Page 33 of To Touch A Silent Fury
I stood, ready to finally see the arena in the light of day. The green dress was heavy at the waist and restrictive around my shoulders. It covered me entirely, starting high on my neck and extending down to my wrists, before falling to the floor. I shouldn’t need any further layer, at least, as this was thick enough to warm me. It crucially, however, did not cover my head. My hair and eyes were visible to all. The top half was tightly braided, and the lower half fell in its loose curls down my back. Besides Thread Ersimmon’s own white hair, my status as a Moontouched would be an easy guess.
The Thread turned his troubled gaze to me, and he paused. The worried line between his brows loosened. “Yes. Yes, that’ll do.”
I smiled at him,cautiously.
He reached out his hand, revealing a handful of green glass. “The last piece of the puzzle.”
I lifted the offering, thinking at first it was some necklace, and then the form of it became clear. “You wish for me to cover my face?”
Thread Ersimmon nodded, before giving me a look of warning. “You wouldn’t wish to offend a competitor, would you?”
I sighed and strung the green beads across my face, positioning them over my nose as I had before. I understood what he meant. We had no idea who would win. To snub the beads and then find the victor was a Sightlander would be a problem. He might reject my hand.
Not for the first time since leaving Eavenfold, I considered if I actually wanted this Fate. If I cared enough to go through with it, in the name of widening a power I’d never asked for. I had my wish: I was off the island. But, as in every fable I had ever read, wishes were a terrible thing. Once you got your heart’s desire, it rarely turned out the way one hoped.
I knew I wanted to see my parents again. I knew I wanted the world to stop looking at me how they did, as the weird girl of the order, as nothing but an ill omen. That would only worsen if I allowed my Fate to squander, fail, and Break. I had little hope of fair treatment as it was, but with no power at all, I would remain alone and penniless for the rest of my days.
I resented my Fate beyond anything I had yet known. But without it, without the man who would validate me in the eyes of all good society, there was no hope for me. If the only path to any sort of life was attached to a man’s side, then I would suffer it. Maybe there would be some good I could do with the powers it granted me, even as it took away my choices.
Ersimmon passed the woman a small bag of coins and offered me his arm. I took it, and caught the hint of a smile on his face. “You remember what I told you?”
I nodded as we stepped into the corridor. My shoes were low, but their newness pinched my toes regardless and shortened my steps. It hardly mattered, my escort wasn’t the fastest walker. “Speak little,” I said. “Don’t introduce myself. Smile. Accept no favours.”
He patted my bare hand with his gloved one. “One more thing. You have no gloves today, and for good reason. Use all of your senses. If there is anyone you sense some treachery or malice from, I want to know.”
“You expect another attempt on my life?”
He shook his head, and a few strands of hair escaped to settle over his star-spotted Mark. “Now we are here, I expect your would-be murderer will wait until after the event. Whoever ordered it wanted you to die quietly by poison on the mainland. I can’t imagine the same killer would want to make a spectacle here. But if you see a competitor who makes you feel unsafe, I want to know. Second son or farmer’s boy, I care not.”
“Why?”
“You don’t know my power, do you?”
I thought back, thinking of every text I’d ever read, anything Seth had ever told me of Thread Ersimmon. Most thought him senile and without the faculties of his youth, and little mind was put to him. “I must admit I do not.”
He grinned, showing the gaps in his teeth. “If any one of your potential suitors out there truly makes you worried, tell me.” The guards opened the doors at our arrival, and bright light spilled inside. “I’ll make the thought of marrying you so revolting, that they’ll pull out of the match altogether.”
I looked at him then in pure astonishment, but his eyes were already on the arena below. I opened my mouth, with no idea of how to respond. Then the laughter came, swift and sure. I covered my mouth as the mirth poured out, trying to lose the sound behind my dress.
Ersimmon’s eyes crinkled with a shared amusement, but then he pulled me forwards a step, and I sobered as I took in the stage where I would know my husband for the first time.
It was a pleasant Ergreen day with a cloudy but bright sky and no grey menace of approaching rain threatening it. Stone steps carved away from us down to a huge oval space covered in a neat smattering of grass. Two men in light armour stood at either side, one swinging a shortsword and the other speaking to his squire. The arena itself was only a third full, but still it was more people than I’d seen in one place in my entire life.
It was then that Seth appeared at the top of the stairs, hiding his true identity in his grey cloak, and stared at me with something akin to wonder. He offered me his arm, and I took it with my spare hand. With a Brother on either side, I descended into the basin.
We caught stares from anyone who happened to look towards us. Two Brothers of Eavenfold escorting a white-haired sister in an extravagant dress; I could only imagine the oddity.
Thread Ersimmon called for some food for us from one of the servers we passed, for which I gave him another smile since I hadn’t managed to eat more than two bites of porridge that morning. It also became quickly apparent not one of us knew anything about fighting beyond what we’d read in a book, yet Seth had thankfully at least asked someone about the event.
“Nothing today counts towards tomorrow’s main events,” he explained. He pointed to the armoured man on the left as we took our seats. Seth’s status allowed us to sit in the first two rows where the stone steps had small red cushions spaced along them, and I was well-pleased for it. “They’ll be matched off today for a practice bout in hand-to-hand combat. It’s not really part of the official contest—that is solely tomorrow's duel. This is pageantry, a way for each of the competitorsto be assessed by each other. It’s also helpful to the bookkeepers. If someone walks off with a limp, their odds will shift, and so on.”
The two advanced towards each other, swinging their swords in graceful arcs.
“If it doesn’t matter, why not make their swords wooden?” I asked.
Seth shrugged. “It would lose some of its intrigue. There’s no real threat without real swords.”
I scoffed. “The intrigue is barbarism, then?”
