Page 80 of Silverbow
He extended the pipe toward her. “Care to join me?”
“No, I do not care to join you!” She snapped.
“You know, you’re the first like you that we’ve ever seen. A pity to get yourself killed before you do whatever it is the gods have planned for you.”
“I’m not interested in being a means to someone’s end,” she hissed.
“Really? Because that is all that you will be ifhegets a hold of you. They call him the puppet master, you know.“ She swallowed audibly. “Do you think the gods gave you that gift just to throw it away?”
“I don’t put much stock in the gods,” she spluttered.
Oryn sighed. “You should. They favor you. And they are none too pleased with you running straight into a trap.”
“You speak to the gods now? The ones who abandoned us?”
Oryn blinked. “Abandoned us? Is that what they teach you mortals?”
She scowled at him. “I am not going to stand here and debate theology with you while my father is beingtortured.”
“He is bait, Ansel.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“Do you expect me to sit here and do nothing?”
“Am I doing nothing?”
“It sure looks like it,” she hissed.
Oryn chuckled. “I am waiting.”
“Forwhat?”
“For Bade. If there’s a way to get him out, he’ll find it.”
“And if there’s not?” Her voice cracked, revealing delicate fractures in the anger she wore like a shield, making him wonder how much of it was a mask.
“Colm’s gone to bed,” he said simply. “He’s trying to find him in the dream.”
“And then what?”
Oryn tapped the contents of the pipe onto the ground and tucked it away in his cloak. He strode across the yard to tower over her. “You’ve only ever had two choices, Ansel. You can ride east like a reasonable person, or I will drag you like the bounty you are.”
***
Oryn watched her alternate between pacing the length of her room and sitting on the edge of the bed, endlessly fidgeting with that little carving. Neither Bade nor Colm had appeared to give their reports in the hours since he’d stopped her in the yard.
“What is the list you keep muttering?” He finally asked.
She shot him a glare and went back to her pacing, silent now except for the usual hum that filled his ears. He heard their footsteps long before she did, so he wasn’t surprised when his companions filed into her room. Enya sank onto the end of the bed, eyes wide, hands finally stilling.
“Well?” She demanded as soon as the door clicked shut. “Did you see him?”
“He’s alive.”
For now.Oryn heard the words Bade left unspoken.
