Page 14 of To Touch A Silent Fury

“Then we shall begin.”

This was it. All my studying would now come down to five questions. I swallowed past the dryness in my throat.

Thread Groulin came first, positioned on the far left, and I looked to him with my full attention. I’d place him in his fifties, though I was certain all his years hunched over his research made him look a span or two older than he was. His Fated Mark was two semicircles, spaced apart on the left side of his forehead. He was a gruff but pleasant enough man, and as the Thread of Knowledge, he was oneof my preferred paths.

He stood and grumbled out his question. “How does the Cloven choose their regent?”

I paused. I couldn’t quite believe this was the question. There must be more to it. I could have answered that question when I was barely off the ferry from Verdusk. I swallowed again, wondering if there was some part to the question I wasn’t understanding, some complication I had missed.

Thread Groulin sighed.

“By combat,” I said quickly, wincing a little when my small jolt cut the needle deeper into my wrist. “When the current leader grows weak, younger men may challenge him for the right to be Bluff Leader.”

He nodded and glanced at the next in line, Thread Urskalli of Service.

That couldn’t be it. “But their method for choosing their wives is far more interesting,” I blurted.

“That’ll be all.” Thread Groulin held up his hand, and I quietened immediately.

Why had he asked me such an inane question? Maybe he wanted to prove my competence without question. If he’d asked me a harder question, I might have failed and caused him embarrassment.

Thread Urskalli peered at me as I tried in vain to reassure myself, his white eyes squinting through his monocle. He asked me an equally inane question about how I would prepare a tincture for sleeplessness.

I replied with the basic recipe for a tincture of rosehilt, lavendell, and domil, giving the locations for each plant and the best time to serve it to improve drowsiness.

Thread Urskalli nodded at my answer and leaned back. I did not embellish nor recommend the slightly improved remedy where you added ground meganweed from the Touchlands. I merely wanted to pass Service, not pander to it.

By now my forearm was cold with blood loss, and I flexed my fingers to stave off the numbness. I also risked a quick glance down at the floor. The red of my blood forged an ichorous dark trail down the five paths, slowly rolling down the grooves in the floor towards the bench. Someone somewhere had created a rumour that we bled silver, but it wasn’t so. The moon had left that aspect of our humanity untouched. Of course, I believed there was natural magic in all blood, as all Touchlanders did, but that was my faith, and not one shared by the men in front of me.

Thread Isillim stood up once more. He was a Sightlander, as were Groulin and Rasturnin. Urskalli hailed from the Scentlands, and Ersimmon from Taste. Unsurprisingly, Sound and Touch were not represented on the Council of Fates. The Threads were chosen, not through some extra sixth Fate path, but by King Braxthorn, and therefore, the Triad were its sole diviners.

He smiled down at me. “Same question as Thread Urskalli. Your lord comes to you complaining of sleeplessness and asks you to prepare something to aid him. How would you go about poisoning him instead? You must achieve this without detection.”

The solution came to me in an instant.

I would prepare the same tincture, but this time using the guise of the meganweed, a strong-smelling warm flavour, to allow me to add a pinch of carrialwort. The meganweed would mask the musky scent of it, making the lord unlikely to question it. There were more efficient killers than carrialwort, ones like sanguine with no scent at all, but they were detectable after death, searing their way through the guts of the inflicted. Carrialwort left no such signs. It was a little harder to access, its small red flowers blooming only in Gossamir Forest, and only seasonally, but it was still the superior choice.

But as quickly as the idea came to me, I dismissed it. I did not seek a Death Fate. Besides, I disliked Thread Isillim, finding him unfeeling and patronising.

I widened my white eyes with affected innocence. “With respect, Thread Isillim, I would not poison my lord.”

Thread Ersimmon laughed from the far right of the bench. I’d believed he was likely asleep, his head resting on the wooden bench. Behind me, I heard a cough, but I didn’t turn. I was instead focused on Thread Urskalli’s small smile. What did that mean? In refusing to deal with Death, had I sealed myself into Service?

Thread Isillim merely stared at me, his own smile gone. “That is your answer?”

“It is, my lord,” I replied.

He nodded, and sat.

Only two questions to go, and my body felt weak. I hadn’t eaten before I came, given the egregiously early dawn Ceremony and my repeated nightmare of throwing up all over the carved lines. But now I thought that may have been a mistake, and I would ruin all my hard work and research by swooning like the useless woman they’d always thought me to be.

Thread Rasturnin leaned forwards, both as solemn as an owl and greasy as a vole, and I turned my attention to him. Acquisition. My other preferred path.

“Where would you search for the lost halberd from the Battle of Manniston Fields?”

I rattled off my answer, thinking it as I spoke. “The battle was nearly four centuries ago, and the last records of it discuss it being held by Courvin’s bannerman as he approached Manniston. Many expeditions have searched in the Drowned Villages to uncover it, to no avail. There are two likely explanations for where the halberd is: either a survivor from the battle stole it, and took it from the site, or the halberd is lost under the marshesof the fields somewhere. If the former, it is unlikely it will ever be found. If the latter, the only logical course is to search a new area of the Drowned Villages.”

Thread Rasturnin nodded and waved his hand. “That’ll do. Your turn, Ersimmon.”