Page 70 of Silverbow (The Godsung Saga #1)

But the hum returned to his ears, soothing and sweet. He glanced to the satchel she carried, bulky with its burden, and his eyes went wide. “You…”

“I did,” she said with a coy smile. Bade darted from the shadows and stalked ahead. He sensed Colm falling back on their trail, but Oryn only had eyes for the woman who had scared him half to death.

“You are mad.”

“I made a bargain,” she shrugged.

“A bargain that could have gotten you killed.”

“I had a theory.”

“A theory? You risked your fool neck on a theory ?“ She hummed, a satisfied smile turning up the corners of her mouth. His hand tightened again around her arm, unable to completely extinguish his terror. “I told you not to go near that place.”

“But you didn’t say anything about going in .”

Oryn faltered a step, and when he glanced down at her, she was fluttering her lashes at him. His jaw slackened and Enya let out a laugh that seemed to trill across his skin.

“Do you mean to tell me that you just walked right in and took them, right from under his nose?”

“Of course not,” she answered. “I asked.”

“You asked ?“ He spluttered.

“Manners,” she tsked. “You should try them sometime.”

Oryn wrestled the torrent within himself as they strode through the dark streets. “We are going to talk about this,” he hissed through clenched teeth, but he finally let go of her arm.

To his surprise, she looped her elbow through his and hummed the rest of the walk back to the Gandy Dancer.

Liam

Liam, needing something to do with his hands, was whittling away at a carving of a wolf’s head as he sat in the private dining room. Across from him, Linus seemed unconcerned as he moved cards around in some game for one that Liam didn’t understand.

The pit that had settled into his stomach when he laid eyes on the dragon was gnawing at his insides.

It had gotten worse after Adar seized him.

He’d almost raced after the immortal, but reading something he couldn’t, Linus held out a hand in warning.

They had been waiting for what felt like hours even if the clock on the shelf indicated otherwise.

Liam held his breath every time he heard footsteps in the hall.

Finally, those footsteps came through the door, and it was Elred’s Eagle who strode in, wearing his usual scowl. He dropped wordlessly into the chair beside Linus and propped a booted foot on an empty seat.

“Is she- ”

“Fine,” he growled. “But best stay in that chair and keep your mouth shut.”

Liam thought that might be more words than he’d heard the man string together yet. He quirked an eyebrow, but his silent question was answered a minute later when Enya strode in looking smug. Adar was in on her heels, looking like a wolf ready to rip out a throat.

The knot in Liam’s chest loosened as Enya grinned at him. She said nothing as she reached out a hand to pluck a bottle of wine off the table and sauntered back out to trudge up the stairs. Andril entered as they left, sagging into his own chair, rubbing at his temples.

“The grown ups are fighting,” Linus said to Liam as if he hadn’t noticed the chill in the air.

“Should we-”

“Absolutely not,” Andril answered sharply, pouring himself a cup of ale from the pitcher Kimball’s maids kept full on the table.

“What’s got him in such a state?” Linus asked.

“She did it,” Andril said quietly.

“The-” Liam’s question died in his throat as Andril stomped on his foot beneath the table.

Linus only blinked in surprise, looked to Pedron for confirmation, then collapsed in a heap of laughter.

Liam’s eyes widened as Pedron joined him, the sound harsh and foreign, and then Andril’s easy laugh rumbled from beside him.

They had all gone mad. He waited for the laughter to subside, Andril wiping at an eye, before he asked, “Could someone let me in on the joke?”

Andril clapped him on the back. “Only that for thirty years, people have been trying to do what she did tonight in ten minutes.”

Linus chuckled again as he shuffled the cards and dealt them all in. They were still playing that first hand when Enya came swaggering back in with a bundle of clean clothes in her hand.

“Gentlemen,” she grinned. “We leave at dawn.”

They raised their cups to her in acknowledgement and she trailed after a serving maid.

“She’s growing on me,” Pedron growled.

Linus looked at him as if he had two heads and muttered, “This night just keeps coming more bloody unhinged. ”

Oryn

Enya had skipped up to her room and deposited the heavy satchel carefully on her bed.

Oryn leaned back against the door, trapping his hands between his body and the wood.

He didn’t trust them not to shake, or not to seize her again, as he tried to gather himself.

Enya, unruffled and drunk with her victory, or perhaps the wine she was swigging directly from the bottle, was casually riffling through her saddle bags.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He growled.

“To take a bath, unless you enjoy dragon breath enough to smell it all the way to where we’re going,” she snapped.

“We need to talk.”

“I thought the walls had ears here.” She pushed a loose dark ringlet behind her ear as she dug for her soap.

“They do,” he ground.

“So what’s there to talk about?” She was avoiding meeting his gaze as she fished through the bag.

He stared at her. Her face was all sharp angles from the side, regal, he realized for the first time. “What is your plan?”

“Our bargain. I presume you realize we’ll have to travel a bit further north than you were intending.”

He nodded. He would see her to the Vale. “And then?”

“And then what?” She snapped, her eyes flashing to his face. “I have nothing, Oryn. No home, no family, no future. Just an empty title that will get me killed and an hourglass that is almost out of sand. You might as well put me in the ground now.”

He flinched at the ice in her words. She rose, bundle in one hand, wine bottle in the other and raised her chin.

“You can have first watch. I’ll have dinner sent up.” With that, she shooed him aside, wrenched open the door, and stalked down the hall.

Oryn bolted the door behind her, pulled the curtains, and sank onto the foot of her unmade bed.

Staring at the lumpy satchel, he might have laughed.

The most wanted woman in Estryia had just pillaged Pallas Davolier’s greatest treasure.

Instead, he found himself wrung of all humor in the wake of the bone deep terror he’d felt while she was in the keep .

A serving maid knocked a short time later with a tray.

Enya swept in on her heels, hair piled high on her head, and tossed her soiled clothes in a heap.

There was a pink flush to her cheeks and the wine was nowhere to be seen.

She sat stiffly in the chair across from him, holding his gaze with a challenge.

“Are you hurt?” Oryn asked, taking in the way she perched on the edge.

“No.”

He broke the stare, dismissing it, to pour her a cup of wine from a new bottle. “You did not speak true.”

She scoffed.

“Friends are not nothing. There is a man downstairs who crossed half the world to find you and a band of misfits that I suspect will welcome you beyond the bargain, if you wish it. We don’t have much to offer, Silverbow, but we are your friends.”

Her eyebrows climbed at that. “My friends,” she mused. “My friend who fu-”

“Enya.”

She swirled her wine and chuckled. “Do I get a vote?”

“I don’t know that anyone would dare vote against Enya Dragonslayer.”

She snorted. “Hardly.”

“They’ll sing about you one day,” he said.

She shrugged. “I don’t care. It’s not a song I want.”

He thought about telling her it was already too late for that, but instead he asked, “What is it you want?”

She stared at him, expressionless. “To go home.”

Oryn studied her. “Is it betrayal you feel? Under the sadness and the guilt?” He’d been trying to place the emotion that sometimes slipped through the cracks in her anger.

“My entire life was a lie,” she said softly, running a finger along the rim of the goblet. “And now…now the lie is gone, the future and the people I loved with it, like it never happened at all. Sometimes…sometimes I feel like I’ve lost my mind.”

Seeing as she was just now speaking to him again, now didn’t seem like the time to point out she bloody had. “You would have preferred to know?”

She laughed harshly. “Hardly. I would have preferred to be who I thought I was.

I was content to be her, happy even.“ She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I did not particularly like the matchmaking part, but I thought I’d spend my life there, with my family, our lands, our herd. And I wanted that. ”

He watched her in silence for long moments. “You did not trust me even though I swore you a vow.”

She pursed her lips. “You would have tried to stop me.”

“True.”

“So I was right.”

“Perhaps. But what if something had gone wrong? What if I had not been there to mask you from the guards?”

“Is that what you did?” When he nodded, she shrugged. “I’m living on borrowed time anyway.”

Oryn’s throat tightened. “You keep saying that. What did you see?”

“An assassin,” she said as if it was of no real consequence.

“Soon?”

She shrugged. “Soon.”

That knowledge shredded his insides to ribbons and Oryn saw another thread in Hylee’s web. He had to clear the tightness from his throat. “And in the meantime?”

“We still have a bargain?”

“It’s a sacred vow. I’m yours, for as long as you want.” As long as you’ll have me. “Perhaps the next time you’re planning something particularly perilous, we could discuss it?”

She flashed him a grin that made his heart leap. “I was fairly confident he wouldn’t incinerate me.”

“Fairly confident,” he repeated.

“I thought he might recognize me, what with the family bonding and my…scent,” she shrugged.

Oryn stared at her in bewilderment. “You turned that into fairly confident? I’m not sure the Silverbow is your real gift, Ansel. Leaping to conclusions-”

“I think he’s angry.” Oryn frowned at that. “Bonded against his will and to a prick like Pallas Davolier.”

“I’m sorry, Enya. For what it’s worth. I never intended to...” Oryn swallowed, unable to find words to convey how truly sorry he was.

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Perhaps…perhaps a truce. Until we get where we’re going.”

He nodded, an ember of hope flickering in the dark. “And then?”

“And then we’ll see, Your Grace . ”

He had until the Vale to make the truce last. “Fine, Your Highness .“ She scowled at him. “Perhaps you could explain exactly how it is you managed what you did?”

With a devastating, devious grin, Enya raised her cup and said, “That’s my little secret, Gargoyle.”