Page 131 of Silverbow
Scarlet crept into the boy’s face in a tangle of rage and embarrassment. “Because I thought she might need a friend.”
“A friend? Or a lover?” Oryn challenged. “Did you think that chasing her across the continent would win her heart? Be some grand gesture? Or is it just that you can finally stake your claim now that she has no other prospects?”
Oryn regretted the words as soon as they came tumbling out.Gods damn it.So much for using him to rein her in, he couldn’t even rein in his own gods damned temper. Something in Liam’s eyes guttered, but he lifted his chin and glared. Had this conversation not gone so poorly, Oryn might have admired him for it.
“I will be whatever she needs, whenever she needs it,” Liam snarled. “And she doesn’t need you.”
Before he could object that it certainly seemed like shedidneed him, the stable boy wrenched open the door and stalked into the hall, leaving Oryn to wonder when his sanity had abandoned him. Ested, he thought. Or perhaps it was before that, but it didn’t matter when she had stopped being just a bounty to him. He was nothing to her. Or worse, he was something she hated. He shook his head to clear it and with a resigned sigh, trailed after Liam.
Enya scowled his direction when he stepped into the dining room as if she knew what had transpired above. She turned an apologetic smile on Liam as he started on his plate with knitted brows.
“Good morning,” Aiden drawled, eyes roving between the three of them with a mischievous glint. “What’s on the schedule for today, Miss Ansel?”
She busied herself stirring a spoonful of honey into her tea. “I thought Liam and I could do a bit of shopping. As much as I like my last shirt, perhaps I should find another.” Her eyes darted to Oryn in a silent accusation over the mess with the bounty hunters.
“I can give you some coin,” he offered.
“I have no need of your coin,” she bit out.
The air went taught in the room, but Aiden sliced through it with a chuckle. “What? No burning and pillaging today?”
She turned a saccharine smile on the fire wielder that made Oryn’s insides tighten.
“So close to Sun Day? That would be sacrilege.”
“I thought you didn’t put much stock in the gods,” he grinned.
She hummed. “Perhaps I should, seeing how I’m favored and all.”
Colm cleared his throat from the end of the table. “You should take one of us with you into the city. Misthol is a rat’s nest on a good day, but with all the people here for the tourney and the celebration, the guards will be on edge.”
“If you want to come along Colm, just say so.”
“I want to come along,” Oryn said, even though he knew better. Not only would she refuse him, but he would draw notice.
“No.”
Aiden sniggered and thethudof Colm’s boot against his shin was heard through the room.
***
Oryn was still trying to shake off his pre-breakfast blunder as he stalked through the Foreshore, bristling at the boy’s insolence, or perhaps, his presence. He’d been bristling since he’d first seen Liam Marsh, perhaps since he’d first heard her utter his name. He didn’t know anymore, he only knew that everything had gone to hell.
Misthol grated on him with its heat and noise and unbearable stench. Aiden grated on him with his constant prodding. Colm grated on him with his bloody secrets. Hylee grated on him with her bloody whispers, and Enya bloody Silverbow grated on him most of all as he feigned interest in a market stall peddling what were undoubtedly stolen blades, checking over his shoulder for watching eyes.
Shaking his head at whatever price the hawker named without so much as hearing it, he backed away and turned down a narrow alley where mud and filth squelched under his boots. He counted the doors to the seventh and stopped at a ramshackle little hut. When he rapped on the door, the whole wall trembled beneath his knuckles.
A grate slid open across a peephole and a pair of beady eyes squinted out at him. “What’s your business?”
Oryn held up the coin purse and shook it where the man could see. “Galver said you might have parchment.”
The man grunted, his eyes darting around the alley. “Don’t have no parchment here. Don’t know no Galver neither.”
“Girl. Young. Green eyes. Dark hair.”
Those eyes narrowed again. “If I did have parchment, green eyes would cost extra.”
Oryn tipped the purse into his hand and let the man see it was gold, his eyes widening before they vanished from behind the peephole. There was the scrape of a chair, a heavy thud, and the soft whisper of shuffled pages. Oryn scanned the alley, waiting. Finally, the door opened just a crack and a pocked, scarred hand stretched out, palm up. Sighing, he dropped a single fat gold mark into it.
