Page 57 of To Touch A Silent Fury

Yvon measured this. “Will it hurt the Euphons?”

I opened my mouth, but then I closed it. I let myself sit with the question for a full minute. Yvon would appreciate the silence; she hated when people spoke without reflection.

Would my claiming the egg hurt the Euphons?

They had no desire to claim it themselves, certainly. They only wished to facilitate its safe arrival, preferring the dragon tobe raised wild and unbonded. My notion of human bonding would irritate them. However, would ithurtthem?

If I was successful, I might actually have the power tohelpthem. Not only the power of a dragon, but my own Fated powers extended… What if I could change emotions, as the Threads once predicted? Change the hateful occupying hearts of the Sightlanders to acceptance?

The alternative would hurt them. The Dragon Prince, with two dragons claimed and no one to stop him. The might of the cacofs increased.

I shook my head. “It should not. It will hurt the cacofs far more.”

Yvon took this in with a slow nod. She tilted her head. “The Dragon Prince?”

Years had passed, and I was just one more girl he had wronged. But I would make him remember me. Marry me. Create the very thing he’d tried so hard to Break. Yes, he would hate it.

I smiled darkly. “Him most of all.”

Yvon matched my smile, then. She made a signal. 'Good. Content.'

She stood to leave, and I stood with her. I wedged the door back open, and we stepped out into the frigid air. Yvon moved away from the pit and stared up at the full moon, her hood still fallen back.

“I have something for you,” she said, a flake of snow touching her pale eyebrow.

I furrowed my brow. “I have nothing to trade.”

Yvon looked at me, eyes swimming with uncertainty. “This is a—gift.”

I heard her voice, but there was no sign for the word 'gift'. “Gift?” I repeated, thinking I had misheard. “I don’t understand.”

My heart pounded. Was this some parting trinket, some way of saying goodbye? What if I failed in my quest and lost Yvon all the same? Where would I go, then? I had no other trick.

Yvon pulled her hood up and stood directly in front of me, looking down at my face. “It is your nameday. The fifth span. Five of five. We do not venerate spans as much as you cacofs, but there is still some power in fives, we measure.”

My throat felt suddenly thick as she reached into her pocket. I could not remember ever having told her of the day. “Yvon—”

She opened her gloved hand, and I could no longer speak.

A milky-white and thin stone, like a flattened arrowhead, sat in her palm, threaded with thick black leather string. “This is a moonstone,” Yvon said, making the sign of the crescent. “Some call it Amune’s Blessing. It grants protection.”

I held out my gloved hand, but I couldn’t stop myself from shaking. “It is beautiful.”

A pendant to be worn as a necklace, I figured. The moonlight caught against the perfectly smooth stone as she dropped it into my hand.

A tear fell down my cheek as I looked up at her.

A birthday gift. My twenty-fifth year.The History of the Fivedictated this to be a year of many blessings in one’s life. I only hoped to live through it.

“Thank you, Yvon.”

Instead of moving back, Yvon did the one thing that surprised me the most out of anything that day. She reached forwards and brushed the tear from my chin with the back of a gloved finger.

I gasped softly.

Yvon removed her touch, and her blue eyes were sad when she spoke her parting words. “We measure the way your people deal with your Moontouch to be… unnatural. But you were once kind toanother lonely girl.”

She turned then, walking in silent steps into the depths of the night as I held my jaw where her finger had been as if to hold her there.