Page 27 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

Tani

T he falling snow clung to the strands of hair falling over my face. I brushed them away as I maintained my hold of the wolf’s paw. I pushed the chewed-up leaves into my cheek so I could breathe out. A cloud of breath escaped into the night sky as he whimpered.

“Hold still,” I whispered, gripping again. It was a nasty thorn, puncturing deep into the velvety pad of his huge paws. He was an adolescent, but you wouldn’t know that from the size of his feet. “It’ll only be another moment.”

Then, I pulled the spike out and, in the same movement, grabbed the leaves from my cheek, pressing them firmly onto the bottom of his paw. The wolf whimpered again, pulling against my hold and snapping his teeth at me.

I thought to flinch, and then something new tempered me. It was as if a word was spoken on the wind, or in my head, or through the trees. Hurts .

I shuddered, but I did not stop pressing the leaves against the trickling, bleeding wound.

An awareness came over me then, one both foreign and familiar: there was no true intention in his biting jaw.

How I knew that for sure, I could hardly say.

In that moment, I just felt it; knowing through my touch that he was reacting out of fear and pain and not a will to harm.

I had no awareness of his feelings beyond that, if he even had the depth to feel them the way I had learnt to read them.

If anything, it was akin to reading the expressions on a child’s face; I could discern a base layer of what an animal’s state was, for they don’t shield from it and know only the primary emotions of life.

It wasn’t the same as my power, for I had only read humans, and to read a human is to plunge into an underwater world of someone else’s making.

A wealth of experience informing all manner of choices.

This was like feeling a ripple on a muddy puddle. An echo of a hint.

I held him as hard as I could, knowing (not through my power but through my very human survival instincts) he was far stronger than me if he truly tried to be. If he wanted to be away, he would have been the moment I grabbed his limping leg.

“I know, I know,” I murmured. I’d let him go in a moment, as soon as at least some of the juice from the tappenlid weed had sunk in. It would help the healing, not that he cared. He only knew that I’d grabbed him and now he was hurting even more.

The wolf clawed his paws deep into the snowy ground and pulled once more. I had to plant a boot against a tree root to keep from sprawling forwards. My face burned red in the freezing night air, my cold hands gripping his foot as I counted down the seconds. Just a little longer.

As soon as I reached thirty seconds, I released the beast. He scampered off with another whimper, the patch of lighter fur on his right flank flashing before he disappeared into the thick, dark, ghostlike trees and out of sight.

I fell onto my backside, looping my arms over my knees as I stared out at where his tail had disappeared in perfect silence.

I felt sorry for him, of course. The cub was alone, and I didn’t understand why. There was a large roaming pack; I saw them or their trails each year, and yet, this cub wasn’t with them.

He was maybe a span of months old now, and seemed to keep a small hunting ground, one which included my small patch of wilderness. He seemed scared of me, if anything. I was certain that would wear off soon, when he reached his true adult size.

The main reason for helping him on this night, though, was far from altruism.

And now, there was a new strangeness to it all.

I knew it was not natural for me to have had any sense of the beast. Whether it was from my power, or something darker, I couldn’t say.

Maybe it was just my loneliness, finding its kindred refrain in nature.

Two beings not meant to be alone. It might be poetic to believe so.

I was more concerned that I was going mad.

A branch snapped behind me.

I turned as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast when seated, and immediately cursed myself for leaving myself at risk. On one knee, I held out a hunting knife as I looked in the direction of the noise.

I breathed, holding myself still like a windless lake.

Only one snap. A small twig from the sound, and the lightness of it indicated it wasn’t some larger beast like a bear or moose. No accompanying heavy breath, nor snagging fur against bark. No hops or pattering to indicate a fox, or hare.

One snap, and then pure silence. A medium-sized predator. And yet one who had not killed me instantly.

“Yvon?” I spoke, the words soft on my lips, and yet I knew she would hear.

From behind the tree I’d pinpointed, a woman stepped out. Somewhere between eight and ten spans, she was my only friend in Gossamir. One more than I ever expected given that I was an outsider. Her clothing was nearly the same as mine, which wasn’t surprising, since I was wearing her old ones.

Brown leather boots, lined with whatever fur the season had brought; hardy khaki trousers and a thick grey coat, fur-lined at the hood. Nothing pretty, just built for function. It was warm, and that was all.

In the Soundlands, cold was the biggest killer. Noise was the second.

Her blonde hair was hidden from view, but her assessing blue gaze was not. “Only a cacof would tend to a wolf like that.”

She signed the words ‘wolf’ and ‘tend’ sharply, as if they were insults. The word ‘cacof’, however, was signed normally, for it was always an insult.

I lowered my knife, making a few signs to punctuate my soft words. “He was wandering around my pit for two days, whimpering. He would have drawn someone here.”

Yvon pursed her lips. “You should have killed him, then, I measure.”

I tucked my knife into the sheath at my side as I stood. I traced the shape of a crescent with my free hand. “I thought the wolves were of Amune?”

Yvon reached into her pocket and brought out a jar filled with a dark mud-like substance. She threw it to me, and I caught it lightly. “The wolves are some of his children, yes. But above all is nature and survival. If a creature puts you at risk, your choices are your own.”

I looked down at the jar. “You broke the twig on purpose.”

“You should have heard me before it.”

“I am honoured you think a cacof could,” I said, giving her a small smile as I signed the crude signal for ' outsider '. I raised the jar, shaking it. “I still have some of the last mud.”

Yvon nodded. “That is not all I came for,” she said, flicking her head. “Inside?”

Together we walked back to my pit. Yvon took careful steps in the freshly fallen snow, and I matched her prints as she’d taught me. Never make noise when silence is an option. Her boots were too big on me, but I wore two pairs of thrice-darned socks to make up for it.

An owl hooted overhead, and a light breeze caused some snow to fall from a laden pine branch. I marked where the soft swoop of it hit the ground.

The practices of the Soundlands were by no means second nature to me, even with nearly five years spent in the Gossamir Forest. I imagined they were never supposed to be natural to us, the cacofs. Only one born to its ways could ever truly claim their innate quiet.

Yvon ducked the low branch. Hidden half behind two shrubs, with a large rock on its left side acting as a natural wind barrier, the roof of my house took shape.

The place I’d lived in for the last four years only extended a couple of feet above the ground, its thatched edges coming to a low gable in the centre.

Yvon stepped down into it, dug near four feet into the ground. In its centre, I could comfortably stand. She could not, so she stooped as she entered.

I followed her in and wedged the wooden door back into place, casting us into near total darkness as Yvon lit my last stubby tallow candle. I never used it when it was just me, I knew the feel of the room by heart. The candle was for when Yvon visited, for she was my only guest.

I rubbed my hands as I revelled in the small comfort from being out of the wind and snow.

Soon, the snow would stop, and the days would lengthen.

Tonight marked the first day of Ergreen, and while the Soundlands were behind on the seasons, with three of them bitterly cold and the remaining two mild at best, Gossamir would soon enough lose its near constant blanket of ice.

Yvon sat cross-legged and pushed her hood back, revealing her blonde crown braid. Her face was flat and wide, her brow straight, and jaw firm. Even underfed as we all were right now, there was an enviable sturdiness to her presence.

I sat across from her and pulled back my own hood.

I grabbed my long single braid to the front.

Half the brown hair had already escaped it since I tied it in a rush earlier that day.

The change in colour was the first thing I did when I landed in the Soundlands; a safety precaution necessitated by the rumours I’d heard for years on Eavenfold.

Here, the Moontouched were carried off at birth, left in the snows of the forest. I might be a woman, and far grown from a babe-in-arms, but the notion of a tribesman tying me to a tree overnight during Domin held just as little appeal.

Yvon knew the truth of my colouring, for it was hard to hide my eyes at any proximity. But once I told her I was Broken, she lost her fear. It was a streak of luck, as without her I’d be long dead.

In true Euphon custom, something can never be given for nothing. I looked down at the hair mud, wishing she had come later, when the ground might be softened enough to find tubers, or I might have a few fish.

The flickering light of the candle showed the impact of the last three seasons plain, with my basket of dried jerky down to scraps and my berries only a stain against the wicker they used to nestle in.

I was a fair fisherman now, but this Longdawn had not been kind to me, and I rarely brought back more than one trout.