Chapter 43
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound seemed to go on for ever and would perhaps continue that way until the unmaking of the world. The woman had watched that drip of water for what had to be weeks now. Watched it drip from the pipe in the cell wall and run across the worn flagstones, wetting the hem of her dress.
Cold had long since fled her bones and left a numbness in its wake. She watched the guard rotation silently. It wasn’t as if any of them would talk to her anyway.
She’d tried.
The bruise on her cheekbone was throbbing again. It was cracked, she’d bet on it.
Not that any of her bets had come through just yet.
Hope was a slippery thing. One moment it was there, the next vanished into oblivion. But still, the woman hoped she would come. She was counting on it.
Or maybe not, now. Not after what the king had told her all those weeks ago. Not as she watched him burn every scrap of parchment in front of her. No … hope was long gone, disappeared with the friendship that was likely broken now.
So she steeled her spine against another day locked in this dungeon with only the rats and silent guards for company.
She squeezed the wooden horse in her fist a little tighter.
Cold sweat slicked Arla’s skin, her heart thumping loudly in her chest.
Just a dream.
It was just a dream.
She couldn’t go gallivanting off to every kingdom that appeared in her dreams, not when she’d been proven wrong before.
She was still awaiting the letter from Malarye condemning her for stealing its princess away in the night.
‘Dragonhart?’ Concern laced Thara’s voice as Arla tried to slow her breathing. It was just a dream. Her friend was all right – she would have known otherwise. Halos simply wasn’t answering her letters because she was scared of being caught.
Not because she was currently residing in Castle Grey’s dungeons.
‘I’m all right,’ she replied through the bond.
She knew Thara didn’t believe her as she grumbled back.
‘Then go back to sleep.’
Arla inhaled deeply, glancing at Hark who slept soundly beside her. They’d chosen Arla’s rooms tonight, the stars glittering above them through the glass ceiling so perfect and calm and quiet.
Flambriar was still, too, as Arla looked out through the balcony doors, tiny lights in the distance the only proof that life occupied this valley at all.
‘All is well. I watch over them, Dragonhart.’
It was with that promise in her mind that Arla let sleep entice her back into its embrace.
There was smoke.
And shouting.
Arla shot upright, the space in the bed beside her empty but still lingering with the warmth of the body that had been there. It was still dark outside, but through the glass there was smoke and the distant flash of fire.
She was lacing her boots before she could clear the sleep from her eyes.
‘Thara—’
‘I’m here.’
Arla tore through the hall in her nightgown, hair streaming behind her like a golden banner as she bolted towards the sound of the commotion. She barrelled through the doors into the courtyard, eyes wild as she struggled to find the source of the noise.
There.
Up in the mountains there were the shadowy silhouettes of people – and shouting and flames and smoke.
She was running before she could think it through. Up, up, up the mountain, her nightgown tearing as she ran. Thara swooped in above her, the dragon’s presence not as reassuring as she’d hoped it would be.
If Elrod had sent those soldiers here…
If her dream had been true…
‘Then we will meet it together, Dragonhart.’
As she reached the clearing at the top of the mountain, she thought perhaps the gods had damned them all. Arla had trained for battle all her life. Had spent years perfecting her body and skill and had spent just as long preparing Vetta for it should she ever have to carry her into such chaos.
She hadn’t thought it would be like this.
Dozens of Flambriar’s soldiers fired flaming arrows across the clearing where bodies hid behind rocks taller than two men. The enemy fired arrows back too, and, somewhere further away, Flambriar’s men engaged in a deadly duel with Elrod’s soldiers.
Fear clenched a tight fist around Arla’s heart. There was no way they could hope to kill them if what she’d seen in her dream was true. There were simply too many. Too many soldiers that couldn’t be killed.
There was a tree burning – the source of all the smoke, Arla surmised – a great, towering thing that had likely been around when the gods walked the world.
Arrows flew.
Swords clashed.
And then … then there was Noah.
Gentle, kind Noah who never complained no matter how many letters Arla asked him to send to Hadalyn. Noah who smiled softly at her no matter how many times she screamed and cursed at the lack of letters she received in return.
And there was an arrow in his chest.
Time slowed then, a heart’s worth of shock pulsing through Arla’s veins as she watched the man fall to the ground, his hand pressed against his chest in disbelief. He’d come to fight…
Noah, who had likely never once held a sword, had come to defend Flambriar. And now he was dying.
Arla reached for her sword … and came up empty.
So fucking stupid.
She’d fled the hall in nothing but her night clothes, hadn’t thought to pick up a weapon despite the shouting.
‘I will burn them all to ash—’
‘No!’ Arla shot back through the bond to the dragon twisting in the sky above them. ‘You might hit our men. It’s too dangerous.’
Thara grunted before an ear-splitting roar erupted in the sky above the mountains.
Time sped up, jolting Arla back into awareness along with the rest of Flambriar’s army. There was a deafening call, Flambriar’s men surging forwards, their swords drawn. They’d fight for Noah. They’d fight for a kingdom they’d helped to build.
Magic flew then.
It was weak at first, just tendrils of snapping sparks in the faces of those who fought against the mages. But soon enough, there were wisps of it that wrapped around the enemy and pulled, sending them to their knees so Flambriar’s men could cut their heads clean off.
‘We should have killed the red girl when she first spoke to you with disrespect.’
Every inch of Arla’s body turned cold.
The red girl…
It was then she noticed that the arrow protruding out of Noah’s chest was decorated with a red ribbon fluttering in the place where there should have been feathers.
Her eyes flew across the scene, taking in the carnage, the bodies on the floor, the girl with auburn hair in a duel with Hark.
There was no time to consider the risk of plunging straight into a battle without a weapon or armour, but Arla ran straight for Sylvie and Hark, averting her eyes from Noah and skipping over the decapitated bodies littering the mountain.
Sylvie was skilled with a sword, Arla would give her that, but neither she nor Hark were prepared for Arla to come flying in from the side and yank Sylvie away.
The girl spun, green eyes wide and blazing as she locked onto Arla.
Arla didn’t give her the chance to say a word before she shoved the Red Blade back.
‘I fucking told you to leave my people alone!’ she screamed, anger pulsing through her chest like a wild, ancient thing. ‘I TOLD YOU!’
Sylvie was silent for a moment, and it felt to Arla as though the entire mountain stilled their swords and held their breath.
‘I didn’t attack first!’ the girl spat.
That violent thing in Arla reared up, and despite the lack of a weapon it didn’t stop her from swinging for Sylvie who ducked with an expert’s speed.
‘I didn’t attack first,’ Sylvie repeated, her voice laced with a violent bitterness. ‘They attacked us. Are we not allowed the right to defend ourselves, Arla?’
There was a rustle of movement, and then Hark was at Arla’s shoulder. She turned her head to face him, knowing she would be met with anger and confusion in his eyes.
He didn’t disappoint.
‘Why does she know your name, Arla?’ His voice was hard and full of a threat that teetered over the trust grown between them.
Arla knew her court watched, could see the indecision in Kase’s eyes as she made to move towards Hark, and then Arla. What had she done in keeping the Red Blades from them?
‘I-I-I…’ She was stuttering. Tripping over her tongue as she tried to justify why she had kept this from Hark. ‘I was going to tell you, I swear it. But the people were so unsettled. I didn’t want to give them another reason to panic—’
Hark stepped towards her, every kernel of his ire simmering beneath his skin.
‘You knew there were people watching our kingdom and you kept it from us?’
‘No, I-I … I thought they’d leave. I thought they would go, and we wouldn’t have to deal with it.’
She remembered the words her dragon had uttered to her all those weeks ago when she had hidden a bloodied dress from her maids.
Don’t forget your lies, Dragonhart. They will fell you when you least expect it.
How ironic that Arla hadn’t figured out how to tell the truth even to the one whose soul she was sure was entwined with hers.
Hark was shaking his head, a look in his eyes that Arla hadn’t seen for nearly a year. The same look she had made it her personal goal to coax from him at Castle Grey. The look that meant he couldn’t trust her as far as he could throw her.
Something in her chest ached at that.
‘You’d better start explaining.’
She did her best – Sylvie did too – all while mages gathered around Noah, doing their best, Arla hoped, to keep him alive long enough to get him to a healer. Hark’s face betrayed nothing as he listened to the two women speak over the top of one another. How could he possibly believe her?
How could he believe that she had kept the secret of the Red Blades from him because the threat of them building an army to march on Elrod endangered their people too much?
That she had kept it from him so he wouldn’t worry about that, as well as scouting the mountains every night?
That she hadn’t told anyone because she was selfish and hadn’t wanted to admit things were going to change – that war was coming?
How had he not seen the Red Blades before?
She asked the question, her fingers twitching at her sides as Sylvie answered.
‘We were leaving. Just like you told us to. We know a lost cause when we see one, so we decided to go. The forest isn’t so gracious a host when you’ve camped in it for months. This was meant to be our way home across the mountains until your soldiers fucking attacked us.’
This was all Arla’s fault.
‘Never.’
If she had just taken this to Hark and had Sylvie wait for Flambriar’s answer … well then, this battle, this arrow in Noah’s chest would never have happened.
‘They weren’t a threat, Hark. They were leaving—’
The man that erupted from Hark was not the person Arla had come to love.
‘You think that makes it any fucking better!’ he barked, his hands rising towards her before he thought better of it. The entire mountain was deadly silent.
‘You think I wanted to send my men out here to fight when we’re up against an army that won’t fucking fall? How stupid can you be, Arla? You’ve been nothing but selfish since you got here and I am so done with these secrets.’
Crack!
The crack drove through her heart.
He was looking at her like he hated her.
Like he couldn’t trust her.
The worst part was, she didn’t blame him.
She whirled on Sylvie. ‘This is your fault! If you’d only left when I told you to—’
The Red Blade bared her teeth. ‘My fault? You’re supposed to be a dragonhart. You’re supposed to protect mages. We have hundreds of them in our ranks, but you put the lives of Flambriar’s people over theirs? You don’t care about us at all. You care only for your own kingdom and your own people.’
‘How dare—!’
‘Enough!’ Hark snarled, a biting fist wrapping around Arla’s arm and yanking her backwards.
‘If he doesn’t remove his hand from you, he will have no hands at all.’
For once, Arla shared her dragon’s sentiment.
‘We need their army, Hark. If we have any hope of standing up to what’s coming for Flambriar.’
A frustrated sound forced its way through Sylvie’s teeth.
‘I never agreed to lend you an army. This was about your people joining me—’
‘We need to go, now!’ one of the mages shouted from where they crouched around Noah. She hoped the rise and fall of his chest she could see was not her imagination.
Everything was lost to her then. The entire mountain seemed to move around her, dozens of Flambriar’s men taking turns carrying Noah down the mountain.
The Red Blades shuffled back into their positions, half-hidden behind rocks and shrubs until Arla could only make out the outlines of them in the dark.
Hark released her arm and hurried after his men, before calling back, ‘Don’t think this is over.’
And then there was only Arla and Sylvie, two unyielding women responsible for the deaths of too many good men tonight.
‘I—’
‘You don’t need to say anything,’ Sylvie interrupted.
‘The loss of any mage is too much, especially after what we’ve gone through.
Perhaps you were right. Perhaps asking any of them to march on Elrod would be too great a loss.
But if you decide one day to let Flambriar’s people make that choice, send a falcon to find me. ’
The young woman turned then, disappearing into the mountains with her army.
This had all been for nothing, then.
Tonight, the battle that had taken place here, it was all for nothing now that the Red Blades were heading back to wherever it was they came from. And worse, there would be no help from them in defeating Elrod’s dark army.
This would be down to Flambriar and Flambriar alone.