Page 2 of Silverbow (The Godsung Saga #1)

one

Enya

A cold wind blew across the Ilbarran Ocean, still frothing with winter whitecaps that battered the rocky coast. Onward it howled through the peaks and valleys of the Greenridge Mountains, the bare branches of the forest groaning as they awoke from their long slumber.

It swept over the low stone wall of the estate that lay in their shadow and swirled the gray cloak of a girl, pulling wild strands of copper hair from her braid before racing out over the patchwork of orchards and farms that lay beyond.

On the wind blew, losing its bite with every mile.

It crossed the mighty Trydent and the expanses of Berdea Plain, singing the season’s last song even as the frost lost its grip on the winter brown grasses.

Its howl faded to a lament by the time it reached the scorched ruins of Eastwood, where motes of ash still swirled across scarred land.

Through the high passes of Tuminzar and the flat of the Ormr Gap far to the east, it was barely a sigh, finally lost in the whispering sands on the shore of the Saulet Sea.

But at the base of Greenridge, the girl squinted into the icy blast that tried to steal her breath.

It was the kind of wind that bit through cloak and stockings; the kind of wind that pushed drafts through the farmhouse at her back; the kind of wind that blew things off course.

She let herself feel it, hear it, and took the measure of it .

Her shoulder strained, but she let everything but the wind and the rhythm of her own heartbeat fall away.

When she knew how it would shift and bend, she adjusted her mark.

The bowstring snapped with a twang . The satisfying thunk of the arrow as it buried itself in the center of the painted crosshatch made her grin despite the cold.

Her smile widened at the exasperated sigh the boy beside her loosed.

“Nicely done, Enya.” Marwar, her father’s grizzled Master of Arms, was nodding in stern-faced approval.

Gnarled fingers were wrapped around the quarterstaff he leaned on like a cane, a lean that seemed to worsen with each passing season.

On the other hand, he wore the lines and whorls of an unfulfilled vow, its mark inked upon his skin. “Finish it off.”

The aged knight had pressed them clear across the practice yard, their backs to the side of the old farmhouse, the whitewash faded after a long, unrelenting winter.

It was farther than their usual practice, but neither Enya’s arm nor aim ever faltered as she nocked, drew, and loosed.

The shaft of the next arrow vibrated as it struck the top of the cross on the scarred target.

“Finally, something less than perfect,” Liam muttered.

Enya hummed and smiled to herself as she drew the third, sending it into the bottom of the cross. The last two, she planted to either side in rapid succession. It was in fact perfect, making Liam shuffle his feet on the frozen, hard packed dirt.

“Show off.”

Enya bobbed a mock bow to the stablemaster’s boy and stepped back to watch his turn.

Raised together as the only two children of Ryerson House, Liam Marsh had been her closest friend and confidant for as long as she could remember.

A year older and a head taller, not to mention a boy , or a man now she supposed, Liam was bigger, faster, and stronger than Enya in every way, except with a bow.

She’d honed that particular advantage to perfection, much to his chagrin.

“Before summer, boy,” Marwar barked, and Liam plucked an arrow from his quiver, sighing again.

Enya wiggled cold toes in her boots and blew warm breath into cupped hands to chase off the chill.

Liam was more than a fair archer, but he couldn’t match her talent, especially in this wind. He overcorrected, and when the gale suddenly guttered, his first arrow landed high and to the left. He scrunched his nose, running a hand through sandy hair as he studied it through narrowed gray eyes.

“Keep it moving. ”

Enya hid her smile behind her hands when his second arrow sailed wider still, disappearing into the haystack beyond.

“Don’t, En,” he growled preemptively.

She flashed him a grin but held her tongue. Marwar would keep them standing in the cold until he was satisfied and goading Liam wasn’t going to improve his aim. Especially not today. When he managed to plant his next on the target, Enya clapped politely, earning a glare.

“I pity the game in Greenridge.”

Enya whirled at the sound of the voice that called out from the front porch. Lord Renley Ryerson was leaning over the railing, peeling off his riding gloves, still dressed for travel. A smile that crinkled dark eyes split his handsome face.

“Father!” Enya exclaimed.

With a leap over the skeletal shrubs and a swing of her leg, she was bounding over the porch railing and flinging her arms around his neck in an embrace.

“My darling.” He brushed her cheek with a kiss, the stubble on his jaw rough against her wind lashed skin.

When he stood straight, his height lifted her feet off the ground.

Enya laughed as he gave her a twirl, sending her cloak swirling around them in the echo of something he’d done long ago in a ballroom. “Did you miss me?”

“Always.”

Ryerson House was always duller when her father was away.

With Marwar and Mister Ashill studiously looking after her lessons and Alys Ashill clucking over her like a mother hen, there was hardly any fun to be had.

But Lord Ryerson, whose easy nature warmed the drafty farmhouse, and whose eyes held a glimmer of mischief even now as his dark hair gave way to gray, was just as likely to find reasons to free Enya from her lessons as he was to set her back to them.

“How was Bridgewater?” She asked as he set her back down in her boots.

“Charming as usual,” he answered with a hint of something that suggested he found its charm lacking. “Care to join me for a cup of tea before dinner? That is if Marwar is done with you.”

The Master of Arms inclined his head. “Of course, my lord. Welcome home.”

“No trouble since I’ve been gone?” Her father asked, his gaze sweeping over the yard.

A newly raised minor house, Ryerson House was more sprawling farm than proper lord’s estate.

Horses were their trade and Enya altogether thought their modest holdings far superior to the few other noble houses she’d seen with their overstuffed pomp and inflated ideas of grandeur, peeling whitewash included.

“None, sir,” Marwar assured him.

“Rather surprising for these two, wouldn’t you say?”

He smiled down at Liam, pink beyond that of the cold creeping into his cheeks.

Just before her father’s departure in the last throes of winter, Liam and Enya had upset the stable boys with wild tales of the snowbeast that sometimes came down from the mountains.

The monstrous, manlike creature would make fine snacks of the boys who didn’t run fast enough.

Of course, there was no snowbeast in the low peaks that were rarely blanketed in white, and the boys had said as much until one appeared in their midst. Enya thought her father and Liam’s da, Del, both would have found it funny themselves, if it hadn’t been for Wil Sheahan crashing into poor Master Marwar in his fright, sending the old man sprawling on the ice.

His usual limp was still more pronounced all these weeks later.

Another of the boys had abandoned Tyndar where he stood, letting her father’s prized stallion run loose in the yard. Del had to scramble after him before he could round up the stable boys, and Oslee Amcot made it all the way home to his mother before Del could assuage their panic.

Mistress Amcot had been rather cross over the whole ordeal and gave the stablemaster an earful that he relayed to his son.

Liam had in turn relayed it to Enya as she doubled over, clutching her side in a fit of laughter.

It took Del three days to get the boys all back to work, Liam and Enya picking up their extra chores in the meantime.

Even now, the stable boys still jumped at shadows, despite the revelation that Enya had put her sewing lessons to work, badly stitching pelts to Liam’s jacket and dusting him in flour.

She had taken the brunt of Mistress Alys’s tongue lashing.

It was clear the woman hadn’t been impressed with Enya’s sorry stitches as she bandied a wooden spoon about.

“See to Farrah for me, would you lad?” Her father asked with a chuckle, as if he too recalled the snowbeast.

“Of course, sir,” Liam nodded.

“There’s something for you in my saddle bags,” her father called after Liam as he strode toward the sprawling stable - the crown jewel of Ryerson House. “Come, Enya. ”

She followed him into the front hall where Mistress Alys met them to take their cloaks. With her usual crisp white apron over her no-nonsense gray wool, Alys Ashill was as much a fixture of Ryerson House as the front door.

The plump woman patted her neat gray bun, assuring it was in order as she said, “My lord, it is good to see you. I put a kettle on as soon as Griff saw you coming up the road, and there’s a fresh log on the fire.”

“You’re a saint, Alys,” her father smiled, rubbing his hands together as he strode into the drawing room. He dropped into one of the worn, high-backed armchairs facing the hearth.

Mistress Alys turned to Enya, her eyes widening slightly at the sight of her. For all her life, Mistress Alys had been trying to make Enya look the part of a proper lady, and for all her life, Enya had been running barefoot in the forest and wrestling stable boys in the dirt.

“This hair child,” she clucked with more than a touch of exasperation.

Enya batted away the hands that reached out to smooth her braid and dropped into the twin armchair at her father’s side.

“I had hoped spring would arrive before I did,” he sighed.