Page 14 of Silverbow
Liam gave Enya a reluctant look. She didn’t much feel like it either, not after what Lady Blakwell said. She was on the point of declining, suggesting they turn for home, when Liam suddenly booted Pips and took off for a head start.
“You’re a cheat, Liam Marsh!”
The Testing fell away as she flung herself low onto Arawelo’s neck. The mare burst at the slightest encouragement, long legs swallowing up the ground in sweeping strides that had Enya half standing in her stirrups. Sand flung from Pips’s hooves pelted her face, scouring her skin in an unpleasant reminder of what losing felt like.
“All’s fair in hearts and horses,” Liam shouted back over the wind in her ears.
Enya laughed. She might cheat too if she had to run against one of the fastest horses in Estryia. Even with his head start, Arawelo pulled level with Pips and matched the gelding stride-for-stride in a taunt before surging ahead, Farrah on her heels.
Father and daughter galloped on, cloaks and tails streaming behind them like banners in the wind. For those few heartbeats, Enya soared. The world had fallen away. There were no suitors, no wielders. There was only her, Arawelo, and that shrinking stretch of beach. As they thundered past the jutting rock that marked the point, Enya pulled up, grinning with her victory.
“Light, I forget how fast she is,” her father said, reining in beside her. “It’s unnatural. We ought to breed her, En.”
“Welo hasn’t found a good enough suitor, either,” she crooned as she leaned forward to scratch behind the mare’s ears. Her father rolled his eyes. “Perhaps next year.”
“What could be better than more ill-tempered red mares,” Liam mused.
Both Enya and her father laughed at the prospect. She would fill a whole wing of Ryerson Stable with Arawelo’s foals if she could, but she was loath to give the mare up to being a nursemaid. Arawelo pinned her ears as if she too disliked the prospect.
The sun was starting to sink into the ocean beyond the horizon when they finally rode through the gate that divided the east and west wings of Ryerson Stable. Before they’d even dismounted, Marwar was limping toward her father, an envelope with a wax seal in his hands.
“Message came for you, my lord,” he said curtly.
Enya was eyeing the parchment, trying to determine if courtship or the Testing was worse. She decided she liked her odds with the Testing rod better, Sana’s gift aside. “I hope that is not another invitation.”
Liam sniggered as he led Pips inside.
Her father’s brow furrowed as he broke the seal, eyes darting across the message. “No,” he said solemnly, crumpling the parchment in his hand. “It seems Lady Blakwell’s rumors were true. The Testing is indeed coming to Westforks.”
“When?” She asked.
“Soon.”
***
The news of the Testing settled over dinner like a weight not even Mistress Alys’s cinnamon sweet rolls could lift. No one called an end to the many games of stones she and Liam played quietly in the drawing room. No one reminded them how early dawn came on a farm. Perhaps it was because they knew they wouldn’t sleep anyway, or perhaps her father and the others also feared what might come with the new day. So they sat locked in their silent battle for the board until the candles burned to nubs, and since no one particularly felt like lighting new ones, Liam finally crept back out to his father’s apartments.
Still, Enya tossed and turned beneath her blankets. Perhaps she should have gone east with the demi-elves, but to flee the wielders was to bring ruin upon your house. When she closed her eyes and tried to drift, it was Elling’s face she saw, etched in that smile he saved only for her. Her eyes snapped open, staring at theceiling. When she couldn’t abide that any longer, she kicked off her blanket and crept down the stairs.
Snatches of murmured conversation drifted from her father’s study. Curiosity drew her like a moth to a flame. She was practiced at this particular form of eavesdropping. She knew which floor planks would keep her secrets, and which would squeak the alarm. She held her breath as she tiptoed down the hall to lean against the doorframe.
“The seconds have often been…headstrong,” Marwar was saying.
It made all the sense of a half heard conversation, and her father’s inaudible reply didn’t help, but soon they moved on, and she willed her breath to quiet so she could hear.
“Is there one you like for her?” Marwar asked.
“No,” her father sighed. “I don’t blame her, they are all insufferable.”
Enya’s heart leapt with triumph as she smiled into the dark.
“My lord, if I may be so bold...” Marwar rarely took such a formal tone with her father behind closed doors, and it made Enya strain to listen. She heard no response, but the Master of Arms continued. “If you seek a marriage only due to the issue of male inheritance, might I suggest Liam?”
“Liam?” Her father asked.
Liam? Their Liam?She had never known the Master of Arms to be a funny man, but this had to be some kind of jest.
“They’ve been raised like brother and sister.”
