Page 68 of Silverbow (The Godsung Saga #1)

thirty-five

Enya

E nya kept to the shadows as she crept through the open gate.

The echo of revelry drifted through the deserted streets of the Flame Quarter and bounced off the high wall.

The wide plaza between her and the yawning maw of the black dome sat empty.

All she had to do was cross it. And then she would meet Drulougan.

One thing at a time.

She clung to Liam’s horse head carving. It would be her only shield in Blackash Keep. Her courage had faltered when she first laid eyes on Drulougan sweeping over the bay. The dragon she’d seen in Hylee’s vision hadn’t seemed quite so...terrifying. But she knew what she had to do.

Her mother had fled Misthol so that Pallas Davolier couldn’t wield her future children like weapons against Estryia, against all of Elaria.

But there was one thing Maia Trakbatten hadn’t been able to manage - she couldn’t betray the bond between her and Preya, between her and the dragon who had gifted her the foresight to know what would come.

Sacred are the songs of our bonds, of our love.

She had to leave without Preya’s clutch. She had to leave Pallas Davolier with the chance at three more dragons.

Enya had stood behind the queen in the vision.

Her gold flecked green eyes had searched the space in the milky mirror where Enya’s reflection should have been, but she wasn’t really there.

The people in the visions or the memories that Hylee cast her into couldn’t see her, but somehow, the woman knew she was looking in on that moment.

A telling of a telling. The woman, her mother, had smiled at her sadly as she made her request. “Take the clutch to the Vale.”

The message was clear, but she hadn’t given any indication of how exactly to deal with Drulougan the Dread and how it served Hylee Starseer remained a mystery, but Enya would do it.

She would have done it even without the terrible things she saw Pallas do.

She wanted her own revenge for Ryerson House.

She supposed she ought to thank Solignis for Sun Day and the eyes that were directed elsewhere.

She ought to thank the god for the fire wine that was undoubtedly flowing in the guard towers at her back and she ought to thank him for a dragon so fierce, no one bothered to keep watch when he was in residence.

She supposed she should have asked Colm for a proper prayer, but it was too late for that now.

She was grateful for his quiet, steady presence beyond the wall.

She’d thought he would try to stop her, try to convince her to bring the others, but he hadn’t, and she was grateful for that too.

She was most grateful it wasn’t Liam waiting in the alley.

Her heart constricted at the idea of him standing there if she failed to come out.

With a deep steadying breath, she tiptoed across the smooth black stones.

Voices flitted from open windows in the guard towers.

Bets were being called as dice rattled in a cup.

She vaguely wondered if that was what her bones would sound like clattering against the stones when Drulougan spit them out.

Not helpful.

Perhaps it was her mind trying to convince her one last time to turn around.

Enya cursed herself for her skittering thoughts.

She squinted up again to the abandoned walls and wished she had elven eyesight.

If wishes were horses, girl, beggars might ride.

Alys Ashill’s voice drifted through her mind, sending a jolt through her that kept her moving.

How wide is this bloody plaza? She would be in full view of any eye that bothered to look, but she was counting on the men being blinded by their lanterns and drink. Wide enough to land an entire clan of dragons, you light blinded fool.

She stumbled over a deep gouge in the stone.

It was a clawmark, she realized with no little surprise, and tried to summon the same calm she used with her bow.

It shattered again when she kicked a loose stone with her boot and sent it skittering.

She froze, flinching at every too loud click and clang as it rolled .

No cry went up.

She scurried the last of the distance and gazed up at the deeper black of the keep itself. The entrance to the dome yawned open, sharp stalactites hanging over the archway looking unnervingly like black fangs in a final warning of what lay within. Another settling thought.

The real ones are probably sharper. She stomped on that voice, shoving it away, and inched forward. She held her breath as she nudged a toe over the threshold and reached up to lower her hood.

She’d been searching through Hylee’s visions every night, turning them over and over in her mind, examining them from every angle. She had conferred with Colm, drilling him for any scrap of dragonlore that might help with what she was about to do. What I am already doing.

She hadn’t realized how lacking A History of Dragonkind was until she actually needed to know something about dragons. She knew Drulougan’s clan, and Preya’s, but beyond the history of deeds and explanations of the differences between clans, none of it had been useful.

Drulougan the Dread of Clan Taradad. The Taradad were proud. Easily angered.

Not helping.

She’d been mulling this plan over since her bargain with the witch, and there was still very little in the way of an actual plan here.

Skulking and sneaking seemed the like the fastest way to become dragon fodder.

Trying to rob the keep was likely to cut her song from the symphony that Colm talked of.

Dragons could probably shred entire orchestras with a single swipe of a claw. Focus.

No, stealth would not be her friend. Not inside the keep. Inside the keep, she would don a new mantle and Estryia’s Second would not shrink from a dragon.

“Hello,” she called softly, her voice wavering. The sound echoed in the vast chamber, loud enough to make her wince.

She waited for the echo to fade before she took another step forward.

There had been a chapter about this keep in her father’s book, though she had pictured something far more palatial, and far less…

dark, deserted, desolate. She shook her head and blew out a long breath. It sounded like a shout in the silence.

The dome was said to be only an antechamber with lofty perches for its winged inhabitants.

Most of Blackash Keep rested below the Flame Quarter; a massive cavern the people of Misthol trod over day in and day out.

She felt the floor slope downward as she took the first few steps beyond the threshold and supposed it had been true.

“Drulougan?” She called tentatively. She willed herself to take a handful of steps, then paused to listen for any response. “Hello?”

Nothing.

“A smart Second would have brought a lantern,” she muttered to herself.

Everything the witch had shown her had been in an oddly diffuse light, like looking through fogged glass, but the keep she saw there had not been pitch black.

She wondered if Drulougan preferred the dark or if no one bothered with lamps anymore.

When her eyes had adjusted as far as they would and no sound came other than the faint dripping of water on stone deeper in the keep, Enya cleared her throat and started to sing.

“The sun sets low in the Greenridge sky, where the wild winds blow and the eagles fly.”

She let the song drift down, her heart keeping time to the beat.

“There’s a lass named Mary, with a heart so true, in her laughter sings the morning dew.”

The sound, she realized, would help guide her as it reverberated.

“From the valleys below to the peaks above, here’s to the girl from Greenridge, our love!”

The descent through the cavern felt endless.

The dark pressed in on her and it grew colder with each step.

She tried not to think about how deep underground she must be, how much rock must be separating her from the air above.

Breathe. Just breathe. But the air was hard to breathe.

It reeked of sulfur and char. Hold it together.

She drew breath to push out the shaky words. As she neared the end of the tune, firelight flickered ahead. The chamber from the vision opened wide at the end of the dark tunnel. Almost there. Almost there. Where is he?

She hadn’t considered the possibility Drulougan wouldn’t appear before she reached the nest. What would she do then?

She craned her neck as she stepped into the chamber, warmed by the flickering blue flames and searched the dark expanses overhead their light didn’t reach.

Blinded by the flame, she could see nothing.

She turned back toward the dais in the center where a ring of fire guarded a nest of rock and rubble .

“With the stars as our witness and the night as our guide, we’ll toast the girl from Greenridge, our pride.”

She crept forward, still searching the dark, her heart thudding in her ears.

Enya stumbled over something on the floor.

The clatter that echoed off the stone as a length of white bone rolled across the floor sounded nothing at all like the rattle of that dice cup.

She tried not to look at the stacks and piles of pearly white all around her.

Bloody fool.

She held her breath, listening for the beat of wings over her own flailing heart, but there was still no sign of Drulougan. She stared at the five steps that led to the dais, wondering if she dare take the first before confronting the dragon.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

Whoosh.

Enya staggered under the current of air that told her Drulougan indeed was there and he was stirring.

She turned her back to the dais and bowed low at the waist, staring at the floor as he landed with a soft thud.

In the vision, Enya hadn’t been so acutely aware of the way her knees knocked together.