Aria was off her stool and on her feet the second the man produced the serrated vine whip. Her heart pounded, blood hammering a staccato beat in her ears. The raucous carousing of the Boar and Briar’s common room was a distant buzz.

  She heard only the crack of the whip and his words. The roots remember.

  Her short sword was in her hand and her dueling dagger in the other.

  Edric’s baritone voice popped into her head. Her fighting trainer always had some kind of phrase or mantra to throw at her. Balance is the root of the blade, Aria.

  Aria planted her feet and lowered her center of gravity; knees slightly bent, weight evenly distributed, watching the man’s eyes. His eyes would tell Aria where he was going to strike.

  The man’s arm went back, the whip uncoiled to its full length. Thorny protrusions, like saw blades, covered the length of the flexible vine. Aria guessed those thorns were most likely covered in some kind of poison or toxic sap. She did not intend to find out.

  Never meet strength with strength. Edric had told her this just the other morning when she’d tried to out muscle him in a parry. It hadn’t ended well for her. Flow like the stream.

  Deflect, redirect, or use your opponent’s momentum. Aria’s sore rear end was a reminder of how futile trying to out muscle someone could be. Edric had forced her back, swept her legs, and driven her to the hard-packed clay of the training circle.

  The whip swung forward, cutting the air, snapping at the point where Aria stood, or should have been standing. She’d pivoted at the last second, just as the whip end bit forward, dodging the lash entirely. Her dagger found a tankard on the bar and the blade slipped into the space of the handle, lifting it up and around with her as she continued her pivot, slinging the heavy mug into the side of her attacker’s head.

  It was a momentary distraction, but enough for Aria to assess the situation.

  Eyes on the canopy, ears in the soil. Where did Edric get these sayings anyway, Aria wondered. Was there some kind of trainer’s handbook? But he was right, don’t focus on one attacker. Watch the shadows. Listen for movement. Feel the tension.

  A floorboard creaked behind her and a draft wafted in from what she assumed was an open shutter, or door. Her attacker was not alone.

  You are not steel. You are storm and stone. Move accordingly.

  Windstep, Aria thought. Have to move before they pincer me. She took two quick steps forward, pivoted low, muttered a quick druidic cantrip, and then sprang from the balls of her feet, leaping sideways. An upbreeze called by her from the open front door carried her through the air, where she landed several feet away, atop a small table.

  The man with the whip swung around to face her, but he was not alone.

  A bat-like thing peeled itself from the wooden roof of the common room, its skin camouflaged perfectly to look like the scorched and dark timber of the wood it had hidden itself against. It landed amidst the now panicking patrons and unfurled its wings, the ends of which were fixed with hooked blades of sharpened bone. Its skin changed again, becoming like bark.

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  In the doorway stood something vaguely human-shaped, but covered head to toe in a fungus and moss-riddled patchwork cloak that wriggled and writhed and moved as if swarms of something were hidden underneath. Its face was obscured by the heavy cowl, and when it spoke it sounded like the buzzing of a swarm forming human words.

  “Kill the Bloombound!” it said, pointing one gloved hand towards Aria.

  Don’t fight to win. Fight to survive long enough to change the game.

  The doorway was blocked. The bar was blocked. The pathway to the kitchens was blocked. She was outnumbered. She had to change the game. That was the first step.

  Aria stood up on the table and slipped her hood back, revealing herself fully to the room.

  Those not already under tables, or dashing to leap out of open windows, gasped and pointed.

  “It’s the princess!”

  “It’s the daughter heir!”

  “That-that’s Aria Silverthorn! But what’s she doing here?”

  The reveal was enough of a shock that, for just a second or two, people stopped moving, stopped running, and created pockets of human obstacles scattered throughout the room.

  The whip wielder tried to step forward, where he might get in another lash at Aria, but found a trio of drunken men picking their jaws up off the floor upon seeing the princess of Veyndral atop a table in the middle of a seedy tavern.

  “Out of my way!” he said, bringing his whip back to strike the men.

  Aria flipped the knife into the air, catching it by the point and then hurled it across the room. It struck the man’s whip hand with enough force to drive it backwards and pin it to the bar. In the same breath, she closed her eyes, breathed in, and said, “Virelynth sel thoruun.”

  Roots, seize the unworthy.

  She slammed her hand to the top of the table and opened her eyes, glaring at the man whose hand she’d just ruined with her dagger.

  The floorboards beneath his feet erupted in a splintering crack as thick roots pushed through, coiling around his ankles, climbing up his calves, and wrapping themselves tightly around his knees. Between the dagger and the roots, he was not going anywhere.

  Aria turned her attention to the bat-bark creature and the hooded thing.

  “Impressive, Bloombound,” it said, its voice a hollow rasp and buzz. It pulled back its hood to reveal a head covered in a rough, potato sack bag, cinched tight around the neck with a bit of rough, frayed rope. Only eyeholes were cut into it; no mouth. And the sack pulsed and moved like a thousand living things squirmed underneath.

  “Let silence rot the soul,” it whispered.

  The air shimmered. Candles flickered. It raised one gloved hand towards Aria as the shutters banged open and closed. But before it fully raised its arm to point at Aria, a blade cut upwards, severing the hand.

  The gloved hand fell to the floorboards and where there should have been blood, the ground crawled with spiders and beetles, centipedes, and scorpions. The hooded creature hissed and clutched the stump where its hand should have been.

  “Quickly, princess,” said the man who’d come to her aid, “come with me!”

  He took two steps back from the hissing creature, his sword ready.

  Aria met his ember-orange eyes. A small scar cut across his left brow.

  She’d found Kaelen Draven, or, more accurately, he had found her.

  Aria hopped off the table and swept her cloak behind her.

  The bat-creature swept aside a handful of bar customers with one winged blow and stalked towards her. But before it could finish three steps another player joined the violent play unfolding. Aria knew not whether it was man or woman, as it wore a deep crimson robe and dark leathers. Layered scarves and flowing fabric shifted like smoke as it moved to block the creature’s way.

  From somewhere in those robes it produced two war fans, snapping them open with a flick of the wrist. And when it turned to look at Aria, its face was covered in a porcelain mask, smooth and expressionless with subtle branchlike engravings down the sides of the “face” and a single blood-red tear beneath one eye.

  Aria paled. A Scarlet Blade. One of The Scarlet Dominion’s elite assassins. What was it doing here? In Thornspire?

  “Follow the ranger,” it said, in a soft, almost musical feminine voice.

  Aria stumbled backwards a few steps and spun, striding with haste towards Kaelen Draven.

  Maybe, she thought, the Boar and the Briar had not been such a good idea.