Page 2 of To Touch A Silent Fury

“No,” I replied, pulling him to a stop. “They know we’re friends. It’s one of the first places they’ll look.”

“Where, then?”

I took the lead, waving him after me as I broke into a jog. “Sollie’s room.”

Seth groaned. “Anywhere but there, please.”

“That’s exactly why we should go. Everyone hates it there.”

“Because it’s haunted,” he said.

“You’re what, a whole span older than me? How can you still believe that?” I asked, throwing him a look over my shoulder.

“Why do you always add a year?” He breathed out with such exasperation that it made me smile.

We made an odd pair.

Seth was nearing twenty-five, the favoured fifth span, and was a man of great prospects. Raised in the Drowned Villages north of the Sightlands capital of Droundhaven, the mere location of his birth already made him more valuable than me. He was also one of the rare people on this island who had remained after reaching his fourth span. His Fate would bind him to these shores until he fulfilled eight long years of service.

On the other hand, I was, by all accounts, cursed. Born on the first midnight of Ergreen nearly twenty years ago, with no prospects to speak of and raised in a land everyone here discarded as primitive, I hoped beyond hope for a Fate that would take me far away from these grey walls.

I darted around a corner, relieved to find our next stretch as empty as the last. Seth lagged a couple of steps behind.

“Don’t tell me you’re out of breath already,” I said.

“I serve Thread Groulin,” he replied, catching his breath every two words. “He’s all but become one of his fossils, bent over the same desk for most of his life.”

“And you’re bound to the same sedentary existence?”

“Should I follow your example? I’m surprised the wind hasn’t carried you off the cliffs yet.”

I didn’t reply, hesitant to admit how close he was to the truth. Just that morning the winds at the north tip of the island had been so bad, I’d nearly tumbled to the rocks below. I usually roamed the western edge, further from the wrath of the whipping Stormnoon, but I wanted to see the ferry arrive from Verdusk, the Sightlands’ southernmost port. There was something freeing about it, to see the weekly supplies arrive from the mainland, to see sails pull through the near constant fog. It meant that something existed beyond thisisland’s reach.

I never went down to the pier, though, no matter how often I watched from the cliff head. To them, we were all freaks. Infants born in the depths of night with moon-bright hair and unnatural abilities tied to our birthlands.

They had no magic, and they hated us for ours. Out there, a person could hone a particular sense. The Scentlanders had their morning olfactory rituals, and Seth’s own eyes had been cloaked as a child to teach him an awareness of total darkness. And, no doubt, the richer you were the better your access to good teachers, at least in the Triad. But that was all they had: practices founded in hazy medicine and steeped in tradition.

We were something else.

And if we were all freaks tothem, then I was doubly cursed, to be an aberration here, too. The only woman in a society of men. If I had been born a man, then at least I might have found solace in these cold halls, but instead I was more alone than anyone. My parents believed they were doing me a kindness by letting the Brothers take me to where I might belong and find my Fated path. Instead, I yearned for that small hut in the hills by Torquan. I missed its heat, but mostly I missed their unconditional love. I would find them again as soon as I was freed from this drafty mausoleum.

When we’d reached the far edge of the wing, I dropped Seth’s hand and held my finger to my lips. Then I opened the door with more care than I ever had, seeing the low-walled courtyard separating us from the end of the ruined West Wing.

In Ergreen, this courtyard was pleasant enough. Purple and white flowers would sprout from the beds, and by the end of Tanmer, the trellises would be thick with orange lamia. Today, there was nothing but cold dirt and dead vines curled around stone.

With a quick nod to Seth, I darted out.

We crossed the courtyard without incident, but as I flicked up the latch of the door to the West Wing, the wind caught in my hood and pushed it back. The dreary evening light hit my profile as Seth pushed the door, hurrying me inside.

A voice yelled from far away, back towards the main courtyard. “Is that her?”

I stumbled through the door, then leant against the wood to close it, cursing myself. There was no warm candlelight to meet us here, no tapestries on the walls, nor carpets underfoot.

Seth knelt, peeking through a narrow window beside the door. “Five of them, coming this way.”

“Is Harum one of them?”

“I can’t tell.”