Page 141 of Silverbow
“By the gods and my hope of salvation, I vow that I will carry these eggs to the Sreskrik nests in the Vale. I will guard them with my life and see them returned to their ancestral home.”
Drulougan shifted and she squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the impact as his great spiked tail lashed out. Pain lanced down her spine. It seared and burned.
And then it was gone.
The blow didn’t land.
With a great rustling of wings, Drulougan leapt into the darkness above and vanished.
It took Enya long heartbeats to rise, but when she looked back over her shoulder at the nest, she understood. Drulougan had accepted her vow. He’d stamped out the ring of dragonfire.It worked. Gods above, it worked.
She scrambled up the dais steps and beheld the three glittering eggs within: one ruby, one emerald, one silver. Her breath caught. In that strange world between worlds, they hadn’t sparkled the way they did here, as if their tiny overlapping scales were faceted gemstones.
With shaking hands, Enya pulled swatches of fabric from the satchel she’d bought in the city. She lifted the ruby egg to wrap it, and wondered if that had been silly. It was heavy. It felt more akin to stone than an egg, but she reverently wrapped it anyway before carefully tucking it into the bag.
Somewhere high above, Drulougan was watching, and she had sworn a vow to a dragon after all.
Oryn
It was Colm’s sharp intake of breath that halted Oryn’s pacing and snapped his gaze to the maw of the great black stone. A small dark shape had emerged and was creeping soundlessly across the courtyard.
Bless you, Mosphaera. Thank you, Nimala, Sakaala. Solignis and Simdeni.
She had come out of Blackash Keep. Oryn would thank any bloody god who had kept her safe.
Relief shattered a heartbeat later as a massive red firework bloomed and crackled over Haarstrond Keep. Behind them, the king’s wielders had put out the blaze and the alchemist’s show was beginning despite the destruction. Enya was bathed in a flash of red, her face turning up in surprise. Bade uttered a curse as the doors atop the guard towers banged open and men began filing out to watch from atop the walls.
“Solignis burn them all,” Colm muttered.
Enya froze as more fireworks bloomed in the night sky, the flickering colored light illuminating the shape of her cloak in sharp relief against the stone. Oryn ripped the damper off his gifts and spun out a mask of air. Quickly, he wove and shaped, letting the dome settle around her, casting an illusion over her form. When the next sparks erupted, there was nothing there to illuminate.
It was a trick he would rather the king’s wielders not learn, but there were enough of them in Misthol that no one should notice the power he drew for the masking. If any curious eyes appeared, they would handle it, but it would be far neater than dealing with the guards pouring onto the wall.
“You forgot the bloody fireworks?” Bade hissed.
“I thought she’d be out by now.” Colm cupped a hand over his mouth and hooted. She crept forward again.
Masking someone other than himself was normally more difficult. He had to shift the wielding with the wearer, but his gifts had always been drawn to her. The illusion seemed to move on its own, clinging to her with glee, even as she started to move faster, realizing they had done something to shield her. Enya bloody Silverbow suddenly appeared in the shadows outside the gate tower when Oryn shoved the damper back over his gifts.
“No wielders,” Colm murmured.
Once clear of the gate, she stepped further out of the shadows and strode off as if she’d been to high tea. Oryn turned and ran down the alley on quiet feet, circling around to emerge at her elbow.
“Are. You. Mad.” Every word was an effort as he wrapped a hand around her arm, her pulse pounding under his fingertips. The stench of dragonfire clung to her, with a lingering trace of…excitement.Light, not even Drulougan the Dread scares her.
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 atheory.”
“A theory? You risked your fool neck on atheory?“ 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.”
