Page 88 of To Touch A Silent Fury
Heavy red curtains blocked all but the smallest slither of the sun’s rays from the room, and the only light came from the embers in the fireplace at the king’s back and the dripping waxen sconces. For a kingdom so concerned with sight, and a castle so immaculately maintained, I found it strange he would smother himself in such dingy surroundings.
The king sucked his teeth. “Explain why you have brought this woman before me. There are things to discuss which are not forcompany.”
I stood as still as I could, somehow feeling if I stayed entirely motionless, I would incur less vitriol. I had not expected King Braxthorn to be kind, and yet, the contrast of his ugly nature to the beauty of his castle had thrown me.
Langnathin shrugged out of his heavy coat, hanging it up over a carved bear head nailed to the wall. Then he looked at me, his eyes flashing when he found me already watching him. “Show them.”
I nodded. I pulled off my gloves, my hands sweaty inside them, and pushed them into my pockets before deftly unfastening my coat. I dropped it to the floor. My dragon had curled himself against my abdomen, fully hidden from view in the sling made of a tattered bedsheet. If I had believed myself to look unfortunate before, I could not imagine what they made of me now, with half a bed strewn across me. I did not look up, only reaching down and circling my hands around the child’s hot middle.
I raised my eyes to Braxthorn’s as I pulled him into view, resting him back against my shoulder.
I heard the Wragg’s shock as I saw it ripple across Braxthorn’s expression, before he quickly smothered it. The king had the savvy to keep his surprise to himself, and he made the connection faster than any other. He stared straight into my eyes, meeting them as he had not before, reassessing me and what I represented in less than a span of seconds. I did not lower my gaze. The two human keepers of the only sapphire dragons known alive.
Braxthorn broke our eye contact, looking at Langnathin. “Vellintris?”
Langnathin pulled something from his pocket and threw it casually onto the table. A tooth.
“Ah,” Braxthorn said, a creepy smile pulling at his thin cheek. “A shame.”
“Yes,” Langnathin replied.
He looked at me again, then. “You come here of your free will?”
I nodded. “I do, Your Majesty. My people cast me out. They do not approve of human bonding. But I had heard of your dragons, and the wyverns your soldiers ride. I hoped I could find refuge and training here.”
The Wragg had finally made the connection, and he pointed at me as his face reddened. “You bonded with the dragon? You?”
I nodded, struggling not to hide from the rage I found painted on his face. The huge man made a gasping noise as he strode towards me.
Langnathin made no move to stop him as he passed. If anything, the Dragon Prince looked bored.
The Wragg stopped two feet from me, and my shoulders locked as he towered over me. He stared at my eyes with spit on his lip, and then at my dragon, sleeping beside my neck. Hereached a hand towards the creature, and I took two quick steps back. I would not let this brute touch him or me.
The Wragg held his hand out into empty space, looking at me as if he could strangle me with his dull brown eyes. I pinned him with a look of equal hostility. Then he whipped around to look at his father. “You said the next dragon would be mine.”
“Now, now,” King Braxthorn said, holding up his hand. He didn’t look concerned. If anything, he watched our interaction with curiosity. “No one could have predicted this.” Then he studied his younger son, still disinterestedly staring at the walls. “Tell me, son. How did this woman outfox you? You had hundreds of men, and only one goal: bring me back the egg. Not only did you fail to retrieve the egg first, but somehow this one bonded with it.”
Langnathin sighed and wandered over to the table, rubbing a finger over Vellintris’ tooth. “As I reported to you in my letters, the Soundlanders lit decoy fires to stop us from identifying her landing point. We were at one of those decoy fires when Vellintris’ true firesign rose in the sky.”
“And how had Mephluan’s people already found her?” he questioned.
Mephluan’s people. It was an archaic term for the Soundlanders, harking back to the six Founders of the land. Five, if you believed the writings ofThe History of the Five, as most of the common world did. Mephluan, the Muse. The creator of music and art. The only woman of the Five, if one discounted the forgotten sixth Founder, Tavedwen.
The Dragon Prince levelled his gaze at his father. “It seems she had landed a day prior to her firesign. Badly injured. Their people must have been more attuned to the disturbance.”
Braxthorn returned the stare, until his son looked away.
Then he turned to me. “What’s your name?”
I nodded. “Vorska,Your Majesty.”
“How old are you?”
“Five spans, Your Majesty.”
He smiled, and it pulled badly at his face. “A fortuitous age. You’ve lived in the Soundlands your whole life?”
My heart fluttered. Part of me had expected to be questioned, but the undercurrent in the room was that of a knife edge. “Yes, Your Majesty. I was born under the silver bells of Sellador, but my mother moved us to Gossamir when I was only young. All of my memories, before today, were within its trees.”
