Page 75 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

I gulped in air, my face white with the events of the day. I shakily pointed towards the next door, one of the smaller dining rooms I had found before when first trying to find the library.

Then, a voice sounded from behind.

“What the fuck was that?”

His steps were impressively light for a man of his size, though I should have expected it given his span in the Soundlands.

I took him in from head to toe, a little relieved he seemed mostly himself. “Foxlin, you’re alright?”

“Alive enough to attend my master’s wedding and see you turn into… whatever you are now.” He breathed out through his nose, his nostrils flaring with discontent as he watched Lang. “What did you do to him?”

My shoulders shook with the strain of keeping Lang off the floor, and my throat bobbed. “I used my power, and I hurt him. I didn’t mean to. Please, please just help us get him somewhere private.”

Please, please. I needed Lang to be alright. He had sacrificed his inheritance for me, and all I had done was hurt him.

Foxlin took me in, from the sleeping dragon tucked under one arm, to my bloodied hand and shaking arms. “Edrin’s balls, why can I never say no to women?”

Between the two men, Lang was shifted into the next room and laid on the long central table.

It was a small reception room, with cups and glasses displayed in a cabinet to the right and several chairs stacked in the back left corner.

Theollan studied Lang as Foxlin paced near the door.

I left Hanindred on the carpeted floor, my entire body shaking.

What if I had killed Lang?

I approached the table and brushed his hair from his face. He looked peaceful now, but his anguished expression a moment ago told a different story.

“I think he’s just unconscious,” Theollan said. “When he comes to, we can tend to his symptoms.”

“I didn’t know it would hurt him,” I said, chewing my cheek until I tasted blood. As if that made any of it better, as if that helped.

Foxlin sighed. “I’ll stand guard. If anyone comes, I’ll knock four times. Do not hurt him again.”

I spun around and nodded. “I won’t.”

He grumbled and exited, closing the door softly behind him.

As we waited for him to come to, I found a golden ewer and poured some of the water into a bowl to wash the blood from my hands.

I caught a warping reflection in the polished metal which made my hands shake.

My hair was back to the same ghostly white, but now, at the edge of my forehead, my Mark had appeared.

From my hairline, two smaller triangles descended either side of my parting. Further out, two larger thin triangles spanned at the edges of my face, carving down to the tops of my cheekbones.

It gave the impression of teeth. As if my face was caught in the open maw of a dragon.

Shuddering, I retrieved Lang’s handkerchief from his jacket pocket. I dipped it into the water, this time without looking into the reflection of the ewer before returning to clean his hand, the blood already staining the forest green ruffles by his wrist.

I pressed a small kiss to his clean hand, and then another, as I stared at his closed eyes. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

A small noise sounded, and I froze. But it wasn’t Lang.

Thirsty.

I placed Lang’s hand back as Theollan felt his pulse, and I turned to see Hanin stretching.

Love and relief seared my veins. One of them was waking up. Hanin? How are you? It’s alright, I am here.

He muttered groggily in his mind as his claws flexed. Somehow even that internal voice sounded dry-throated. Asleep long time?

Very long , I replied, pouring the rest of the water from the ewer into a small clay-fired bowl I found in a cupboard. I placed it before him on the floor, guiding his head to it. Here, drink this.

He gave an experimental lick, still half asleep.

After the second lick, he came alive, drinking down all of the water in seconds as he dug his claws into the carpet before it.

He would need more, but there was none left, and we couldn’t risk leaving yet.

He sat back on his rump, his legs positioned in front of him.

Then he blinked and stared up at me with his moon-white eyes. You look different.

Yes. This is me now.

Hanin tilted his head. Why are you sad?

I took a jagged breath, wiping the tears from my face. I sniffed, my chest feeling weak and bones tired. Lang is unwell, and it is my fault. It is all my fault.

He took in this information with curiosity, but no blame. It was something new to process, ideas he was unaccustomed to.

This time, when I heard a noise from behind me, I knew it was Lang. I was at his side within a breath as his hands shook. He gasped, and sat up, clawing at his head once more.

I touched my hand to his back. “Lang?”

“Fuck. My head. ”

I met Theollan’s nervous gaze. “Can you get him something for the pain?”

“Will you be alright?” he asked.

Truthfully, I had no idea. I couldn’t predict how Lang would react when he realised, when it all sank in. But I had to speak to him. So I nodded, waving Theollan away.

“I’m so sorry, Lang.” The words fell the instant the door closed behind the Brother.

Lang clutched at his head, and with his hands there I couldn’t look him in the eyes.

I dared not touch his skin again, only brushing the back of his jacket.

“I was supposed to marry your brother, and then you were there. And I didn’t know what my powers would do. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He was silent long enough for me to hear the ticking of clockwork from somewhere in the room. Then he spun his legs around, facing entirely away from me.

“All this time, I never thought.”

“Lang—”

“Me. The victor of the Laithcart Games.” He snorted. “When did you know?”

From his question leaked the betrayal I had suppressed. I hardly knew what to say, and my lack of answer was enough.

He pushed himself from the table, standing even as he flinched to hold his head once more and turned back to me with hatred filling his draconic eyes. “Tell me this, Tani. Was it all fake? Everything between us.”

The tears threatened to spill again, but I swallowed past the lump in my throat and shook my head. “No. At first, I approached you in hopes of achieving my Fate, somehow. But I gave that up, it was a fool’s dream.”

Lang let out a bitter laugh that cut me harsher than the knife. “I thought you had forgiven me for my crimes against you. I am the fool, it seems, not you. All you wanted was to use me, like everyone else in my life.”

“It’s not true.” His mouth twisted, ready to bite, and I scrambled to defend myself. “Yes, I wanted to marry you for my Fate, but there was more to it than that.”

My husband stared at me as if he had never known me. As if he were looking at me for the first time. Perhaps he was.

Food? Hanin asked.

I sucked in a soft breath, and bit my lip to keep the sob in. Sorry. I know you’re hungry. Food soon.

He grumbled at me, but I couldn’t take my eyes from Lang.

“I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it, or you will force me to believe it anyway.

” He sat down heavily at the table, staring down at the cut on his palm, tied now with his handkerchief as a bandage.

I could see the angry tears welling, and all I wanted to do was reach for him.

It was the last thing he would want from me.

“It is a small relief, at least, that you could not manipulate my emotions before. At least I can look back on what I felt for you, and know it was all real.”

What I had done had given me my Fate and had broken something else, just the same. Whatever love he had started to feel for me was gone now.

Lang jutted his chin. “You will never do that to me again.”

I opened my mouth, and then closed it. With Hanindred behind me, and Seth locked above me, I did not want to lie to him again. “I cannot promise that.”

Lang sighed. The anger dissipated into total nothingness. This wasn’t the same calculated mask I had seen him don, this wasn’t an act to appear disaffected, he just looked exhausted, and numb. “Then at least tell me how you plan to use me next.”

Hanin mooched forwards, sniffing under the table legs.

I swallowed. “Lang. ”

“You are my wife, and I have promised before the Five to protect you. That will be easier to do if I know your plans.”

No more lies.

“I plan to help those who cannot help themselves.” He looked at me again then, and I kept my chin from wobbling. “To end tyranny.”

A sick humour crossed his face before losing to that same dead expression. “My darling, you married into the wrong family.”

There was cruelty in the words, but nothing more than I expected and deserved. I would rather his anger. “You will not help me, then.”

“It seems to matter little what I will and will not do, since you are determined to have your way regardless.” He stood, too quickly, and staggered a step as he searched the room for something. “What you did today put a target on both of our backs.”

“Me, they can kill. You’re a Sightlands Prince, with an adult dragon. Who can target you?”

Hanin curled around my legs, asking me for food again.

Lang pulled out a piece of parchment from the third drawer he searched, and a pot of ink. There was no life in his movement, nor in his words. “Not all targets are public duels, as you well know.”

I folded my arms. “I am sorry for my actions, but I saw no other way.”

He paused as he placed the pot of ink on the table, his fingers whitening around it. “You could have asked me.”

“Seeing you today, walking down the aisle towards me. That was the first time I knew you were capable of defying your father.” Lang flinched. I would not lie to him again, though. “If I had asked you to give up your father’s Soundlands coup, would you have done it? ”

I studied his pale jaw, his flaring nostrils, and the tension in his brow. I would take his anger over the nothingness from before. Goading him was not my intention, but around him, I could not help but bite.