Page 35 of Silverbow (The Godsung Saga #1)

The flat grassland of Berdea Plain offered little in the way of privacy.

In every direction, there was nothing but a sea of knee high green grass that disappeared into the horizon.

Here and there, the land was marked with a boulder or a lone, scraggly tree.

It was for one of those far flung trees she made.

When she turned back toward the camp, she found Oryn waiting for her part way, hand resting on his sword hilt. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

“Don’t go so far I can’t sense you,” he ordered.

She scowled, pink creeping into her cheeks. “That’s kind of the point.”

He gave her a flat look and turned back to Colm’s cookfire.

Oryn’s rules seemed to multiply with every mile they covered.

He had rules for where they could and couldn’t camp.

He had rules for where they could and couldn’t wield.

There were rules for tending the horses, most of which Enya begrudgingly agreed with, but under no circumstances was she to touch Kiawa.

That was clear, even as she marked the place Oryn scratched the big stallion that made him curl his lip and bob his head.

Enya silently vowed she would befriend the beast.

There were rules for how they spoke to passing strangers, rules that mostly involved her not speaking at all.

There were rules for which names they used when.

Most of the time, they used the ones scrawled on their papers.

Colm she already knew as Andril, Oryn was Adar, Bade went by Pedron, and Aiden was usually Aiden, unless he was Linus, which she still hadn’t seen him use.

“Why is it you get to keep your name?” She asked as they rode.

He gave her a wry smile. “Because there are no stories about me, Lady Silverbow.”

She looked around at the others. “Stories? What kind of stories?”

“None that concern you,” Oryn said gruffly.

Enya rolled her eyes. That seemed to be his answer for everything .

“What about you, Lady Silverbow?” Aiden asked. “Aside from the occasional witch, have you done anything interesting with that gift of yours?”

Enya shrugged. “Not really.”

“What’s the most difficult target you’ve ever hit?”

“None of them are difficult,” she admitted.

Aiden gave an exasperated shake of his head. “Fine, what’s the smallest thing you’ve ever hit?”

Enya considered. “The broadhead of a crossbow bolt, I suppose.”

“Was it moving?”

“Yes.”

“At you?”

She nodded begrudgingly, recalling the brigands.

“Now that is a story I want to hear!“ Aiden hooted.

The tick in Oryn’s jaw betrayed his feigned disinterest, and Bade eyed her from his periphery.

Enya shrugged. “Not much to tell. I met a band of brigands on the Queen’s Road. One of them fired a bolt at me when I made to run. It was either knock if off course or let it rip through my chest.”

“And then?”

“I lost them in Greenridge.”

Aiden whistled through his teeth. “You’re going to have to get better at recounting your deeds, Silverbow. The bards will sing about you one day.”

Enya didn’t particularly care what the bards sang of, she’d never even seen one perform. “I’ve never had much use for songs.”

Bade seemed to grunt his agreement. It was the most acknowledgement she got from the dark eyed demi-elf most days.

He spoke little and seemed set on disliking her, or perhaps he disliked everything.

Enya didn’t particularly like him either after their first meeting and was content to ignore his flat stare.

She’d still seen nothing of his wielding gift, if he had one, not that he needed one with the twin blades rising over his shoulders.

When Oryn wasn't issuing orders or breathing down the back of her neck like an overprotective gargoyle, he too seemed intent on ignoring her.

Colm at least seemed genuine in his interest in getting to know her.

He sometimes asked questions about her family and her home.

He was careful not to prod, and answered her questions about wielding or the world in turn.

As they rode, he offered stories of far flung places and when they made camp for the night, he pointed to the constellations overhead and sometimes told her stories of their gods.

Aiden reminded her of home. Sometimes, Enya found his grin infectious. Other times, he made a joke or flashed her a look that reminded her so much of Liam, she thought her heart might crack in two. Light, Liam. Where are you?

As much as Oryn’s rules grated on her, she begrudgingly had to admit, her situation had drastically improved.

He and his companions seemed to know the terrain as if they held maps in their heads and they never went without food or water.

They camped far from the villages and farms that dotted the Queen’s Road, but every few days, a pair of them broke off and stopped in a village to buy what they couldn’t hunt.

What they couldn’t get in the villages, they purchased at outlying farms for generous sums.

The men they passed on the road eyed their blades and broad shoulders and offered respectful nods.

Enya hated them for it. It wasn’t fair that a strong jaw and a set of muscles made them safe where she wasn’t.

But if the passersby thought anything all about the girl who rode in their company, they were wise enough not to mention it where they could overhear.

Enya tried to make herself useful, but there was little to do that the demi-elves didn’t do better or faster. She continued to hunt along their route, and whenever her arrow found what Bade’s couldn’t, Aiden let out a whoop that made the dark eyed demi-elf’s scowl deepen .

“I’m not going to skin them for you,” he huffed when she held out the day’s rabbits.

“I don’t have a knife,” she seethed.

He arched a brow Oryn’s way and it unceremoniously landed at her feet in the grass. For that, she refused to find even a kernel of gratitude. It was her knife, after all.

A little stream at one campsite offered a chance at laundry, and Aiden joined her with a bundle of travel stained garments.

He dubbed her Lady Laundress and gave her a mock bow that made Enya laugh until a vision of Mistress Alys brandishing a wooden spoon flashed behind her eyes.

She had to turn her face down to her scrubbing to hide the way it twisted.

She let the anger well, and channeled it into scouring the road from her clothes.

“You finally going to make yourself useful, Brydove?” Aiden asked.

Enya jumped. She hadn’t heard Oryn come up behind her.

The silver haired gargoyle rolled his eyes and brought a hand up.

He gestured as if he were tugging at invisible threads.

The arm he flung out was all that stopped her from toppling into the stream when she realized he was pulling invisible threads.

Beads of water leapt back into the stream and the dark damp spots on the boulder where she'd been spreading wet clothes vanished.

When Enya picked up a shirt, dry as if it had been hanging on a line all day, her mouth fell open.

He shot her a small, satisfied smile that made her stomach do an unexpected flip.

“How do they not catch you?” She asked wonderingly.

“We only wield out here,” Aiden answered, gesturing to the emptiness.

“Wielding leaves residues that some can read,” Oryn explained. “The bigger the wielding, the bigger the residue.”

“The healing in Trowbridge?” She asked.

“Small enough to dissipate before any wielders happened by.”

“And what Colm did at the gate?”

“Miniscule,” he assured her before gathering his laundry and stalking back to camp. Enya watched him go, eyes still wide. She was growing accustomed to the fires that appeared from thin air, but any other bit of wielding still sparked dread and fascination.

Aiden chuckled as he gathered the other men’s clothes. “Wait until you see him in a fight. Water is only one of Oryn’s lesser gifts. Air is his real gift. Terrifying things, air wielders.”

Enya swiveled, eyes wide. “Not fire?”

He gave her a wink. “Flame can’t burn those with fire in the blood, except dragonfire of course.

” He smirked at her astonishment and scratched at his chin.

“But the air wielders go around strangling people with air . Hardly a fair fight.“ He tapped a finger to his lips in thought. “I’d say earth is a close second. One moment it’s there beneath your feet, and the next, poof .”

He flicked water droplets her way for dramatic effect. “Now water…water is not so scary unless you have the misfortune of fighting near enough of it, but even a puddle could be used to drown someone, I suppose.”

Enya felt the color drain from her face. “And fire wielders? For the people without fire in the blood?”

He grinned at her. “We can do all kinds of useful things, Lady Silverbow. Make a nice cup of tea, heat your bath, warm your bed…”

Enya gasped as a jet of water suddenly leapt from the stream bed and blasted Aiden in the face.

The demi-elf cursed and spluttered. She clapped a hand over her mouth as a wild laugh broke loose.

Oryn was busy tending the spit, but from the corner of her eye, she thought his stony mask slipped into a smile.

That night, rocking anxiously beside the fire, she finally worked up the courage to ask Colm for his dream ward.

He gave her a warm smile and beckoned her over.

Unlike the icy feel of Oryn’s healing, she felt nothing at all beside the brush of his fingertips on her brow.

But that night, she drifted in a glorious, dreamless sleep.

***

A dull thud thud thud roused Enya in her blanket roll and she sat bolt upright. She swiveled, looking for signs of trouble. Aiden and Colm sat tending the fire. Bade and Oryn were stripped to the waist, fists raised, with sweat glistening off their bare skin. Dear gods.

The swell and dips of honed muscle were almost indecent as she stared at Oryn’s broad back. Her mouth went a little too dry and her heart did a stupid little stutter when he turned and she took in his chiseled abdomen and broad chest.

She watched, utterly transfixed, as they moved around each other like big cats.

Silent, graceful, deadly. When Oryn shifted again and Bade turned, she gave a start.

The darker man was just as sculped as Oryn, perhaps even broader, but a hideous mass of scars trailed down his side.

From shoulder to waist, the ruined flesh looked like melted candle wax, twisted and angry.

Other scars crossed his chest and back, thin lines made by blades, but she stared in horror at the old burns.

She started when Colm pressed tea on her with a warm smile. “Did you sleep well?” He asked brightly, but the smile faded as he followed her gaze.

“It…was not healed?” She asked quietly.

He gave a sigh. “There are things even the most skilled healers cannot undo. Death and dragonfire chief among them.”

Dragonfire . Enya mouthed the word as Colm moved back to tend the teapot. He patted the rock at his side in invitation. She shrugged out of her blanket, tearing her gaze away, and crossed the camp. Colm tended eggs purchased from a nearby farm over Aiden’s flame and dropped one onto a plate.

“What happened?” She asked, turning her gaze back to Bade.

“Eastwood. ”

Enya stared at the spirit wielder. Ryland’s Rebellion was over two hundred years ago. They turned again and Oryn's back blocked her view. She found herself a little lost in the dips and swells.

Aiden gave her a wicked grin from where he lounged. “Enjoying the scenery?”

Enya felt her cheeks heat, but she was saved from answering by Colm. “You have to excuse my nephew, Miss Enya. He never was properly housetrained.”

She smiled into her tea. “So he is really your nephew, then?”

“Not by blood, but by bond.”

She was on the point of asking what he meant by bond , but the thought faded as she watched Bade fling Oryn onto the ground with a thud . That looked…spectacular.

“Again,” the dark man growled.

Oryn was pushing himself up from the dirt, murder flashing across his face and they went back to their punching and blocking.

“When do they stop?” She whispered to Aiden.

“When one of them yields,” he said brightly. “Settle in, we might be here all day.”

They moved with such an unnatural lightness, she wondered how she had ever missed it, but the blows they landed struck with so much force, it made her flinch.

Invested as she was in their sparring, she hardly realized that Colm kept tipping more food onto her plate until her stomach started to ache and she held up a hand for him to stop.

Oryn flipped Bade over his shoulder and onto his back in a blur of movement that Enya had difficultly seeing. The silver haired demi-elf reached down and wrenched the other man back to his feet.

“Done,” Bade spat, and Oryn melted back. “Aiden!”

The boyish demi-elf groaned. “Not today, Bade.”

“I want to learn.” It bubbled from Enya’s lips before she had time to think about what she was saying. Four pairs of eyes bored into her.

Bade shook his head. “Get up, boy.”

Aiden reclined back. “You ought to take the girl. She at least is a willing victim.”

“Enya-” Colm started.

“I want to learn,” she said again .

“Training with a demi-elf is not like training with a man,” Colm said slowly.

Aiden yawned and flashed Oryn a grin. “I’ll spar with her.”

“You’ll spar with me,” Bade growled.

“I was trained by a Master of Arms,” she said quickly. “I know the sword forms.”

“So go practice your sword forms,” he hissed.

“And then you’ll teach me?” She asked eagerly.

“You’re Oryn’s problem.”