Page 12 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

Lang

W hat are you going to do about her?

We were flying over the port of Verdusk when Chae asked the very question rolling in my mind.

It was a dreary place made for utility more than beauty, with a squall of seabirds circling the returning fishing boats and clustered thatched roofs spilling towards the bustling docks.

The fog from Stormnoon’s tempest swamped the whole of it in a constant depressing mist.

I don’t know , I responded in my mind, as the cold wind whipped against my cheeks.

I hadn’t been to the port on foot in many years, and a small part of me—the hungry part—was tempted to drop down for a bite of something fresh for breakfast. But as we passed, the air hung with acrid smoke, salt, and fish, and I lost my appetite.

You know what your father will say.

Yes, I replied. She’s too dangerous.

Pretty, though .

I groaned, and Chaethor chuckled in my head. Sometimes I hated how easily she read every part of me.

I think you get it from me. Your appreciation of beautiful things.

I am of the Sightlands. I think you got it from me , I replied.

Perhaps.

She didn’t ask me again, but I could feel her probing curiosity in my mind. I knew she wouldn’t judge my actions. Everything we thought swirled together anyway, and it was hard to distinguish one of our choices from the other. Whatever conclusion I came to, she would come to the same one.

People used to believe the Moontouch was a curse. Even now, I heard that some folk still thought the Moontouch was a punishment for Hain’s betrayal of the Five. For this reason, or simply for their differences, the afflicted were usually killed by their village before their first span was out.

Those that lived in places like the Cloven or the Touchlands, where the superstitions were different, were rumored to have unnatural abilities.

They were seen as an intentional choice of some greater deity and therefore not put to the blade or drowned like a runt.

However, even in those kingdoms, they were still not welcomed.

But then a royal Moontouched was born in the Sightlands: Stormnoon.

The younger brother of Braxthorn’s grandfather, and my great-grandfather, King Praevontil the Kind.

When the king came into his majority, he made Stormnoon his advisor.

They were close, and the choice was built on fraternal trust, but more than that, it thrust a Moontouched young man into the retinue of a king.

It was a public declaration that not only had this Moontouched been allowed to live, he lived in wealth and privilege, and now attended a leader of men.

It, too, helped that Stormnoon could do something no one else could.

He saw things days before they happened.

Visions, much like the shepherd Edrin was rumoured to have.

The victories he brought for Praevontil helped ease the perception of the Moontouched from a curse to a potential tool. In the Triad, at least.

What if the victor rejects her hand? That would prevent you from having to take any… more unsavoury action.

“You suggest we wait until the Games conclude.” I mused out loud since the wind had dropped enough for her to hear me. “And then instruct the winner not to marry her? On what grounds?”

If dragons could shrug, she would have. Whatever we concoct. Impurity, some disturbance of her mind, something of her parentage.

I realised then I knew nothing of the girl’s parentage anyway, beyond the awareness they were from the Touchlands. Were they alive or dead? Had they taken the money from the Brotherhood gratefully, or with the awareness there was no other real choice?

It is risky, I thought. What if her intended sees through the machination and marries her anyway? Once she is wed, she may have the power to turn hearts against my father. To turn love to hate, servitude to bitterness.

Chaethor rumbled, thinking aloud what had been swirling in my head already. Then you must tell the king, and she must face what comes to her.

At his fourth span, Stormnoon began to see the same thing over and over.

A finely decorated and gilded shield. Over the course of several years, he used the visions to track it.

He eventually found it buried in a cellar somewhere in the marshes of Manniston.

Courvin’s famous golden round. He touched it, and he changed.

A Fated Mark of swirling ripples formed at the edges of his face, and his visions grew into something far more potent.

He was the first recorded Marked Moontouched .

With such an asset at his side, Praevontil the Kind created the Brotherhood.

Though, it didn’t help the festering superstitions when he squirrelled them all on a faraway island only just rid of its last Nox patient.

Since then, children had been identified across the five lands, taken from their homes in return for a healthy stipend to their often all-too-relieved families, then Fated and bartered.

In the generations since, the Brotherhood of the Moontouched had become one of the Sightlands' most treasured exports.

I’d never really given them much thought before these last few days.

I’d believed the Brothers solemn and creepy, with little to lend.

But Tanidwen, while uniquely captivating, held a power that couldn’t be trusted to any court.

If she was a Sightlander herself, that might be something, but she had no allegiance to us.

I sighed. It is a shame, though, to kill an innocent.

Chaethor tutted, and I felt the echoes of my father’s teachings in her voice. What is one life in the face of a nation? She is from the Touchlands. They do not share our beliefs, our readings, our way of life. They do not see as we do.

There was nothing for it. She was an unknown entity, operating under unknowable prejudices. Then it must be done.

We must Break her Fate.

And there was only one true way to guarantee that outcome. I leaned down closer to Chaethor, rubbing her neck. “At least we got a nice trip out of it.”

Chaethor purred. Let us hope he sends us onwards. I like the feel of the wind under my wings.

I hummed in agreement. Though I am looking forward to food with some flavour. The Soundlands and the Brotherhood do not trade with Taste enough, and it shows.

You are so spoiled.

Rich, coming from you. I saw the way you looked at your own dinner last night.

Chaethor grumbled. Whoever started the rumour that dragons enjoy mutton ought to be burnt alive.

Despite the lighter conversation and the promise of a full belly and a soft bed, I felt our combined guilt as the tailwind pushed us closer to home. My father would only know by our grace. Her life was in our hands, and what happened next was on our shoulders, whoever’s fingers grasped the hilt.

I had killed before. Only twice, but I had done it. This, however, was not so much a killing, but a sacrifice for the safety of a kingdom. The girl had made no threats, spoken no unkindness. And yet, she would likely die for the threat in her very blood.

What she had been able to read from just one touch of my hand alarmed me. No matter what happened when her Fate was met, this was something which could not be allowed to grow. To read that at a distance, or to change one’s feelings.

I had told the Threads that day that I did not fear the girl. I wondered if she had any idea how much that had changed.