Page 135 of To Touch A Silent Fury

I narrowed my eyes. “Father—”

“No,” he interrupted. “If you even think to make that savage an offer, you will be my heir no longer.”

The shock of it rippled over me. “You would disinherit me?”

He did not blink. “Without hesitation. I should have listened to your aunt, she told me it was best just to choose your wife for you and have done with it. But as I am a soft-hearted old man, I thought a prince should be able to choose where he lays his seed. I was wrong.” He spat at my feet, and Chae tensed, her wings clenching more to her sides. “I thought at least you had some sense. I see now I have raised two boys incapable of strategic thought.”

Chaethor’s rage elevated my own.Can I bite his head off now?

Incapable? I wanted to laugh, but I wasn’t that stupid. I could claim any manner of strategic reasoning for stopping Ban’s marriage, the obvious one being the threat to my own rule. If he was in possession of a dragon,andmy elder, he would try to claim my title. My father might have listened if I had framed my concerns with the fear of Ban’s ambitions, or disguised them as greed for two dragons. That, at least, he would have understood. But his callous words had pushed me beyond any scheming.

I snarled, my lip curling. “This is your stance, then, thank you for explaining it so fully. Banrillen will cage both Vorska and her dragon in whatever manner he sees fit, and you will do nothing to stop it.”

Braxthorn only smiled at my anger. “At least she will be loyal toourkingdom.”

“She will have no other choice.”

His smile faded, but his ugly victory still puffed at his chest. “What is loyalty, really, but a lack of choice.”

It was the bleakest thing I had ever heard.

35

Lang

My mood was still black when Chaethor dropped me off on the walls nearest the barracks of the City Watch. I ducked my head into Foxlin’s quarters, and found them empty. I slammed my hand against the doorframe and turned to his men in the barracks. “Where is he?”

One of them stood, his eyes firmly on my boots. “He’s been reposted, Your Grace.”

“Reposted,” I repeated. “From the City Watch?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

I gritted my teeth. “Under whose authority?”

His ears burned red. “I don’t know.”

This had my aunt written all over it. “Where is he now?”

“The castle,” the same man replied.

Then another man stood from a bunk across. “He said it was door duty, sir.”

“Door duty,” I said. “By the Five, I’ve been gone a day. Onefucking day.”

I stalked out of the room and down the corridors. My aunt had over-stepped this time. As soon as I rode out, she stole my right-hand man. Door duty? What was the meaning of it? She picked him to torment me, surely.

I glanced up at Chaethor as I stormed out of the front door and saw her perched on a nearby tower, soaking up the admiration and fear from the morning guards.

Need a lift?

No,I said.I need to walk off at least a fraction of this rage.

Good,she replied lazily.All these fine dinners have gone straight to your gut, and that’s no way to catch a wife.

Maybe I’ll take the lift after all, if that will help repel the women,I replied.

Too late,she responded, and I heard the gasps and then the thwomp of her wings. She was up in the air in the next breath, and I felt her tune out of our conversation.