Page 1 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

Tani

T he shadow of Skirmtold passed overhead as the Threads recruited Harum for the ugliest Fate of all.

The three hastily erected pillars made sense now, but I refused to look up at the dark wings of the dragon, nor behind at the wooden scaffolding towering high into the sky.

I couldn’t look away from Harum, a young man exactly fifty days older than me, and risk losing him in the sea of grey.

There was no doubt in my mind that I would be high on his hunting list.

Domin’s frost still clung to the dirt along the stone wall, a bleak backdrop for the wooden stage.

The Five Threads stood behind Harum as he kneeled with his head pitched down.

Thread Groulin touched Harum’s shoulder, and he flicked his head up, white eyes shining against warm skin almost as tanned as mine. “Rise.”

Seth squeezed my hand, and I didn’t need to look at him to feel his agitation. He wanted us to leave the courtyard while everyone was still reacting to Harum’s Fate. His fear matched mine, and it was far from reassuring to know we’d both reached the same conclusion about Harum’s top target.

I pulled my hood an inch lower and squeezed Seth’s hand back in silent acceptance. In the cold twilight, we weaved through the crowd of Brothers, mostly unbound youths whispering in excited breaths, too young to believe themselves under threat.

Thread Isillim should never have granted Harum a Death Fate. It was exactly what he wanted, and we all knew it. Three deaths at his hands and his Fated condition would be met: his powers fully unlocked. It was far too easy.

But at least if I kept my head down and my features hidden, I had a fair chance of hiding in plain sight.

If an angry Founder plucked every colour from the world, leaving behind nothing but scales of grey, the Brotherhood would be the last to know. This evening, as the sunset hid behind the overcast sky, nothing saved us from the monotony of drab cloaks and white hair.

The frigid square we crossed in the centre of the Eavenfold fortress offered only a hint more colour, with a few lifeless sprouts of yellowing green clinging in the gaps between the wet stone slabs and four weathered ruby banners, darkened and dripping from the afternoon’s rain.

The four wings of the fortress hemmed us in like stony jailors, three intact and one partially destroyed, offering a vista out to the cold moors beyond.

Seth led us through the large doors into the Eastern Hall, where a pair of decidedly less damp ruby banners hung over a central dark wooden staircase. Fresh tallow melted in the sconces, a brazier burned in a small fireplace, and the floor bore the slim weight of a few threadbare rugs.

With the Brothers distracted outside, we were blessedly alone in the entrance hall. I finally looked up at Seth, his shoulders inches above mine, as the doors creaked shut behind us. “Why did it have to be Death?”

Seth turned back, his face warmed by the dim lights of the candles.

Despite the golden glow, his skin was still as pale as most who hailed from the Sightlands.

He had a wide jaw, kind eyes, and faintly pink cheeks the same colour as his thick lips, now curved down in a grimace.

With my tanned Touchlands skin, it was only our mutual colourless hair and eyes that tied us to any linked order.

“I can think of two reasons the Threads would have granted it.”

Raised voices blocked the obvious follow up question, and I grabbed Seth’s arm, shooting him a warning look as we fell back into silence.

The voices came from our left; a couple of boys must have entered the Eastern passageway. As quietly as I could manage, I tiptoed to the door and laid my hand against it. I pressed an ear to the crack as a light draft slipped through and cooled my cheek.

“Has he decided on his three?” The boy’s voice was loud and high, and I didn’t recognise it.

Seth touched my back as he leaned over me, also listening in at the door. I fought the urge to elbow him.

Another boy laughed. “I don’t think he cares much. He’ll slaughter the first three people in his way and get himself off this forsaken island for good.”

The first, and younger, spoke again. “What about the girl?”

I stiffened at the question. Most boys lost their childish voices by their third span, at fifteen years of age, so I guessed this kid to be somewhere between eleven and thirteen. Young enough to be new here. Young enough to know me by rumour alone.

I knew they were speaking about me. It wasn’t a hard deduction to make; for the last eight years, I had been the only woman on the entire Eavenfold island .

“If he finds her before the ferry comes at dawn, she’ll get what she deserves.”

“He’ll kill them all tonight, then?”

The older boy scoffed. “Would you spend another week here? Waiting for the next boat? He’s posted as a taster in Barrow’s Rest. There’s no way I’d drag it out.”

“We could find the ghost for him.”

“No way. Even if we grab her, he might kill us for an easy three. I’m staying out of it. He’ll have his friends after her as it is.”

The younger boy sighed. “Fine, but let’s stay near the courtyard. I want to see the bodies being hoisted.”

The footsteps moved towards us.

I looked at Seth in alarm, and he reached his hand out.

I took it without question, and we ran across the hall and into an empty corridor housing a lonesome and outdated portrait.

King Braxthorn, the ruler of the Sightlands and owner of the red banners adorning our haunted halls. “Where should we go?”

“You can hide in my room,” Seth said, and through our touch I felt his resolve. He had already started pulling us in the direction of the North Wing, where the Threads and bound Brothers had their quarters.

“No,” I replied, pulling him to a stop. “They know we’re friends. It’s one of the first places they’ll look.”

“Where, then?”

I took the lead, waving him after me as I broke into a jog. “Sollie’s room.”

Seth groaned. “Anywhere but there, please.”

“That’s exactly why we should go. Everyone hates it there.”

“Because it’s haunted,” he said.

“You’re what, a whole span older than me? How can you still believe that?” I asked, throwing him a look over my shoulder .

“Why do you always add a year?” He breathed out with such exasperation that it made me smile.

We made an odd pair.

Seth was nearing twenty-five, the favoured fifth span, and was a man of great prospects.

Raised in the Drowned Villages north of the Sightlands capital of Droundhaven, the mere location of his birth already made him more valuable than me.

He was also one of the rare people on this island who had remained after reaching his fourth span.

His Fate would bind him to these shores until he fulfilled eight long years of service.

On the other hand, I was, by all accounts, cursed. Born on the first midnight of Ergreen nearly twenty years ago, with no prospects to speak of and raised in a land everyone here discarded as primitive, I hoped beyond hope for a Fate that would take me far away from these grey walls.

I darted around a corner, relieved to find our next stretch as empty as the last. Seth lagged a couple of steps behind.

“Don’t tell me you’re out of breath already,” I said.

“I serve Thread Groulin,” he replied, catching his breath every two words. “He’s all but become one of his fossils, bent over the same desk for most of his life.”

“And you’re bound to the same sedentary existence?”

“Should I follow your example? I’m surprised the wind hasn’t carried you off the cliffs yet.”

I didn’t reply, hesitant to admit how close he was to the truth.

Just that morning the winds at the north tip of the island had been so bad, I’d nearly tumbled to the rocks below.

I usually roamed the western edge, further from the wrath of the whipping Stormnoon, but I wanted to see the ferry arrive from Verdusk, the Sightlands’ southernmost port.

There was something freeing about it, to see the weekly supplies arrive from the mainland, to see sails pull through the near constant fog.

It meant that something existed beyond this island’s reach.

I never went down to the pier, though, no matter how often I watched from the cliff head. To them, we were all freaks. Infants born in the depths of night with moon-bright hair and unnatural abilities tied to our birthlands.

They had no magic, and they hated us for ours.

Out there, a person could hone a particular sense.

The Scentlanders had their morning olfactory rituals, and Seth’s own eyes had been cloaked as a child to teach him an awareness of total darkness.

And, no doubt, the richer you were the better your access to good teachers, at least in the Triad.

But that was all they had: practices founded in hazy medicine and steeped in tradition.

We were something else.

And if we were all freaks to them , then I was doubly cursed, to be an aberration here, too.

The only woman in a society of men. If I had been born a man, then at least I might have found solace in these cold halls, but instead I was more alone than anyone.

My parents believed they were doing me a kindness by letting the Brothers take me to where I might belong and find my Fated path.

Instead, I yearned for that small hut in the hills by Torquan.

I missed its heat, but mostly I missed their unconditional love.

I would find them again as soon as I was freed from this drafty mausoleum.

When we’d reached the far edge of the wing, I dropped Seth’s hand and held my finger to my lips. Then I opened the door with more care than I ever had, seeing the low-walled courtyard separating us from the end of the ruined West Wing.