Page 89 of Court of Treachery

“Be well, daughter. Rest at ease, and I shall watch over thee.”

Harper struggled to stand, barely able to rise to her knees, the chains still binding her. “Help me! I must escape him!”

Erendriel bent low and cupped Harper’s cheeks with her hands. “I cannot make it so. It is not your destiny to run, but to endure, child.”

“Endure what?” Harper asked desperately, even though half a thought later, she was not sure she wanted to know.

“The trials that will make you. I can offer you no guidance. It is not fated. Yet I will give you my gift.” Warmth spread through Harper, banishing the cold and the pain. “It is of utmost importance that you succeed, to be the flame forever lit against the darkness coming. It will be so very easy for you to fail, to be led astray. Do not let it pass. Do not let the mouth of Valxiron tempt you with foul sorcery.”

“But I don’t understand! If I am to succeed, you must help me.”

Harper started to fade back into the darkness. Erendriel’s cool hands found her own, squeezing reassuringly.

Harper felt an entirely different set of hands upon hers. Not cool and slim, but warm and enveloping.

“Wake up, Harper.”

Harper jolted awake, pulling her hands out and shrinking away, disorientated and fearful after Erendriel’s cryptic warning, before relief blossomed as she recognised the voice and blinked open her eyes to the dim light of Dimitri.

“Harper. It’s me. Are you…?” Dimitri trailed off, and he swallowed, his lips thinning. “No. Of course you aren’t alright.”

She was still within the confines of those chains. In silence, Dimitri released her, his hands caressing the spots where they had sat heavy upon her skin and marked her. “I’m so sorry, Harper,” he murmured, so quietly that she barely heard him.

When she did not reply, too numb from everything to form words, he rose, and then drew her to her feet. “Come.”

When she shuddered, so cold that she could not feel her feet, he swore—and his magic bloomed through her, warm and comforting. She let out a sob of relief.

“It will be okay, Harper,” he said, but she heard the desperate edge upon his voice—and knew he could not promise it. Folding her into his arms, he spirited them away into shadow and wind for a moment.

The jarlshalle rumbled with thunder as Dimitri and Harper materialised. The lights were dim, the entire hall cast in shadows and the acrid tang of bitter smoke choked the back of her throat.

Harper froze at the sight of Saradon, prowling through the hall with vengeance wrought upon him. Dimitri slid his arm through hers, tugging her into a bow at the door, then forward, into the hall, even though every muscle in her clearly longed to run away.

“What is the latest?” Saradon fired at Dimitri.

“The dwarves are gone, Lord Ravakian. No more left alive within a day’s travel. The survivors made for Keldheim.”

Saradon growled, and the thunder in the hall grumbled with him. “Curse them all! No matter. They will be gone from all Valtivar soon enough. I do not need them to come to me to die.” He wheeled away. “The goblins suffered heavy losses. Thepaschano longer wishes to ally with our cause.”

“They will cease the alliance?”

Hope pricked at Harper.

Saradon barked a laugh. “Do not be a fool. Of course they will not break it. They will serve whether they will it or not.” His lip curled as he turned to them. “As will you,” he added flatly to Harper. She met his stare like a rabbit caught in a wolf’s gaze.

Saradon advanced upon them, and Harper stilled at Dimitri’s side. “I will suffer no more defiance from you. You are my blood daughter, and you are my heir. You will act as such. Do I make myself clear?”

“Agree,” Dimitri said into her mind. “Placate him.”

After a pause, Harper bowed her head. Relief bloomed in Dimitri and she felt it as if it were her own.

“We can get out of this mess later.”

She hoped he was right. It stalled Saradon, who must have expected defiance, for he narrowed his eyes at Harper, then nodded, perhaps satisfied that he had broken her spirit.

“We are to leave this foul pit at once. I have had my fill of dark halls and death,” said Saradon. “I will leave it to the goblins to fulfil my mission in Valtivar. They will kill every last dwarf in the realm until there are no more, then it will be mine.”

“Where are we to go, Lord Ravakian?”

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