Page 62 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

Tani

T he morning sun peeked through the slit in the curtains as Wainstrill knocked and entered my room before I had so much as lifted my head from the pillow.

“Your lady’s maid is here,” he said, all curtness.

I pulled myself up to a seated position, and my vision blurred.

My whole face ached. It wasn’t the drink, I hadn’t had more than three cups.

But I’d been up until the first light spilled grey, crying and thinking through every possibility.

It was only exhaustion and the warmth of the child next to me that pulled me under.

Daffinia wafted into the room in a bright green skirt. In one hand, she held a pair of fine red gloves, the leather clenched in a tight fist. In her other hand, she held a bowl away from her body.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re still abed.”

I settled my feet into the rug and poured myself some water from the jug at my bedside, one hand resting on my dragon’s back. “I am not used to your festivities. I found them quite exhausting.” I finished my cup of water and poured another.

Daffinia nodded. “I am sure. To an outsider, it must all be quite stressful.”

She emphasised the word outsider as she studied my swollen eyes. I forced a smile and nodded, wanting nothing more than to strangle her and ask her to leave. I was in no mood for visitors, and less mood for the king’s sister’s little spies.

The maid lifted the gloves. “A gift.”

“From whom?” I asked, dreading the answer.

She smiled. “Your prince, of course.”

We both knew who she meant this time. I reached for them, and she placed the soft things in my hand. Gloves. Riding gloves, at that. For a caged woman. In Tanmer. Of all the gifts, these were some of the most redundant I could think of.

Numb, I placed them beside me on the bed.

She thrust out the bowl. “And this is another gift. For your beast.”

I took this one more eagerly, seeing the offcuts of venison and goat, certainly from last night’s feast. “Thank you.”

Daffinia nodded.

I put the bowl down on the bedside, hoping to keep the meat out from his nostrils for long enough for the maid to leave. If he woke, and his eyes opened, she could see their true colour. I wouldn’t let that happen, not now.

When I looked back at her, ready to come up with some reason to dismiss her, she was still staring at the bowl. “Was there something else?”

Daffinia shot her eyes back to mine, forcing another smile. “You enjoyed the ball, then?”

I nodded. “It was very diverting.”

She pushed her smile to the very edges of her cheeks. It looked painful. “I am told you danced with both princes. ”

“You are mistaken, Daffinia. I only danced with Banrillen.”

She made a soft exclamation. “He favours you, it seems.”

“It is an honour to be noticed in such a way.”

Daffinia glanced back to the discarded bowl. “You do not wish to feed him? He must be hungry, no?”

Her first look had been a tell; this was an announcement. Did Derynallis suspect who I was? Did she want him to open his eyes as proof?

“I’ll feed him once you have left,” I said, with a smile to match hers. “It can be quite messy.”

She nodded. “Yes, well. I shall leave you to it, then.”

I waited, only offering a smile as encouragement as she retreated from the room. Wainstrill opened the door for her, and closed it behind her.

As soon as it had shut, I dragged the heaviest chair in the room over to the door and propped it under the handle. I did not care if Wainstrill heard. If he felt it was acceptable for him to burst into my room without warning, I would at least make him fight for it.

Storming back into the room, I picked up the bowl of meat. Daffinia knew something, either about the dragon or Banrillen’s proposal.

I paced back and forth, debating waking the child to feed him now, or running before it all got even worse.

Then I smelt it. The meat had an earthy scent, something I had smelt once before.

I almost dropped the bowl, my stomach rolling at the realisation.

Then I clutched it tight to me, opening a window to air out the room.

I did not think either of us could be harmed from the mere smell, but I would take no chances.

I grabbed the ewer and poured water over the meat, hoping it would reduce its potency in some way. I wasn’t truly thinking at all .

Yvon had pointed them out to me once, for they grew in the southern reach of Gossamir. Small fungus, attaching to rotting wood, with tight white spots on a toffee brown cup. But it was Lavendell, and my encounter with the merchant assassin, that I truly knew them from.

Dreadspores.

I left the bowl on the windowsill and gripped the back of my chair with white-knuckled fear.

Think, Tani. I forced myself to breathe and work out what any of it meant.

There was poison in the meat. The same one as in the merchant’s wine all those years ago. It seemed the tactics of the Sightlands’ court lacked just as much finesse as ever.

Someone wanted to kill my dragon. Maybe the same person who wanted to kill me years ago. Or at least, the me I had been then. Tani. They had underestimated me before, just as they underestimated me now.

It wasn’t Langnathin. He would never try to kill my dragon. I knew that for certain, even if I didn’t understand exactly why. Whoever tried now, it wasn’t the Dragon Prince, and it surely wasn’t the Wragg.

The attempted murderer must have been Princess Derynallis or King Braxthorn. I wondered if they had heard about the proposal, or merely sought to remove something they believed could be a problem.

It was a clear enough sign, the last of too many.

If either of them wanted me or my dragon dead, then I had to run.

The sling was heavy, cutting into my shoulders.

Only a few weeks old, and yet he had grown a lot since I pulled him from his egg.

I kept to the scullery staircases and halls as far as I could, avoiding as many eyes as possible.

Most gave the sack attached to my front the barest of glances, perhaps assuming me a wet nurse to a suckling babe.

I said I had a message for the King’s Advisor, and on the third time of asking, I was directed to the war room.

It was a risk, bringing the dragon with me.

But I would not leave him alone, that was far worse an idea.

He would not leave my sight until Droundhaven was only a speck in the distance.

Now that I knew there was an active threat against his life, there was no chance I would leave him under Wainstrill’s watch.

When I reached the war room, I asked the guards if they could pass Septillis a message. They informed me he was alone, and I could deliver it myself.

My relieved sigh was palpable as the guards pulled open the doors.

My white-haired Brother leaned over the map table, his body half-sagged against the furniture as he looked at the carved pieces atop it. The dragontooth Lang had thrown onto it still lay there, discarded.

Seth looked up, his eyes wolfish in the low light, and the shadows on his face darker than I’d ever seen them. Had he slept at all?

Aware of the guards, and the open door behind me, I ducked into a curtsy. “Excuse me, sir. I have a message for you.”

He waved me in, his face sagging. “Yes, come in, Lady Vorska.”

I stepped into the room. Seth bid the guards to close the doors, and we were alone.

Seth rushed over to me. “I know I told you to come see me, but I never thought you would. ”

I grimaced as we hugged awkwardly around the bundle against my front. “You were right, I was being too stubborn.”

Seth pulled back, studying my face. “What happened?”

I knew then that he knew nothing of the proposal nor the attempted killing of my dragon. “Do you want the bad news or the worst?”

“What is it?”

“The Wragg proposed to me last night.”

“Shit,” he replied. “What did you say?”

“He wasn’t going to let me say no. I tried to stall him, but how could I refuse a prince?” I replied. “I’m a toy between two dogs.”

Seth shook his head. “By Edrin, we need to get you out sooner than I thought. How long do you have?”

I shrugged. “If he gets his way and asks your uncle as he said he would, we will be married in four days.”

“Shit,” he repeated, in a strange echo of Lang’s own cursing reaction. “Please tell me that was the worst part.”

“Daffinia delivered some food earlier today. For him,” I said, stroking his head from the outside of the fabric. “Coated in dreadspores.”

He took a step back, aghast. “She didn’t succeed, did she? She didn’t—”

“No, he didn’t eat anything. He is fine,” I said, and he visibly reacted. “But it was the same exact poison used against me in Lavendell, which might suggest the delivery was from the same person.”

“My mother,” Seth said, with creeping horror.

“It has to be. It is the only thing that makes sense. I know she has been advising Braxthorn not to trust you, that you are better off imprisoned, and the dragon better dead than bonded to an outsider. I knew what she was saying, but I had not expected her to act alone. ”

“It must have been her before then, in Lavendell,” I said. “I am only lucky she used the same tactic.”

“Lucky?” he choked. “You have the worst luck in the five kingdoms, Tani.”

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

“Braxthorn is out of the city today, on a royal visit with both of his sons to the Vidarium. They return late tomorrow,” he said, ignoring my glib reply. “My mother must have chosen today for that reason, hoping to have your dragon mysteriously dead, and you powerless, when they returned.”

“Why does she hate me so much?”

“I think it’s my fault,” Seth said. “She was willing to have you around until I suggested the vision of your marriage. She would kill ten dragons before she saw you wed one of her nephews.”

“Then she must have suspected he had made me an offer. The Wragg left me a favour yesterday. Ribbons. Daffinia must have passed that back to her.”