Page 83 of To Touch A Silent Fury

He shifted his weight, studying me back. “What do you mean?”

“What else does the bond do?”

Langnathin thought for a moment. “Your vision will be improved, as you might have noticed already. Your reflexes may be sharper, though I think that happened later, when Chaethor was older.”

I nodded, drinking this information down. There was so little I knew about dragons, so much to be aware of. “What else?”

He watched me intently, until our eye contact made me uncomfortable. I kept worrying he might see past my eyes and work out who I was behind it. The shadow of the girl he’d once Broken. But he had not indicated any true recognition.

His gaze dropped first, just as my cheeks heated from the strength of it. “Yours is a sapphire dragon. I am sure there are things which are… unique to your connection.”

I blinked. “Kallamont is a sapphire. What does your father experience?”

He smiled, but it was not one of joy. “You would have to ask him that yourself.”

“Can you hear Chaethor?” I asked. “Inside your head?”

Langnathin froze, and then stared at the lightening sky. “It is not something we talk about.”

“Why not?”

“It is not something most riders share,” he said, cutting his eyes to me. “It is a rare aspect of dragon bonding, the mindspeak.”

“But you have it?”

He folded his arms and flicked his head in my direction. “Have you heard him?”

I shrugged. “It’s not something I can talk about.”

A hint of a smile touched the corner of his mouth. Then he frowned, stepping past me along the walkway.

I reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “What was that look?”

He turned, staring down at my gloved hand. I removed it quickly.

His lip curled into something angry, then he just rolled his eyes. “It is uncommon for you to be able to speak to him at this age.”

Langnathin started to stride away from me again, and I walked alongside him, my legs moving faster to keep up with him.

My injury burned, but my curiosity burned harder. “Why, because it did not happen to you?”

The prince stopped, turning to look down at me imperiously. His face was far closer than before, and his breath warmed my cheeks before curling like smoke into the cold morning. “You are about to enter a king’s court, Vorska. You will have to learn to treat royalty with respect.”

I took a step back from him, embarrassment curling my toes in my boots. I remembered a similar chastisement back on Eavenfold, and I could only hope his mind did not make the sameconnection. His jaw flexed as his previous words flooded over me.You’re supposed to call me ‘Your Grace’.

I ducked my head. “I apologise, Your Grace.”

His eyes widened, and I turned from him, resuming my stretching. The sun would soon be up, and my body felt far from ready for a dragonflight. If there was something he had come to achieve, I should not interrupt it.

My final set of lunges was deeper, followed by balancing on one foot. Throughout, I tried to ignore that Langnathin had made no movement. He was as still as the waiting day, held back by the last vestiges of night.

Eventually, he sighed. “I know you see me as a cacof. But if you speak to my father with such impertinence, he will cast you out. If you’re lucky, your head will still be on your shoulders when he throws you from the walls.”

I shuddered at the visual, but found myself prickling at his preaching tone nonetheless. “I will restrain my impertinence to our late night conversations, then, Your Grace.”

A brief silence descended as the cool wind of the night flowed past me.

His voice was strained when he eventually replied. “Wise.”