Chapter 44 #2
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. It felt like a punch to the stomach.
Tears came then, unruly and running down her cheeks. Her heart was splintering, surely? There were cracks forming where she had patched it before, and his hand was brushing her cheek, his eyes filled with his father’s iciness.
‘We had a good run, Reinhart. But I can’t do this with you anymore.’
Her heart cleaved entirely.
No.
What about everything they’d wanted?
What about the little house by the river and the hound she would call Treasure and everything they had dreamed together?
Her vision narrowed, her stomach dropping away from her until she was sure she might faint. And she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe—
‘I’m sorry, Arla.’
Her voice cracked. ‘Hark, no. I’ll change, I promise I’ll change!’
She’d beg. She’d get on her knees and beg him if it meant he wouldn’t shatter everything, if it meant he still let her be with him. She’d be whatever he wanted her to be, would bend and break her very framework, so long as he promised he wouldn’t leave her. Not like everyone else…
She didn’t notice his hands on her. Didn’t notice him shoving her into the dressing room until the click of the latch dragged her screaming back into the present.
He’d locked her in.
‘No, Hark, no—’
Her breaths came too quickly, her head spinning and spinning, and she couldn’t feel her legs or her hands or her face and, and, and—
He’d locked her in.
He’d locked her in.
He’d locked her in, he’d locked her in, he’d locked her in—
Her fists battered the door, the tiny bones breaking as she pounded and pounded. She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t be locked away. Not whilst she watched a kingdom fall.
Not again.
‘No, no, no, no, no…’
She couldn’t be in here, couldn’t let him throw everything away. She would be lost without him.
‘Hark, please! Please, I promise I’ll change! I’ll be what you want me to be! Please don’t do this.’
She thought she was screaming, and there was roaring in her head and all around her.
Thara…
She fell, smacking her head hard enough that the dressing room blurred around her. Tears were carving tracks down her cheeks, and her fingers shook where she tried to lift them.
The memories came then, rapid and unrelenting.
The soldiers outside the windows…
The cackle born of nightmares that escaped Elrod’s throat…
The image of him neck to toe in blood…
The way her father had tried to fight…
The way her parents had fallen and the way Arla had bitten her own hands to stop herself from screaming at the image of their bodies through the crack in the dresser door…
She couldn’t be locked away again, couldn’t not fight…
Hark had done this to her.
Hark who had loved her, Hark who had kissed her and touched her skin and promised her he’d fight the world for her. And there had to be a way back to that, surely?
Even if he’d broken every scrap of trust she had by locking her away, she deserved it.
She deserved it and had broken his trust, and there had to be a way back to one another because they’d promised they would have that life.
They’d sworn that they would get the peace they’d not had the chance to live yet…
‘Dragonhart. Find your way back, Dragonhart.’
She clung to the bond. Clung to it like her life depended on it.
Thara roared outside, and if Arla could just make it out of the dressing room and to a window, she would be free.
She’d be able to get away from here and to Hadalyn.
To her friend she had been a fool to doubt.
She’d been a fool not to go and find her the moment things had settled down in Flambriar.
Because if Halos was hurt…
Well, Arla wouldn’t think of that. Not yet. Because all she needed right now was to see her friend, to know she was okay. To know her children were okay.
She held onto that thought, too. Held onto the bond and the thought of her friend.
She could do this, she could break her way out of this dressing room.
It would be just like in training. Just like when she’d been training for the King’s Guard and had had to break her way out of the broom cupboard where they’d locked her in.
You can do anything.
Her father’s words.
She stood on shaky legs, clinging to Thara’s strength through the bond. She wished for her dragonhart brooch. The one she might be able to use to access the magic Jaz had told her she had.
But she was still wearing her nightgown, and her brooch was currently pinned to her training jacket.
If she could get out of here though … then she could retrieve her brooch and get away.
‘You can do anything, Dragonhart.’
It bolstered her. Gave her the strength to straighten her spine and throw every ounce of strength she had against the door.
It rattled in the frame.
She threw her weight against it again.
Again.
Again.
Again, until a crack splintered the wood.
Again.
The wood bowed against her weight.
Again.
Until that crack splintered further and she could kick a hole straight through.
She held her breath as she managed to climb through the gap into her empty bedroom.
There were voices on the other side of her bedroom door. Lilith. Rheia. Shouting her name.
Hark had locked her away from them, too.
Tears streamed, the salt running over her lips as she tried to swallow the hurt, the betrayal, both his and hers. She had done this… She had broken them and she’d left him no choice but to end it. There had to be a way of saving it, of saving them.
She didn’t even believe herself.
It took her mere seconds to unpin the dragonhart brooch from her jacket and secure it to the front of her nightdress. She swiped a bandolier of throwing knives off the chest of drawers. They’d have to do. Just a few more minutes of strength. She could do that. She owed it to herself.
‘Thara!’
‘I’m here.’
Arla tried the handle to the balcony doors and found them locked.
As if that would stop her.
The glass shattered, a million tiny crystals now decorating the floor as she approached the balcony.
Then her bedroom doors flew open.
Flew open to reveal Hyacinth – gods bless her heart – a wild panic in the princess’s eyes as she lunged for Arla.
Only to be held back by Kase.
Arla locked eyes with the woman who had become her friend. Saw the resignation in her face. Kase dipped her chin, the nod a gift. A release.
Arla would have to thank her for it later – if she ever came back.
She held the gaze of the two women in the doorway before falling backwards off the balcony.
She understood now why Thara had been insistent she practise jumping off the cliff in Malarye because she now fell onto her dragon’s back without a second thought, as if it were an action so normal it had been passed down through her blood.
She thought perhaps it had.
Thara swept upwards, her leathery wings beating through the beginnings of a dawn-coloured sky as she let out a roar that rattled the entirety of Claret Hall.
Arla couldn’t bring herself to care, wouldn’t let herself untangle that knot of hurt lodged in the centre of her chest. She only knew she needed to get out.
Needed to be away from Hark who was becoming like his father in ways she knew he would never understand.
It had been them both against the world at one point.
For one sweet, short moment in time their worlds had revolved around one another.
But she had broken his trust and he, it seemed, had been waiting for an excuse to tell her how wild she was.
‘Let him. You were never born to be put in a cage.’
A cage. It was exactly what Claret Hall had felt like. Yes, she felt the pull to protect her people. Desperately, she felt it. But she couldn’t do that there. Couldn’t keep them safe when she was fighting wars within herself.
She’d been meant for more – had been prophesised for more – and all Hark cared about was making sure no one hid in the mountains.
Then why did her heart ache so much?
If the kingdoms were to be united, it would be down to her to do it, and she would. Away from Flambriar, she might remember who she was, how she wasn’t supposed to act like a queen and abide by rules Hark changed every day. She had felt like herself in Malarye when she wielded a sword or a bow.
No, uniting kingdoms had never been possible whilst she was hidden in the mountains. She needed to be seen. To be felt.
And she’d start to fix everything as soon as she had found Halos – including things with Hark, if there was any salvageable part of them.
‘We fly for Hadalyn, I take it?’ Thara was a comfort. A certainty. The bond between them running so deep now Arla wasn’t sure she’d know how to live without it.
Her voice was surprisingly strong over the wind as she said, ‘Yes. We fly for Hadalyn.’