The tavern was empty.
Empty, save for . . .
From the corner of her eye, Elyria saw Artie rise from behind the counter. She shook her head, just a degree in each direction. A tiny warning.
The tavern master gave Elyria a purposeful look, placed a small plant on the bar—no bigger than the palm of his hand—and ducked back down behind the counter before any of the men noticed.
A sense of calm washed over Elyria. Her consciousness reached toward the plantling, feeling for its energy, the magic thrumming in its cells. Full of potential, full of possibility.
Full ofgrowth.
She did her best to still her body, to cease her writhing, despite the blisters she could feel forming on her legs.
Raefe’s finger stilled. He met her eye, his expression shifting. Puzzlement. Wariness.
“What’s this, then?” he said, whispering as if speaking only to himself.
Elyria closed her eyes. She exhaled. “It’s just that I truly do hate that I’ve disappointed you. Allow me to rectify that.”
Her eyes snapped open. They burned silver with cold fury. Power thrummed along her skin, wisps of energy seeping off her like smoke. The men holding her wrists and ankles inhaled sharply, and their grasp loosened by a fraction.
Raefe’s head whipped from side to side as he tried to make sense of the shift in the air, as he searched for the cause of this sudden change in Elyria’s countenance. Shadows blurred the edges of her vision as he locked eyes with her once more.
And then she saw it.
Fear.
Elyria smiled.
She flexed her hands, splaying her palms even as her wrists were still pinned by Raefe’s increasingly confused henchman. Vines sprouted from the planter on the counter, shattering the tiny terracotta pot as they erupted. They split, lengthened, multiplied, and in an instant, all four men were suspended by their feet, wrapped from neck to ankle in thick vines.
“She’s a wildshaper!” cried one of the men.
“You bit—” yelled another, but a vine snaked around his mouth, cutting him off before he could get the word out.
Elyria bit back a laugh. That was putting it mildly.
Raefe’s gray eyes were wide as the vines curled up the length of his body, but he said nothing. He made no sound at all, save for the labored inhale and exhale of breath as Elyria’s vines tightened around his chest. Then a sort of choking, gagging sound as one crawled into his mouth. Elyria shook with the effort it took to be just as slow and deliberate with Raefe as he had been with her.
Elyria sat up with a groan. Ignoring the muffled screams coming from around her, she peeled back the scraps of leather that had once been her pants. She frowned, wincing as she prodded one particularly heinous section of her right thigh.
Artie poked his head up from behind the bar and assessed the scene—a half-dozen men hanging upside down, engulfed in vines—with stony disinterest. “All right then, lass?” he asked Elyria, and maybe she just imagined it, but she thought she saw relief flicker over his face. Thought his voice sounded thicker than usual.
“I’ll live,” she grunted, pain overtaking her senses as she shifted one of her legs. Her magic was nearly spent keeping her attackers bound, but Elyria called forth what little remaining energy she had. She wrapped her blistered, burning legs in tendrils of healing magic. The relief was immediate. Her thighs still stung, throbbing as if each leg had its own heartbeat, but it was manageable. And it would do until she got to a healer.
“Ye’re sure?—”
The door burst open. A gaggle of city guards poured into the tavern, interrupting whatever Artie planned to say. They hauled the twofemale members of Raefe’s merry gang in with them, their wrists bound and gags over their mouths.
“Ah, officers, excellent timing, as always,” Elyria said drily. The muffled screams of agreement coming from both the shackled women and Elyria’s own vine-bound attackers indicated they either did not understand or did not agree with her sarcastic words.
“What now, Lightbreaker?” said the guard at the front of the pack, sounding tired. He wore a captain’s emblem over his left breast. She thought his name might be Zaric, though admittedly, she had not been in a particularly reliable state of sobriety during their past encounters.
Elyria got to her feet, her hands raised in mock surrender. “Wasn’t me this time, sir. I swear it.”
Zaric snorted. “Regardless, I must insist you release those men.”
“They are hardly men, Captain. Cowards? Yes. Brutes? Absolutely. Beasts? Without a doubt. Vermin? In?—”
