Page 9 of To Touch A Silent Fury

“Just seen?” I asked, giving no indication of Chae’s comment.

There was very little written on dragon bonding, and even less on the rarity of our mindspeak. I knew of only two fulltexts in our libraries, and when it got to the nature of the bond and how it manifested in humans, the details were hazy and often contradictory. It was said in Ilfwarren’s dated tome that a bonded man ‘could communicate with his beast as he could his wife’, with ‘secret intentions conveyed without outward conversation’. It wasn’t an analogy I could relate to, being neither married nor prone to referring to Chae asmyanything—mostly because she would fucking kill me—but it served as an indication that we were not alone in our connection.

If my father shared the same mindspeak with Kallamont, he had never told me. And in keeping with his image of me as a terrible son, I didn’t elucidate on the details of my connection with Chae either.

Millisen cleared his throat. “For now.”

I nodded. “Fine.”

“And then you’re to go to Eavenfold,” my father said.

Chaethor grumbled.Nox-bitten, cursed, and cold.

“The Brotherhood?” I asked with a sour grimace. “Why?”

“We are their patrons.”

“You fund their meagre existence in return for their most useful crop. They are livestock.” I glanced at Millisen. “No offence.”

Braxthorn gave me the look of no return. “You’re my heir, and you’ve never visited the island.”

Because it’s creepy, I wanted to say.

Chaethor rumbled in agreement. I could tell she was nervous about being so close to Skinreach, so close to Skirmtold. She hadn’t met her father, and she wasn’t keen to know how he would respond to her. Dragons had a habit of treating each other as threats, especially where human bonds were involved. Besides, everyone knew Eavenfold was a former Nox colony.

“Maybe you should have chosen a different heir,” I said.

“You don’t get that card,” he responded. “You named yourself heir when you stole Chaethor’s egg. You are the Dragon Prince by your own design, and you will go to Eavenfold. Find out when the Threads expect she will nest. I want you there by the next Fate Ceremony on the first of Ergreen.”

“They have five of those crusty ceremonies each year, what does it matter that I see this one?”

“The next Fate Ceremony is for a girl.”

“A girl?” I repeated. “In the Brotherhood? How did that happen?”

“Another thing I still don’t know,” Braxthorn said, and I could tell how much that bothered him. “But in my experience, change can only be a bad thing.”

Despite it all, I was glad of the assignment. It would give Chaethor a chance to fly. We rarely got to soar beyond the edges of the Sightlands, and her excitement was contagious. And the news of the dragon egg was unexpected, nearly unheard of in its rarity. There hadn’t been another born since Chae seventeen years ago.

Eavenfold would be boring, of course, filled with stern strangers in grey as drab as their lives. Servants, bought to advise. It was no coincidence that those with the most promise were taken by the Sightlands. I wondered if those in its crumbling stone walls knew they were just as unwanted as the Nox patients before them. But I only had to be there for a single day. How much of a threat could one girl really be?

3

Tani

“Are you still reading those papers?” Seth asked. “You already know them backwards.”

In this nook of the East Wing’s library, daylight was a foreign concept. Here, there was only musty paper, spilled ink pots, and the flickering light of cobwebbed tallow candles. Three walls of bookshelves hemmed me in, the desk barely wider than my knees.

“Pot, kettle, Seth,” I said, rubbing my thumbs over my temples and turning to him. His shadow was enough to turn the light from poor to unworkable, and I welcomed the break.

“They aren’t going to ask you anything you don’t already know.”

“And what if they do?”

“Then you get all the answers wrong and end up in Service,”he replied.

“And get stuck here for a span or two? No, thank you,” I said. Then I realised what I had said and looked at him with contrition. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”