Page 188 of Silverbow
“And then?”
Oryn chuckled at the memory. “I was attacked by a snowcat. It was her cave I stumbled into. My gifts manifested then. It happens like that sometimes. They appear when you need them most. I couldn’t control them, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I sealed myself inside a little dome of air and for a full day, watched her swipe and claw at it, terrified it would collapse at any moment.”
Enya huffed a laugh.
“Vicious creature, you’d have liked her,” he added. “But Colm found me the next day. He came close enough to sense the wielding.”
“And the other time?”
Oryn swallowed, his shame and regret bitter on his tongue. “The other was Covwood. Colm never would have let me go and he was right not to.”
“Why did you?” She asked.
“The same reason I ran away the first time, I suppose. I wanted to go home.” Oryn held his breath, waiting, the silence between them its own kind of song.
“I suppose we have that in common, you and me,” she finally sighed. “We both long for places that have been reduced to ash.” She tilted her head. “Did you get what you wanted from Hylee Starseer?”
“She didn’t show you?”
Enya shook her head and laughed. “She showed me your payment.Allof your payment.”
Oryn was glad the dark hid the blush that crept into his cheeks. “I’m sorry you saw that.”
Enya shrugged. “Quite a show,Princeling. I’m surprised she kept her word to let you leave Covwood.”
Oryn shifted uncomfortably on the wall. “To answer your question, no. She gave me little more than meaningless riddles. She told me I needed the Treesinger, which should have been plain enough, but she wouldn’t tell me how or where to find them.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Oryn cleared his throat. “‘When what was old is new again, when what was lost is found, then will the song of sorrow scour the stain, and the crowns will tremble before the sound.’”
Enya hummed again. “That’s what Cedric meant it being soon? ‘Old is new again’?”
Oryn nodded. “Perhaps. There have been more new gifts in the last ten years than in the fifty before.”
Enya hummed, kicking her feet.
“You said I paid in power and Pallas in blood. Whose blood bound Drulougan to him?”
She huffed. “Curious isn’t it how in the last thirty years, the only heirs to Davolier House have been born to women who married in?”
Oryn blinked at her. “The Book of Names.”
“Pallas Davolier traded the future of his house for his quest for power.”
Oryn sat back, cursing. Hylee really had woven a masterpiece. The most prideful house in all of Estryia couldn’t produce heirs and the ones it did were likely sired by other men - a fact they either remained ignorant to or were forced to endure. No wonder her power had swelled to such a terrifying magnitude and the king of pride himself…
“Are you saying Pallas’s sons are illegitimate? Enya, that means-”
“I know what it means, Oryn.”
“Your claim. That’s why Peytar wants to marry you.”
She laughed darkly. “Is it hard to believe a man wants to marry me because ofme?“ She took another gulp from the bottle. “Don’t answer that.”
The music from the hall seemed to grow louder in an incessant thrumming as Oryn swallowed his answer.
“Your claim is better than Pallas’s,” he said slowly. “Even if his sons were legitimate.”
