Page 106 of Silverbow
“Witch,” he growled. “You’ve been dining well, I see.”
She let out another dark, sultry laugh. “It seems I made the most advantageous bargain,” she crooned. Delicate hands straightened the star-flecked cloak and stroked the shadows that curled to her ear, whispering their secrets. “It is good to see you again, Son of Eastwood, though I much prefer how we last met.”
Oryn ground his teeth. That was a meeting he’d always regret, andthatwas what buoyed Hylee’s power. Witches devoured bodies and souls, trading their dark arts for pieces of lives. It was after his encounter with Hylee his fire and earth gifts had gone quiet, as if the shame and regret she wielded against him were not enough. Enya peered curiously around his shoulder and Oryn batted her back.
“You’re far from Covwood. Did you come all this way to reminisce?”
“I came to admire my work,” she purred in a voice that wrapped around him like velvet. “A masterpiece a century in the making.”
“The irons were just for show then?”
She lifted a delicate shoulder in a half shrug. “I was waiting for things to get interesting.” She eyed the men gathered around them and heaved a dramatic sigh. “But you never can rely on a man.”
Shadows raced from her dark form to twist around Kolvar and his men. They struggled with the dark power that cocooned them like spider’s silk. As the shadows constricted, corpses hit the ground one by one with nauseatingthuds. Oryn swallowed as before his eyes, the shrouded forms shriveled, twisted, and disintegrated into clouds of dark dust. Hylee hummed as her aura pulsed, drinking in the the lives she devoured in the blink of an eye. Ruven and the Ashstrom twins had gone ghostly white, but they remained untouched, for now.
With a wicked grin, Hylee clicked her tongue and stalked a circuit around the demi-elves that stood before him like a cat playing with her dinner. Oryn shifted, stepping around Enya, never turning his back to the witch. “We want no bargains.”
“Oh?” Dark lashes fluttered at him. “Was your last bargain not to your satisfaction?”
“I found it lacking,” he shot back.
“No you didn’t,” she purred.
Oryn tried to school his features to calm.
She kept moving, stalking from man to man, running a fingernail across shoulders or jaws as she took their measure. His companions stood taught as bowstrings, all too aware of the power that gobbled up their gifts like the blackness between the stars. “Always suchdeliciouscompany you keep.”
She finally halted in front of Colm and brushed a bit of dust from his shoulder. She straightened his collar with a caress like a lover. “Still fumbling around in the dark, Dreamwalker?” For half a blink, the violet eyes were blue, the raven hair blonde, and the face altogether different as she stroked his cheek. She leaned close, her lips nearly grazing his neck and Oryn prepared to strike. “For a night, we could fumble together, you and me.”
It took much to drive Colm to anger, but the witch taking Maille’s form was enough. Rage like Oryn had never seen set him trembling, nose wrinkling with a suppressed snarl. Hylee chuckled and released him, stalking next to Bade.
She met his unwavering stare with a coy smile. “It is good to see you too, Eaglet.” She trailed a proprietary hand along his side where the worst of his burn scar lay beneath his shirt. “I’ve always wondered…what was it like? To be the last on the killing field as men died all around you? To know you failed so spectacularly?”
Hylee hummed when she got nothing but stony silence in answer. The blademaster kept his emotions buried where they could not hinder him in a fight. Deep enough, not even the witch could find them.
She circled twice before stopping in front of Aiden. He shuddered as she dragged a finger across his skin where the collar had been. “Did someone try to leash the pup? Their mistake, I’m sure.” She inhaled sharply, a soft smile flitting across her face. “It is a wonder the world isn’t burning.”
She darted between Aiden and Ascal in a step that may have been part stride, part apparition. His companions whirled, tracking her as she prowled closer, but Hylee paused and spread her shadow skirts in a deep, dramatic curtsy.
“Your Grace,” she grinned.
“That is not an title I use,” Oryn growled, tense as he tried to keep Enya firmly behind his back.
“Not everything’s about you, Princeling,” Hylee tsked.
“Insufferable,” Enya muttered. “I suppose it makes sense, seeing he’s bloody royalty.”
Oryn stiffened and prayed to all five gods she might suddenly find a scrap of self-preservation.
Hylee chucked. “Some would say the same about you.”
Oryn blinked. He turned slightly to catch a look at Enya in his periphery. Her brows knitted, her head tilted. “I…think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
Hylee clicked her tongue. “I forgot. You are the most ignorant woman in Estryia.”
Behind him, her breath hitched and from the corner of his eye, he saw the way her eyes flashed.Nimala save us.In all the fights, all the battles where he thought he might meet his end, he had never imagined he might actually die standing between Hylee Starseer and Enya Ryerson.
“Is it true your kind devour the men you take to your beds like spiders?” Enya shot.
