Page 28 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

“I didn’t expect you, I haven’t prepared anything to trade for the mud,” I admitted.

Each application of her homemade brown dye would last a few weeks until my roots showed through again.

The last jar, nestled somewhere behind me, still had enough for another application.

The brutality of everyday survival had distracted me enough that I hadn’t even considered requesting another.

I had been half-starved for a month now, and there was a moment when I was holding that wolf’s paw where I knew I could have skewered him with my knife.

And yet, I couldn’t. All I could think of when I saw him was Seth, and his stupid scholarly voice as he explained to me the pack nature of wolves.

It was not normal for this creature to be alone so young.

Wolves might break off from their pack, but not ones so young as this.

I couldn’t bring myself to harm another lonely thing, another thing that didn’t belong.

Yvon stared at my excuse for supplies and signed as she spoke. “I will accept a service.”

Even inside, smothered under the nook of the ground, she spoke so softly it was hard to discern at times. I had to engage every part of myself to listen, watching her lips and hands to pick up any key words I might miss.

“As you say,” I replied, taking a bite of the tough jerky and chewing it slowly.

She leaned over, checking the string fastenings and the moss. “Good. It is dry.”

I watched her study the house, awaiting her inevitable criticism. I knew there was work to do on it, but I hoped this would be the last year I would spend under its roof. “Do you have a service in mind?”

Yvon signed to confirm she did.

Euphons hated unnecessary noise. It was part of the reason they hated us cacofs so much.

That hatred had magnified manifold in the last span, since troops from the Sightlands descended to build their barracks on the northwestern edge of the forest. Their mysterious arrival was enough for tensions to boil, but the felling of the trees had been an act of war to most of the tribes.

With every grind of the saw, the forest dwellers silently screamed.

Their sign language was hard to grasp, and I still only knew the main words I relied upon. Yvon knew that and humoured me with speech. But if there was truly a need for silence, a few signs could be the difference between a planned attack and a quick death.

“What do you ask of me?”

Yvon blinked, her deep sea eyes now almost black in the low light. “The forest will soon come ablaze. I ask you not to intervene.”

That was a serious thing. Fires blazed hot and cruelly in Gossamir. “A fire? His men’s doing?”

Yvon pulled a small leather wineskin from her pocket and drank some. When she met my gaze again, her eyes were steel. “Ours.”

What? Why would the Euphons set their own forest on fire? “Why?”

Yvon made a gesture, then. One I recognised, for I had asked of it when I first met her, years ago. One I had waited a span to see again. The sign for ' dragon '. “Vellintris. She left dragonsign last night in the woods, a broken hollow.”

I could not help the excitement that burned in my heart. But I kept my tone as soft as a quail's shell. “She is landing, then? She will hatch her egg?”

Yvon studied me. “If she can. The cacofs were all over the hollow like trampling children. They hope to capture both mother and babe, we measure.”

I scowled. “The Dragon Prince’s men? Was he with them?”

She signed something which I had come to gauge meant ' usually ' .

I had not seen Langnathin since that day in the arena, but the look on his face as he met my gaze, with my prospective suitors melted around him, had never left my mind. I saw his blood-red eyes every time I went to sleep. “Why the fire, then?”

“When she nests, she will burn up and create fire. We light our own fires to hide her presence. There will be so many fires, the prince will not know where Vellintris really hides.”

I shook my head. “You would destroy your own forest?”

Yvon made an expression so incredulous it made me feel like a child again. “To keep a wild dragon from the cacofs? We would burn more than that, I measure.”

In the city of Sellador, the Silver City in the west of the Soundlands, it was said there lay a twinkling orchestra of bells, so small and so soft, they broke your heart just to hear them.

But the Euphons, including most of the tribes of Gossamir, were more extreme, venerating only noises that could not be manmade.

They worshipped nature and the natural world.

Its rivers, lakes, plants, and fauna were the only music most of them needed.

But above all of that, above nature’s order itself, they worshipped Amune. An ancient mythical silver dragon. They believed he birthed all of our dragons and pulled the moon across the sky.

To them, a dragon was not just another aspect of nature, some fauna to be respected. To them, a dragon was a divine being.

Yvon swept her hand. “You must keep away. Stay here.”

I took another bite of jerky. “I have seen dragonfire before. I do not fear it.”

She made a noise close to a scoff, and it made me jump. “Vellintris is no Skirmtold.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How did you—”

Yvon signalled my silence and spoke so quickly I barely followed along. “I don’t tell you to keep away because of the fire. But for those who will haunt those fires. The Dragon Prince seeks Vellintris. My people will leave traps. It is not safe for you.”

At her motion for traps, I nodded. I wanted to say, I know your traps. I can avoid them, but I knew better. If Yvon thought I would disobey her in this, she might not visit again. I relied on her too much for that.

“We can keep your hair dark, but your eyes are still as bright. If my people catch you, you would not be free,” Yvon said, splaying her fingers around in a quick wave to indicate the word ' free '. “If he finds you, I don’t wish to guess. A pretty Broken girl, alone in the woods, is a novelty to too many.”

I ducked my head. She had no idea just how fascinating Langnathin would find me, if he recognised me. “I thank you for your warning.”

I knew then I could not accept her request for service.

She had asked the one thing I could not do. She had asked me to remain out of the events that had brought me here, just as they had brought the barracks. This was what I had waited for, this was why I had suffered in the silence of the forest, barely living.

Vellintris was coming.

I would find another way to repay her.

But why had she said it? How did she know? Vellintris is no Skirmtold. A strange sense of knowing clanged over me, and I couldn’t tell if it was relief or foreboding.

I stared at the woman who had kept me alive for years. “Yvon. Why did you help me?”

She only made a dismissive gesture. I had asked her this before, and she never answered it.

I gritted my jaw. “Nearly five years ago, I entered this forest and thought I’d freeze in less than a week.

You found me. You saw my white hair, my eyes.

You knew what I was, where I was from. It was only knowing I was Broken that stayed your hand.

I was a noisy cacof from the Brotherhood. Why did you help me?”

Yvon rolled her eyes, her attention on the dwindling candle. It was a gesture not native to her culture, and I reckoned she’d learnt it from me. “You have asked me this before, I measure.”

“And now I ask you again, because I think I know why,” I said.

Her blue eyes flashed as she met my gaze.

“I said I had seen dragonfire before, and you knew it was Skirmtold. News of that fire barely made it past the shores of Eavenfold, let alone Gossamir. You never questioned my colouring, my womanhood. You’ve corrected my cacof habits like you lived with them for years. ”

“You make a lot of sound to say nothing, cacof,” she spat, but her gestures lacked enthusiasm.

I stared her down. “You were at Eavenfold. You were one of the women, weren’t you?”

My theory fell into the air. It was strange speaking of Eavenfold. I thought of it all the time, and yet, had not spoken the word in years. Did it even have a sign? What use would the Euphons have for such a sign anyway?

Yvon was silent for a time.

This, I was used to. I could sit in this for minutes now, hours even. I let her decide her next sounds, as I swallowed the second piece of jerky. My stomach rumbled, but there was not enough for me to eat more tonight. Tomorrow, I’d fish in the melting river to the east.

The woman eventually grimaced, and the soft lines on her face deepened. “I was there when the fire fell.”

I blinked, surprised to hear her admit it. “You—You were there.”

Yvon made a tedious gesture to indicate she’d just said as much.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Yvon sighed, just barely. “I don’t like to think of it. It was nearly three spans ago. I remember you. You had them all terrified.”

A sad smile drifted to my mouth. Yes, I did. “I’m sure they are relieved now to think me dead,” I mused. “Why were you there?”

“I was sent by my people,” she said, without inflection.

“Why would the Euphons want you on Eavenfold?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“I could not stay, and they wanted information.”

“Information?” I signed back. “On what?”

Yvon only narrowed her eyes at me. Wrong question, then. Or at least, one she was not disposed to answer. I was still a cacof, no matter how many years she had helped me in this place.

I asked the other question, thinking it would be easier. “Why couldn’t you stay?”

Her face only tightened further, and I saw the pain ripple across her expression.

“Yvon?”