Page 30 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

Lang

T he acrid smoke filled my lungs as I turned from the clearing for a second, blinking fast.

“How many more weeks of this?” Foxlin grumbled, holding his torch with a grim forbearance.

He was half a face nowadays, the lower part of it lost to an oily beard and the rest of him submerged in thick, dark clothing. The smouldering embers of yet another blazing pile of nothing warmed the shadows under his wyvern-amber eyes.

“It means we still have hope,” I replied.

Foxlin laughed, casting his hand out at the bleak trees around us. I had preferred them snow-capped; now everything in the forest was muddy and grim. “We’ve been chasing fires all Ergreen. How can you find any hope left in this festering forest?”

“Because if the fires stop, that means we missed it.”

Foxlin scanned my expression, and finally sighed. “I’m starting to believe there is no dragon. We’d have better luck discovering one of Mephluan’s nymphs. ”

I smiled, but it didn’t reach my eyes. “I’m sure that’s exactly what they want us to think.”

Foxlin turned back to the fire. This one had been a grass fire, and it was the second one we’d visited that night.

I watched my men trawl the debris for any dragonsign, but I already knew they’d find none. It was too deliberately constructed, and there was no crater or true smoulder to indicate the sort of heat a dragon would produce.

“Do you think they’re out there now?” he asked. Any fear he had of the forest dwellers seemed to have been lost now after years in their company and now weeks of this fresh torment. Of course, we were wary, we had to be. But true fear was too exhausting. “Watching us?”

In the last five years, since the Brothers had foretold Vellintris’ coming, I’d spent weeks in Gossamir’s clutches, then months, and then in the last year, my father bade me not to leave until the task was done.

Well, that wasn’t strictly so; he had always offered me a choice. I could come home, choose a wife, and let my brother Banrillen deal with Vellintris. He knew he offered me no real choice, but not for the reasons he believed.

Chaethor had been the one and only egg of a now passed ruby dragon, Andillin.

Andillin had mated with Skirmtold, we presumed, and laid her egg.

My grandfather, Norgallin the Hammer, killed Andillin and took the egg, but he had no dragonbreath hot enough to hatch it.

The egg had lain dormant for twenty years, for the bulk of that time sitting next to the fireplace in Banrillen’s quarters.

Braxthorn had declared that Kallamont would use his fire to hatch it when my brother reached his third span.

Until I stole the egg and dragged it to the war room to make my case to Braxthorn on why the dragon should be mine instead .

I was only two spans old, and already I knew my brother’s cruelty far too well.

My father believed I was as power hungry as he was.

A motivation he understood, and even respected, and as such, I did not correct him.

The people here hated me, but they had no idea what would have been in store had my father or my brother been in charge.

If it was my life’s work to keep my brother from these ancient creatures, then it would be well lived.

I nodded. “I am sure their eyes are on us, always.”

Two men approached us, then, stepping through the grey smoke and damp mud. I watched them as they bowed shallowly, too exhausted for more. A somewhat famous captain, and his somewhat infamous ensign.

The captain cleared his throat. “Your Grace.”

“At ease, Ravillin,” I replied.

A dirty and bearded Lord Ravillin straightened from his bow, but he barely relaxed. His hand was still on the hilt of his sword, and I couldn’t tell if the shining fear in his eyes was due to the dangers around us, or me.

I could count on one hand the number of times Ravillin had willingly spoken to me since the Isle de Courvin.

He had avoided a fiery death by being the previous victor and a so-called guest of honour, but he didn’t seem grateful for my omission.

He was two years past his fifth span now, which made him exactly a span younger than me, and yet, he hadn’t grown out of his fear of me.

I couldn’t tell if that was naive, or just good sense. I had quite ruined his event.

His captaincy had been a meek one to date, and therefore, I had no doubt this approach was more his second’s idea.

Still, Ravillin led the charge. “Your Grace, a group of us have found what appears to be the entrance to a working silver mine. Abandoned, but it looks like it was recently vacated. ”

Foxlin watched our exchange without comment, but I heard him take a breath, then.

The mine. It had taken them a while. I didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “I see. Thank you for your counsel.”

He blinked, surprised by my lack of eagerness. “Your Grace, shouldn’t we search it? Take its silver? The Soundlands haven’t traded their silver with us in spans.”

“Hardly surprising,” I muttered.

Ravillin narrowed his eyes. “What was that, Your Grace?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head. “The mine is likely left looking so sweet because it holds all manner of ill. A freshly abandoned mine, silver still glinting on its walls… it is the perfect place to lay a number of traps, wouldn’t you say?”

Ravillin visibly deflated before my eyes. “Yes, Your Grace.”

I felt bad for ruining his fun, but it was for the greater good. I would not antagonise the Soundlanders more than absolutely necessary. “Have it known I want no man to enter it. It is to be left entirely undisturbed.”

He nodded, but he was sullen, and his cheeks looked gaunt with his loss of spirit. “As you say, Your Grace.”

“You are dismissed, soldiers.” Ravillin swallowed, and his second squirmed with anticipation. But they did not move. Now, I raised an eyebrow. “Unless, there is more?”

The other man cleared his throat. Clearly, we had reached the end of Ravillin’s courage.

I knew this other man from reputation and Foxlin’s own reports of his ill-humour. I’d forgotten his true name, as everyone called him by his infamous nickname: Slash. “Your Grace, now that the attacks have increased, is there any change in our approach to the… tribesfolk?”

I fathomed a guess at his meaning, but I would not let him avoid it. “Our approach? ”

“Self-defence.” Slash said the words like they were a poisonous ichor in his mouth.

“Ah,” I said.

These men were pent up with rage. After five years of a growing presence here, they were fit to burst against anyone, and anything.

It was a shame Laithcart was cancelled this year.

The official reason was that over half of the minor lords who might usually compete were here, fishing for the glory of catching a dragon.

The true reason was that no man wanted to carry the ill luck I had burnt into its mud.

For my sins, I had cursed Laithcart, and the Isle. I wondered if it would ever run again.

Ravillin glanced at his partner in warning and tried to adopt a more diplomatic air. “The men… they aren’t well pleased with it, Your Grace. The attacks have increased, you understand.”

I blinked at Ravillin. His span as Master of the Isle hadn’t taught him much about subtlety, nor command, for his subordinate to speak up without his permission.

Instead, I turned to his companion who had voiced the concern. “You,” I said, eyeing him up and down. He was shorter than me, but stockier by far. Still, I could see the fear in his eyes, and I had long since embraced its utility. “The men call you Slash, don’t they?”

He grunted. “They do, Your Grace.”

So named for his heroic venture two seasons ago after we came out of the last true storm of Domin which had kept the barracks indoors for three nights.

Slash had left the camp alone—an act which was expressly discouraged—to go for a piss.

There, he claimed a tribesman leapt out of the trees and attacked him with reckless abandon.

Acting in self-defence, he killed him with a dagger to the gut.

As he told it on his return, he had one hand still on his bare cock, and the other deep in the tribesman’s loins.

Slash. The people’s fucking hero .

And, by Foxlin’s account, a massive liar. A couple of privates had let slip some crucial details: the distance the corpse was found from our barracks and the condition of it. Seventeen stab wounds, not one. And unarmed.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

The stocky Slash ducked his head, but not before I had read his foul look. “The Scentlands, Your Grace. Fordo—An estate outside of Junisper.”

Shit. I would find no luck here, then. This was a man who hated me well and truly.

Count Fordonne’s estate. I knew it well, I had hunted there myself, before I killed its master. No wonder he was looking at me with such blatant disregard.

He knew what everyone knew: a witch girl had tricked her way into the Brotherhood’s ranks and had been given a Fate that could put the Triad in serious danger.

My actions were necessary to prevent any chance of her ever achieving her Fate.

Necessary to protect the Triad. We had tried to kill the girl, of course, but she had fled before we had the chance.

Our hunting parties were unsuccessful, but it mattered not, for my actions had already rendered her stolen moon magic Broken.

It was a weak explanation, enough to keep most of the nobles of the Triad at bay though quietly discontented.