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

three stories. Gray granite streaked with black, accents in marble and copper. Mounds of snow along the foundation hid evergreen shrubbery. Double doors painted deep crimson, a golden knocker on each, golden handles in the center where the two halves met. Inside, someone played a piano. Low, creeping tones leaked into the cold morning air; the breath of the mountain come to life in soft, hammered strings. The music mingled with the scent of needles, resin, and fresh-fallen snow.

“Where are we?” Sorrows asked.

He walked beside Ga’Shel along a stone path leading to the crimson doors.

Ga’Shel shrugged. “Brightle Manor.”

Sorrows stopped, looked at Ga’Shel. “You split.”

Ga’Shel smiled, put an arm around Sorrows. “What? It might be fun.”

“For you.”

“Of course.”

Sorrows brushed Ga’Shel’s arm off his shoulder, turned forward. “Ass.”

The doors opened with a swell of delicate, mournful notes; minors and tritones; fluttering trills and plunging melodies. Gorn Brightle appeared, clean-shaven, dressed in black. The lack of beard made him look younger than Sorrows remembered, but his amber eyes had gone dim with age or heartbreak or both. He stared at Sorrows, said nothing for a breath, then sighed.

“Sorrows,” he said.

“Haglund,” Sorrows said.

“Brightle now.”

Sorrows nodded. “I suppose so. Sorry about your girls. Truly.”

Brightle said nothing, stared at him for a moment. “You looking for the guy who did it?”

“Yes.”

“You find him, you keep him alive long enough for me to visit. Think you could do that?”

“I will,” Sorrows said.

Brightle managed a half grin, but it was nowhere near his eyes. “Gods, you haven’t changed at all. I’m glad. Hammerfell needs the Gray Walker right now.”

He turned, gestured over his shoulder. “Come on in. Room’s upstairs. The elf knows the way. Good to see you again, Sorrows.”

He walked away, assumed Sorrows and Ga’Shel would follow, which they did. Assumed one of them would close the front doors, which Sorrows did. Assumed they didn’t have further need of him, which they didn’t. He disappeared around a corner. The piano kept playing somewhere to the left. Ga’Shel climbed a wide staircase to the second-floor balcony, and Sorrows followed.

The Brightle twins shared a room at the left end of the hallway. Ga’Shel stopped with his hand on the door.

“Likely the room’s been left untouched since the entombment,” he said. “We can slip now to avoid further disturbing the crime scene.”

Sorrows nodded, didn’t feel the slip—never felt the slip. But the room blurred. He shook his head, blinked, shook his head again. Ga’Shel had moved to the opposite side of the room. He stood beside a large bed of polished oak, round posts at each corner, velvet canopy above, pale violet like the sky before sunrise. He stared at the bed, rubbed his wrist absentmindedly.

“You’re awake,” he said, still staring.

“Awake enough. Find anything?”

“Didn’t start looking. Was waiting for you.”

He ran a hand over the coverlet. His hand passed through the fabric, disappeared, then reappeared as he pulled away.

“Shael lay here,” he said. He looked across the room to a similar bed draped in peach-colored velvet. “Prida lay there.”

“Like Zvilna,” Sorrows said.

Ga’Shel stared at the bed. “Like Zvilna.”

“How thin are we?”

“Not too thin.”

“Good. Start working us down slow. I’m going to take a look around.”

The room held a scattering of wooden furniture, the same pale oak as the beds. Chairs in the corners piled with cushions matching the canopies. A small table in the open space between beds. Two more chairs set to either side. Mirrors, drawers, chests, benches with more cushions. Woven rugs, thick drapes pulled open, tapestries on the walls depicting lakes and mountains. Brightle traveled the kingdom, and his daughters had benefited from his dotage. Sorrows thought of his time spent with Gorn Haglund, a hard, coarse dwarf with little regard for anything but profit. Gorn Brightle might be a different person entirely. The same face doing different things for different reasons.

Sunlight came in through the window, dust swirled above a pool of light on the floor. Sorrows moved back and forth through the room, comparing the two beds, thinking of snares and bindings. Thinking how he would secure a dwarf to her bed. He found nothing, and the swirling dust grew slower and slower until it scarcely moved at all. Ga’Shel had taken them thin. To the edge of his abilities. But Sorrows had found nothing. He stood, turned to Ga’Shel.

“Not sure what I hoped to see, but—”

He stopped. Moved to Ga’Shel. Crossed the room in three long strides, pushed him away, knelt.

“Look at this,” he said.

He lifted a sliver of fine, silver wire from the carpet. The fragment was no more than a finger’s width in length. The ends were cut neatly. A small segment of it was dark, dirty. Ga’Shel frowned.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Wire,” Sorrows said. “And there’s blood on it.”

“What does that mean?”

“How thin are we?”

“As thin as I can manage.”

Sorrows blew out his cheeks. “Then it means everything. It means the killer’s using wire, like we thought. It means the killer’s a Walker, like we thought. And if it is Jace, then it means she’s every bit as strong as you. Which means you might be the only one who can find her.”

Ga’Shel frowned. “A Walker as strong as me?”

Sorrows clapped him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, sunshine. I still think you’re special.”

✽✽✽

YOU WATCH HIM, but he doesn’t notice you. You watch him move through the room, searching. He is graceful, elegant as he lowers himself to the floor, checks under the beds. His arms are strong. You imagine them holding you. His eyes are bright with purpose. His jaw is set in determination. His lips pursed together. You imagine them pressed against yours. Then you put those thoughts aside. They distracted you in the past. You will not let them do so again.

He finds the piece of wire, as you knew he would. He is, after all, an incredible man. His mind is sharp and follows logical paths. He knows what the wire means. Knows now fully how the women are killed, what skill is involved. Your mastery is laid