Page 29 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

Once again, she was silent. I thought she would leave then, as she had in the past. When I tried to speak to her, tried to know her, she left.

If I pushed her too hard, as I am sure I had today, then I might not see her for weeks and weeks.

My heart hurt at the thought, and yet, I couldn’t hold it in.

I had to know things here; I was so starved of contact, of newness and curiosity, that I pressed Yvon to her very limits every time.

And now, I had a new bubble of excitement. Vellintris.

I thought back to that moment on Eavenfold, when I’d heard Langnathin speaking to Thread Groulin. There was not a day that passed where their words didn’t swirl in my head .

At the time, all I’d focused on was their discussion of my powers, and what they might mean. But after that horrid day on the Isle, I remembered the rest.

The prince had asked after a weapon, and the Thread had confirmed the weapon would appear in a span. The Thread had called it ancient magic and told the prince he would have to lay claim to grounds in the Soundlands.

The memory had been enough to choose my next destination, then. If there was some ancient weapon, I needed to claim it before the Dragon Prince and try to use it to extort our engagement. His father respected strength above all else. He would respect my strength in its claim.

It wasn’t until I arrived here and learnt the ways of the Euphons and the history of the lands, that I realised my mistake. This was no fabled sword to be uncovered in Gossamir. No, the ancient magic coming, this weapon as he called it, was an egg.

Yvon didn’t stand to leave as I anticipated. Instead, she shook her head. “You asked me a question. But I will ask you one. Why did you come here? Why choose this hard, cold life?”

The truth was too far-fetched to even say. I was sure to speak it would only make it seem all the more ridiculous. I am here to claim the egg before Prince Langnathin. I intend to bond with its spawn and use that to force the prince to marry me.

She had been vague, and I would be as well. “There is something I must do.”

Yvon measured this. “Will it hurt the Euphons?”

I opened my mouth, but then I closed it. I let myself sit with the question for a full minute. Yvon would appreciate the silence; she hated when people spoke without reflection.

Would my claiming the egg hurt the Euphons?

They had no desire to claim it themselves, certainly. They only wished to facilitate its safe arrival, preferring the dragon to be raised wild and unbonded. My notion of human bonding would irritate them. However, would it hurt them?

If I was successful, I might actually have the power to help them. Not only the power of a dragon, but my own Fated powers extended… What if I could change emotions, as the Threads once predicted? Change the hateful occupying hearts of the Sightlanders to acceptance?

The alternative would hurt them. The Dragon Prince, with two dragons claimed and no one to stop him. The might of the cacofs increased.

I shook my head. “It should not. It will hurt the cacofs far more.”

Yvon took this in with a slow nod. She tilted her head. “The Dragon Prince?”

Years had passed, and I was just one more girl he had wronged. But I would make him remember me. Marry me. Create the very thing he’d tried so hard to Break. Yes, he would hate it.

I smiled darkly. “Him most of all.”

Yvon matched my smile, then. She made a signal. ' Good. Content. '

She stood to leave, and I stood with her. I wedged the door back open, and we stepped out into the frigid air. Yvon moved away from the pit and stared up at the full moon, her hood still fallen back.

“I have something for you,” she said, a flake of snow touching her pale eyebrow.

I furrowed my brow. “I have nothing to trade.”

Yvon looked at me, eyes swimming with uncertainty. “This is a—gift.”

I heard her voice, but there was no sign for the word ' gift '. “Gift?” I repeated, thinking I had misheard. “I don’t understand. ”

My heart pounded. Was this some parting trinket, some way of saying goodbye? What if I failed in my quest and lost Yvon all the same? Where would I go, then? I had no other trick.

Yvon pulled her hood up and stood directly in front of me, looking down at my face. “It is your nameday. The fifth span. Five of five. We do not venerate spans as much as you cacofs, but there is still some power in fives, we measure.”

My throat felt suddenly thick as she reached into her pocket. I could not remember ever having told her of the day. “Yvon—”

She opened her gloved hand, and I could no longer speak.

A milky-white and thin stone, like a flattened arrowhead, sat in her palm, threaded with thick black leather string. “This is a moonstone,” Yvon said, making the sign of the crescent. “Some call it Amune’s Blessing. It grants protection.”

I held out my gloved hand, but I couldn’t stop myself from shaking. “It is beautiful.”

A pendant to be worn as a necklace, I figured. The moonlight caught against the perfectly smooth stone as she dropped it into my hand.

A tear fell down my cheek as I looked up at her.

A birthday gift. My twenty-fifth year. The History of the Five dictated this to be a year of many blessings in one’s life. I only hoped to live through it.

“Thank you, Yvon.”

Instead of moving back, Yvon did the one thing that surprised me the most out of anything that day. She reached forwards and brushed the tear from my chin with the back of a gloved finger.

I gasped softly.

Yvon removed her touch, and her blue eyes were sad when she spoke her parting words. “We measure the way your people deal with your Moontouch to be… unnatural. But you were once kind to another lonely girl.”

She turned then, walking in silent steps into the depths of the night as I held my jaw where her finger had been as if to hold her there.

I knew where her tribe was; I’d learnt to avoid them over the years.

Yvon had warned me long ago to keep out of sight.

The best I could hope for was them thinking I was a lone Euphon.

It wasn’t uncommon to live alone in the forest and many did, those whose hearing was too sensitive to live with any noise but their own.

But she had touched me. Yvon had never touched me, and I was too busy reeling from the touch, the only touch I had felt in years, to process her words.

It was only when she was long out of sight and sound that it turned in my mind, scratching something around my head like a broken music box.

You were once kind to another lonely girl.

Sollie.

She helped me for Sollie.

I stared down at the moonstone in my gloved palm, and my hand tightened around it.