Page 54 of To Touch A Silent Fury
Yvon nodded. “That is not all I came for,” she said, flicking her head. “Inside?”
Together we walked back to my pit. Yvon took careful steps in the freshly fallen snow, and I matched her prints as she’d taught me. Never make noise when silence is an option. Her boots were too big on me, but I wore two pairs of thrice-darned socks to make up for it.
An owl hooted overhead, and a light breeze caused some snow to fall from a laden pine branch. I marked where the soft swoop of it hit the ground.
The practices of the Soundlands were by no means second nature to me, even with nearly five years spent in the Gossamir Forest. I imagined they were never supposed to be natural to us, the cacofs. Only one born to its ways could ever truly claim their innate quiet.
Yvon ducked the low branch. Hidden half behind two shrubs, with a large rock on its left side acting as a natural wind barrier, the roof of my house took shape.
The place I’d lived in for the last four years only extended a couple of feet above the ground, its thatched edges coming to a low gable in the centre.
Yvon stepped down into it, dug near four feet into the ground. In its centre, I could comfortably stand. She could not, so she stooped as she entered.
I followed her in and wedged the wooden door back into place, casting us into near total darkness as Yvon lit my last stubby tallow candle. I never used it when it was just me, I knew the feel of the room by heart. The candle was for when Yvon visited, for she was my only guest.
I rubbed my hands as I revelled in the small comfort from being out of the wind and snow. Soon, the snow would stop, and the days would lengthen. Tonight marked the first day of Ergreen, and while the Soundlands were behind on the seasons,with three of them bitterly cold and the remaining two mild at best, Gossamir would soon enough lose its near constant blanket of ice.
Yvon sat cross-legged and pushed her hood back, revealing her blonde crown braid. Her face was flat and wide, her brow straight, and jaw firm. Even underfed as we all were right now, there was an enviable sturdiness to her presence.
I sat across from her and pulled back my own hood. I grabbed my long single braid to the front. Half the brown hair had already escaped it since I tied it in a rush earlier that day. The change in colour was the first thing I did when I landed in the Soundlands; a safety precaution necessitated by the rumours I’d heard for years on Eavenfold. Here, the Moontouched were carried off at birth, left in the snows of the forest. I might be a woman, and far grown from a babe-in-arms, but the notion of a tribesman tying me to a tree overnight during Domin held just as little appeal.
Yvon knew the truth of my colouring, for it was hard to hide my eyes at any proximity. But once I told her I was Broken, she lost her fear. It was a streak of luck, as without her I’d be long dead.
In true Euphon custom, something can never be given for nothing. I looked down at the hair mud, wishing she had come later, when the ground might be softened enough to find tubers, or I might have a few fish.
The flickering light of the candle showed the impact of the last three seasons plain, with my basket of dried jerky down to scraps and my berries only a stain against the wicker they used to nestle in. I was a fair fisherman now, but this Longdawn had not been kind to me, and I rarely brought back more than one trout.
“I didn’t expect you, I haven’t prepared anything to trade for the mud,” I admitted. Each application of her homemadebrown dye would last a few weeks until my roots showed through again. The last jar, nestled somewhere behind me, still had enough for another application. The brutality of everyday survival had distracted me enough that I hadn’t even considered requesting another.
I had been half-starved for a month now, and there was a moment when I was holding that wolf’s paw where I knew I could have skewered him with my knife.
And yet, I couldn’t. All I could think of when I saw him was Seth, and his stupid scholarly voice as he explained to me the pack nature of wolves. It was not normal for this creature to be alone so young. Wolves might break off from their pack, but not ones so young as this. I couldn’t bring myself to harm another lonely thing, another thing that didn’t belong.
Yvon stared at my excuse for supplies and signed as she spoke. “I will accept a service.”
Even inside, smothered under the nook of the ground, she spoke so softly it was hard to discern at times. I had to engage every part of myself to listen, watching her lips and hands to pick up any key words I might miss.
“As you say,” I replied, taking a bite of the tough jerky and chewing it slowly.
She leaned over, checking the string fastenings and the moss. “Good. It is dry.”
I watched her study the house, awaiting her inevitable criticism. I knew there was work to do on it, but I hoped this would be the last year I would spend under its roof. “Do you have a service in mind?”
Yvon signed to confirm she did.
Euphons hated unnecessary noise. It was part of the reason they hated us cacofs so much.
That hatred had magnified manifold in the last span, since troops from the Sightlands descended to build their barrackson the northwestern edge of the forest. Their mysterious arrival was enough for tensions to boil, but the felling of the trees had been an act of war to most of the tribes. With every grind of the saw, the forest dwellers silently screamed.
Their sign language was hard to grasp, and I still only knew the main words I relied upon. Yvon knew that and humoured me with speech. But if there was truly a need for silence, a few signs could be the difference between a planned attack and a quick death.
“What do you ask of me?”
Yvon blinked, her deep sea eyes now almost black in the low light. “The forest will soon come ablaze. I ask you not to intervene.”
That was a serious thing. Fires blazed hot and cruelly in Gossamir. “A fire? His men’s doing?”
Yvon pulled a small leather wineskin from her pocket and drank some. When she met my gaze again, her eyes were steel. “Ours.”
