Page 108 of To Touch A Silent Fury

My bare hand touched his skin once more. I felt anger, frustration, and regret at the surface. As before, the undertow was a temperate emotion. At once, I decided to trust him. It was perhaps folly, but there was more folly in my decisions to date than this one. It was not hyperbole when I had said to Seth thatI needed all the allies I could get. And Theollan’s base, his ocean floor, was one of justice and grace.

I did not take the handkerchief.

Instead, I placed my hand on top of his, and my other hand below his, containing his hand within mine. Opening the traditional greeting of the Twin Lands.

He completed the greeting as if on instinct, placing his spare hand on top of mine. We pressed, and then released.

Then I took the handkerchief, dabbing my eyes.

For a moment, Theollan’s confusion only grew. Why would a girl from the Soundlands know the family greeting of the Touchlands? Then, his face paled as he truly appraised me. My warm skin, my unnatural eyes and the disguise of what they might have been, the very roots of my hair.

He took a step back, and his hands jolted to his mouth.

I only smiled as another tear fell down my face.

“It cannot be.” He stepped around me in a wide circle, as if confirming I was not some apparition. The ghost girl of Eavenfold, haunting him. I thought of Sollie then and grieved for her that she was entirely alone. “How can it be?”

I lost my stillness as he circled, my body shaking with tension. I yearned to sob. “My offer is this: I will give you a theory to test.”

Theollan fell to his knees in the garden, holding his hands towards me. “Tanidwen.”

My name had never fallen with so much feeling. I held his hands in mine, gripping them tight. Awe and wonder scattered the stasis of his feelings, and I wanted to cry even more. “No one can know. I will help you reach your Fate, but you must help me.”

The Brother nodded, his eyes shining. “Tell me what you need.”

It was clear into noon before Theollan left with a lingering look over his shoulder. I retreated into the shadows of my elegant cage and had a small nap curled alongside the sleeping dragon. I hoped I had found another ally in the Brother.

Strange, that I had spent so long estranged from those of my own blood, only to find the most acceptance in them. Seth, Ersimmon… and now Theollan. It was an order I had never wished to be part of, and now they were the only friends I had in the world.

29

Tani

Wainstrill poked his annoying square head through the door like a block of stone. Once again, he hadn’t knocked, and I had to hold back the urge to slam my book shut, even though there was no chance of him reading it from ten feet across the room.

It was the day before the ball celebrating Langnathin’s return, and I was presently using books to alleviate my stress at having forty days to win him over whilst contemporaneously wanting to avoid his too-observant company at all costs. I had found a peaceful nook behind one of the few doors in the library. A room intended forprivatestudy, which I had been quite enjoying until I was rudely interrupted.

“The King’s Advisor wishes to speak to you about the upcoming ball, and your requisite manners,” the guard said.

I bristled at his tone, though at least my study session was being cut short by Seth, and not any other manner of upstart royalty. I left my beads where they were, in a pile on the otherside of the desk. “My manners, is it?” I replied, not holding back the bite.

Wainstrill squirmed. “Since you aren’t from here, of course.”

“Of course,” I said. Then I put him out of his misery by standing up to receive my friend. “Let the advisor in.”

Wainstrill ducked away and opened the door, allowing me to uphold the illusion that I had any choice in the matter. If he had instead knocked on the door and told me the executioner had arrived to take my head, I hardly imagined I could have turned him away.

Seth walked in, his face serious and almost mean. His wide lips were so often smiling in my memory that it was odd to see them now so pinched and pale. He nodded a thanks to my guard and closed the door behind him with a firm clunk.

When he turned back to me, he was my Seth again.

I saw a heaviness loosen from his shoulders, and his frown faded into a wry grin.

“You can take the girl from the island, but you can’t stop her from shoving her nose in a book.” At my widened eyes and pointed look to the door, he smiled wider. “It’s alright, I shut the door. I happen to know which doors are heavy enough to yell behind without any pesky guards hearing.”

“Hm,” I replied, my fear fading. “Should I be concerned?”

He furrowed his brow. “That I lock myself into rooms in this library just to cry and yell about my mother and uncle? Probably.”