Page 47 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

As soon as that question formed in my mind, several more followed it.

Why was she still here? Why hadn’t she run?

She had evaded her guards to come sit in this tree.

Why not try to leave all together? She wouldn’t get a hundred feet from the castle on a good day, but it was perplexing that she hadn’t tried.

I understood what had brought her here. The desperation and fear of death that caused her to throw herself at the feet of the one man who had destroyed her very Fate. She needed my barracks to survive, to keep her fed whilst she recovered from her injury.

She did not seem one to be hungry for power, bonding with a dragon in order to install herself in a royal court. Maybe though, I had taken a pretty face and assigned it innocence. Edrin knew many had made that mistake with my aunt.

And yet, I was certain she hated me more than anyone in the world. The way she had looked at me on the Isle de Courvin was painted onto my black heart. Tanidwen would never trust me, nor should she. She would never trust my father, my brother, any of us.

She sat there, silently, the tree branch bobbing under her weight, watching me. The moment held.

I concluded she must be biding her time, waiting until we decided she was no threat. The docile Soundlander, loyal to us for saving her from her fellow Euphons. Then she would leave, get as far away from me as possible.

Once more, I felt ashamed I had even come here. “I will leave you to your thoughts.”

She narrowed her eyes at me but said nothing.

I bowed out of habit and turned my back to her as I stepped away across the grass. I’d reached the edge when a noise like a rabbit’s hop, or leaves dropping from a roof, alerted me .

Tanidwen had dropped from the tree, as lithe as a cat. I took her in from head to toe, wondering how such a small person could make this much trouble. She held a book under her arm, though I could not make out the title, its pages turned towards me instead.

“May I ask you a favour?” Her voice was as soft as the breeze, but I heard it.

I studied her face for something, but nodded.

Tanidwen stepped forwards, silently. She had learnt much since Eavenfold. “Your father has invited me to a grand ball in seven days. Some celebration in your honour.”

I rolled my eyes. “One of many excuses this season to corral all the eligible women to Droundhaven.”

Her eyes flashed, the moon catching in them as if begging to reveal the truth of its touch. She glanced down at herself. “I have nothing to wear,” she said. “I know your people value appearance, and I do not wish to be more of a laughing stock to your court.”

Of course. I assessed her clothes in a second.

Rough trousers, too big for her but bound with cord at the thigh and below the knee.

Two thin tops layered over one another and ripping at the hems. Her only jewellery was a white rock tied around her neck.

It looked as if she had tried to clean her boots, but all that did was expose the fraying leather beneath the mud.

Sticking out was another way she would invite the court’s ire, and they were well-disposed to bestow that without good cause as it was.

“I will send my tailor to you in the morning and find a lady’s maid to attend to you.”

Her nostrils flared, and her hand clenched. “Thank you,” she replied, though her voice was anything but thankful. “Can I ask one more thing?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You ask a lot of favours. ”

She lifted the book up, her frustration pinching her brow in a way I found oddly charming. “This is the only book in that room, and I have already read it cover to cover.”

Even in the low light, I didn’t need to read the front to recognise it. It was the book of our world’s formation. The History of the Five. I hadn’t read it since I was a teen, and even then, it had taken me a year to get through it. She had read it in two days?

I could not help but taunt her. “I didn’t know Soundlanders to be very literate.”

She opened her mouth to retort, and then closed it. For a second, she was a deer caught by a hunter’s snare. How delicious. Then she drew her face into a sneer. “Then you do not know many Soundlanders. Many of us read.”

I savoured her reaction. “Are there many books in Gossamir, as a rule?”

Her eyes narrowed, confused at the game I was playing. She had no idea I knew her secret, and it was truly something else to watch her squirm in her deceit. But she only folded her arms, the heavy book clenched in one hand. “Your snobbery is showing, my prince.”

I lifted my hands in apology. I would concede, for now, but knowing I could get under her skin like that was curious.

I wanted to do it again, prod her until she realised there was no possible way in the five lands and all of its islands that I could have ever forgotten her. “What would you like to read?”

She paused, and I saw her glance towards her door.

I wondered how close she was to storming off, and I had to admit that part of me wanted to see it.

I’m not sure anyone had stormed away from me before, as much as I must have deserved it.

She treated me like no one ever had, and it was intoxicating.

Then she sighed in defeat. “Do you have anything on dragons?”

“There is little written on the bond, but there are some books on diets, habits, growth, and biology I could find for you.”

She swallowed, and the furrow between her brow was back. “That would be… yes,” she breathed, and my chest felt tight. “Thank you, again.”

Blessed Edrin, have mercy. Sight like this should not have been bestowed on me when all I could do was stare at her. She was too pretty. I should never have agreed to lend her my tailor.

I looked to the grass below, seeing where the patch of light from her window cast onto the garden. “Have you named him?”

She followed my look. “No.”

“Why not?” I asked, studying her face.

She smiled. “That felt like something a mother should do. I am not his mother, I am only his keeper. I’d like him to choose his own name.”

Tanidwen had done it again, stunned me in a new way.

She was too good at that, saying something so totally surprising that it left me lost for words.

She wanted the dragon to choose his own name.

I couldn’t hear Chaethor, but I knew she would purr in approval, and I felt the warmth of that knowledge like a lodestone around my neck.

How could this woman already be so attuned with her dragon and his independence, in a way I would have never thought to be?

It was intimidating and mortifying.

She interrupted my thoughts. “You mentioned women.”

What? I stared at her, so taken aback by the change in subject that I could do nothing but answer honestly. “My father wishes me to marry.”

She stared back. “Why haven’t you, until now?”

I swallowed. “I have no desire to cage someone.”

She flinched, dropping her eyes from mine. I must have said the wrong thing, but the hour was late, and my mind wasn’t entirely clear. She was as much to blame for that as the syras. Something about her made me honest; perhaps it was guilt.

I had Broken her, and she deserved more than I could ever fucking repay her. My honesty seemed the minimum of that, even if she did not like my answer.

“Who would you choose for yourself, if you could?” she asked.

I shrugged. “It’s not a matter of choice.”

“Hence why I said if .”

I dampened my lower lip. “I’m beginning to think you have taken the concept of late night impertinence far too literally.”

She met my eyes, and I saw the play in her gaze. “And yet it was you who came, with all your regal pomp, to find me.”

“I have no pomp,” I said, far too defensively. I needed her to stop looking at me like that.

She shifted her weight, moving the book to her other hand. “Humour me.”

Who would I choose for myself? It wasn’t a question I had given much thought, as it wasn’t one that I would ever get to exercise.

It was purely hypothetical, and yet, when I thought about it, the answer sprang up easily.

“I am not looking for a love match, nor do I expect to find one,” I said.

“But I would choose an intelligent wife, if I could. Interested in the world around her and interested in improving her mind. History, culture, politics, religion. It is hard to survive this life without wit, and I would not want my wife easily manipulated, because I know many will try.”

I saw her hand clench around her book and her cheeks reddened.

“Strength, too, of both mind and constitution,” I continued.

She huffed out a little breath. “Not stupid nor sickly. A high bar, Your Grace.”

I stared at her mouth. “And of course, beautiful. ”

She smirked. “Ah, so you are vapid and shallow after all.”

I bowed my head in acknowledgement. “I am a Sightlander, through and through.”

“Still, your requirements are not many.”

I took a step towards her, and saw her tense. “I’d like for her to choose me, too. Not necessarily for love. But I would want her to know me. Tolerate me. See me as a partner and not a tool.”

As I said those final words, I took another step, and Tanidwen froze. I stopped, not really knowing what I was thinking. She looked nervous.

Immediately, I stepped back. I didn’t know why I had even approached her. I thought we were playing a game together. A cool wind passed through, and I glanced up to the moon, already shifted in the sky overhead. “As I said, it matters not what I would want.”

She bit her lip, and my body reacted. “You truly believe your father will give you no choice?”

I shrugged, every part of me confused. She hated me.

She must, and yet… I could never hate her.

There was more than guilt and pity. I was attracted to Tanidwen, even knowing how fruitless it was.

My voice was defeated even to my own ears.

“Oh, I will have the illusion of choice. Already he positions his favourites, whispers in their mothers’ ears.

I imagine I will have a choice between two brides, three if I am well-behaved. ”

She heard this, and her voice was detached in its response. “And you will choose one of them?”

I stared at her, somehow knowing whatever we were doing here was on the brink of ending. I felt her pulling away, and I used every second I had to watch her fascinating eyes. They were entirely captivating. “I suppose we will find out.”

She nodded. “And what is your father’s list for your blushing bride, do you think? ”

Here, she betrayed a rare ignorance. The answer was as clear as the lifeless pool beside us, and just as man-made. “Power,” I said. “It is always power. Whoever has the ability to grant him the most, or take the most away. That is who he will choose.”