Page 60 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

Tani

T he Dragon Prince dropped his hand and stalked towards me.

I pushed myself off from the wall, moving my hair over one shoulder as he approached. My body shook with anticipation, and I rubbed my fingers over the moonstone tied with a golden cord to my left wrist. The perpetual coolness of it steadied my rattling heart.

He stood before me, his mouth already open and ready to speak. The intensity was more than I could bear. It was too much. This whole night was too much.

Before he could say anything, I fell into a curtsy. “My prince.”

Langnathin gave me a look, and then he returned my formality with a perfunctory bow. “Vorska.”

“It is an unseaso—”

“You look entirely beautiful,” he said, staring. “I am sure it has been said too many times tonight and in far more poetic ways, but I had to say it. You put Mephluan to shame. ”

By my blood, every part of my flesh seized. I wanted to melt and freeze, to blaze and yet turn to stone. I felt queasy, excited, thrilled, and terrified in equal measure. Coiled tight and unravelled.

I blushed to my whitened roots as his compliments twisted my stomach more than anything that night. “Thank you for your kindness.”

“I meant nothing of kindness by it,” he replied. “It is only an irrefutable observation.”

“You also,” I started, and then immediately cursed myself for the sentence I now had to finish. “Look well.”

He smirked at me then. “I look well?”

I couldn’t resist my small answering smile. “Quite so, Your Grace.”

It was a true understatement. The man was unfairly handsome this night. He could have been some provincial lord and not the Crown Prince, and he would still have his pick of any woman at the ball.

Langnathin laughed, and my throat felt thick. “Well, if sickly is on your own list, then I have passed that barest of minimums, then.”

We both paused as we realised what he had said. What he referenced. My list. My list of traits I would want in a husband, if I could choose. Was he—?

“I shall not ask you to dance,” he said, and my heart dropped. “For your own sake.”

The blow of that rejection was stronger than it deserved. I tried to smile, but it wasn’t quite so real this time. “I will not believe you are a poor dancer, for I have watched you.”

He raised one eyebrow. “You have watched me?”

I lifted my chin. “As you have watched me.”

“You caught me. I am a fair dancer. Fairer than you.” Then, he studied the room just as Seth had done minutes ago. “There are other reasons we should not be seen dancing.”

“Your family?”

“You do not understand the half of it,” he replied, his eyes darkening.

“Maybe I should like to.”

We stared at each other, the prince and I.

His hand twitched, and I looked at it, thinking again how much easier it would be to understand him if I could only touch him.

And yet, I was worried about how my own emotions might unravel if he were to touch me now.

Already, my skin was tight, my body aflame.

I met his eyes again and found them trained on the beads hiding my mouth.

Caught, he cleared his throat and looked away, back to the hall’s doors. “What did you speak to Princess Margot of?”

“Little,” I said, drifting my hand to my throat.

He smirked, but the humour was lost under our mutual distraction. “Why do I get the impression you are lying to me?”

“We spoke of her interests.”

“I see,” he replied, still watching the night outside the room. “What did you make of them?”

I couldn’t help the smile from spreading across my cheek. “I told her how fascinatingly refreshing you would surely find it. To speak with someone so like-minded.”

“Like-minded.” He returned his red eyes to me. “And why would you encourage her to her detriment?”

I dipped my head. “I would not claim to do so. I am no lady, and untrained in the ways of court. I surely misspoke if I deterred you from her.”

He let out an exasperated noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh. “And yet, for a woman free of title, you have caught the interest of a prince. ”

I froze. Good, so he had heard the rumours already. Seth had played his part well. “You refer to Prince Eamallan?”

“Is it true he has made you an offer?” he asked, plainly.

“It would not be my place to say.”

Something flashed in his gaze, and his hand shook at his side once more. “You should know this, Vorska. My family will not let you marry outside of the Sightlands.”

I did not hide from the intensity in his eyes. “Then who would you recommend in his place?”

Langnathin stiffened, standing as still as the Domin trees of Gossamir. Then he turned away from me with a growl. I could only stare.

He had said he would not dance with me, but this was as much a dance as any.

We skirted around words, implications and desires.

It was easier to flirt with him, I told myself, when he was as agreeable and attractive as he was on this night.

When I allowed the wine to dull me from his crimes against me.

I was playing the part I had to play, to show my interest. It was only convenient that my want for him, however misguided, was not entirely performative. I hated that I wanted him, but it helped my desperate cause.

Why he wanted me back, though, I could not say. Was it his belief in my otherness, my wildness, that captivated him? Or the fact he was not supposed to have me? Some escape from the women he was entitled to? Maybe it was animalistic, as mine had to be, a need from one body to another.

I thought he might leave, then. That he might walk off and find some lesser challenge.

But he turned. “Were you about to leave the ball?”

“Yes,” I said honestly. “I am missing him.”

“Stay,” he whispered. My heart leapt with it. His eyes had never reminded me more of fire than at that moment, when he dragged them over me like embers .

“Why?” I replied, just as quietly. In turn, I dragged my eyes from his eyes to his polished black shoes and back up again. “You will not dance with me.”

The Dragon Prince swallowed. “I still don’t want you to leave. Though, if you choose to, I understand.”

Then he left, turning on his heel. I did not move until he had exited the hall and stepped beyond where I could see him.

I fell back against the stone, every part of me burning. Of all the men to want, why did I have to want the one man I had hated for years? Did he know the power in his gaze?

He was entirely and unjustly intoxicating.

At least my flirtation was convincing, as it was entirely my own. This was it. This was my chance. If he liked me, if he wanted me, maybe there was hope still. If every other of his candidates became insufferable, if he could only think of me… Would he marry me? Was it enough?

I stepped outside.

He stood with his back to me, staring at the flames of a brazier as he drained a cup.

I breathed in and out, and now, it was the Thread’s words which came back to me. I pinned my shoulders back and held my head high.

And I strode right past him, drifting my fingertips over his hand as I passed. The sheer desire, confusion, and frustration in that brush threatened to bring me to my knees, but I kept moving. His emotions were a mirror of my own. A desire neither of us wanted.

Langnathin sucked in a breath from behind me as I passed him, but I set my eyes on my destination and did not falter. I strode straight over to Theollan. If the Dragon Prince could be jealous, if he might step forwards to prevent an engagement to the Scentlands, I had to press that advantage .

My Eavenfold kin was entirely sober, and his clothes entirely perfect, with a white, full doublet lined with silvered thread and pale sand trousers.

His power enabled him to track down living things within a certain vicinity, though the man looked as far from a ranger as one could.

I wondered if his Fate would grant him tracking over inanimate things, or merely increase his distance.

He greeted me with a kind nod. “How are you?”

“Confused.”

“He watches you,” Theollan said under his breath, his braided hair still perfect. “The prince.”

“Good,” I said. “The family has heard the rumours of your prince’s interest.”

He raised his brow at that. “Already?”

“I believe my guard, Wainstrill, might have seen you on your knees in the garden.”

“Ah,” he replied, a blush touching his cheeks. “I see how that might have looked.”

I touched his clothed arm. “To our mutual advantage, even if unintended.”

“I am better at this deception than I knew.” Then his jaw clenched, and he reached for the cup I had picked up as an idle prop. “Give me that,” he said, his back straightening. “The prince approaches.”

“So soon?” I murmured, but gave him the cup and smoothed my dress. If he spoke with me here, was this not just as public as a dance?

But I heard the lumbering footsteps, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I knew Langnathin’s steps. Those were not him.

The gruff voice confirmed my fears. “There you are. ”

It was not my prince, then. It was the other. The brute. I tamed the sourness from my face before I turned. “Yes, Your Grace.”

I appraised Banrillen. His shirt was unbuttoned, but on him it only made him look sloppy, with a smear of something on his collar. He looked drunk, and his eyes were more exploratory than I was comfortable with. “Did you need something?”

He grinned, offering me his palm. “How about that second dance?”

Behind him, I saw Langnathin studying us from the same spot I’d left him in, his eyes dark.

I smiled politely at the Wragg. “I’m very tired, Your Grace. My feet are not used to dancing.”

“Fine,” he said, his voice clipped, his hand still outstretched between us. “Come with me. I’ll show you the rest of the gardens.”

I sensed his anger, his unwillingness to take no for an answer. Agreeing had to be the path of least resistance. “As you wish, Your Grace.”