Page 184 of Silverbow
Something in Liam’s chest cleaved. Important, just not in the way he wanted.
“I don’t know what will come after the Vale. We could come back here, or we could sail across the Saulet Sea and see Durelli. Perhaps we could go all the way to Zeskayra. But I want you to come with me Liam.”
He found himself staring at Pips’s coat as her words pelted him like arrows.
“If…if you don’t want to, I understand.”
She stared at him, the silence between them stretching long, and she turned to leave.
“I’ll go with you,” Liam blurted.
Maybe it was pathetic, but he’d meant what he told the silver haired prince. He would be whatever she asked, because the alternative…the alternative, he couldn’t contemplate.
forty-four
Oryn
Oryn blew out a long breath as he stomped down the staircase. Gitaela had all but stuffed him into the silver coat she’d made for Peytar Ralenet’s welcome feast, as if the occasion warranted a new coat, but the glint in her eye confirmed she was up to something. After Leon broke the news of Ralenet’s landing, Enya had gone straight to the princess’s room.
From there, she had retreated to her stacks of books. He hadn’t been able to coax any answers from her, Gitaela, or Alsbet. He’d even tried bribing Harshilda. The dwarven woman accepted his gold and then told him to consider it the cost of sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. With a knot of unease in his middle, he knocked on her door.
“Come in!”
Oryn blinked at the disarray as he stepped into her sitting room. “Have you taken to pillaging libraries now too?” It looked as if she’d ransacked the place and then someone ransacked her sitting room.
Her voice carried from behind the half-closed door to the bathing chamber. “I borrowed a few things and haven’t had a chance to take them back yet.”
“A few things,” he muttered as he stomped over to snoop.The Book of Nameslay open to a list of Davoliers. “Have you taken an interest in Estryian politics?”
“Perhaps.”
Oryn frowned at the assortment of titles. He picked up a worn copy ofNimala’s Vow.“Care to share what it is you’re planning?”
“Just trying to work out a few things Hylee showed me.”
Oryn set the book aside, studying a treatise on treesongs. “I thought you said she didn’t show you anything of the Treesinger.”
“She didn’t.”
Oryn looked up at the click of heels across the stone floor.
“Do you think this is enough to make the High Lord of Pavia shake in his boots?”
The book he had picked up fell back to the stack with athud. The sheer black fabric clinging to her curves wasn’t fit to be a dressing robe, even if it glittered like the light of a thousand stars. The deep neckline plunged to her navel, leaving an expanse of wholly sinful skin on display. His eyes followed that dangerous plummet and then ripped back to her face. A smile, coy and catlike, flitted over red painted lips.
“I think he’s speechless,” Gitaela giggled at her elbow.
“He’s always like that,” Enya replied.
Oryn hadn’t realized it was possible after two hundred and twenty-three years for the sight of a woman to rip the air from his lungs, but Enya was always unexpected. He cleared his throat. “Where is the rest of it?”
Enya’s smile was nothing short of devious. “Let’s not be late, Gargoyle. The guest of honor will be waiting.”
Oryn didn’t care if Peytar Ralenet waited himself into the grave, but she looped her arm through his and tugged him to the door.
Alone with her in the hall, waiting to be announced last in a subtle snub to the High Lord, he growled, “Do you remember when I asked you to share any particularly perilous plans of yours?”
She hummed and shifted in those ridiculous shoes.
