Page 127 of To Touch A Silent Fury

I put the bowl down on the bedside, hoping to keep the meat out from his nostrils for long enough for the maid to leave. If he woke, and his eyes opened, she could see their true colour. I wouldn’t let that happen, not now.

When I looked back at her, ready to come up with some reason to dismiss her, she was still staring at the bowl. “Was there something else?”

Daffinia shot her eyes back to mine, forcing another smile. “You enjoyed the ball, then?”

I nodded. “It was very diverting.”

She pushed her smile to the very edges of her cheeks. It looked painful. “I am told you danced with both princes.”

“You are mistaken, Daffinia. I only danced with Banrillen.”

She made a soft exclamation. “He favours you, it seems.”

“It is an honour to be noticed in such a way.”

Daffinia glanced back to the discarded bowl. “You do not wish to feed him? He must be hungry, no?”

Her first look had been a tell; this was an announcement. Did Derynallis suspect who I was? Did she want him to open his eyes as proof?

“I’ll feed him once you have left,” I said, with a smile to match hers. “It can be quite messy.”

She nodded. “Yes, well. I shall leave you to it, then.”

I waited, only offering a smile as encouragement as she retreated from the room. Wainstrill opened the door for her, and closed it behind her.

As soon as it had shut, I dragged the heaviest chair in the room over to the door and propped it under the handle. I did not care if Wainstrill heard. If he felt it was acceptable for him to burst into my room without warning, I would at least make him fight for it.

Storming back into the room, I picked up the bowl of meat. Daffinia knew something, either about the dragon or Banrillen’s proposal.

I paced back and forth, debating waking the child to feed him now, or running before it all got even worse.

Then I smelt it. The meat had an earthy scent, something I had smelt once before.

I almost dropped the bowl, my stomach rolling at the realisation. Then I clutched it tight to me, opening a window to air out the room. I did not think either of us could be harmed from the mere smell, but I would take no chances. I grabbed the ewer and poured water over the meat, hoping it would reduce its potency in some way. I wasn’t truly thinking at all.

Yvon had pointed them out to me once, for they grew in the southern reach of Gossamir. Small fungus, attaching to rotting wood, with tight white spots on a toffee brown cup. But it was Lavendell, and my encounter with the merchant assassin, that I truly knew them from.

Dreadspores.

I left the bowl on the windowsill and gripped the back of my chair with white-knuckled fear.

Think, Tani.I forced myself to breathe and work out what any of it meant.

There was poison in the meat. The same one as in the merchant’s wine all those years ago. It seemed the tactics of the Sightlands’ court lacked just as much finesse as ever.

Someone wanted to kill my dragon. Maybe the same person who wanted to kill me years ago. Or at least, themeI had been then. Tani. They had underestimated me before, just as they underestimated me now.

It wasn’t Langnathin. He would never try to kill my dragon. I knew that for certain, even if I didn’t understand exactly why. Whoever tried now, it wasn’t the Dragon Prince, and it surely wasn’t the Wragg.

The attempted murderer must have been Princess Derynallis or King Braxthorn. I wondered if they had heard about the proposal, or merely sought to remove something they believed could be a problem.

It was a clear enough sign, the last of too many.

If either of them wanted me or my dragon dead, then I had to run.

The sling was heavy, cutting into my shoulders. Only a few weeks old, and yet he had grown a lot since I pulled him from his egg. I kept to the scullery staircases and halls as far as I could, avoiding as many eyes as possible. Most gave the sack attached to my front the barest of glances, perhaps assuming me a wet nurse to a suckling babe. I said I had a message for the King’s Advisor, and on the third time of asking, I was directed to the war room.

It was a risk, bringing the dragon with me. But I would not leave him alone, that was far worse an idea. He would not leave my sight until Droundhaven was only a speck in the distance. Now that I knew there was an active threat against his life, there was no chance I would leave him under Wainstrill’s watch.