Song of the Once Silenced (The Thornforged Chronicles #3)

Chapter 1

Elora

Snow. Then green. She didn’t remember the change.

Something dark beneath her fingers. Fur, maybe. She pressed harder. Nothing. Colors met her eyes and slid off. Shapes arrived and didn’t stay. The ground was far below, or close; she couldn’t tell. It all felt wrong. Too far away to hold onto.

A tree. Massive. Wrong in the way it reached above everything else. She couldn’t look away from it. Didn’t try. As it grew closer, the sounds came with it—birds, roaring water, a hum of life that her mind kept snagging on, turning over. Wrong.

Landing. At some point, landing. Her mind arrived a moment after her body. The beast touched down on a platform of wood that had not been carved but grown; the tree bending itself into banisters, into lattice, into shade.

Her body swayed forward before firm hands steadied her.

She looked at the people, and they looked back. White hair. Red hair. Skin like onyx, like sea glass. Eyes the color of MahōKi sap.

All of them watching her.

She didn’t look away. There was nothing in her that wanted to.

Someone spun her around. Golden eyes glowing against dark skin. Viliam. His face flickered—last night, that black room, the winged beast that brought her here. Here? Where was here? No blood. No death. Only life. Only the escape Tehvan promised before he—

Don’t.

He should be here with her. He should—

Stop. Stop, stop, stop—

A voice at her side. Female. Small. Angular. The nightglider who tried to kill her outside Ravenpoint.

They brought her back to finish the job? A sacrificial ritual? Purge the corruption? Do it. Get it over with.

Silence. The woman murmured something.

“Elders…decision…”

She nodded. That’s what is expected of her.

The elders will decide her fate. There’s only one answer. She…welcomed it.

Then she was moving. A steady pressure on her shoulder. She didn’t care who.

Inside nearly choked her. Was it the air? Some unseen presence? It pressed down on her.

Others walked beside her. Straight backs. Serious faces.

Like escorts.

Like an execution.

Like before—

The thought slipped away.

A cavern opened before her. A hundred pairs of eyes. Watching. Waiting. A steaming pool in the center.

They didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. But the massive forms drew her attention. Steam billowed from the hooves of a bull. Fire. Its hide was made of fire. How—

A crash. Pinpricks of water along her skin. From the depths a dragon—no wings, only fins—rose from the pool.

Above, a colossal cat. Nightglider.

Then the last creature stepped forward. Wolf. Stag. Something ancient stitched together wrong and somehow made holy. Antlers spread like living branches from its skull.

Elora stared at it. Felt nothing.

A blink, and they were people.

Elora looked away. Not respect. Disinterest.

Viliam spoke. Soft. The Al’teran language didn’t do soft, but he managed it. His voice shifted again—directed at them. Maybe for her. She wasn’t sure.

She peeked up as the nightglider elder responded. Spit caught in the air. Teeth.

The stag elder’s hand on the other’s shoulder. A shrug. A gesture between Elora and Viliam. A question, maybe.

Heads moved.

The gentler one stepped toward her.

Elora didn’t move.

Viliam’s fingers twitched.

The woman turned her around. Elora let her.

The cloak moved aside.

Her back. Exposed.

Whatever should have come with that—

Didn’t.

A finger traced the marks. Her skin recoiled from it. The pain came anyway. Dull at first. Then not.

Viliam flinched. Not at her pain. His own. She filed that away somewhere she couldn’t reach.

Was this fixing it?

Or—

The pain stopped. Clean. Sudden.

Worse.

Her shirt fell back. The elder’s voice receded, its tone changing at the end. A declaration. Something decided. Something proven.

About her. About what she was.

Elora turned. The bull shifter said something. His lip curled. Eyes piercing hers. Something in them burned. Her skin followed.

Not him. Death by fire—

The numbness wouldn’t hold against that.

The nightglider elder came forward fast, words spilling out in Al’teran, too fast, too much. Elora caught the shape of one. The last one. Something close to “mercy.” The woman’s fingers were lengthening. Claws.

Elora met her gaze, begging for it to be quick. Her foot instinctively stepped back. Something in her resisted.

Viliam extended his arm out, blocking her.

He didn’t raise his voice. He pushed back against his elder’s judgement. His words blurred—

except one.

“Thrask.”

A gasp echoed off the cavern walls. The sound hit her like—

The grand hall.

The black flame.

But here—what did it mean?

Murmurs rose. Blurred. Meaningless.

Some laughed. Some didn’t.

All of them watched.

The calm elder held up a hand, and the chamber stilled.

Water dripped somewhere in the dark.

Too loud.

Too in rhythm with all those staring eyes.

But the elders, their gazes never wavered.

The water dragon elder tilted his chin upward, staring at some invisible answer above them. He spoke; the words were not as harsh and pointed as the one that had attempted to end her here. She heard the word “Night” followed by “morah”.

She knew that word.

Morah.

Tree.

But “Night—”?

Viliam repeated the word again. “Thrask” and rested his hand on her shoulder. She flinched.

The elders exchanged glances.

Then each nodded.

They had decided something.

The weight of Viliam’s hand grew heavier.

Her throat constricted. She wanted to know. Then wondered why she cared.

Golden eyes trapped her. Viliam’s. The Elders’. The spectators’.

Her breath caught.

No one spoke.

She could understand enough.

They had changed their minds.

They would not kill her. Not yet, anyway.