Page 61 of Heart of Shadows

“What are you doing?” Harper growled, springing to her feet. Her heart thundered. Neither made a move.

“What’s all the commotion?” Brand’s gaze flicked between them as he sat up.

“I have no idea. I woke to find her standing over me,” said Harper. “What were you doing? Wait.” Her gaze narrowed. “How dare you!” She strode forward and reached out to snatch the Dragonheart from Erika’s grasp. Erika stepped back, holding it out of reach.

“Give it to me, you thief!” Harper’s shaking hands balled into fists.

Aedon stepped between them. “Calm down. What’s happening, Erika? Why do you have that?”

Erika raised her chin—and Harper’s fury sharpened at her defiance. “I took it.”

Aedon sagged, and muttered a curse under his breath. “Why?”

“Because she has it and we need it. I’m done playing games.”

Harper bared her teeth, but before she could speak, Brand intervened. “Give it here.” Glaring, Erika handed it to him. Brand held it out to Harper, who snatched it to her chest and backed away, scowling at Erika. “We decided that is not the way forward,” Brand said flatly.

Every vein in Harper’s body burned with the hurt of their betrayal. “I want to know right now what’s happening. Don’t think I don’t see all your secret little glances and hear you muttering away. I’m not stupid.” She felt it, though, for letting down her guard at all with any of them, and the hot, heavy weight of it crushed her chest and clogged her throat.

Aedon sighed. “Let’s sit.”

Harper scoffed. Not a chance. She and Erika remained standing at opposite sides of the crumbling embers. Tension sung through Harper as she eyed her meagre pile of belongings. She could carry it all, snatch it up in a moment if she needed to flee on foot. There was absolutely no chance she was going to sit quietly whilst Aedon and his silver tongue wheedled their way out of this. She was done being the doe-eyed, foolish girl.

Aedon ran a hand through his hair. “Harper, I’m sorry. We ought to have been more honest with you, but you must understand. You were a stranger with a wild tale who stumbled out of thin air in our hour of need. And you have what we need to make a real difference. We had no choice—but it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

“How was it supposed to happen, Aedon?” she said, hating how thick her voice was, hating the desperate edge of pain on every word. Because as much as she hated him in that moment, she hated herself more, for falling for any of it, for believing she had ever had a place amongst them, for being grateful that they had taken her in. All along, they had known the value of the treasure she held—they would have taken it one way or another, and this was just a reason to do it that made them feel better about themselves. They were criminals. It was all an act. And she was done.

He quailed under her attention, his eyes darting to meet hers and then dropping swiftly away, burned by the ferocity in her. Oh, how he squirmed—and how good it felt to make him do so. She had been so stupid. A hot lump blocked her from swallowing.

He cleared his throat. “As you know, we’re on a quest to cure the sickness of a village for whom no cure could be found. We journeyed to the living forest of Tir-na-Alathea to find a potion the wood elves were famed for making, aleilah. It is rare, and precious, but it can cure most anything. The price was beyond a king’s ransom and the elves would not barter with us, so we took it. You must understand. We never take from those who cannot afford it. The wood elves can always make more aleilah. They alone hold the recipe.”

“I understand your motives, though I still think stealing is wrong,” Harper said. “Why are you telling me what I already know? There’s no way for you to spin this horse shit in your favour, Aedon.”

“There’s just not enough of it.” He tore at his hair, and she steeled herself against his distress. He was a con artist, and she would not be fooled. “There are a few substances that can be used to make greater quantities of things like medicine without diluting them. The Dragonheart is one such substance. They are more precious than kingdoms, so rare are they, and the king keeps all that he can find locked away in his vaults.

“You can imagine our surprise, and our wonder, when you arrived in our midst at precisely the moment we needed a Dragonheart most, it seems. Yet you carry the Mark of Saradon upon your wrist, you speak the Common Tongue with an accent none of us recognise, and you—forgive me—were the strangest woman we had ever laid eyes on. Who were you? How were we to know you were as innocent as you portrayed yourself to be?”

Harper rankled, straightening with indignation. “Don’t you dare turn this around on me.”

Aedon held his hands up. “We know you now, of course. We know you to be who you say you are. But you cannot blame us for having just as much suspicion of you as you had of us.”

“So what?” Harper asked, her voice quiet, yet cutting through the night and crackle of the fire. She balled her hands into fists, because she wanted to shake him. “What were you going to do? Take us all to the capital and steal the stone from me?”

“Of course not!” Aedon said. “To be truthful, we didn’t know what we were going to do. Only that we hoped we could figure something out before we arrived. We had decided to make one last plea to you tomorrow and beg for your help, even though we know you have your heart set on the Dragonheart being your way home.”

Harper scoffed. “Of course you were going to tell me tomorrow. How convenient.” She dashed her sleeve across her eyes to catch the tears prickling there. She would not let them see her feelings. “All along, all of this—” she gestured at them all, “—this semblance of cameraderie, was nonsense, wasn’t it? You’ve been playing me for a fool, using me for your own ends, and I was stupid enough to fall for it! I should never have listened to any of you. You’re a bunch of criminals!”

“It’s not like that. We promise you,” Aedon protested.

Ragnar leaned forward. “Please believe him, Harper. It’s true. I swear it.”

Harper turned to him, the one she had deemed most trustworthy. Ragnar’s shoulders slumped, mortification etched on his face at the judgement he found waiting for him in every rage-hardened line upon her face and the unshed tears glistening. She shook her head. “How can I believe it? It’s so clear now. You were going to take it from me one way or another, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Erika.

The group spun toward her, snarling. “That’s not helpful, Erika,” Brand growled.

“Well, we were, by hook or crook, going to get that stone, weren’t we?”

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