Arrow on the String: Solomon Sorrows Book 1 by Dan Fish (no david read aloud TXT) 📕

breaks apart. Like shooting a rock. The shaft of this arrow is flawless. Means Mari wasn’t shot by it. Means it was put there after. Means the killer was looking ahead. Means he was already thinking about you and Davrosh and Ga’Shel. Maybe he was thinking about the entire Mage Guard. Thinking of ways to draw your attention away from something.”

“What something?” Davrosh asked.

“Not sure, but he’s smart. Smarter than you three.”

Davrosh scoffed. “But not you?”

“I just got here.”

He moved to Mari’s wrists, bent over, tried to move a bangle. His fingers passed through the silver, through Mari’s skin. He pulled his hand back.

“Doesn’t work that way, orchole,” Davrosh said.

Sorrows nodded, said nothing. Leaned in closer.

“What do you see?” Oray asked.

Sorrows shook his head, straightened. He studied the length of Mari’s dress, moved to her feet. Nothing. He shrugged.

“Nothing,” he said. “I don’t see it.”

Oray returned his palms to the table. Mari’s image faded, replaced by a different dwarf daughter. A Brightle twin. She wore a different dress. A deep blue with silver flowers. Her mask was holly leaves and small, gray berries. It was good but lacked the detail of Davrosh’s work. The Brightles had said they couldn’t afford Davrosh. More likely they took issue with a half-born doing the work. Everything else was the same as Mari. Silver bangles, arms spread wide, blank eyes staring along the shaft of an arrow. Sorrows circled, studied, shook his head, said nothing. Oray dismissed the daughter’s image, replaced it with her twin. Sorrows studied again. Oray replaced the Brightle with Mishma Valinor. Sorrows studied one last time. But none of the daughters offered anything new. Different dresses, different masks, no clues.

The image of Mishma faded, and Oray sat down and stared at Sorrows over steepled fingers. No one was saying anything, which meant they were all thinking the same thing. This is a big problem. Sorrows ran a finger along the corner of the table. Smooth, rounded, subtle. Finished by a Stoneshaper. A nice touch. The dwarves had done good work for the Mage Guard. They’d expect the same in return.

“I want to see the bodies,” Sorrows said.

The room fell silent. Had been silent before, except for Davrosh’s noisy breathing. Now it was tomblike.

“What?” Oray asked.

“You heard me. I want to see one of the daughters. Mishma. She’ll be in the best condition.”

Davrosh’s face reddened, but she said nothing. Ga’Shel kept his eyes on her, turned his face toward Sorrows.

“Her family isn’t going to like that,” he said. “We would need to convince them.”

“Then convince them,” Sorrows said.

Oray shook his head. “Ostev is right. You’re guessing. And we’d need to approach them with more than a guess.”

Davrosh stood, blew out her cheeks, stared at the ceiling. Ga’Shel extended a hand, but it didn’t reach her before she stepped away. She rubbed a hand across her mouth, shaking her head.

“He’s right,” she said. “He needs to see. I’ll talk to the Valinors.”

“Remma, no,” Ga’Shel said. “Let me.”

“They won’t listen to you,” she said. “They’ll only half listen to me, but I’m our best chance.”

Oray leaned back in his chair and sighed.

“Great gods.” He looked old, tired. Like leather creased from stress and repetition. “Take Ostev, Remma. Get back here as soon as you can.”

“Right away,” Davrosh said.

She and Ga’Shel rose from the table and left the room. Neither said a word to Jace, who stood outside the door. She smiled at Sorrows as the door swung shut. Oray cleared his throat, turned to Sorrows and stared for a moment.

“What do you think you’ll find?” he asked.

“If I’m lucky?” Sorrows asked. “Answers. If I’m honest? More questions.”

“Sometimes that’s better.”

“Sometimes.”

Oray reached a hand onto the table and traced a finger along a vein in the granite. The bow appeared. Julia’s bow. Crimson-hued maple, twin arcs, a swirl of woodgrain at the grip. It lay on the table, reflecting the glowstone above, reflected in the polished granite beneath.

“I need to find the killer,” he said. He looked at Sorrows. “One way or the other.”

You’re the other, he was saying.

“A fall guy?”

“Something like that.”

“And when the killings keep happening?”

“We’ll say you had accomplices. Some goblins arrived ahead of you. We’ll make insinuations, arrests, executions. We’ve got people we want to get rid of, anyway.”

“Vengeance of the gods-born.”

“It can’t fail, Sorrows. You understand that, don’t you?”

Sorrows stared at the bow. Stared at the table after Oray dismissed the image. Kept staring after Oray left the room. Was still staring when Jace placed a hand on his shoulder. She leaned over, studied his face.

“What is it?” she asked.

Strands of hair had slipped free of their bindings and followed the curve of her jaw, the slender lines of her neck. Her eyes danced over his face. Her breath was warm upon his skin. He turned, pushed himself away from the table, stood. She took a step back but stayed close. Didn’t shrink from his scrutiny.

“What?”

“I need to find a Seph,” he said. “And I need to kill it.”

She hesitated, nodded slowly.

“Very well.”

“Just like that? No questions?”

“No questions,” she said. “I just need to stay close to you.”

Sorrows lifted an eyebrow. “Close? Maybe I should’ve shaved.” Maybe I should stop flirting.

“Maybe you should have.”

He walked to the door, opened it.

“Oray won’t mind if we leave the tower?” he asked.

“I don’t answer to Oray.”

Unexpected. He closed the door and turned to face Jace. Took a closer look. Her skirt was gray like every other mage guard's, but the hem was higher, hanging just below her calves. It made her look taller than she already was. More intimidating. Davrosh’s skirt, by comparison, brushed the ground and made her look like she was standing behind a boulder. Magic kept Mage Guard boots polished, but where Ga’Shel and Oray kept their boots loose, Jace’s were laced tight. Precise. And that made her unbuttoned jerkin intentional. Casual. Deceptive. It made her unbuttoned tunic something more. Distracting. Provocative. He would have noticed these details right away had she not been so gods-shunned beautiful. And that was