Page 23 of Silverbow
Griff and his da clapped. Enya said nothing. She just stared into her tea like it held an answer to some question he didn’t understand.
Liam bumped his knee against hers. “Wanna see it?” He asked softly.
She nodded, setting her cup aside and wrapping her arms around her middle.
Liam fumbled the parchment from the his pocket and smoothed the parchment open to show her. In letters set by a press, the parchment declared the bearer possessed no wielding gift, granting rights to move freely about Estryia. In a tidy hand below was written his name, his name day, and the color of his hair and eyes. Stamped at the bottom of the page, beside Westforks No. 7, was the royal seal and the intricate stamp of the scribemaster, embossed with his initials.
“How did it start?” Enya asked suddenly. “People just let Pallas Davolier steal their children?” For the Testing was a creating of the king’s.
Liam looked up at his da, who paused thumbing tobacco into his pipe. Halos of blue smoke were already ringing the heads of the lord and his Master of Arms. A look passed between the men, but Lord Ryerson took the pipe from his teeth and leveled a long look at his daughter.
“The Testing rod was invented by a wielder at the school in Artelaia in the years after Ryland’s Rebellion.”
Liam leaned forward intently. No one ever spoke of the Testing rod.
“With the elves of Eastwood gone, the intermingling of blood stopped. Fewer wielders were born every year. It was designed to help them find the spark in students they might otherwise overlook. Of course, then, the students could choose whether or not to join one of the great schools, but most did.
“For two hundred years, it was a scholar’s tool, and children clamored to hold the rod. When Pallas Davolier seized the Haarstrond Throne, he decided he wanted the giftscontained. The collars were invented. He chose out his trusted few, and they set to work.”
“The Silver Night,” Marwar muttered, the name sounding like a curse.
“A dangerous name. One never to utter where someone might hear.” He gave the Master of Arms a pointed look. “They swept all three schools in one brutal, coordinated attack. The scholars were the first killed or collared, leaving their pupils mostly defenseless. By dawn, Pallas Davolier had an army of wielders no one would dare to challenge. And then they were lining us all up, taking our names, passing the rod, issuing papers, bah.” He waved his pipe, the smoke trailing off like his words.
“What happened to the schools?” Enya asked.
Her father shrugged. “Abandoned, I suppose. There’s no need for learning when what Pallas Davolier desires can be taught through the leash.”
“And what is it the king desires?”
“To build the greatest army on the continent, of course,” Liam said.
“A dragon isn’t enough?” Enya asked.
“To sit a throne that isn’t his?” Her father challenged.
Mistress Ashill hissed a warning. “Now who’s uttering things they shouldn’t?”
“Drulougan might be the biggest dragon in the world, but a single dragon is not enough to hold the Haarstrond Throne. Not if the people rose. But who will rise to face an army of wielders with no free will? Some of them, their own children?”
“What about the elves?” Liam asked. “Won’t they do anything to stop it?”
Marwar snorted. “Amiven didn’t even help his own brother when Eastwood called for aid.”
“The elves of Oyamor never thought well of mixing human and elven blood,” Lord Ryerson said levelly. “The gods chose the elves, not mortal men, and they thought no good would come of it. They are unlikely to save us from ourselves.”
“What about the elves of Eastwood?” Enya asked.
Liam scratched at his jaw. Even before the Dragon’s Dream, Eastwood had been a bastion of equality and peace, a dream of its own tucked in the forest beneath Tuminzar.
“Eastwood is nothing but ash.”
“But the demi-elves?”
Her father took a long puff of his pipe. “Too few, too scattered, and too broken.”
When Mistress Ashill finally summoned everyone to the table, a feast as great as could be mustered short of a Harvest Day crop had been laid out. Over a hot meal and more cider, Ryerson House rejoiced as the rain cleansed away the turmoil of the Testing.
When they were sufficiently stuffed to bursting, they shuffled back into the drawing room as the storm raged outside. Griff sat on a stool by the fire and pulled his flute from its worn leather case. Gnarled fingers working the valves as he playedThe Ferryman’s OarandGoodman Abel’s Wife. Liam’s da tapped a foot along to the tune, and when Griff paused to catch his breath, the house clapped. Everyone but Enya.
