Aria leaned against the stone parapet, staring out over the city, across the great, arched bridge that spanned the River Fryna, across the bustling marketplace, to the ever-encroaching edge of the Great Forest. The druids had set their marks, painted stakes driven into the earth, less than a month ago. Already, the forest had swallowed those stakes and new growth, new roots, new tangles of thorn and shrub and bush had sprung up six feet past the druids’ marks. The western trade road was little more than a cart track now and reports from Thatchberry, a village not a day’s ride, spoke of foundations split and torn asunder by writhing roots, of several buildings hammered to splinters by the trees, of walls covered in moss or fungus overnight, and, on more than one occasion, of spiders and ants the size of wagons devouring livestock. Whether it was true or not, remained to be seen. And that was why the court had sent a royal expeditionary force to find out exactly what was going on; to scout and return with a report.

  Only they had yet to return.

  They were to report back in one week’s time. It had been twenty-two days since they rode out from Thornspire. She knew, because she’d carved a mark with her dueling dagger for each day they’d been gone. She traced her fingers along the marks, shallow grooves in the stone. Twelve had ridden out from the Royal Citadel– Soldiers of the Emberforged Legion, a druid of the Emerald Circle, a Sanctioner of the Church of the Radiant Path, her father’s best ranger, and two elves of the Moonsong Clan; one of which was her best friend, Elandril, all under the leadership of Sir Callian Voss.

  Why Elandril had been allowed to go and not her infuriated her to no end and been the source of many a fight between her and her mother, Queen Elaena, who refused to budge so much as a leaf’s stem on the issue. She’d almost had her father in her corner until her mother’s green-eyed, level gaze made it clear: Aria would not be joining the expedition and that was the end of the matter.

  “I simply will not send my only daughter, the princess, the heir to the throne, into a potentially dangerous situation that we know very little about,” Queen Elaena had said. “Now, I suggest you return to your studies as you seem to be struggling with the simplest tasks of druidcraft I have endeavored to teach you.”

  “But mother,” Aria had said, tugging on her loose braid of long, silver hair. “Don’t you think I would learn more by-“

  “By what?” Elaena asked, silencing her with the same look she’d given Thalon, Aria’s father, and the King of Veyndral. The same piercing green eyes that Aria had. Only she had not yet perfected the art of the commanding stare. “By running off and shirking your duties? Off you go now, I have matters to attend to.”

  Elaena moved a few scrolls and slipped a small, limp, river fish from her belt pouch and held it out to the red-tailed hawk perched atop a stack of books. It took it from the queen’s fingers and gulped it down. A raccoon trundled down the table, nose twitching and sniffing.

  “Yes, Horatio, I have a treat for you as well,” said Queen Elaena, offering the raccoon a fish as well. “Now, bring me a jar of mossberries. I can’t, for the life of me, remember where I placed it.”

  Horatio gulped down the fish, bobbed his head a few times to Elaena, and then hurried off towards the massive cabinet of jars, pots, urns, and boxes.

  Aria growled and jerked her braid hard enough to elicit a yelp.

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  “You’re still here, daughter?”

  Aria growled and spun on her heels, striding from her mother’s audience chamber and into the hallway where her father stood waiting for her.

  “Yank that braid any harder and you might pull your own head from your shoulders,” he said. He grinned and winked at her.

  “You’re the king,” Aria said. “If you say I can go, then I can go, no matter what mother says.” She crossed her arms and fixed King Thalon, her father, with her best attempt to imitate her mother’s gaze.

  Thalon grinned and rubbed a hand through his thick beard. “You might not have your mother’s wild touch, but you certainly have her wild streak.”

  Aria narrowed her eyes.

  “That’s a compliment,” said Thalon. “However, king or farmer, I know better than to cross your mother on matters in which she has set her roots. Besides, she’s right. We don’t know what’s out there and I won’t risk sending you into danger either. I’m sorry, Aria, but we’re a united front on this.”

  “Why does Elandril get to go?” she asked. “He’s one year older than me and nowhere near as good with a sword as I am.”

  King Thalon nodded and clapped his hand on Aria’s shoulder. He didn’t doubt her at all. He’d seen her on the training ground and had the reports from his Master-at-Arms; Aria was gifted with the blade.

  “Because Elandril is not the heir to the Silverthorn throne. And let us hope it does not come to swords. It’s a scouting mission. He’ll return soon and you can interrogate him until his ears bleed. I’m sure he’ll love that, that boy certainly likes to talk.”

  Only Elandril hadn’t returned. No one from the expedition had return. There had not been so much as a note sent by carrier pigeon or messenger. Nothing.

  Aria stopped tracing the carvings, her fingers lingering on the mark she’d just made, and placed both hands on the parapet, leaning out to study the distant woodline. A cool wind wicked up off the river, causing her to shiver. She was still sweat-slick from this morning’s training and here, atop one of the towering spires of the Royal Citadel, where the clouds seemed within reach and birds wheeled and spiraled above the streets of Thornspire, the air was chilly. Even now, at the end of Thawtide, the arrival of spring, the frost melts of the Stormcradle Peaks sent their wintry touch coursing south with the churning waters of the River Fryna.

  The wind, a westerly wind, carried the scent of charred wood and blackened steel; an oily, metallic tang of emberforged craftsmanship that she could taste as well as smell. The edge of The Great Forest was too far from her vantage point to make out any details, but the fires and smoke were easy to see. She’d been to the line many times, often accompanying her father as he surveyed the defenses, counseled with his generals and druids and priests. She could clearly recall the charred and blackened border of the forest’s edge; the smoldering boundary of the church templars and Emberforged soldiers’ controlled burns. The druids had placed warded stones at even intervals all along the still-smoking ground, their runes glowing with the mystical and arcane energy of the land, of Vaeloria.

  Yet still the forest crept closer.

  Aria shielded her eyes from the morning sun and watched some gulls sweep down along the surface of the river, diving in for a fresh catch. A hawk circled overhead, wheeling in lazy circles. She thought about trying her mother’s most recent lesson – to reach out to the hawk and bond with it, to see through its eyes. Perhaps then she could better see today’s activity along the defenses. She was, however, too frustrated from her mother’s dismissal earlier, and rather hungry; Edric, Thornspire’s Master of Arms, and the man her father had set to punishing her (or, as he referred to it, “training”) had gone especially hard on her this morning and she suddenly realized she was ravenous. Her stomach rumbled in protest.

  Edric’s words taunted her: “A sharp blade is nothing without a sharp mind. Train both, or die with neither.”

  Aria sighed and turned from the parapet. A horn sounded from across the city, from the defenses at the edge of the wild.

  Another horn, from the gate towers of the western wall, sounded in response. Out there, on the edge, at the defenses, men scrambled. She could just make out the quickening movements of torch and fiery, emberforged blades.

  The horn sounded again, with three short blasts. It was the herald’s signal. The expedition had returned!