Page 6 of To Touch A Silent Fury

I breathed out and stared past him into the room, my eyes catching on the music box, open once more. I’d survived nearly nine years on Eavenfold, I could manage another fifty days.

2

Lang

The tiny hull rocked beneath my feet just as I lunged forwards, thrusting my sword out in a jab. Foxlin hopped to the side, avoiding my strike but staggering in his own boat.

I stumbled forwards, my feet spread across the narrow gunwale, using the momentum to hack down near his right shoulder. He blocked it, just barely, and our wooden swords glanced off each other. I was in trouble; I’d needed the blow to balance myself, and now it was hopeless. Foxlin swatted my sword away, and my feet lost their purchase.

A second from defeat, I leapt into his boat to save myself from falling into the murky canal.

Foxlin laughed, relaxing his sword arm. He always laughed with his whole body, his wide shoulders shuddering forwards, and I saw the glint of an advantage. He pivoted, ready to push me into the drink. Another advantage: the man was all brawn, and my narrower frame was built for speed. He should have capitalised when he had the chance and stabbed me in the side.

His hands pushed in the same moment that I regained my balance, and I ducked. His hands met nothing but the air above, and I pushed myself upwards, clocking his chin and sending him backwards. In one moment, I whirled and shoved, pushing him straight off his own vessel.

The surprise on his face was priceless as he fell back, his arms outstretched. He plunged into the canal. It was the middle of Longdawn, and the canals had not warmed a fucking jot.

I winced as I watched him fully submerge and then come up spluttering.

“What is that, now?” he asked, coughing up brown water. His hand reached up to push the water off his face and back from his short red curls.

“I believe that’s four to one,” I said, jumping back onto the much steadier jetty before reaching to pull him out.

My own hair, straight and dark, fell over my eye as he grabbed my arm, and I heaved him up. He lay on the jetty like a bloated ruswhale, breathing hard. “I really thought I had you that time. You over-extended.”

“I thought you had me, too,” I admitted, with a narrow-lipped smile. “What did you learn?”

He pushed himself up and shivered. “To stop agreeing to your stupid ideas. We’ve been fighting on the gondolas for a week now. I’m a laughing stock.”

“Balance is important. We need to be able to fight everywhere. What good will we be if we can only duel in the comfort of an arena?”

“What’s next?” Foxlin said, his wyvern-amber eyes still merry despite the cold, the gold of them making his complexion appear warmer than it was. I could not claim the same, my hair and eyes made me look like I lived in a crypt in Domin. “You going to make us fight on dragonback?”

I grimaced, shrugging off my outer coat and passing it to him.

“I can’t take your coat, you idiot. You’re the bloody prince, someone will think I stole it,” he said.

“Give it back to me later, then,” I said. “I’d rather you not die from my stupid ideas.”

Foxlin stared at me as he pulled it on. “That’s it, isn’t it. All this balance stuff. Fighting on the walls last week, fighting on the boats this week. You think you might have to fight on dragonback one day?”

“It’s best to be ready for anything.”

“But we have all the dragons. Your father saw to that, and his before him.”

I shook my head. “Not all of them.”

“Amune is a myth, Skirmtold doesn’t leave Skinreach, and no one has seen Vellintris in a span or more.”

“Still, there is value in knowing how to fight every battle, whether it happens or not.”

Foxlin groaned, coughing up some more water. “Tell that to my guts when this canal soup makes its home there tomorrow.”

Incoming.

The voice inside my head made me swivel to see someone approaching at speed. One of my father’s messenger boys.

I replied to Chaethor in my mind.One of these days, I’ll sense them before you do.