Chapter 42 #2
She had seen Hyacinth pause on one of the balconies at the hall and watch her, the smile on the princess’s face clear even from Arla’s distance at the training grounds.
It was amusing, really, how quickly Hyacinth had settled into Flambriar’s court.
Only her second afternoon here and yet Arla already noticed a confidence blooming that had been absent in Malarye.
Perhaps Queen Mara’s hand was the one that had guided her daughter into a role of pretty subservience.
Flambriar would soon remove that hand. Sebastian definitely would if the looks between the pair had anything to do with it.
‘Will you concentrate? You’re making me look bad,’ Thara growled through the bond.
As if on instinct, Arla’s fingers found the bow string and released it.
She barely had time to see the arrow strike true in the trunk of a pine tree before Thara was spinning again, another target up ahead – a ribbon fluttering at the end of another tree branch. Fluttering. A moving target barely visible at this sort of speed—
‘Concentrate.’
The ire in Thara’s voice was enough to settle Arla’s mind into a place of unwavering calm.
That same place she reserved for King’s Assassin.
She wasn’t sure if she truly recognised that girl anymore.
She had found the missing pieces of herself in Malarye, but now she was back in Flambriar, it was all melding together into impenetrable armour.
She felt more herself than she ever had.
The whoosh of her arrow flying sounded in her ears, the graze of a feather brushing her cheek as she watched it soar.
And cut straight through that fluttering ribbon.
Arla’s feet met the ground with a dull thud as she slid from Thara’s back.
‘Do not forget how hard you have worked. You disappear inside your own head, sometimes, Arla Dragonhart. Remember who you are.’
Arla snorted, running her fingers lightly over her dragon’s scales as she replied, ‘I didn’t realise you thought of me so fondly.’
Thara huffed.
‘Perhaps I should call you wicked names. It may provoke a reaction other than sarcasm.’
Arla laughed then, the sound escaping her almost lilting as her dragon beat her wings and disappeared into the sky. She was almost out of sight when the words came through the bond.
‘Fond is too weak a word, Dragonhart.’
Arla’s laughter ceased, replaced with a pressure in her chest that swelled when she thought of the relationship between her and the dragon.
There were still so many secrets, still so many things she was sure Thara wasn’t allowed to tell her because of the fates.
But there was still a bond there that went deeper than anything she’d ever known.
A bond that gave her comfort and security and the knowledge she could access a long-forgotten magic if she wished.
‘You pout when you’re thinking, you know that?’ Arla looked up to find Hark leaning against the wall, his hair tousled, the shadow of stubble darkening his jaw. Gods, he made her weak just looking at him.
‘I didn’t,’ she replied, closing the distance between them until the tips of her booted feet met his. She watched the struggle in Hark’s eyes, the way he wanted to run his hands all over her.
‘Why’re you out here? It’s going to be dark soon.’
Arla raised a brow, leaning close enough to him that she could smell the cloud of whiskey and leather that accompanied him into any space. ‘We fight battles in the dark too, do we not?’
A cloud of concern marred Hark’s eyes before his features softened. ‘So you think there will be a battle.’
At this point there was no thinking to be done. War was coming, and Kastonia would hunt them until they were all dead.
‘For me, at least,’ she said softly. And gods, she hated the fear that tightened Hark’s features. She wanted to kiss it away, every last speck of it.
‘What were you discussing with Jaz?’ There was a hardness to Hark’s voice, a betrayal of the tight rein he kept on his emotions. If she hadn’t known him well enough to recognise that it was because he cared so deeply for her, Arla might have suspected him to be angry at her.
She sighed, shrugging the bow off her back.
‘Things, I guess. I should have magic, but I have to use the dragonhart symbol and my dragon, but I haven’t tried to do it on purpose, and I don’t know if I can. Oh, and Elrod is definitely using dark magic and the gods are angry, and somehow I’m supposed to stop it all.’
Now she said it out loud, the severity of it all seemed to stick in her throat, and she struggled to breathe past it. Her chest was too tight and her skin too hot and had her hair always felt so fucking heavy—
‘What are you not telling me?’ his voice cut through the panic, and there was … accusation in his tone. ‘You’re keeping secrets again, Arla. I know you want to do this by yourself, but you need to tell me what’s going on.’
Her first thought was of Sylvie. Gods, she’d been an idiot.
She should have told Hark from the very beginning, damn her fragile heart and her worries over what that would have meant.
War was coming anyway, and she should have been honest from the start.
Instead, she’d lied, and kept secrets, and now it was far too late to say anything at all.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, tossing her braid over her shoulder and stretching her limbs. Flying was, quite honestly, taxing on the body.
A frustrated sound rushed through Hark’s teeth. ‘Don’t lie. You’re keeping something from me – from us all. I know you want to do this by yourself. I know you want to keep us safe and think the only way of doing so is by not including us in whatever it is you’re doing—’
‘Enough,’ she snapped, her heart thundering as she eyed him. ‘You don’t understand the weight of this all. You don’t understand what it feels like to be the one that everyone is relying on, so forgive me, Stappen, if I want to keep some things to myself lest the entire world judge me for it!’
Idiot. She was a damned idiot. She should have just told him, then. Should have told him about Sylvie, should have admitted that she was terrified of what this all meant—
‘Pick up your sword,’ Hark commanded, pushing off from the wall and drawing his own blade.
The words pulled at her memory, the same he had demanded in the clearing by the bloodstone months ago.
She had felt entirely lost and useless back then and he had known exactly how to draw her out of it.
Now … now she wasn’t lost or useless, she knew exactly who she was, what she was capable of, what she needed to do…
But the thought of it was overwhelming. So heavy. It was like the act of breathing required her to fight a war with her own lungs.
‘Pick up your sword, Arla.’ Stronger now. More insistent.
She moved as if by instinct, picking up the sword she had placed down before she had mounted Thara. The weight was a familiar comfort, the hilt of the blade rough beneath her palm.
She met Hark’s swing in a clash of steel and a roaring in her blood.
They had been made for each other, she was sure of it.
It was like dancing, really. The way they met every sword stroke with ringing steel, the way their feet moved as if they had glimpsed the future and seen what the other was going to do next.
Duelling with Hark was like fighting herself. Impossible and yet so perfectly right. Sweat was slick on her skin beneath her training leathers, and in the fading light of the sun, Hark’s face glistened with his own exertion.
Gods, she’d missed this – missed him. Together, they would be damned unstoppable, and she pitied any who stood against them. This synchronicity, this twining of souls, was the sort of thing poets wrote about.
Or perhaps they really had spent too long together and could predict each other’s moves like they were sightseers.
When Hark finally dropped his sword, Arla felt significantly better than she had done after leaving Jaz in the library. They would work this out together, piece by piece. Whoever came for Flambriar would be killed, and war would be avoided at all costs.
‘Thank you,’ she panted. He’d known it would help. He knew her so well.
Hark approached, his hands running down the length of her arms.
‘I don’t care how many times we need to do this, I will do anything to keep you safe.
As long as I’m here, everything will be fine.
I know you want to keep things to yourself, and for now, Arla …
for now, that’s alright if it makes things easier for you.
But don’t think for one moment you’re alone in this. ’
She believed him, she thought.
‘I love you,’ she whispered.
She heard the emotion in his voice as he placed a kiss on top of her head and pulled her closer.
‘I love you too, Dragonhart.’