Page 12 of To Touch A Silent Fury
I folded my arms. “If Thread Ersimmon asked me such a question, I would give him a poor answer.”
“You would so readily snub Marriage?”
“Of course,” I said without pause.
“You want to leave Eavenfold more than anything,” he said. “Marriage would guarantee that.”
I stared at him and saw it written in his moon-white eyes. The same ones I had, the same ones every Brother was born with, as inexplicable as our hair and our Marks. If I touched him, I knew I would find that he was earnest in his argument. He truly believed marriage would be as much an escape for me as a quest to acquire a relic from the far reaches of the Cloven, or to discover the minerals lying deep beneath Vintarrun’s fiery mountain.
Somehow he didn’t understand that freedom for me was more than leaving the shores of this grey place. It was being my own person, making my own way, and going home with something to show for it. He had his Fate now. Marriage wasn’t on the cards for him. He didn’t get it, and he never would.
“I would tell her to marry Duc de Fleur.”
“Duc de Fleur,” he repeated.
“He has land and no wife. As a widower himself, they might find some common ground in their grief,” I suggested.
Seth clicked his tongue. “He is the provincial Duke of Ville-Fleur, which is barely even a city. As a lady-in-waiting, I am certain you would know the courtly gossip around him. Rumours say he killed his last three wives. He has a history of cruelty, and none of virility.”
“So what is your assessment?”
Seth studied my face. “If I were Thread Ersimmon, I would have failed you.”
Good.
I nodded, and turned from him. I didn’t look back as I carried on walking, my pace fast as I stepped heavily on the wet grass.
It was the last day of Longdawn, and the season had begun to change. Change always came slow on Eavenfold, and yet the boggy, freezing blue-green grasses poked up with hints of daisies, and the domil bushes budded with new life, ready to flower. Ergreen was a time of blossoms, rain, and the occasional sunny hour when Stormnoon’s howling winds took a day off. I ached for a truly warm day, and with any luck my Fate would carry me to the Tastelands, where Tanmer would scorch the grass yellow and my family would only be a short journey away.
“You can’t disrespect the Threads like that tomorrow,” Seth scolded. “They won’t appreciate it.”
“Then I best hope they see it as ignorance and not malice.”
“You’re insane.”
I turned back to see him breathing hard, the sea of grass behind him sharpening the bones of his red face as his legs pumped to catch up. “No. I’m choosing my future.”
Seth gave me a look of disbelief, and I kept walking before he told me exactly what I didn’t want to hear, that it was already chosen for me.
At the top of the low hill, barely even a real incline, I placed my hands on my hips and breathed deeply, staring out at the black waters to the west of Eavenfold. The water looked as terrifying as ever, hitting against the pale cliffs in grey gallops, the fizz of the white bubbles on top inviting nothing but a cold death.
Seth arrived beside me, a light sheen of sweat covering his brow. “We’re not the only ones stupid enough to go for a walk in the rain, it seems.”
I followed his gaze to the north side of the island.
A tall man dressed in black stood in the distance, so far away it was impossible to tell if he was facing us. It looked as if his hood was down, which would mean his hair was not white, but dark.
“Who is that?” I said, more to myself than in expectation of any answer.
Seth had made the same deduction I had. “He doesn’t look like a Brother.”
Then something loomed behind him.
A shape rose from his left, then another from his right. Membranes stretched between five thick fingers of tough skin. Two wings, the dim light showing them to be a deep ruby.
The words fell from my lips like a prayer. “Red dragon.”
Seth yanked me down by the waist, pulling me to the floor behind a rock. He gripped me until I wriggled from his hold. I stayed behind the rock, staring at the horror written on his face.
