Page 127 of Silverbow
Liam
Liam hadn’t had to go all the way back to his room in the Foreshore. He hadn’t dared leave anything in it. Some nights, he wondered if he might awake to find his clothes stolen off his back. Some nights, he wondered if he’d wake at all, or if his body would just be dumped out in the alley the next morning. No, he would not have to step foot back in the Foreshore, at least not until they left Misthol.
He only had to go up to Northgate to where Pips was stabled. Liam had been working off enough mucking to keep the horse and earn the copper he needed for his bed and a meal. The gelding deserved a deeply bedded stall and good hay. Just because Liam had eaten slop and gruel didn’t mean Pips should. Besides, outside the city wall, he was likely to vanish the moment Liam looked away, either to be sold for good coin or into some desperate fool’s cookpot. He’d seen far worse than horse eaten in the Foreshore.
His heart soared as he returned to the Gandy Dancer. When he handed the gelding off to the stablemaster named Hal, he told him to stall him next to the mean mare. The man hadn’t had to ask which one. He sluiced the grime off himself in a copper tub and donned the cleanest clothes he had, which still wouldn’t have been fit for mucking Ryerson Stable. Enya wrinkled her nose at him as he sat on the foot of her bed.
“Have those seen a laundress since you left home?”
“No,” he grumbled. “Don’t be a mother hen. Have you seen what you’re wearing?”
Enya laughed, the sound soothing some wounded part of his soul. “It’s not really the clothes I care about, but if you give me fleas, Liam Marsh, I swear to the gods I will throw you in the sea.”
He grinned at her and inched closer so that their knees just barely touched. She sighed.Gods, I found her.
“Are you…okay?” He asked.
“I am,” she said, loosing a long breath. “Are you?”
“I am now.”
She grinned at him. “You’re only using me for my coin.”
Liam hadn’t known what to make of the demi-elves in the dining room, but it seemed they were both using them for their coin. The one they called Andril at least had told him where to find her, something Liam hadn’t really believed was real until he slipped past Master Kimball’s henchmen and actually laid eyes on her himself.
He blinked in surprise when Enya crashed into him, flinging her arms around her neck as she sobbed into his filthy shirt. He ran a soothing hand down her back and for a long time, just held her, even as a few tears slipped down his own face and fell into her unnaturally dark hair. He lamented the loss of her warmth when she finally pulled away with a sheepish grin.
As she settled back against the wall, he voiced the question he’d been holding in since he’d found them. “I heard a rumor on the road you were riding with Elred’s Eagle. Which one is it?”
“The scowling one.”
Liam tilted his head. “I think you’ll have to narrow it down further.”
That seemed to be funny to her, because she howled with laughter, still wiping her eyes. “The dark one with the two swords. He doesn’t say much.”
“And the other one? The one with the debt?” He asked cautiously. “Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she said, but there was a stiffness in it.
“And they are…kind to you?”
She nodded, pulling a pillow into her lap to squeeze. “They extracted me from a bit of trouble in Trowbridge.”
“Ah.”
“Not my best day on the road,” she admitted.
“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” he offered and found himself recounting the days since he’d left Ryerson House. When he finished, Enya launched into her own tale in a hushed whisper.
Liam marveled at her report of Innesh, held his breath when she spoke of Trout Run, and found himself scratching at his chin as she told him of Windcross Wells. She was drawn when she told him of her time alone and the dreams that chased her across the continent. She was animated when she told him of sparring, quiet when she spoke of her father and when she got to Midbury, she took a great gulp of air that had Liam bracing for the worst. Nausea roiled in him as she spoke of the run in with the bounty hunters, but it was the Seer that had her picking at the frayed edge of the blanket.
“What did she show you?” He asked cautiously.
She sighed and looked at him with a weight in her eyes that made Liam’s heart sink. “A lot.”
“Like what?”
Her throat bobbed. “I think Marwar’s dead, Liam. Ralenet…”
