Page 54 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

Tani

W ainstrill poked his annoying square head through the door like a block of stone. Once again, he hadn’t knocked, and I had to hold back the urge to slam my book shut, even though there was no chance of him reading it from ten feet across the room.

It was the day before the ball celebrating Langnathin’s return, and I was presently using books to alleviate my stress at having forty days to win him over whilst contemporaneously wanting to avoid his too-observant company at all costs.

I had found a peaceful nook behind one of the few doors in the library.

A room intended for private study, which I had been quite enjoying until I was rudely interrupted.

“The King’s Advisor wishes to speak to you about the upcoming ball, and your requisite manners,” the guard said.

I bristled at his tone, though at least my study session was being cut short by Seth, and not any other manner of upstart royalty. I left my beads where they were, in a pile on the other side of the desk. “My manners, is it?” I replied, not holding back the bite.

Wainstrill squirmed. “Since you aren’t from here, of course.”

“Of course,” I said. Then I put him out of his misery by standing up to receive my friend. “Let the advisor in.”

Wainstrill ducked away and opened the door, allowing me to uphold the illusion that I had any choice in the matter. If he had instead knocked on the door and told me the executioner had arrived to take my head, I hardly imagined I could have turned him away.

Seth walked in, his face serious and almost mean. His wide lips were so often smiling in my memory that it was odd to see them now so pinched and pale. He nodded a thanks to my guard and closed the door behind him with a firm clunk.

When he turned back to me, he was my Seth again.

I saw a heaviness loosen from his shoulders, and his frown faded into a wry grin.

“You can take the girl from the island, but you can’t stop her from shoving her nose in a book.” At my widened eyes and pointed look to the door, he smiled wider. “It’s alright, I shut the door. I happen to know which doors are heavy enough to yell behind without any pesky guards hearing.”

“Hm,” I replied, my fear fading. “Should I be concerned?”

He furrowed his brow. “That I lock myself into rooms in this library just to cry and yell about my mother and uncle? Probably.”

I glowered at the door. “Wainstrill hates me.”

Seth stepped over to the other side of my reading desk.

“I don’t think he likes me much better, though he’s better at hiding it.

” He played with the feather of my quill, which I had left gathering ink in the well.

“He’s my mother’s man, and unfortunately, I think he has the misfortune to be enamoured with her.

He hates everyone she distrusts, which, to be frank, is a vast number of people. ”

“They aren’t lovers , are they?” I asked, dropping my voice in a scandalised whisper.

“I can only hope it is one-sided,” he replied with a groan.

“But she’s twice his age.”

“Please, I don’t want to think about it anymore than I already have.” He tapped the open book in front of me. “I’d rather talk about what you’re reading.”

“I’m trying to learn more about dragons. Did you know that dragon scales darken as they get older? Isn’t that fascinating?” I grinned. “Langnathin gave me some—”

“Langnathin,” he echoed, “has been giving you books?”

“He has been strangely kind to me. Well, he has been kind to Vorska. So far.”

“You could have asked me ,” he said.

“I can hardly seek you out, can I?” I replied, cutting any true harshness from the question with a smile. “I’m a prisoner, remember. Glorified dragon wet nurse.”

“That’s not quite true,” Seth said.

I raised an eyebrow. “If I had come here with a dragon old enough to bear my death without dying himself, do you believe they would have let me live?”

Seth blanched. “He’s bonded to you. And I’ve never heard of a dragon rebonding, so without you… he would be pretty useless.” Then he shook his head. “I—I don’t know. It depends if they truly believed they could tame you.”

“Let us hope they believe I am docile, then.”

Seth grimaced, reaching his hand out to me. With ink-stained fingers I took it, feeling his guilt and reassurance melt into me.

I changed the subject, knowing I had most likely prodded a wound that had festered long enough. “Trust me, I would have rather asked you for books, but you are the King’s Advisor. You already had to invent a reason to come here.”

“Well,” Seth said, his emotions stabilising. “It is true that you don’t know much about a Sightlands ball.”

“Wear some beads and try not to step on any toes,” I replied. “How much more is there?”

“You still intend to go ahead with your plan, then?” Seth asked.

“I do.”

“Marrying Langnathin. It would be another cage. Another island you long to escape.” There was no jealousy on him yet. He only spoke from concern and a need to understand.

“It would be power. The ability to change things in this world for the better.”

“What would you change?”

I thought of my homeland, and the way the Triad looked upon us.

Of a forgotten Founder and stolen lands.

Then Eavenfold, and its Nox-ridden past that echoed deep in its walls and haunted its children.

Finally, the Soundlands. The smear of dirt scarring the forest floor.

A dragon’s corpse dragged from its resting place.

Sollie, screaming alone from sounds no one else could hear.

Of the Sons of Amune, who lived in fear of the Triad’s detection.

Suffering existed everywhere I had been. I met Seth’s white eyes. “I would advocate for peace.”

He studied me, our hands still clasped. “Peace is a messy journey.”

“War is messier.”

His compassion flickered, and I felt his desire to ask me more about my time in Gossamir. But he did not. “That I cannot argue with. But Langnathin? Is Braxthorn’s son truly the route to peace? ”

“He is not so bad,” I said. “I don’t think he wants to be his father. The way he talks…”

I drifted off from telling Seth about the other night, about Langnathin’s desire to be more than a tool.

Seth pulled his hand back, but I had already felt his fear and his jealousy burst up like a spring. “You like him.”

I blinked. Did I like Langnathin? It was far too simple a concept, and yet horribly complex to answer. “No—I—Maybe? The version of me that can forget what happened five years ago, sometimes likes him.” I shook my head as my cheeks heated. “I know it’s messed up.”

Seth’s voice was solemn. “Just remember who he is.”

His tone rankled me, and I looked up. “Just as I should remember who you are.”

Sure, Langnathin was Braxthorn’s son, but Seth was his nephew, and Derynallis’ son. If anyone should understand how one can be greater than the sum of his relatives, it should be Seth.

Seth sighed, but I could see he was not angry with me. “I’m trying to stop it. Stop the wars, just as you wish to. Langnathin doesn’t seem to care about anything.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Stop what wars?”

He squared his shoulders. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“What is going on?”

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

“When is that ever better?”

He held up a hand, looking incredibly tired. “I will tell you. Don’t look at me like that. I promise I will tell you what I know, but give me a little longer to try to solve it my way.”

I watched him, and knowing him to have never intentionally told me a lie, I nodded. “Fine. ”

He gave me a weary smile, and our tension faded as he came around to my side of the desk. “What else have you learnt, then?”

I pointed at an illustration in one of the books before me, entitled Man Rides Into Battle .

In it, a man sat astride a great dark ruby dragon.

It was a recreation, a smaller version of a much larger painting, which according to the footnote sat somewhere in this very castle.

“I didn’t know that Praevontil the Kind had a red dragon of his own. ”

“Ah,” Seth said, his smile wobbling. “How do you know that is Praevontil?”

I smiled, now, happy to be tested. “Well, for one, it looks like him. It looks like the painting of him from Eavenfold’s East Wing, the one where he holds that scroll.

More than that, he looks like the old paintings of Braxthorn, and even looks a bit like Langnathin.

Then, look at his breastplate, obscured behind the neck.

There is a hint of a gold edge there: the wing from their sigil.

” I continued on, my excitement causing me to deliver my words in more of a flurry than I had intended.

“And there, in the background. The other painting on Eavenfold had that same tempest behind Praevontil. To represent his brother Stormnoon. And of course, the crook of his hilt. Edrin’s line. ”

Seth chuckled. “Fine, fine. You win.”

I looked at him, expecting surprise and finding none. “You knew Praevontil had a dragon?”

He nodded. “It unfortunately is my job to know most of the realm’s secrets.

But this is one held tight to Braxthorn’s chest. There’s a reason that portrait no longer hangs anywhere in this castle.

That is probably one of the last books with any reference to it. I doubt his sons even know the truth.”

“What happened?”

“You know most of it already.” Seth clasped his hands behind his back and changed into the voice I’d heard before.

His lecturing voice. One day, he might make a good Thread of Knowledge himself.

“Stormnoon had a vision that there was something to be found in the centre of the Skinreach maelstrom. He believed that there was another side to it, some land that could only be reached by sailing into the eye of its storm. His mind was gone, then, but his brother’s trust in him had never faded. ”