Page 145 of To Touch A Silent Fury

No, I would feed Hanin, and I would devise a real plan, one probably involving begging Lang, but I would swallow my pride and do it if needed.

Sunlight warmed me as I crossed the gardens again, my thoughts so wrested by Seth and the night’s escape that I paid no attention to my surroundings.

Then I glanced at the door and nearly dropped the wooden bowl as a sickening feeling permeated through me like water through sand. The door to my room lay wide open, and even from here, I saw it sat unsteady on its hinges, its surface warped. On the floor, a pair of boots, immobile.

Dread smothered me as I ran to the entrance.

Hanin?

No response.

I called again into his mind, as loud as I could, and met only an unconscious resistance.

Foxlin lay on the ground, his eyes closed. Thick blood pooled around his head, half of it sitting in a puddle atop the stone and the rest soaking into the golden runner. I fell to my knees and pressed my fingers to his neck.

For a moment, I felt nothing, and my chest tightened. Then I forced myself to breathe, focus, and pressed harder against hisneck. A pulse, weak but there nonetheless. The man was alive. The blood soaked through to my knees, and I lifted his head, finding the source of his injury. Some blunt instrument had hit hard into the back of it.

Foxlin let out a low groan as I settled his head back against the rug. My mind whirled into panic. I stood, and yelled out, calling for guards, calling for help. Someone, anyone.

Pushing the hair out of my face, I leapt to the back of the room, my steps uneven from the damp weight of the blood on my skirts. I already knew what I would find.

An empty bed.

And yet still I fell onto the floor, calling out for Hanin in my mind, and then out loud, searching every corner even though I knew he was gone.

He wasn’t dead. Somehow, I felt that. His presence was there, just subdued, as if in a deep sleep.

Under a blanket, I found a chewed-up flower, its yellow bud and mushed white petals still discernible. Domil.

Whoever had done this had come prepared to drug Hanin. I ran back to the door, jumping over Foxlin’s unconscious body, and screamed louder, finally attracting two guards. I kept moving.

I needed to find Hanin. Now. And the fastest way to track him was to find Theollan. By my blood, I hoped he was still in the castle.

Hanin’s words came back to me as I ran back down the main staircase, and it fell into place.

A loud man had come in and given him sleepy food.

And I had sat in the kitchens, eating a rabbit stew, while my dragon was taken and Foxlin nearly killed.

I narrowly dodged a scullery maid and apologised as I pushed myself across from her. She gasped, and then stared at me in horror, and I only kept running, not comprehending herreaction. It wasn’t until I reached the main foyer and caught my reflection in a metal gilded frame that I understood it.

My dress was soaked in blood, and the same red liquid coated my nose and cheek. With my freakish eyes and a warmongering smear, I finally looked like the tribeswoman they all believed me to be. Moreover, I looked like I’d been stabbed myself, but there was nothing for it. I rubbed at my face as I ran across polished marble. Eyes and muttering followed me, but I had to get to Theollan, and the library was my best bet. If he wasn’t there, I would find his rooms, and if he wasn’t there, I’d scream until I found him.

He was a tracker. He would find Hanin for me. He had to.

I ran behind a man holding a few books, and when he turned and saw me, covered in blood, he immediately squealed and leapt into the nearest alcove. I ignored him, only running faster as the light outside changed from golden to a deep amber.

I called for Hanin again in my mind, even knowing him now to be under a domil sleep. The only blessing was that the sleep might keep our secret, if I could find him before he woke and showed his eyes.

Reaching the library, I pushed the great wooden doors open. The room spilled into view, hundreds and hundreds of colourful spines set in tens of shelves, all blending and warping as I blinked the tears from my eyes and cleared my sight. I couldn’t let myself crumble; I had to be strong for him. I couldn’t let him down.

I only saw one attendant, clearing the books from a low wooden table up on the mezzanine floor.

“Theollan?” I called, startling the attendant, who dropped his books and glared at me. I cared not, turning a full circle as I peered down every aisle I could see, yelling out for my white-haired brethren. “Theollan?”

A door opened at the end of one aisle, and I realised it was the very same private study room I had used. I whipped my head towards it, my blood rushing.

I heard him before I saw him, and it was enough to know him instantly. “What is—”