Page 45 of Silverbow (The Godsung Saga #1)

When they descended back to the common room for dinner, a pink flush had crept into her cheeks, but she still hadn’t spoken.

Oryn had only once, to surrender a match, but she watched him ruthlessly sweep her stones from the board long after it was apparent she would lose, refusing to admit defeat.

She was really good and now she was drunk.

Aiden ensured her cup remained full throughout the meal, and when she was bleary eyed and swaying in her seat, he gave Oryn a wink and moved off to dice with some merchant’s guards at a corner table.

Bade drifted back to the bar, and the barmaids shuffled some chairs from the center of the room when a dreadful lute player started strumming.

Enya eyed the barmaid who had settled into Aiden’s lap. “Do none of you have wives?” She asked suddenly.

“I did,” Colm said, and Oryn stiffened at the flicker of memory that crossed the man’s face. “If the gods are kind, we will find each other in the next life.”

She turned her unfocussed eyes on Oryn. “And you?”

“The rest of us remain untethered.”

“Is a wife just a tether then?” She challenged.

“What would you call your suitors?”

She gave Oryn a flat look and turned back to where a few of the barmaids were being spun about by farmers and guardsmen.

Oryn watched too, but not the dancers. With Bade and Aiden occupied, he scanned the common room for signs of trouble.

Colm did the same, though an easy smile flitted across his face and he exchanged friendly words with the girls who came by the table.

They would get no more from him. The poor man still pined for Maille after all this time.

Enya suddenly pushed her chair back and rose, swaying on her feet.

“Where are you going?” Oryn asked.

She narrowed her eyes and pointed to the middle of the floor. “Over there, my lord . Must I ask your permission to cross the room?”

“Ansel-”

She turned, not waiting for his argument.

He didn’t object to her dancing, gods knew he wouldn’t object to anything that brought her out of her grief, even temporarily, but every word she spoke was in the clipped accent of the west. It would be noticed in a place like Ested.

Before she’d even reached the makeshift dance floor, a farmer bounded to his feet and bowed over her hand.

He cast a quizzical look at Oryn, but the girl gave him a dazzling smile and he set her spinning across the floor.

“You should have thought about this before you fed her half a bottle of wine,” Colm grinned, clapping along to the tune .

Oryn only harrumphed and went back to scanning the room.

To his growing irritation, Enya had no lack of partners.

There were few enough women in inns on the road, but it was not only scarcity that drew them to her like moths drawn to a flame.

Even with dark hair that didn’t suit her, and even if it didn’t meet her eye, she was striking when she smiled.

And if that smile and those eyes were not enough, life on a farm had made her strong.

Weeks on the road had tried to make he lean, but somehow, they only made her curves appear more pronounced.

She looked like the gods damned sculptures of the goddesses in the galleries in Drozia.

Oryn scrubbed a hand down his face, trying to rid himself of that thought. Colm laughed as if he sensed the path Oryn’s mind tried to wander. The gods damned man probably did.

She suddenly reappeared at the table, red faced and breathless, with dark fly aways poking out from her tied up hair. Oryn glared as she reached for her wine cup. He slid it out of her reach.

“Give it back,” she pouted.

“I think you’ve had enough,” he said softly.

“And you’re going to stop me?”

“Yes.”

“Overprotective gargoyle.” Quick as lightning, she snatched not for the wine cup, but his own unguarded mug of ale. Stunned, he watched her throat bob as she chugged. Nimala help me.

She dropped the empty mug back to the table and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Colm was hiding a grin in his own cup as she leaned down between them, her words slurring at the edges.

She looked up at Rosella, standing cross-armed at the bar, her brow furrowed.

“I can see it now. Two peas in a surly pod.” Before he could object, she slipped back away to the dancing and the arms of a waiting guardsman.

Colm chuckled as Oryn ran an exasperated hand through his hair. “You know,” he said, shaking his head. “I think we should have left her in Trowbridge.”

Colm barked a laugh and Oryn was grateful the man didn’t call him on the lie.

When he finally helped a teetering Enya up the stairs by her elbow, she reeked of bad wine and the overcrowded common room.

She was kicking off her boots before he’d even shut the door.

With a flushed face and hair spilling wildly around her shoulders, she started wrestling with the buttons on her shirt .

“Ansel,” he growled, sweeping her boots to the side.

“Leave your clothes on.” The last thing he needed was her undressed like those gods damned statues.

He turned his back, crossing to the pitcher on the washstand to pour a cup of water.

He held it out to her. “Drink.” She grabbed the cup, drained it like she had the ale, and thrust it back to him to resume fumbling with the buttons.

He watched her continue to struggle, a smile creeping across his face as she cursed, the sound foreign coming from her mouth.

She abandoned the fight with the shirt long enough to drop her britches on the floor and sink onto the bed.

Oryn, taken aback by the sudden abandonment of Estryian propriety, picked them up and folded them over the footboard to avoid looking at her.

He filled the cup again and held it out.

She turned her face up to look at him. The gold in her eyes danced in the candlelight.

“If you don’t, you’ll regret it tomorrow,” he said softly.

“Can’t you just heal me?”

“You want my healing now?”

She sank onto the edge of the bed and sighed as she took the cup.

Oryn cast around for his blanket roll and cursed, finding it missing.

“It’s fine, we can share,” she said, her words running together.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he sighed. She was looking cross-eyed at a button. “Go to bed, Ansel.”

“There’s room for both of us,” she protested, tapping the far side of the bed.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he repeated, but he found no extra blanket in the wardrobe. Asking one of the serving girls was sure to draw Rosella’s notice, notice Oryn would prefer to avoid.

She handed the glass back to him. “I win.”

Oryn sighed as he stripped to his small clothes and neatly folded his shirt and trousers.

He climbed into the other side of the bed.

Enya at least had given up on removing her shirt and settled back into the pillows.

He stared at the ceiling a long time, listening to her mutter in her sleep.

He’d forgotten how pronounced it was without Colm’s dream ward.

She rarely formed full words, but when she did, it was that list she recited, and often the names on the bounty, Liam’s most of all.

She was still sleeping off her drink when Oryn disentangled himself from the sheets and slipped down to the common room.

Colm sat at a table by the window, watching rain pelt the glass as he broke his fast. His eyebrows rose when Oryn slid into the chair across from him, but he knew better than to ask .

“I assume we stay,” Oryn said softly, glancing at the heavy blanket of gray that lay above Ested.

Colm shrugged. “Bade and Aiden are still abed and it doesn’t look to be letting up anytime soon.”

Rosella dropped a plate before him, rattling the silver. “M’lord,” was all she said before she stalked back to the kitchens.

Colm chuckled. “Don’t know that Rosella is going to forgive you.” Oryn didn’t acknowledge the statement as he spread butter on the warm bread. “Don’t suppose it matters.”

He lifted his gaze to Colm’s. “You’re right, it doesn’t.”

The other man smiled into his cup.

“She’s only a bounty, Colm,” he growled.

“Mhm.”

Oryn scoffed. The gods had business with her, but there was nothing more to it.

Aiden and Bade eventually flitted down from their rooms, and Renna appeared late to her post behind the bar.

Oryn sat sipping tea with his companions, watching raindrops race down the window panes.

Enya still hadn’t appeared when the Goat started serving lunch.

He asked Renna for a tray to take upstairs as a knot of sodden crimson clad soldiers stomped in from the weather.

When he let the door close behind him with a thud, Enya groaned. She squinted at him from between the folds of the blanket she’d pulled up over her eyes. The sight made him laugh.

“You’re lucky it rained.”

“What time is it?”

“Midday.” She groaned again, scrubbing a hand across her eyes. “I thought you didn’t like dancing.”

“I don’t like balls.”

“I should have realized it would be civilized dancing you took issue with,“ Oryn mused. In truth, he didn’t find the stiff necks and prescribed steps of Estryian balls all that appealing either, but the girl seemed to dislike more than she liked.

It was difficult to keep track. She finally stumbled out of bed.

Oryn averted his gaze as she crossed to the table and sat, stirring a spoonful of honey into a cup of tea.

She sipped, letting her eyes flutter closed in the steam.

“Stay out of sight today,” he warned .

Her eyebrows rose. “A new record I think. Not even a minute and a reminder I am your prisoner.”

She wasn’t his prisoner, he just wouldn’t allow her to take foolish risks. “I suppose if you want to be dandled over some soldier’s knee, that could be arranged.”

She stiffened. “There are soldiers here?”

“Nothing to be concerned about, as long as you stay out of sight. Up for a game?”

“Up for losing?”