevent disaster by finding it.
If they could find it.
And when everything was laid bare, the severity of it buried beneath her skin and into her blood.
Whatever was coming would not be easy. She needed to figure out how to stop it, because one thing was certain: fate didn’t deal in coincidences.
Her friends had vowed to help her, but the prophecy had spoken of the last dragonhart – of Arla herself.
If this was going to end, it was going to have to be her who stopped it.
Jack held Kase’s hand tightly in his own, Hyacinth and Sebastian were silent, and Hark had gone still behind her.
They weren’t the ones who frightened her though.
It was Jaz. Jaz, who was looking at her like he understood.
Like he knew that this came down to her and that whatever was ahead of them was going to try and kill her.
Who was she when pitted against the fates, anyway?