Page 11 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

Tani

T he fog of dawn was thicker than usual, hugging the cliffs above and swirling so near that I could only see the closest edge of the steep path down to the mossy jetty. Though, no matter how thick the fog was, it did not obscure the emptiness. There was no one here. Not one single person had come.

“It is time.” Thread Ersimmon touched my shoulder, and I flinched, ducking away from his grip.

“Not yet,” I said. “I need to say goodbye.”

Seth hadn’t come. I’d arrived at the docks shortly before the boat was due to leave, and it was customary for any friends to wave off the departing. But he wasn’t here.

“There’s nothing here but the island itself,” Thread Ersimmon said, unhelpfully. “Come, you’ll catch your death.”

“Death and marriage, my inescapable Fates,” I muttered, still staring at the pathway, hoping Seth would come running into view. He must have somehow forgotten, or overslept .

“There’ll be time enough for pitiful lamentation when we’re on the boat. The Games are in ten days. We’re cutting it close to the bone as it is.”

“I care not.”

“You’d rather be Broken, then.”

“No,” I said, finally turning to him, my ire spilling out. “I know my Fate, and I will unlock my power. But there was nothing said about meeting the groom before he wins.”

Thread Ersimmon raised an eyebrow. “You’d prefer to stay on this island another week?”

He had me there, and he knew it. I didn’t want to be here even a second longer, and I’d made no secret of it. I could imagine the torment the boys would put me through if I remained another week. The jokes they’d make, the snide comments about my slim hopes of ever trapping a man.

I had to go, but I hadn’t seen Seth since before the announcement. What if I never saw him again? And then the thought occurred to me. Was he choosing to stay away? Maybe my Marriage Fate had changed his opinion of me.

I groaned. “Just a few moments longer, please.”

Men scurried around the boat, loading the last of the empty pallets onto it. All this week’s produce had long been carried away. A horn sounded, and once more Thread Ersimmon touched my shoulder.

Someone approached from behind me. The captain had already nudged us once, and I knew now my time for waiting was up.

“Who are you waiting for?”

That wasn’t the captain’s voice.

I whipped around, startling the Thread. “Seth?”

And there he was. Pale Seth, with his white hair falling in his eyes. He smiled down at me, cautiously, already standing on the boat. I crossed the gangplank in two strides and leapt at him, throwing my arms around his shoulders. He caught me with a muffled laugh.

“On my blood, Seth,” I said into his neck, so relieved I hadn’t missed him. Then I pulled away from him, and my feet touched back to the planks below. “Why are you on board?”

Someone rang a bell, and a sailor pulled the matted rope from around the post.

Seth paused, his face contorted. He was just as bundled up as I was, ready for the journey with gloves and a thick overcloak, and I couldn’t discern anything beyond what was written on his face. Thankfully, I had a lot of experience with his face. He was avoiding something.

The Thread cleared his throat, and I turned to look at him. “He was invited to attend the Games.”

I looked back at Seth in shock and delight. I couldn’t believe my luck. I wouldn't be alone? “That’s wonderful. Who invited you?”

He didn’t match my expression. Instead, he looked a little green. The boat hadn’t even moved from the dock yet. “The Dragon Prince, by proxy.”

“The Dragon Prince?” I echoed, offering him a hesitant smile. “Moving up in the world, are you?”

Again, the nausea on his face. “Not quite.”

I blinked, folding my arms. “I don’t understand.”

Seth glanced at Thread Ersimmon, and then back to me. “He’s my cousin.”

The ship lurched away from the dock and my balance slipped. Seth reached for my arm, but I moved away, stepping to the side and holding the wooden rail.

The wind rattled above me, but I felt breathless nonetheless. “What?”

Seth sighed. “The Dragon Prince is my cousin. The invite came from my mother, Princess Derynallis. ”

That did nothing to help it make any more sense.

He’d grown up the son of a nobody, and he hated the Sightlands.

That’s what he’d said. Always. I stared at him.

How had I known him so long and not ever really known him?

I thought my power was supposed to help me with that, to see through to the truth of people and their intentions.

But he’d managed to lie to me for years. “You’re King Braxthorn’s nephew ?”

A sailor barged through us. “All passengers to the cabins,” he yelled. “No time for dawdlers on the deck.”

I only stared at Seth, trying to understand why he’d lied.

He grimaced. “Come on, let’s talk about this inside.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

His grimace deepened. “I didn’t want you to treat me differently.”

“Differently?” I scoffed. “You’ve made me a fool. You’re a noble, a man of royal courts. You said you were no one, some boy from the Drowned Villages.”

“He lied,” Thread Ersimmon injected, and I jumped, forgetting the older man was standing right behind me. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go lean over the side until this forsaken sea is behind us.”

The Thread stepped shakily past us, holding onto the side of the boat with a white grip, looking several degrees more ill than he had a couple of minutes ago.

I just stared at Seth.

“It doesn’t change anything,” he said. “I’m still the same.”

“Before you were brought to the island, where did you live?”

He grimaced. “In the palace in Droundhaven.”

I shook my head. Betrayal and confusion met like thunder and lightning, one and then the other. “Why did you think I’d treat you differently?”

Seth’s lip curled. “Because everyone has, my entire life. My mother wasn’t best pleased when she found out her only son was a Moontouched.

She cast me out when I was seven, wanting as little to do with me as possible.

But the Threads knew exactly who I was. They treated me better than the other boys, hoping my uncle might give them more gold for it.

The others noticed and hated me for it. But when you arrived around my third span, you had no idea. You were alone like me.”

He pulled off one of his gloves and held his hand out to me. I knew what he was offering by letting me read him. I took one off, too. The moment my hand touched his, I felt his sincerity.

“But why did you think I’d cast you out?”

“I wanted to tell you so many times,” he said. “I thought about doing it after my Fate Ceremony. But then I was bound to serve this place, and I couldn’t fathom the idea of you hating me for the rest of your stay. It was selfish, and I’m sorry.”

Turmoil and sadness flashed through our grip, but also eagerness and pleading. Affection, despair. I felt all of his emotions in that moment, and I found I could not resent him, not truly.

“I forgive you,” I said.

His eyes widened. “Tani.”

“But on one condition.”

Worry prickled his mind. “Anything.”

I smiled. “You must tell me everything about Droundhaven. Do not spare a single detail.”

Seth grinned, and he removed his hand from mine and pulled me into another hug.

I held him tight, and he pressed his face into my neck.

Once more I had that notion that there was something more to the moment, something too tender about our embrace, beyond what we’d ever discussed. But we both ignored it.

“You have a deal,” he said.

A sailor yelled at us again, and we broke apart, moving towards the cabin door across the deck .

We were a good distance from the jetty and the fog was already reclaiming the island.

I could only see its tip now, fading into the clouds.

Would I ever return to Eavenfold? I hoped the answer was no, but even the act of hoping made me uneasy.

The Threads had picked my Fate, and with any luck it was one that would never again lead me to its gale-battered shore.

A new noise met the whipping wind and the sea birds. A thumping of air. A sailor called out from the top level, pointing up.

I craned my head just as the cloud cover broke above us, and Seth grabbed onto my arm.

Chaethor soared through the air. Her arrow-straight neck widened into a ruby-scaled head and long snout. Her right eye stared down at us, and I felt the chill of her brown gaze. Her jaw opened, tasting the air as she flew across the grey morning.

She shook her head, the red scales catching in the dawn light.

Then she let out a roar, showing us her two rows of razor-sharp teeth.

We all flinched, but no fire followed it.

Instead, she dived down, wings tilting as she careened towards the water alongside us.

At the last moment, she pulled up, her four stout legs hanging down and arcing talons dragging across the frothing crests of the black waves.

Her wings billowed in the breeze, the light filtering through the red-stained parchment membrane between the darker finger-like ridges, and her tail tapered narrow before widening into a spiked bulb at the end.

She was as long as our boat, and with her wings splayed, she was far wider.

Atop her, sitting upon a fine leather saddle, was the Dragon Prince. Back in his riding trousers and covered from the hips up by a fur coat that must be worth a fortune, Langnathin rode without concern, only one hand on the saddle’s loop.

Around us, the sailors whooped and waved, their fear turning to joy the moment they recognised the rider and realised this wasn’t the dark nightmare of Skirmtold, but their own prince .

Seth and I did not wave, but we drew the prince’s red gaze regardless. He stared at us both, inclining his head. Then he spoke something lost to the wind, and Chaethor beat her wings, pulling them up and ahead. Within a few breaths, they were back in the clouds, her tail slipping from view.

Seth looked at me. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

I thought back, remembering everything. What I’d overheard about a weapon in a span’s time, about my own powers, and then my meeting with the prince.

How unexpected his line of questioning was—and his feelings.

Seth and I hadn’t even spoken about my Fate yet.

I’d barely had time to think about it myself.

“Yes, we do,” I agreed with a frown. “Everything is about to change.”

Seth grabbed my hand, and I felt his warmth. “Not everything.”