Page 85 of To Touch A Silent Fury

My boots moved before my head had caught up, moving from the bouncing wood to the claws of deep mud. I pulled my feet across the terrain, my hands shaking as I reached Chaethor’s side.

I looked up at her huge eye, and she stared back down at me with an expression I could not name. I nodded to her, as I had to Vellintris. Then she shifted, lowering her wing. The wing of a murderer of nobles, the mount of my enemy.

I reached up with gloved hands that shielded me from her probable ire. I pulled myself up by my arms, my legs not in a fit state to flex that high, and fell gracelessly over the joint of her wing, twisting my body so I didn’t land on the baby attached to my front. My breath huffed out inelegantly as my hands scrambled for purchase.

Then, I was weightless. Langnathin grabbed me by my coat, like some drowning kitten, and pulled me up until I was across his lap, staring up at the sky. I shook my head, dazed, and then quickly pushed myself up to a seated position, settling before him in the saddle.

My cheeks blazed, my leg throbbed, and at my chest, my warming pile of tiny wings and retracted claws stirred. None of my flesh had touched the dragon beneath me, though, and as such I didn’t have to suffer Chaethor’s likely glee at my sprawling climb.

“Are you ready?” Langnathin asked, his arms tightening as he reached around my body to hold onto the saddle’s handle.

I sucked in a breath as his voice tickled my ear. I, too, grabbed the handle, my covered hands inside of his. In front, Chaethor stretched, her neck rearing back, and then she huffed close to the ground. I tipped forwards with her movement, and steadied myself, pressing more firmly back against the Dragon Prince.

“I think so,” I said.

Chaethor let out a screech and planted her wings firmly down. Then she pushed off, and all of my breath escaped my lungs in one moment as she threw herself into the air, beating her wings furiously.

The light of dawn cracked behind us as we soared up past the tree line and into the sky.

Scared. Go?

I pulled one hand from its clawing grip on the saddle and reached into my coat. Despite the frigid wind streaming past us, this was something he needed to see. I opened the top of it.Feel this.

He wriggled against my chest, nudging the moonstone out of the way, and poked his head out of the opening.Air.

Your first flight, little one.

He tasted the air, the wind, the day, opening his small mouth to it. Then he buried himself back into the warmth of my coat. I closed it back up with a smile.

Then I turned my eyes to the horizon. Below us, I could already see the edge of the forest in the far distance. Beyond it,the Flourine Mountains. Manniston would be next, and then, Droundhaven.

I was flying towards my Fate, whether I liked it or not. And flying right along with me was the man I had to force to marry me somehow.

It was unfathomable, all of it. And yet, soaring on dragonback, it all felt possible.

23

Tani

The brightness of the noon sun hit against the golden tower that marked the city as one of Edrin’s, with its curling spire, and the marble city sprawled beneath us, snaked with deep azure canals and shadowed paths under tiny bridges. The skies were far warmer here, and we shared the wind with wyverns in every shade of yellow and green, cawing and playing in the near cloudless blue.

This was a city welcoming the first day of Tanmer. Excitement and curiosity swelled in my chest as we began our spiralling descent. This was all I had wanted: the freedom to travel, see new places. Experience culture, fashion, and music. Even now I heard the music of the city, the yells and laughs and bells below. After years surrounded by trees, it was hard not to be overwhelmed by it.

The sun bounced off Chaethor’s ruby scales; they looked a touch darker than they had back on Eavenfold. The sun casts its glittering embrace on the sea at the edge of the city, and Ifound myself narrowing my eyes into the edges of its horizon, searching for signs of distant cliffs. But Eavenfold was hidden, as it ever was, by the rain and fog of Stormnoon.

A carved, circular mosaic roof awaited our landing, its tiles forming the pattern of the Sightlands’ banner, a gold wing against a blood-red background. Already I could see the dots of several heads around the outside of it. Courtiers awaiting the prince’s arrival, I guessed.

From the roof, a narrow path led to a small semicircle, a high balcony of the castle. A man stepped out, pitching his head back as Chaethor spread her wings wide to slow us, and we fell with the catching wind, landing softly on the mosaic.

As soon as Chaethor landed, I felt the true warmth of the day as it basked down upon the top of my head. I shuddered at it, the heat reminding me of my true home, the Touchlands. I hadn’t felt it in so many years, and I wanted nothing more than to curl into it until the sunset caught up to us.

But Langnathin distracted me by tensing around me. “I’m sorry for that.”

I looked over my shoulder, my mouth parted in confusion. He stared away from me, at the far edge of the roof, his lips pressed together. Then he leaned back and jumped down from Chaethor, unfastening his coat as soon as he landed.

Sorry for what, I wondered. Following the path of his gaze, I froze as my stomach rolled.

Heads. The same heads I had seen from above and assumed to be a waiting group of courtiers. No. They were just heads. My gaze caught on one, the man’s eyes still open as flies rested on his lips, nose, and brow. Fresh blood oozed down the wooden spike, and from the rivers of it in the gutter, each of the dozen men must have died very recently.