Page 42 of Silverbow (The Godsung Saga #1)

twenty-two

Enya

E nya groaned as she rolled out of bed at Oryn’s prodding, pain lancing across her middle. Between her racing thoughts, Oryn lording over her, and the throb in her ribs, she hadn’t dozed more than a few minutes.

“Let me see it,” he demanded.

She glowered at him.

“Let me see it.”

Enya begrudgingly raised her shirt to reveal a thick band of bruises where his bond of air or whatever it was had stopped her from smashing into the paving stones.

She was too proud to ask exactly what he’d done.

He bent to inspect it more closely in the flickering candlelight, his breath warm against her skin. She shifted back half a step.

“You’ll live.”

“Unfortunately for you,” she huffed.

“Don’t say that,” he snapped.

“It was just a joke.”

“It’s not funny.”

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” she muttered.

“You can’t wake up when you don’t go to sleep.”

“You didn’t have to loom over me all night.”

“You jumped out a bloody window,” he sighed. “I’d say that warrants looming.”

“I didn’t jump,” she protested. “I climbed .”

“You fell .“ Well, that wasn’t wrong. Still, she wasn’t fool enough to try it a second time. He didn’t spare her another look as he gathered both their saddlebags over his shoulder and disappeared down the hall.

Enya watched his retreating back, anger and frustration mounting.

There would be no escaping him now. He would drag her from Windcross Wells without her father.

Perhaps it was the kind of thing Liam would consider rash, but Enya stared down at the flickering nub of candle and slid the little table over beside the musty curtains.

She watched it singe the ends and trailed after Oryn, hissing curses through her teeth as her ribs protested every stair.

Arawelo waited next to the mounting block. She normally would have found a challenge in that, but she didn’t dare try to mount from the ground with the demi-elves watching. Bade was already chuckling as she inched stiffly across the yard.

“Were you born without the proper instincts for fear, girl?” He asked as she climbed the block. “Perhaps they ought to study you in Artelaia.”

Enya gave a huff that turned into a whimper as she threw her leg over her saddle.

“He’s on the Misthol Gate,” Colm muttered. “When we get there Ansel, you give your papers to the man with the mustache with the curled ends. Just him, no one else.”

“And if I tell you to run, you run,” Oryn ordered.

“I could run a lot better without a broken rib,” she breathed.

“I’m sure you could.”

“Fire!” Someone shouted. “The bloody inn is on fire!”

Enya studied her reins as faces whipped toward her.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Oryn growled.

Enya turned to Bade. “I don’t find fear to be particularly useful. Anger though, anger works. Shall we?”

The dark eyed demi-elf gaped at her. Enya supposed she should find some satisfaction in that, but with every step she took away from her father, she found herself hard pressed to find satisfaction even in the smoke.

Kiawa and Cle pressed in close as they wound toward the Misthol Gate.

The city was not so crowded at this hour and their proximity was a clear declaration of Enya’s situation.

Arawelo’s ears lay flat against her head in protest. She too seemed to realize, invisible as their bonds were, they were still bonds.

Enya’s heart fluttered as they approached the line of green coats.

A pair of black clad wielders stood atop the gate towers, watching the crowd milling below.

Around her, the demi-elves eddied seamlessly, moving forward and falling back to ensure the guard with the mustache was the one who took her borrowed papers.

He darted a look at Colm and waved her through.

They rode south in silence. She could feel Oryn’s eyes boring into her back as if she might attempt a run for it on the flat expanse of Berdea Plain.

Does he think me a complete fool? Though perhaps he was right to stare at her because she eyed every inch of the Misthol Road, every wagon they passed, every village they plodded through, trying to sort out a way back to Windcross Wells.

When they stopped for the evening and she still hadn’t come up with a single plan to escape, her throat grew tight.

“How long is it to Drozia?” She finally asked as they watched chickens roast on a spit. Bade had purchased them from a farm they passed, densely packed as they were along the road.

“Two months,” Colm answered. “Perhaps a bit less if we make good time.”

“Do you grow tired of our company?” Aiden asked with a grin.

Enya only shrugged. She’d lost count of how long it had been since she left Ryerson House, but two months in the saddle suddenly felt like an eternity.

When she set out, Windcross Wells was meant to be the end of her journey.

After Innesh, she hadn’t been so sure, but before she’d met Oryn bloody Brydove, she hadn’t thought she’d see another two months.

She wondered where Liam was. She wondered what had happened to Griff and Alys. She wondered if her father would still be alive by the time she reached Drozia and a crushing guilt tried to seize hold of her.

“Why aren’t we on the Tuminzar Road?” She asked.

“The Tuminzar Road is hardly traveled anymore,” Colm answered. “Around Eastwood is better than through.”

“Why?”

“The land is scarred. Nothing grows, nothing lives. It’s nearly a month with no food, no shelter, the road melted away in most places. And then on the other side is a hard climb through the mountains. Around is better than through, even if we do have to remain in Estryia longer. ”

A log popped and sent a shower of sparks into the sky. Enya watched them wink out one by one. “How does the Dreamwalking work? Can you find anyone?” She asked Colm.

He gave a slow nod. “Anyone who is dreaming. With a face and a name, I can find most. With only a name or a face it’s not always possible.”

“You can speak to them?”

“I spoke to you. Do you remember?”

Enya scrunched her face. She hadn’t, but his mentioning it shook something loose as was sometimes the way of dreams half remembered. A face she thought she’d seen before had appeared to her in Greenridge that day the dreams went the wrong color.

She nodded slowly. “Can you find my family?”

“To what end, Silverbow?”

“I just want to know that they’re alright.”

“I will look.”

She nodded, her throat too tight to say anything more.

She didn’t speak when Oryn threw his blanket roll down within a pace of hers.

She simply rolled onto her side and let her tears silently water the dirt on Berdea Plain.

She was still gazing at the tufts of grass when the fire burned down to the last glowing coal and soft snores came from the camp around her.

All but from the blanket roll beside hers.

Enya pushed herself up, ribs protesting, and tiptoed to where Arawelo was a sleeping mass on the ground. The mare flicked her ears at her approach but didn’t stir. Kiawa stood a silent vigil at her side.

Enya sat, leaning her back into Arawelo’s solid shoulder and closed her eyes, uncaring that Oryn was staring at her in the dark.

She breathed in the smell of the horses and pictured herself high in the Greenridge Mountains where they took the herd to graze in summer.

She felt the ache of a long day in the saddle, which was real enough, and smiled faintly as she sifted through memories, feeling the rise and fall of Arawelo’s breath beneath her.

Enya’s throat burned as some internal dam burst, and all of the sadness, all of the grief tried to come pouring out at once.

She let her breath follow Arawelo’s and stared up at the inky sky above.

There were no walls here to press in on her.

There were no chains binding her, but still she felt the weight of the signet ring hanging around her neck and and all that crushing guilt for whatever the High Lord of Pavia had done to her family .

When the sound of the demi-elves sparring brought Enya back from her dreamless sleep, the stars were gone.

Exhausted, her eyes were swollen from the tears she shed.

Overhead, gray clouds blotted out the sunrise, and she looked down to realize someone had covered her with her blanket.

She twined her fingers through the grass and brushed them over the petals of a little white flower before joining that someone at the fire.

“Fire and earth are required to mend bone,” Oryn said by way of greeting. “But I can ease the pain if you would like me to heal you.”

Enya didn’t answer. She looked expectantly toward Colm. He shook his head and she stared into the fire. Her ribs didn’t ache half as much as her heart and there was nothing Oryn’s healing could do about that.

“Where did all these bloody moonflowers come from?” Aiden asked as he stomped around the horse line.

No one seemed to pay them much mind, but he plucked one of the delicate white blossoms and tucked it behind Enya’s ear.

Colm studied it, or her, intently. Enya didn’t care what he was looking at.

The fire that had blazed in her had winked out, and she was simply too tired to spare a thought for the demi-elves. It was all for nothing.

“Do you want the healing?” Oryn asked again as they made to mount.

Enya stared resignedly at the stirrup that seemed to hang so far out of reach as the others mounted around her. Colm swept past him and knit his hands together in an offer for a leg up. She took it, grimacing as Oryn muttered under his breath about mules and fools.

***

A week from Windcross Wells, or what she thought had been a week, Enya wasn’t counting anymore, the land began to pitch and roll. They were leaving Berdea Plain behind, just as they’d left her father.