Page 11 of To Touch A Silent Fury

I sighed but thought it through nonetheless as we reached the empty bleak courtyard. Well, not entirely empty.

The three pillars still stood from Harum’s Death Fate, as they had to until the fiftieth day. The temporary wooden structures clawed up nearly thirty feet high. It was an old tradition passed down by the Five; the bodies of the dead were placed high above, so that only the ancient beings above may look upon them and judge their life and their death.

Places such as this, with no significant natural high point, were expected to create them. From my research, those who still followed the tradition used a nearby hill to give their offering. Many did not bother at all, but the Brotherhood of Eavenfold were nothing if not traditional.

Harum had found his three easily once he gave up hope of finding me. He hadn’t been so barbaric as to target the nursery, as I fleetingly thought he might. Instead, he killed three teen boys in cold blood with a stolen kitchen knife. Two of the three had insulted him a season ago; the last was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Half a dozen other boys had held them still as Harum cut their throats, and I hoped the guilt shamed them for spans to come.

Their Fates ended there, up on that parapet of sticks, so that he could start his immediately. They had stopped smelling after the fourth week, when heavy rain had washed the worst of it away. Tomorrow they would burn, once the full fifty days had passed. Their rotting corpses were our only company as we crossed to the unmanned gates.

Apparently, Harum’s Mark resembled an arrow, and I thought that fitting. At least everyone in the Tastelands would know him to be a predator, not prey.

“The deer probably graze in Junisper, known for its salt marsh grass and floral weeds. Maybe what they eat travels through their body and makes their meat more flavourful. Maybe they get better exercise.”

“That was two maybes.”

“Maybe you should ask better questions,” I replied.

He smiled and held his hands up. “All I can think about is food. The ferry comes tomorrow, and the cooks clearly didn’t plan ahead at all. Yesterday was barely more than gruel.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “You’re probably right. I know as much as I can know.”

We walked through the main gate and out into the moors as the steady rain soaked through my hood.

“I have a question,” Seth announced.

I looked at him, and my hood fell back, water catching on my eyelashes. He smirked and pulled it back up, touching my cheek with the back of his finger.

Expectation, nervousness, and warmth grazed through his touch.

“I’m waiting,” I said.

The tenderness wasn’t lost on me, but I didn’t have the space in my mind to think about it right now, to think about missing him or the fact we might not see each other again for years. I could only think of tomorrow and finally getting off this island.

“You’re advising a queen as one of her ladies-in-waiting. She is nearing the end of her childbearing years and is newly a widow, her husband killed in a hunting accident. She needs a legitimate heir to secure her line. Who would you advise her to marry?”

“Of the current selection of marriageable nobles?” I asked.

“Yes, imagine this happened this very morning.”

“Which land?”

“Let’s say the Touchlands,” he said, referencing my home nation.

I shook my head without a pause, not willing to concede the pedantic point. “You know that if Konidren died, Kalidwen would step down. There can be no Shield without the Sword, and we don’t pass our title through heirs.”

I didn’t need to finish the rest for him. It was part of the reason the Triad had denounced us, due to ourbarbaricpractice of Blood Trials to pick our rulers, whom we called the Shieldblood and the Swordblood. To say nothing of their own jousts and hunts and warmongering, it was our once-in-a-generation contests that were the true evil of the Senselands.

“Suspend reality for a moment and answer the question,” he said. “You’re stalling.”

I grinned up at him. “Suspend the reality that most eligible men in the Triad would rather dance a jig on their father’s remains than marry a Shieldblood?”

He laughed, as we weaved towards the coastal footpath and the shearwaters circled overhead. “Yes, suspend that. Besides, I think you’re overstating it. Kalidwen is rumoured to be quite striking. Beauty would win out over suspected incest in a lot of minds.”

I hit his chest, rolling my eyes. Within a second, I’d run through most of the leaders in the land, ruling out the half who were already married, and another handful for dishonour. I had settled on recommending Braxthorn, the Dragon King of the Sightlands. Older, maybe twelve spans, but still formidable. Then I thought through the question itself.

My grin faded. “Is this a Marriage test?”

He shrugged. “Maybe, though I suppose you could make an argument for Service to your queen.”