Page 44 of Silverbow (The Godsung Saga #1)

Oryn had voted against riding to the Bloated Goat for a number of reasons, chief among them, Rosella.

They’d spent much of the winter in Ested, waiting for the weather to break as snow drifts piled high on the Misthol Road.

They’d found themselves wanting for ways to pass the time.

The barmaids, short on custom, had also been wanting for ways to pass the time.

It had been a mutually beneficial arrangement that had ended with their leave taking.

However, Oryn had seen enough mutually beneficial arrangements end to know that women often harbored particular feelings about them, especially where other women were concerned, not that he considered Enya bloody Ryerson a woman of that sort of intrigue.

Enya bloody Ryerson was the kind of woman who torched villages and jumped out of windows.

Rosella’s wrath wasn’t the only risk at the Goat.

Though it sat on the Misthol Road, Ested was little more than a shepherd’s village, the kind of place where travelers were remembered and the rain was sure to drive men under the Goat’s roof.

He’d known Bade would vote for a bed at the Goat, and suspected Aiden would if only for the amusement of it, but he’d been agitated when Colm had agreed. The man usually had better sense.

The girl had said nothing. She’d hardly strung more than a few words together since leaving Windcross Wells.

The rage had guttered out, replaced by profound sadness.

It made his gifts jumpy and the way she seemed to have retreated inward set his teeth on edge.

She still hadn’t accepted his healing. At first, he thought she was being stubborn since he’d refused in the city, but now he worried it was something else.

Oryn sighed over what was surely to be the longest trek to Drozia ever endured. He sank further into the copper tub and inhaled the steam that curled up around him.

“I’m rather satisfied,” Aiden murmured from his bath. “We know Pedron will be satisfied, how about you, Adar?”

“If you don’t stop talking, I will be rather satisfied to drown you in your bath water,” he hissed.

Undeterred, he went on. “Though I suppose the question is, will Ansel be satisfied? ”

“Leave her out of it.”

“I’d be glad to relieve you of your burden tonight, if you’d rather carry on with Rosella.”

Oryn’s self-control had been hanging by the barest of threads ever since she’d toppled from the wall of the Broken Spoke.

His knuckles turned white on the sides of the tub as he hauled himself up, splashing water over the stone floor.

He would have to make himself scarce or risk throttling Bellas’s only son.

Aiden chuckled darkly. “I think the girl is very much in it. Don’t you, Colm?”

Colm only hummed.

Oryn climbed the stairs to the room he was sharing with her and knocked twice before pushing the door in.

He had no desire to have a belt knife thrown his way.

Colm had offered to keep watch over her, and Aiden’s own proposition stood, but he was the one who committed to delivering her to Drozia.

Besides, her stunt in Windcross Wells seemed to have riled Mosphaera enough that Oryn could barely stand to let her out of his sight without his gifts rattling him from the inside out.

She stood at the washstand, carefully combing the powdered dye through her hair, staining the copper a dull brown.

She gathered the wet strands into a messy knot atop her head and scrubbed her hands clean in the basin.

It did not suit her half as well as the copper, he thought as she took one of the chairs at the small table.

She sat with her back against the wall, staring off at nothing, with her jaw set stubbornly. That suited her even less.

Oryn neatly folded his discarded clothes and tucked them back into his saddlebags.

Her own things lay in a heap on the floor that made him sigh.

When he stole a glance at her from the corner of his eye, she was turning the horse head carving over in her hands.

She touched that bloody thing like it was the only thing anchoring her to the earth. That and the actual horse.

Curiosity got the better of him. “What is Liam to you?” He asked. He was listed on the bounty as the stablemaster’s son, but he had been wondering about it since that mention of him in the dream.

She set the carving on the table, still staring at it, and gave him a disinterested shrug.

If the girl didn’t want to speak, so be it.

Oryn didn’t mind silence, preferred it actually.

Bade enjoyed it. Colm was comfortable in it.

Silence is better , Oryn told himself as he picked up her discarded shirt and started folding it for something to do.

He knew she knew what he was doing, even if she was studiously avoiding looking at him.

When he ran out of things to do, primarily straightening the chaos she’d spilled onto the floor, he took the chair across from her.

He drew out his pipe and thumbed leaf and tabac into the bowl.

Oryn let the smallest tendril of his air gift siphon the candle flame to light it.

He slammed the damper back down as his gifts tried to spiral out to her.

He would never get used to the way they behaved of their own accord when she was near.

Setting wards around their camps, something he’d been able to do without thought since he was a boy, was suddenly difficult again.

Each time he tried to wield a tendril, it turned to a torrent.

She had either grown used to their small magics or was determined enough not to pay him any mind.

He inhaled and let the smoke fill his lungs.

It tasted like Drozia, like the closest thing Oryn had ever known to a home.

He hoped the wretched girl didn’t try to burn it to the ground.

Leon would never let him live it down if she did.

He sighed and finally felt her fleeting gaze flick toward him.

He offered the pipe silently. She acknowledged it with an arched brow and went back to gazing at nothing.

Oryn drummed his fingers on the table, taking in her profile.

She didn’t look as haggard as when they’d first found her, but her grief was etched once again below her eyes.

Below the shadows, constellations of freckles dusted her high cheekbones like the stars she stared at when she should be sleeping.

In the silence, the strange hum that filled his ears seemed to grow louder. It was going to drive him mad.

“I did not realize Ryerson House bred mules.” The words that tumbled from his lips seemed to surprise them both. He had been planning to win this contest of wills. The faintest curve of her lips hinted she was amused by his loss. “Why won’t you let me heal you?”

She hesitated so long he thought she wasn’t going to answer. “It hardly hurts.”

Oryn puzzled over that. He knew it was a lie. She could hardly climb the stairs without wincing, but nothing in her features named her a liar. It made him shift uncomfortably. He set his pipe on the table and stood.

“Where are you going?” She asked only half-heartedly.

“To borrow a page out of Aiden’s book. Don’t climb out of the window. Please.”

She didn’t acknowledge his request .

When Oryn hurried down the stairs and crossed the common room, Bade lifted a questioning brow his way.

Renna, beaming out from behind the bar, was keeping his ale full where he sat.

He was relieved Rosella did not stand at her elbow, and Oryn put on his best smile. “What do you have for wine, Renna?”

The sour smelling brew she dribbled from a cask made him shake his head. She flitted around the corner to a store room and returned with a dusty bottle in hand. “Master Gillig bought this off a trader from Moshelle, my lord. Will this do?”

Oryn pulled the cork and gave it a sniff, ignoring the subtle amusement etched into Bade’s features. “That’ll do, Renna. Is the private dining room in use?”

“No, my lord, go ahead.”

Oryn knew from their time in Ested that the Bloated Goat had little to pass the time except for its barmaids, but there had been a handful of odds and ends tucked away on the shelves.

He pushed open the door and browsed through worn copies of uninteresting books left behind.

There was a deck of cards, but he knew few games of cards, and doubted she did either.

They were gambler’s games, and Oryn had never considered himself a gambling man.

He picked up a cloth pouch. Stones rattled within.

He rooted through the dusty shelves to find the painted board.

Stones would occupy enough time, if she knew how to play.

And if she didn’t, it could occupy even more, as long as she didn’t stab him for trying to teach her the rules.

With a sigh, he tucked the board under his arm and climbed the stairs.

He was relieved to find her sitting where he’d left her, seemingly still set on ignoring him. He scooped up his pipe and held it between his teeth as he poured two cups of the Goat’s best wine. Her brows climbed when he set the stones board between them.

“Do you know it?” It was a common game amongst the nobility and the well-educated, but making any presumptions about pastimes in such an unconventional house seemed a risk.

In answer, Enya silently plucked a black stone and set it on the board for her opening.

Oryn realized it was a strong opening as she built out a formation that mercilessly decimated his own.

He found himself stewing over the board as he might in a game against Leon or Colm.

She was good. He watched her over his wine cup, pondering the mystery of the most wanted woman in Estryia.