Page 110 of To Touch A Silent Fury

I drifted off from telling Seth about the other night, about Langnathin’s desire to be more than a tool.

Seth pulled his hand back, but I had already felt his fear and his jealousy burst up like a spring. “You like him.”

I blinked. Did I like Langnathin? It was far too simple a concept, and yet horribly complex to answer. “No—I—Maybe? The version of me that can forget what happened five years ago, sometimes likes him.” I shook my head as my cheeks heated. “I know it’s messed up.”

Seth’s voice was solemn. “Just remember who he is.”

His tone rankled me, and I looked up. “Just as I should remember whoyouare.”

Sure, Langnathin was Braxthorn’s son, but Seth was his nephew, and Derynallis’ son. If anyone should understand how one can be greater than the sum of his relatives, it should be Seth.

Seth sighed, but I could see he was not angry with me. “I’m trying to stop it. Stop the wars, just as you wish to. Langnathin doesn’t seem to care about anything.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Stop what wars?”

He squared his shoulders. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“What is going on?”

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

“When is that ever better?”

He held up a hand, looking incredibly tired. “I will tell you. Don’t look at me like that. I promise I will tell you what I know, but give me a little longer to try to solve it my way.”

I watched him, and knowing him to have never intentionally told me a lie, I nodded. “Fine.”

He gave me a weary smile, and our tension faded as he came around to my side of the desk. “What else have you learnt, then?”

I pointed at an illustration in one of the books before me, entitledMan Rides Into Battle. In it, a man sat astride a great dark ruby dragon. It was a recreation, a smaller version of a much larger painting, which according to the footnote sat somewhere in this very castle. “I didn’t know that Praevontil the Kind had a red dragon of his own.”

“Ah,” Seth said, his smile wobbling. “How do you know that is Praevontil?”

I smiled, now, happy to be tested. “Well, for one, it looks like him. It looks like the painting of him from Eavenfold’s East Wing, the one where he holds that scroll. More than that, he looks like the old paintings of Braxthorn, and even looks a bit like Langnathin. Then, look at his breastplate, obscured behind the neck. There is a hint of a gold edge there: the wing from their sigil.” I continued on, my excitement causing me to deliver my words in more of a flurry than I had intended. “And there, in the background. The other painting on Eavenfold had that same tempest behind Praevontil. To represent his brother Stormnoon. And of course, the crook of his hilt. Edrin’s line.”

Seth chuckled. “Fine, fine. You win.”

I looked at him, expecting surprise and finding none. “You knew Praevontil had a dragon?”

He nodded. “It unfortunately is my job to know most of the realm’s secrets. But this is one held tight to Braxthorn’s chest. There’s a reason that portrait no longer hangs anywhere in this castle. That is probably one of the last books with any reference to it. I doubt his sons even know the truth.”

“What happened?”

“You know most of it already.” Seth clasped his hands behind his back and changed into the voice I’d heard before. His lecturingvoice. One day, he might make a good Thread of Knowledge himself. “Stormnoon had a vision that there was something to be found in the centre of the Skinreach maelstrom. He believed that there was another side to it, some land that could only be reached by sailing into the eye of its storm. His mind was gone, then, but his brother’s trust in him had never faded.”

“They sailed into it and they both died,” I finished, and Seth nodded. “I know that part. It’s why the cartographers call it Stormnoon’s Elegy. The visions of the water drove him mad. Where does the dragon come into it?”

“Officially?” Seth glanced at the closed door. “The creature was long into adulthood then, and old enough to survive his master’s death, but the loss of their bond drove him mad. The King’s Guard put him down humanely.”

It was no mean feat to put down a dragon. Especially one who had gone mad. “Unofficially?”

“You tell me.” Seth watched me with a guarded expression, and for once, I found him hard to read. “I was away from Eavenfold the one time I might have been able to prove it.”

Usually, I liked mysteries, but this time, I couldn’t get to its solution before my impatience got the better of me. “I don’t understand.”

“Did you see Skirmtold’s eyes the day he burnt down the Women’s Wing?” Seth asked. “Were they red, or brown?”

By my blood.