Page 17 of To Touch A Silent Fury

“Turn and face them.” Thread Ersimmon clucked his tongue and dropped his hand from my shoulder. “Chin up, girl.”

I squared my jaw and turned around, meeting the faces of the Brotherhood as they murmured among themselves. I couldn’t find Seth in the overwhelming sea of amused white eyes staringback at me. The first Marriage Fate in nearly five spans, given to the first and only girl.

In the nearly two spans I’d spent on Eavenfold, this was one of the few corridors I had never been in. It was for guests, and guests to our gusty cliffs were so rare I was surprised the entire hallway wasn’t knee-deep in dust. It warmed me to imagine Thread Isillim pulling the cobwebs off the pewter sconces, even as the beads covering half my face tinkled against one another and irritated my nose.

I darted to the side, stepping into the shadows of a small alcove as boots hit the runner in the left-hand corridor just ahead. It was instinct more than thought, as if I was caught somewhere I shouldn’t be, but I couldn’t help but listen as two voices joined the footsteps.

“The girl will meet you here shortly, we have sent for her.” Thread Groulin’s ragged voice was instantly recognisable.

“And what of your studies of the weapon?” the prince replied. “When will it happen?”

I leaned close to the wall, resisting the urge to peek around the corner.

“Soon,” Groulin said. “Our research suggests a span from now.”

“A full span?” the prince asked. “How is that soon? You told my father this was an imminent threat.”

There was a pause before the Thread responded, and when he did his voice was irritated. “You are young. You don’t fully understand the pace at which kingdoms work. For ancient magic such as this, five years is soon indeed. It will take time tolay claim to the grounds. The Soundlands are stubborn people, built more favourably for the forest than you.”

“I will forgive your assertion of my ignorance, Thread,” the prince replied. “I know you’re used to schooling boys.”

“I apologise if my words implied any disrespect.”

The two men paused, and I imagined them puffing their chests like preening birds.

After a small wait, Langnathin spoke once more. “What of the girl?”

“The girl?” Thread Groulin seemed surprised to be asked.

For my part, I only held my breath, curious to know what he would ask.

“Yes,” the prince said. “What will her power be, when it is revealed?”

“We cannot know. Tanidwen uses touch to sense the feelings of others. When her condition is met, she could sense without touch, from a distance. Or her potency will increase.”

He asked the question on my own lips. “Her potency?”

“We have considered,” he said, his voice uncertain, “that she could influence feelings, as well as sense them.”

I swallowed, and the small gulping noise was audible in the silence following the Thread’s theory. Never before had I heard the Threads discuss what my power may be once my Fated condition was met. Any time anyone asked, we were dismissed with the same excuses. That it was unknowable, that only our threaded path could determine our future, that we must walk our Fate’s full length and not suggest what lies beyond the fog of time.

Influencing the feelings of others would be novel. I’d most likely still have to touch them, but then I could soothe fear, or turn sadness to something brighter. I wondered, fleetingly, if I would be able to influence my own emotions, or only those ofothers. It would be something, to have such mastery of one’s self.

“She could change how people feel?” Langnathin asked.

“It is one of many possibilities.”

“And what of my cousin?”

“He comes along well,” Thread Groulin said. “Do you wish to see him?”

One of the fifty-odd sniffling boys on this forsaken island was the cousin of the Dragon Prince, then. I didn’t know it before, and yet, that wasn’t surprising. For the last five years I’d kept my head down, with very little interest in the new arrivals. They learnt of me quickly and avoided me, anyway. Rumours pass faster than the Nox ever did, and I was one of the stories that was still breathing.

The prince hesitated. “No.”

“As you wish.”

King Braxthorn had two sisters who could have fathered this cousin of Langnathin’s. Princess Derynallis, a year older than the king, resided with him in Droundhaven after the death of her first and only husband many years ago. And Queen Hyamis, a span younger than them, married King Canenrill of the Scentlands. To my knowledge, they had a few sons already, including Prince Brascillan, but I hadn’t heard of a Moontouch in their family.