Page 45 of Silverbow
She was still chewing the last delicious bites, blessing the baker, as she scaled the front steps to the inn’s door. She paused at the three bits of parchment that fluttered on the breeze, tacked to the door with iron nails. The first declared the public spectacle of the witch’s execution. The second, a bounty that had her dropping the rest of the honeycake to roll in the dirt.
In the name of His Majesty the King, Pallas of House Davolier, High King of Estryia and Defender of the Dragon’s Dream, I, Lord PeytarRalenet, High Lord of Pavia and His Majesty’s Master of Coin, offer the king’s bounty for the safe return of Miss Enya of House Ryerson in the Westerlands.
She is twenty years of age, small in stature, with copper hair and green eyes. She was last seen heading east from Westforks alone. Ten thousand gold marks will be awarded to the man who delivers Miss Ryerson to any of His Majesty’s outposts.
Enya stared at the parchment. She’d never seen such an outrageous sum.Ten thousand gold marks. For her?Ryerson House didn’t have that much gold, even if they sold every horse and every stone of the old stable. She doubted any but the High Lords and Pallas Davolier himself did. Had her father asked this High Lord for help? How could he? Ryerson House was of little consequence.
She stood within arms reach of the door, considering abandoning her saddle bags and running straight for Arawelo. A small voice in her head told her to look again, and when she did, she saw the ink was smudged and the edges of the parchment curled. It had been there for some time. Master Finn could have had her carried off in the night, but he didn’t, and she looked to the third parchment. Her heart stopped in her chest.
In the name of His Majesty the King, Pallas of House Davolier, High King of Estryia and Defender of the Dragon’s Dream, I, Lord Peytar Ralenet, High Lord of Pavia and His Majesty’s Master of Coin, offer the king’s bounty for information about the whereabouts of Griffin Ashill, Alys Ashill, Neigel Marwar, Del Marsh, and Liam Marsh. One thousand gold marks will be awarded for each apprehended fugitive.
Fugitive? Oh, light.
Any notion that this High Lord was a friend withered. Something had gone terribly wrong. Had the king’s Master of Coin learned of her gift and her flight? And all that time she spent fumbling around in the forest was time her family was doing exactly what she was trying to prevent, fleeing Ryerson House. She had to get to Windcross Wells. She had to…
She stopped, staring at the list, realizing what was missing.Renley Ryerson.
If every member of Ryerson House was wanted but her father…she couldn’t look at that too closely. There were no answers to that question that soothed the raging tempest building beneath her skin, screaming to get out. Glancing over her shoulder to see that the street was empty, Enya reached up and ripped the parchments from the door, letting them flutter to the ground.
Let them all burn; Lord Peytar Ralenet and his High King with him.
Master Finn let out a nervous squeak when the door banged against its frame. Enya hardly heard either, lost as she was in her own racing thoughts.Gone. All gone. I have to put it right.For three weeks, she’d been crawling toward Windcross Wells to turn herself in to preserve Ryerson House. And it wasgone. A gaping wound tore open in her chest, raw and ragged.
Something caught, and it was as if the parchment nailed to the door had lit a fire in her. A fire the rain and the road had tried to snuff out, and it was all she could do to channel the roaring flames into something wild, something unruly.
She hated the king, his wielders, and his Master of Coin. She hated the men who chased her through Greenridge, the men who would hunt her family, and the men on the village green. She hated this whole gods damned continent.
A strained, half-mad laugh bubbled from her throat as she shoved open the door to her room. She had been trying so desperately to reach Windcross Wells for them, but now…now…You can still put this right.But the flame was devouring any voice of reason. Somewhere between the front steps and the hall, the embers of a plan started to smolder.
Rash, Enya.She chided herself as she snatched three arrows from her quiver. She didn’t care.There is a price on my head.She laid them across the bed before hastily gathering her saddle bags. Midday was upon her when she darted down the stairs, and the dull roar of a crowd was rising from the village green. She paid the stablemaster his due and tossed a copper to a stable boy, ordering him to be quick about bringing Arawelo around.
Master Finn was wringing his hands when she returned to settle with him. “My lady,” he said nervously. “They’re going to start any minute now. You should be gone from Innesh. Nasty business, that is. Nasty business.”
“I forgot something in my room. I’ll be gone in just a moment.” He nodded, turning back to absently wiping a glass with a dingy towel.
She could accept her fate. She had accepted her fate when the rod left its mark on her hand. But if they were going to put a price on her head, she would earn it. She would earn every last copper of it if she had to burn a swath from Innesh to Misthol.
The window groaned in its frame as Enya shoved it open. Leaning out over the ledge, only a sliver of the pyre was visible between the rooftops, but it was enough. She was a Silverbow, after all. She might as well use her godsung gift if it was going to damn her to hell.
A matronly woman with long gray hair sat upright, facing the jeering crowd. She was tied to the stake, but irons still clasped her ankles and wrists and a ghastly iron gag kept her from cursing the men set to dole out her punishment, if she really was a witch.
Enya studied what she could see of the crowd; a rough farmer’s coat here, a blacksmith’s apron there. They booed and jeered, shouting taunts at the woman who had likely delivered their children and tended their hurts. Enya wished she had arrows for all of them, but the absent gods seemed to be running low on wishes to grant, and she had other plans for some of those arrows.
A ring of crimson clad men struggled to hold the press back, but they did nothing to stop the crowd from raining refuse down on the pyre - eggs and rotted vegetables splattered around the woman, but even as they struck, she sat with the stillness of stone; with the stillness of a woman resigned to her fate. All around her, the village threatened to boil over like a kettle left too long on the fire. When they seemed to reach a fever pitch, a crimson clad soldier climbed the edge of the platform.
Enya nocked an arrow as a hush fell over the green. The man unrolled his parchment and read the king’s proclamation. Words distantly drifted up to where Enya leaned over the window frame, but she didn’t hear them as she marked the man, squinting at him in the gap between the rooftops. When the soldier rolled the parchment up again, the crowd surged.
“Witch! Witch! Burn the witch!”
Enya hated Innesh.
Another soldier came forward, carrying a flaming torch. She marked him as her second as he dropped it into the kindling below the platform. She’d have to be fast to get three off before someone whirled to look up, but she was fast. She was a Silverbow. She took a steadying breath as the first curl of smoke rose above the rooftops.
She tipped her head in silent salute and didn’t bother sending up a prayer.
The crowd did not react when her first arrow ripped through the throat of the man who’d declared this the king’s justice. He crumpled silently. Entranced as they were in by the flames, no one watched him die. A few heads swiveled toward the garbled scream that erupted from the torch man, who took an arrow through the eye, but their shouts were indecipherable from the din.
Enya took a steadying breath as she sent her third. The dam broke, spilling chaos loose across the village green when the arrow sprouted from the villagehealer’s forehead. The woman sagged against her bonds. A scream never escaped her lips around the gag. Enya felt a pang of regret, but it was a clean death. Far better than what Pallas Davolier intended to offer her. Far better than what she might receive herself.
