Page 46 of Silverbow (The Godsung Saga #1)

“Only in your dreams,” he smiled as he set a stone for his opening.

She huffed. “My dreams are only nightmares.”

“Is that why you drank the Goat out of wine last night?”

She shrugged and set a stone on the board.

Oryn had eaten his words by the time the candles were burning low, sending shadows dancing across her face.

When a serving girl knocked with a dinner tray, they were dueling over a tie breaker game.

He sniffed the tray to ensure Rosella hadn’t been vengeful before he handed Enya a plate.

She huffed a laugh. “What happened to just passing the time?”

“You remember that, do you?” He teased. He hadn’t expected her to remember anything that had been said last night.

Spots of pink appeared in her cheeks as she held her plate aloft, not wanting to disturb the board on the cramped table.

“Do you also remember being spun about like a top? I’m rather surprised you did not sick up.

” Her brows climbed. “How about the farm boy I had to chase off?”

“Were you jealous?” She sniffed.

“Of the farm boy? Not a chance. After all, you ended up warming my bed anyway.” He wasn’t sure why he said it and he regretted it the moment the words tumbled from his lips.

All night, he’d clung to his edge of the mattress, ensuring the line between them was clear even as she tossed like a fish out of water.

Still, she went a magnificent shade of scarlet. “I’m not sure one can warm stone.”

He nodded in concession over his wine cup.

Colm had sent a bottle up with their dinner.

Oryn was uncertain whether the gesture was an apology for being locked away or to instigate, but much to his dismay, Enya’s game only seemed to improve with each drink, or perhaps it was her lingering fury at his needling that had sharpened her wit as she ruthlessly captured his stones .

“What’s a Treesinger?” She asked suddenly.

“One of the rarer godsung gifts. Where they spread their songs, things come to life.”

“Why are you searching for one?”

He should tell her it was none of her concern, but she’d hardly spoken to him since Windcross Wells, not that it mattered. “Because Eastwood cannot rise without one.”

“Is that part of your prophecy?”

Oryn sighed. He could throttle Cedric Norvallen. “It is.”

“And you want to raise Eastwood?”

“I want to go home.” She stared at him, and Oryn wondered what exactly it was she was thinking, but instead he asked, “What is it you miss most about Ryerson House?”

She fiddled with the candle holder, avoiding his gaze. “The pillows. Or Mistress Alys’s cooking.”

Well, he doubted that was the truth, and there was nothing he could do about the cooking. Colm was the best cook among them, but a pillow was easy enough to see to.

“Where were you going after Trowbridge? After you saw the bounties? Were you still meaning to turn yourself in?”

She shrugged. “Misthol, or perhaps Pavia.”

“Why?”

She studied the board a long time before moving her stone. “I want to burn it all to the ground.”

Enya

As they prepared to leave Ested, Enya had come to the conclusion that she preferred the nights on the road to the nights in the inns.

The beds were better, and sometimes the food, but on the road, she had things to occupy her hands.

In the inns, she had nothing to do but stew in her own thoughts and fret over being seen.

The wine helped after a fashion, as did the dancing, even if the feel of hand on her waist brought an empty sort of distraction.

Oryn had peeled off to rouse Bade and Aiden, dragging after another long night, and she left Colm to settle with the innkeeper.

Hauling her saddle bags over her shoulder, she stepped outside to rouse the stable boy.

She found the yard already occupied by a tall, skinny man in a dark cloak that seemed too heavy for the season, but on second look, she froze mid-step.

It was not a man, she realized, as pale hands tipped with long black talons rose to throw back the hood of the night black cloak.

Where there should have been only folds of fabric, tattered leathery wings unfurled.

The face that stared back at her made her heart skip two beats and chilled her to her marrow.

A lantern with two casks of oil, flint and steel, her belt knife, a…a… Her list slid away from her under the creature’s stare.

It was a face like a bat’s that stared at her intently, but hairless, and too pale, like a slug that spent its whole existence under a rock.

It opened its mouth, showing hideous black teeth, and started to croon.

The sound was like a snake slithering through dead leaves, but it was a song that pulled at her, tugged her forward on some unseen cord.

Enya took a step toward it. She only distantly heard the thud of the saddlebags hitting the dirt as she let them fall.

A lantern with two casks of oil, flint and…

and… Thought melted away like late season snow.

That song held all the sadness in the world, all the grief, all the despair.

It was terrible, and beautiful, and it drew her.

Closer. She wanted to be closer. Needed to be closer.

She put one leaden foot in front of the other, gazing into the horrible face.

It reached out for her, talons reflexing.

A flash of silver whirred over her shoulder and the song cut off abruptly.

Enya gaped at the hilt of a knife buried in the creature’s throat.

Those terrible hands clawed at the blade, black blood seeping around it.

She stared, unable to move, and the next instant, she was ripped backwards so hard she nearly came out of her boots, pulled tight against a hard, stony chest. The flash of a sword sent the creature’s head rolling in a spray of black as Colm darted around her.

Oryn spun her around to face him. His fingers curled around her chin, lifting it so he examined her face, searching frantically. “Did it touch you?”

“N-No,” she stuttered. The icy rush that was his healing passed through her, but the cold that settled into her bones was something deeper. Colm wiped a black spattered blade on the creature’s cloak. “What is that?”

“Demondread,” Oryn said. “A soul eater.”

She was only aware that Oryn still held her fast in his grip when her knees buckled and she did not fall. Bade and Aiden burst from the rear of the inn, steel rasping as they drew blades, scanning the stable yard. Soul eaters were just stories told to frighten children, or at least they had been .

“I…I thought all the dark creatures were hunted to extinction,” she said breathlessly.

“But the witches weren’t.”