Page 138 of Silverbow
This is my fault. This is all my bloody fault.If he hadn’t made his bargain with Hylee, if he hadn’t sent Enya straight into that bounty hunter’s camp…
Oryn thought he might be sick as he paced up and down the alley, unable to watch the dark dome. He should have tied her to her horse and dragged her kicking and screaming to Drozia.
“This is what she saw?” He demanded.
“It seems so.”
“Colm,” Oryn scrubbed a hand down his face. “Tell me she comes out.”
When he didn’t answer, Oryn seized him by the shoulders.
“When the dream ward snapped, I was pulled in, just for a moment,” Colm said calmly. “I didn’t see this, but Hylee showed her her own death, Oryn. It wasn’t here. It wasn’t today.”
“But you always say that’s not a guarantee,” he protested. “One wrong choice…”
Colm nodded. “I don’t believe today is the end of her song. I don’t believe her mother would have asked her to do it if she thought Drulougan would harm her.”
“The woman’s been dead for twenty years,” Oryn retorted. “What does she bloody know?”
“More than us,” Colm mused.
That bloody bargain.Oryn stared up at the black swell etched against the sky and swallowed. Only Solignis could help her now, and he’d stopped hearing that godsong in the months after he made his bargain.
thirty-five
Enya
Enya kept to the shadows as she crept through the open gate. The echo of revelry drifted through the deserted streets of the Flame Quarter and bounced off the high wall. The wide plaza between her and the yawning maw of the black dome sat empty. All she had to do was cross it. And then she would meet Drulougan.
One thing at a time.
She clung to Liam’s horse head carving. It would be her only shield in Blackash Keep. Her courage had faltered when she first laid eyes on Drulougan sweeping over the bay. The dragon she’d seen in Hylee’s vision hadn’t seemed quite so...terrifying. But she knew what she had to do.
Her mother had fled Misthol so that Pallas Davolier couldn’t wield her future children like weapons against Estryia, against all of Elaria. But there was one thing Maia Trakbatten hadn’t been able to manage - she couldn’t betray the bond between her and Preya, between her and the dragon who had gifted her the foresight to know what would come.Sacred are the songs of our bonds, of our love.
She had to leave without Preya’s clutch. She had to leave Pallas Davolier with the chance at three more dragons.
Enya had stood behind the queen in the vision. Her gold flecked green eyes had searched the space in the milky mirror where Enya’s reflection shouldhave been, but she wasn’t really there. The people in the visions or the memories that Hylee cast her into couldn’t see her, but somehow, the woman knew she was looking in on that moment.A telling of a telling.The woman, her mother, had smiled at her sadly as she made her request.“Take the clutch to the Vale.”
The message was clear, but she hadn’t given any indication of how exactly to deal with Drulougan the Dread and how it served Hylee Starseer remained a mystery, but Enya would do it. She would have done it even without the terrible things she saw Pallas do. She wanted her own revenge for Ryerson House.
She supposed she ought to thank Solignis for Sun Day and the eyes that were directed elsewhere. She ought to thank the god for the fire wine that was undoubtedly flowing in the guard towers at her back and she ought to thank him for a dragon so fierce, no one bothered to keep watch when he was in residence. She supposed she should have asked Colm for a proper prayer, but it was too late for that now.
She was grateful for his quiet, steady presence beyond the wall. She’d thought he would try to stop her, try to convince her to bring the others, but he hadn’t, and she was grateful for that too. She was most grateful it wasn’t Liam waiting in the alley. Her heart constricted at the idea of him standing there if she failed to come out.
With a deep steadying breath, she tiptoed across the smooth black stones. Voices flitted from open windows in the guard towers. Bets were being called as dice rattled in a cup. She vaguely wondered if that was what her bones would sound like clattering against the stones when Drulougan spit them out.
Not helpful.
Perhaps it was her mind trying to convince her one last time to turn around. Enya cursed herself for her skittering thoughts. She squinted up again to the abandoned walls and wished she had elven eyesight.If wishes were horses, girl, beggars might ride.Alys Ashill’s voice drifted through her mind, sending a jolt through her that kept her moving.
How wide is this bloody plaza?She would be in full view of any eye that bothered to look, but she was counting on the men being blinded by their lanterns and drink.Wide enough to land an entire clan of dragons, you light blinded fool.
She stumbled over a deep gouge in the stone. It was a clawmark, she realized with no little surprise, and tried to summon the same calm she used with her bow. It shattered again when she kicked a loose stone with her boot and sent it skittering. She froze, flinching at every too loudclickandclangas it rolled.
No cry went up.
She scurried the last of the distance and gazed up at the deeper black of the keep itself. The entrance to the dome yawned open, sharp stalactites hanging over the archway looking unnervingly like black fangs in a final warning of what lay within.Another settling thought.
