Page 61 of To Touch A Silent Fury

“I know.” Once more, I sighed. It seemed a habit at this point, the large exhalation of dismal hopes and fraying nerves. It had been a long fucking span. “They found the silver mine.”

“Took them long enough. You still want to leave it?”

“I’m sure as Mephluan’s grace not sending a squad of men laden with their silver all the way from here to the border.”

“What will Braxthorn think of it?”

My father. It always came back to him. But he was my problem to deal with. “We’re nearly done here. Silver is nothing compared to the value of a dragon.” I clapped my hand on his shoulder. “Come now, let’s return home.”

“That place isn’t my home,” Foxlin said, but he turned into the dark nonetheless.

I swivelled on my heel, and froze.

I saw it again.

A flash in the darkness, lit by the fire at my back. Bright, and then gone just as quickly. I blinked rapidly, staring at the tree line.

I knew rationally that it must have been some creature, one which had fled upon our movement. It was the same thing I told myself last time, the same thing I struggled to believe now.

“And once you are back, your father will have lined up every eligible lady in the Triad for your hand,” Foxlin said, already steps ahead.

“Don’t remind me,” I murmured, but my mind was elsewhere, staring off into the trees.

“You cannot tell me you would rather be out here?” he replied, looking over his shoulder.

I made no reply, wandering aimlessly after him.

“Stop!” Foxlin yelled.

The noise was so huge in the silence of the forest that I stopped dead, my heart pounding. Before me was a patch of moss. Unnatural in its thickness, with no obvious hold. Displaced.

A trap. Not even one of their more sophisticated ones. I’d nearly walked straight into it.

I knelt down at its edge, and Foxlin called back to the men at the fire for assistance. Carefully, I pushed the moss away, revealing a cross-hatch of vines covering a hole filled with spikes.

I looked up at Foxlin. “Thank you, my friend.”

He looked back with pure incredulity. “You’re a trained Sightlander, with dragon eyes besides. You’ve never missed a trap.”

An owl hooted above us as I stood and brushed wet leaves off my knees. “First time for everything.”

Foxlin shook his head. “Keep your secret if you must, but you look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

I hummed, but I kept my eyes focused as we returned to camp. Part of me wanted to keep looking, trying to find them again.

That pair of perfectly white eyes.

But maybe Foxlin was right, and she was nothing more than a ghost.

16

Tani

Istood some distance from the squat stone towers, hoping I’d finally found my answer.

I was underfed, too consumed by the hunt to have any patience for foraging or fishing, and overtired, my nights spent listening for heavy wings in the sky.

The Euphons had set fires across Gossamir since Ergreen began. The tribes must have come together to organise it, because the plumes stretched to the very edges of Gossamir, some a full day and night’s hike from the very midst of it where my pit lay. Nothing like the hatred of the Dragon Prince to bring the forest’s tribes to a mutual understanding.