Page 65 of Silverbow (The Godsung Saga #1)

thirty-four

Oryn

O ryn had begrudgingly surrendered the room he shared with Enya to the stable boy and moved across the hall only because the window was surrounded by bare brick and an impossible drop.

Bitterly, he wondered how Liam would like her incessant muttering.

She hadn’t drunk nearly enough wine to quiet it, even if she did drink like a fish at dinner.

The wine alone between Misthol and Drozia ought to amount to at least half a dragon.

He listened at his own door for the soft thud of her footfalls to recede down the hall.

Long minutes passed before their door sighed open again and Liam’s heavier steps made to trail after her.

Oryn flung his door open and reached into the hall.

He seized a surprised Liam Marsh by the arm, dragging him into his room.

To his credit, the boy looked him up and down and set his jaw in the same stubborn way Enya did; the way two people who spent so much time together often mirrored each other.

Something about it pushed him closer to the edge he already teetered on.

The gods’ sudden retreat unsettled him almost as much as their initial interest had.

Perhaps more unsettling was that somewhere along the road, his own emotions had gotten tangled with theirs, and now, with the gods quiet, her real name, and Hylee’s whispered secret, the desperation he felt to keep her safe was entirely his own .

Perhaps he could use the stable boy. Perhaps his affection for her could be wielded to prevent her from doing something truly reckless.

“What?” Liam asked gruffly.

“I assume she told you what it is we’re doing here.”

It was not a question, but the way his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed all but confirmed it. Oryn was both relieved and agitated. He would find a way to get it out of the stable boy, but that she’d told Liam chafed.

Liam looked him up and down and leaned back against the door. He crossed his arms and huffed. “I see why she doesn’t like you.”

Oryn’s temper flared. “That’s rather bold, boy , when you both need me to get you to sanctuary.”

He shrugged and it was so much like Enya’s shrug, Oryn wanted to roar his frustration.

“Maybe. But whether or not we do it your way, you’ll do it all the same.”

Oryn hated that he was right, but he snarled, “What makes you so certain?”

Liam’s lips quirked to the side. “I suspect for the same reason you let her come here in the first place.”

“And what’s that?” Oryn hissed.

“Either you’re stringing her along for your own ends or she managed to wrap you around her finger.”

Oryn tried not to let his surprise register on his face. He didn’t know why he was surprised. Enya too had an uncanny way of swinging right for the heart of it. “Rich, coming from a boy who trailed her across the continent.”

That muscle in Liam’s jaw jumped again, but a slow smile inched across his face, “What exactly did you do to her to make her loathe you so?”

Oryn paused. He’d assumed she would be airing his secrets behind that closed door, but it seemed she hadn’t told her beloved Liam everything. “I did nothing to her ,“ he growled. “I made some unfortunate choices in the past that contributed to current circumstances.”

The stable boy furrowed his brow. “Seems like a good reason not to meddle in her future.”

“I am trying to ensure she has a future.”

“Enya is capable of looking after herself.”

Enya was capable, he’d known that in Trowbridge, but she had a target on her back and no small affinity for danger. He should have said that, but instead, he hissed, “Then why did you come running after her? ”

Scarlet crept into the boy’s face in a tangle of rage and embarrassment. “Because I thought she might need a friend.”

“A friend? Or a lover?” Oryn challenged. “Did you think that chasing her across the continent would win her heart? Be some grand gesture? Or is it just that you can finally stake your claim now that she has no other prospects?”

Oryn regretted the words as soon as they came tumbling out.

Gods damn it. So much for using him to rein her in, he couldn’t even rein in his own gods damned temper.

Something in Liam’s eyes guttered, but he lifted his chin and glared.

Had this conversation not gone so poorly, Oryn might have admired him for it.

“I will be whatever she needs, whenever she needs it,” Liam snarled. “And she doesn’t need you.”

Before he could object that it certainly seemed like she did need him, the stable boy wrenched open the door and stalked into the hall, leaving Oryn to wonder when his sanity had abandoned him.

Ested, he thought. Or perhaps it was before that, but it didn’t matter when she had stopped being just a bounty to him.

He was nothing to her. Or worse, he was something she hated.

He shook his head to clear it and with a resigned sigh, trailed after Liam.

Enya scowled his direction when he stepped into the dining room as if she knew what had transpired above. She turned an apologetic smile on Liam as he started on his plate with knitted brows.

“Good morning,” Aiden drawled, eyes roving between the three of them with a mischievous glint. “What’s on the schedule for today, Miss Ansel?”

She busied herself stirring a spoonful of honey into her tea. “I thought Liam and I could do a bit of shopping. As much as I like my last shirt, perhaps I should find another.” Her eyes darted to Oryn in a silent accusation over the mess with the bounty hunters.

“I can give you some coin,” he offered.

“I have no need of your coin,” she bit out.

The air went taught in the room, but Aiden sliced through it with a chuckle. “What? No burning and pillaging today?”

She turned a saccharine smile on the fire wielder that made Oryn’s insides tighten.

“So close to Sun Day? That would be sacrilege.”

“I thought you didn’t put much stock in the gods,” he grinned.

She hummed. “Perhaps I should, seeing how I’m favored and all. ”

Colm cleared his throat from the end of the table. “You should take one of us with you into the city. Misthol is a rat’s nest on a good day, but with all the people here for the tourney and the celebration, the guards will be on edge.”

“If you want to come along Colm, just say so.”

“I want to come along,” Oryn said, even though he knew better. Not only would she refuse him, but he would draw notice.

“No.”

Aiden sniggered and the thud of Colm’s boot against his shin was heard through the room.

***

Oryn was still trying to shake off his pre-breakfast blunder as he stalked through the Foreshore, bristling at the boy’s insolence, or perhaps, his presence.

He’d been bristling since he’d first seen Liam Marsh, perhaps since he’d first heard her utter his name.

He didn’t know anymore, he only knew that everything had gone to hell.

Misthol grated on him with its heat and noise and unbearable stench.

Aiden grated on him with his constant prodding.

Colm grated on him with his bloody secrets.

Hylee grated on him with her bloody whispers, and Enya bloody Silverbow grated on him most of all as he feigned interest in a market stall peddling what were undoubtedly stolen blades, checking over his shoulder for watching eyes.

Shaking his head at whatever price the hawker named without so much as hearing it, he backed away and turned down a narrow alley where mud and filth squelched under his boots.

He counted the doors to the seventh and stopped at a ramshackle little hut.

When he rapped on the door, the whole wall trembled beneath his knuckles.

A grate slid open across a peephole and a pair of beady eyes squinted out at him. “What’s your business?”

Oryn held up the coin purse and shook it where the man could see. “Galver said you might have parchment.”

The man grunted, his eyes darting around the alley. “Don’t have no parchment here. Don’t know no Galver neither.”

“Girl. Young. Green eyes. Dark hair. ”

Those eyes narrowed again. “If I did have parchment, green eyes would cost extra.”

Oryn tipped the purse into his hand and let the man see it was gold, his eyes widening before they vanished from behind the peephole.

There was the scrape of a chair, a heavy thud, and the soft whisper of shuffled pages.

Oryn scanned the alley, waiting. Finally, the door opened just a crack and a pocked, scarred hand stretched out, palm up.

Sighing, he dropped a single fat gold mark into it.

“The rest when I see it.”

The gold, worth more than the entire ramshackle hut, disappeared into the dark interior. A small square of parchment returned in the palm. Oryn plucked it up and scanned the text, holding it up to the light to examine the embossed scribemaster’s seal.

“The owner won’t report it missing?”

The man spat.

“Good.”

He handed over the purse and squelched back toward the city proper. As it was unlikely he would be able to wash away the Foreshore, Enya bloody Silverbow could subtract a new pair of boots off whatever tally she was keeping of his debt.

Enya

Enya walked with her arm looped through Liam’s as they threaded through the press. She found it kept the feeling she might be squashed at bay and Colm’s quiet presence on her other side was a steady reassurance.

“The celebration will start tonight with a parade full of puppeteers and marionettes in the streets,” he said as they walked. “Tomorrow, the revelry will start in earnest, from dawn until after dark.”

Enya heard what he did not say and swallowed. Tomorrow. Tomorrow would be her best chance.

They skirted around Blackash Keep, the black dome rising high above the outer wall like a stone bubble belched from the earth.

The crimson banners of Davolier House flapped from the guard towers.

There was only one gate facing the direction of the keep in the distance - a massive archway with a raised portcullis.

“There are no guards?” She asked, nodding up at the empty walls.