Page 122 of Silverbow
Louissa
Boots clicking against the floorboards, Louissa breezed into the scribemaster’s room, and planted fists on hips as she peered down her nose at Master Lorry. She’d heard mice squeak less feebly.
“Where did Renley Ryerson serve as a sword?” She demanded.
The scribemaster’s brow furrowed. “Renley Ryerson? Have you checkedThe Book of Names, ma’am? Notable services are often recorded.”
“You know that I have,” Louissa hissed. “What’s not in the book, Lorry?”
The man dry washed his hands. “Short or unremarkable service often goes unrecorded.”
“Where was the man before the first roll was taken?” She demanded.
“I don’t know, ma’am. Have you tried asking Lord Ralenet? He seems to have an interest in Ryerson House.”
Louissa rubbed at the vein in her temple. Peytar was the last man she could ask about the trouble that had indeed spilled over the Trydent. He seemed to be right in the thick of it.
She let a ripple of air blow Lorry’s scrolls and parchments around the room as she slammed the door and stomped down the hall.Useless man.
thirty-two
Enya
Enya spent the weeks riding for Misthol in silence, reciting her list and letting Arawelo’s hooves pound the rhythm to her grief. It was the only way she knew to mourn her losses without unraveling.The man she’d known as Marwar. The mother she didn’t remember. The father who was not her father.One after another, the visions and the losses peeled away parts of her with the dexterity of a questioner.
Renley Ryerson.
Liam.
Herself.
A lantern with two casks of oil, flint and steel, her belt knife, a spare bowstring, a waterskin, a tin cup and bowl, a small kettle, a blanket roll, towel, bandages, a salve, a needle and thread, sewing scissors. A brush, hoof pick, feed bag, a sack of oats. A hair comb and a bit of soap. Honey and tea. Silver. The horse head carving. Arawelo. My bow and quiver. My wits. The dust scarf.
It was strange to wear a new name. It was stranger still to know her own death. She’d felt the cold bite of steel in that vision. It was a cold so deep her bones felt brittle, like the one between the worlds. If she hadn’t already felt it, she wouldn’t be able to fathom a cold like that as she galloped south under a blistering sun. For all she thought she had dealt with the price on her head and what it meant,for all she thought she had accepted turning herself in, the certainty of the viewing made her ill. Ill enough that she had to keep her mouth firmly shut whenever she thought of it.
She fumbled for Liam’s carving, trying to convince herself there was no use fretting over it. Perhaps, perhaps there was still some hope. There had been for her mother. She had changed what she saw. But she was afraid there was none for Liam. She didn’t even know where he was.
Oryn hovered close to her most times, his jaw set firmly enough she thought it had to ache. And if it wasn’t for the cracking of her heart, she might have wondered if his vow mark was already chafing. In truth, she hadn’t quite sorted how she felt about Oryn. It was easier just to be angry.
Enya could smell the sea before she could see the city, but unlike the cool wind that came off the Ilbarran Ocean, here the air was thick and heavy. She couldn’t tell if it was the air or her own sweat that dampened her shirt, and loose tendrils of hair curled around her ears and forehead. The damp threatened to drag her back to those first weeks she crawled east, but she was not cold and she was not alone. Colm rode at her side, scrubbing at his nose.
“Does it always smell like dead fish?” She asked.
He chuckled. “If you thought Windcross Wells was bad, Ansel, wait until you see Misthol.”
Ansel.She hadn’t known where she’d conjured the name from, but it would be far easier just to be Ansel. She supposed she could after she fulfilled her end of the bargain.
The others had split off, angling for a different gate. Oryn was too recognizable to enter with Enya, and even though he had run his own dye powder through his hair, turning the silver to black, there was not much to be done about Kiawa. He would rejoin them later, not that Enya cared.
She was too tired to care much about what the demi-elves did, too exhausted from her restless nights spent with Hylee’s visions, but a small part of her was glad Colm was at her side. She supposed he was the closest thing she had to a friend now. She vaguely wondered if that was sad. He wasn’t really hers, she knew. He was Oryn’s if it came down to it. They all were.
When they finally rounded a bend along a low hill and the city sprawled before them, Enya’s eyes went wide. Sunlight glinted off the blue expanse that stretched to the horizon and ringing the broad bay was a high wall of brown stone.
“Haarstrond Keep.” Colm pointed to the unmistakable turrets jutting from a castle on a bluff overlooking the bay. She followed his finger to the north where a black dome rose out of the sprawl. “And that is-”
“Blackash Keep,” she breathed. She’d had a suspicion Colm knew what it was she was about, but he’d held his silence all the way to Misthol and she supposed that ought to count for something. Enya’s amazement at the sprawl of the city was short-lived. She pointed to the rough hewn hovels outside the city walls. They sprawled almost as wide as the city proper, leaning haphazardly. “What is that?”
“The Foreshore,” Colm answered. “Where the poor have been pushed as the city swells.”
