Page 86 of To Touch A Silent Fury

I focused back on Chaethor as the heat all of a sudden made me feel nauseous. It was tradition, I reassured myself. This was alofty roof in a place that worshipped the Five; it was only natural that the dead would be positioned as high as possible. But just as the scaffolding of Eavenfold had left a bad taste in my mouth, so too did this.

I hooked my good leg over, ready to drop down to her wing, as the man from the balcony reached the roof’s circle. From the renewed pain and the darkened patch of dried blood across my thigh, I must have reopened the arrow wound during today’s flight, but that was a problem for later, when I wasn’t surrounded by decapitated heads.

Langnathin stood beside Chaethor’s face, his hand on her nose, watching the man’s approach.

His thick brown hair instantly gave away his youth and made me discount my theory that it could be Braxthorn. He was also built like a house: a similar height to Langnathin and yet twice the width. He wore a fine red doublet which didn’t suit him, and his arms protested against the fabric of his pale shirt. A narrow scar lined his wide jaw, and his nose looked like the work of too many brawls.

“Brother,” he called. “Welcome home.”

So this was the Wragg. Langnathin’s older brother. By all reports, a strong fighter but a weak thinker. I understood the nickname more now. The Wragg, the thick wall which historically separated the Scentlands from the Tastelands. Long destroyed now since the two nations found peace, but parts of the Embergrin Pass still tracked through its rubble.

If any man was to be named after a wall, Langnathin’s brother was an apt choice. I realised then that I had completely forgotten the man’s true name.

Langnathin’s answer was icy. “Thank you, brother. I see you went to the effort of preparing a welcoming party.”

The Wragg laughed. “Yes, I thought you would be relieved. Spared from killing your deserters yourself.”

“How kind,” the Dragon Prince replied. “Your handiwork?”

“Of course. As father has always told us. A king’s word and his sword should be the same thing.”

“As one,” I whispered, before pinning my lips together.

Langnathin looked back. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

It was a scholar’s correction, and certainly not a Soundlander’s. A pedantic one learnt through too much pedagogical insistence on quoting something exactly, or not at all. I was only fortunate they had barely heard my murmur.

A king’s word and his sword should be as one.They weren’t Braxthorn’s words. They were Norgallin’s, his brutish father. If that was who the men here wished to emulate, I did not think them likely to welcome me.

The Wragg’s eyes slid to Chaethor, and then caught on me. “What have you brought us?”

Langnathin barely gave me a customary look. “Something to discuss with our father.” He turned back to the heads. “Maybe sharpen the blade next time.”

“It was sharp the first time.”

The glee in the comment rolled my stomach.

I slid down to the joint of Chaethor’s wing, managing it with more grace than my ascent, despite my wobbling legs. He’d been right about dragonback; even with the well-crafted saddle, it was a punishing ride, and I was aching in muscles I didn’t know existed. It was saying something that the pain rippling through my thighs and lower back was far worse right now than the pain from the recent injury that could have shattered half my leg. Chaethor yawned and lowered herself closer to the rooftop, and I hopped down, proud of myself for keeping my footing even as I grimaced from the landing.

My arm went to cradle the sleeping child at my front, checking he was still in place. Then I looked at the Wragg. He staredat me, openly, chewing on something. From the ground, he looked even more intimidating, the size of a barn door.

He had caught my movement, and his eyes scanned my front with delight. Then he hit Langnathin on the chest. “You’re a sly dog, brother. You knocked up a Soundlander?”

I flinched as my cheeks immediately flushed.

The Wragg threw his head back in a raucous laugh. Was he drunk? I studied his movements, the strange lurching of them, and I couldn’t quite tell. “How did you get one to sleep with you? Was she a prisoner? I thought all their lot hated us.”

I bristled, ready to spit at the man, but Langnathin glanced back. The gesture looked casual and unaffected, but I saw the warning in his red look.

“She is not pregnant,” Langnathin drawled. “Trust me, my standards have not fallen so distinctly that I would bastard a child with one oftheirrank.”

I blinked, his words finding a target I didn’t believe existed. The blatant disinterest, coupled with the lack of respect, burned my insides. If that was how he wanted to play this, I would have next to no chance of convincing his father I was worthy of him.

The Wragg laughed again, though it lacked the same enthusiasm. “Why’s she here, then?”

“She has something Braxthorn will be interested in,” he replied. “I mean to present her to him tomorrow.”