They arrived in Baromiir, the first of three major settlements along the Telma River, just in time for a late lunch. It was a similar size to Næmyris, only it was split through the middle by the river. Even so, Rowan was rather unimpressed. The town lacked character. All it really had going for it was positioning.

You could comfortably get to Baromiir from Telmaris, the next major town, in a single day when travelling by boat. Likewise, Baromiir to Midiris was also day by boat. This resulted in it growing as a natural waypoint for trade along the Telma River.

Yet, in spite of all the wealth that must have passed through the town, it was boring.

Rowan’s growing disappointment in Baromiir persisted until they reached the town’s namesake. A giant bridge spanning the entire width of the river towered above them. It was tall enough to allow even the largest of river vessels to navigate under and then some. In addition to being tall, however, it was also incredibly long, the main ramps alone taking an impressive chunk of the town’s width. It also had two equally impressive side ramps on either side that circled round to allow access from the river road.

Rowan and Seres both saw countless people using the bridge, giving them a solid idea of how it could affect those who used it every day. One such example came in the form of a surprisingly large Ferran man who was helping to push a cart up one of the ramps. There was a limit to how bulky a Ferran could get as their muscles tended to get denser and more toned instead of larger. The Ferran in question, however, had muscles that could put a draft horse to shame and legs the size of tree trunks.

For the most part, he looked fairly normal with the exception of his legs which were the size of tree trunks.

"I didn't even know that was possible," Seres muttered quietly upon seeing him.

"Tell me about it," Rowan replied, not even trying to hide her horrified awe.

*****

They kept riding, passed the bridge, and onto the inn that had been recommended to them. It was a larger inn with an attached stables by the name of The Three-Eyed Hunter. To the locals, it probably felt like a fairly innocent name for an inn. Rowan and Seres, in contrast, found it mildly terrifying, especially after they saw the sign; the owners had named the inn after the Vhoraks, one of the most voracious predators in the world. The realisation was punctuated by a rumbling of their stomachs.

"Shall we?" Rowan asked, her face rosy from embarrassment.

"We really should," Seres replied.

The moment they walked through the door, they were greeted by a plump Ferran lady with an extremely bright and energetic smile.

"Welcome to The Three-Eyed Hunter," the woman said cheerfully, "I'm the owner, Klei. How can we help?"

Rowan greeted her with a smile of her own. "Hi! We were hoping to stay the night and get some food."

"Of course! We have a few different tiers of room available. I won’t bother wasting your time with communal rooms; the private rooms and suites are much more suitable for respectable young ladies such as yourselves."

"Private will be fine," Seres replied.

"And will you be needing two rooms or just one? You aren't lovers, are you? It's totally fine if you are. We just ask that you aren't too loud if you decide to have sex in the wee hours; only the suites have noise absorption crystals."

"No," Seres laughed, “we’re just sisters.”

"I thought as much, but you never know."

"What are the suites like?” Rowan asked.

“Are you sure, Rowan?”

“After the nightmare I had last night, I’d rather not risk waking up the other guests.”

“Ah, good point,” Seres replied. She then gave Klei a warm smile. “You can proceed, Innkeeper Klei.”

“Just Klei is fine, my dear. Each suite has a living space, a restroom, a bath, full plumbing, and at least one bedroom.”

The mention of a bath and proper plumbing had Rowan’s and Seres’ polite smiles widening into grins. “Why didn’t you start with the bath?” Rowan asked whimsically.

“I take it you’ll be wanting a suite then?”

“Aye,” Seres answered. “We’ll just need the one bedroom, but our friends, Lochlan and Liadra, will also be needing a room. Can you ensure they get one close to ours?”

“I most certainly can.”

“How much will it be?” Rowan asked.

“We normally charge three silver links a night for a single-bedroom suite, but I think I can reduce that to two silver and ten bronze, breakfast included.”

“Sounds good to me. What do you think, Seres?”

“I was sold on the bath.”

Klei beamed at the response. “If you just sign here then. I’ll get you your keys, and a porter can show you to the suite.”

Shortly after checking out the suite, the girls returned to the common room, where they feasted on succulent roast lamb, rosemary potatoes, feather greens, and carrots cooked in red wine. By the end of it, Rowan had almost forgotten that she was supposed to start teaching Seres how to defend herself. She eventually concluded that lessons would need to wait until after their meal had settled.

*****

"I'm surprised they let us in without so much as a question," Rowan remarked as they practically waltzed into one of the local garrison’s training grounds. It would have made more sense if Lochlan or Liadra were there, but they were keeping watch from the shadows.

"Maybe they like keeping an eye on people when they train, or they think it will help with motivation. I also doubt the garrison is large enough to use it all the time, so why let it go to waste?"

The latter of Seres’ observations made sense. The Baromiir garrison was mostly there to serve as a town guard instead of as a military force, so while they were probably larger than Seres was estimating, they most likely didn’t train anywhere near as much as the soldiers in the capital did.

"Whatever their reason, I'm not going to complain," Rowan grinned. Then she asked Seres the all too important question. "Are you ready?"

Seres glanced at her nervously. "I think so."

"That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence."

"It's just…"

"Yes?"

"Couldn’t we wear something else?"

They were wearing knee-length tunics with shorts underneath and belted at the waist. Rowan wasn’t exactly sure what the issue was.

"Would you rather be naked?" she asked.

"What? Nooo! It's just a wee bit chilly, is all."

"Is that it? I thought you were worried about modesty or something."

"Considering what we were made to wear in the caves, I'm not scared about showing a little skin."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"I was going to say. Don't worry about the cold; you'll warm up quickly enough. Now stretch!"

Seres hesitated at first, unsure of what to do. Fortunately, it didn’t take her too much time to settle into the warm-up routines she had learnt from Tyris back in Midiris. Once Rowan was sure Seres wouldn’t hurt herself, she started stretching as well.

Following their warm-up, Rowan presented Seres with a buckler and short spear.

"We'll start with these. The spear should be your go-to weapon in most cases, especially when we're on the road. As for the buckler, it's easy to carry around, so it's worth practising with it. Plus, with enough training, you should be able to hold a dagger or a crystal in the same hand."

"Sounds useful. What now?"

Instead of using words to answer, Rowan gave Seres an evil grin as she hooked Seres’ legs from under her with the butt of a blunted practice spear.

"Ow!" Seres cried out as her backside crashed into the solid ground. "What was that for?"

"Lesson one: proper feet placement. If you don't stand correctly, a stiff breeze can be enough to destabilise you. Lose your balance, and you're probably dead."

"Why didn't you just say that? I could have broken my tail!"

"Because it's a lesson you need to learn quickly. I know it hurts, but you're more likely to remember it this way. Besides, I got bruised all the time when I used to practise."

"But not anymore?" It was asked with only the hint of a question, but it was still there.

"Depends on the training and who I'm doing it with, probably. Now let's get you up and standing right. Good. Now you want to start by keeping your feet shoulders’ width apart and your knees bent slightly. Make sure you have a good bounce to your step. Right, now take the buckler and keep it in front of you."

Rowan went through the basics step by step to give her a solid baseline to work with. Some further corrections needed to be made once Seres was learning to thrust and defend against attacks. She had unfortunately taken "keep the buckler in front of you" to mean block as opposed to parry and deflect.

"You need to remember that you are almost guaranteed to be smaller and lighter than your opponents, so blocking is next to useless. The buckler has the same issue. Instead, you want to intercept or catch the opponent's weapon with it and parry. That way, you are using the energy that they put into the attack to defend against it. Of course, this changes when you have a larger shield…"

Fortunately, Seres was a quick study. She had spent hours upon hours, days upon days, watching people train in the caves. All she needed was a guiding hand and proper explanations. Part of that included the very important lesson of "Do as Rowan says and not as she does." Rowan's fighting style was, after all, extremely detached from the basics and highly augmented by her background and her nature as an Ardent.

After the spear came the dagger, then the sabre, and finally the bow. Out of the four weapons, the bow was by far the hardest for Seres. Even with the relatively light poundage on the bow, she struggled. She didn’t have the experience of using her back muscles to draw the bow, so she tried doing everything with her arms. The vicious sting of the bowstring on her skin didn’t help either.

Rowan's solution to the archery problem was simple. Seres had to shoot three arrows in a row whilst correctly engaging the proper muscles. By the end of it, she was exhausted, and Rowan was disappointed. Not with Seres, mind, but rather the fact that she had been unable to do any of her own training whilst teaching Seres, and she was overflowing with energy as a result. She wanted to do something! Training, dancing, fighting, singing, anything. For now, however, she had to tend to her charge.

Maybe I can come back later when Seres is sleeping.

That sounded like a plan. First step, get Seres back to the inn and fed. With how much Seres had been sweating, a bath was also very much required. Rowan could smell her from a couple of paces away.

*****

When they returned to the inn, Seres slipped into the bath before taking a quick bite to eat and promptly passed out. Once Rowan was sure that Seres was asleep, she asked Lochlan and Liadra to keep an eye on her. Then she left for the training grounds, only bothering to take a dagger and Elan Fiir with her.

Rather than take the main road to the training grounds, she cut through a few alleyways and side roads to save time. She started regretting it after ten minutes or so as she passed into a seedier part of town. By the time she realised, however, it was too late.

"Hey there, pretty lady!" a voice called out from behind her.

Rowan ignored it and carried on walking.

"Hey, sexy, I'm talking to you."

This time, the owner of the voice grabbed onto Rowan's shoulder with his massive right hand, and span her around. The man was large, perhaps six feet tall, and easily three, maybe even four times her weight. He also reeked of ale.

"That's more like it," he belched.

Rowan looked him in the eye. "Please let go of me, sir."

"Now, why would I do that, sweet tits? Come on, let me show you a good time."

If looks could kill, Rowan would be burning away the man's soul with the infernal stare she was giving him. He was really starting to piss her off. Rowan liked it when people found her attractive. She did not like this.

"Let go of me, sir. I won't ask again."

"And what are you going to do about it? You must be freezing dressed like that, wearing practically nothing. Let me warm you up."

"I'm warm enough, thank you."

In an instant, as if to prove her point, Rowan unshackled her burning anger and grabbed his arm.

The man roared in pain.

"You bitch!"

He grabbed Rowan by the collar with his other hand and slammed her against a nearby wall. She hit it hard, her head smashing against the rough stone. Her ears were ringing.

She hadn’t expected him to react as he did. Most people would flinch from such heat. The alcohol had numbed his sense of pain, and now his anger was a match to her own. Had she pushed on it accidentally?

The right hand returned as he started tearing off Rowan’s clothes.

Anger started giving way to fear.

Clarity.

The fear enhanced her senses. Agony cleared her mind.

A single draw.

The man fell. His blood was dripping from Elan Fiir.

There were people there. No one came to her aid. They only watched. Horrified.

"Stop right there!"

Two guards were rushing onto the scene with their spears pointed at Rowan. What did they see, a victim or a threat?

"Drop the weapon, Miss. You're under arrest."

Rowan stared at them incredulously. "Are you fucking serious?" she demanded, her fear starting to fade as her anger once again became a raging inferno fueled by shame and disgust.

“Yes, Ma’am. On the charge of wanton assault and potential murder of an unarmed individual with a lethal weapon.”

"The fucker attacked me, you dick-addled, cock munching, thunder cunts. He would have raped me if I wasn’t able to defend myself."

"And the sword?"

Rowan couldn’t believe a thing they were saying. "Is that the only thing you can see?"

"We're trying to be respectful by not looking at anything else, Miss."

"Public nudity is, however, frowned upon."

It was clear that they knew nothing of respect from the way their wandering eyes studied her every nook and cranny.

"For fucks sake, you eejits. Do you think I ripped my own clothes to pieces? He did this."

"Do you have any means of corroborating that statement, Miss?"

The guards sickened Rowan almost as much as the man did. Perhaps even more. They knew what they were doing.

"You mean other than the tattered remains of my clothes or multiple witnesses?"

"The clothes are circumstantial evidence, and as no one has offered a statement that supports your claims, we still need to bring you in for questioning."

"So that you can have a go yourselves? You can fuck right off.”

“Cursing won’t help your case, Miss?”

"SHUT THE FUCK UP OR, GODDESS HELP ME, I'LL RIP YOUR THROATS OUT! I AM ROWAN'EFRII ALYRIS NALIIR, ARDENT FLAME OF MIDIRIS AND LADY OF FIRE BY DECREE OF QUEEN ELARIN!"

As if to punctuate her booming voice, Rowan's infernal rage ignited the very air around her. The two guards and everyone else paled in the light of her fury.

"You are both done. Your career is over. Don’t try to run. I know your faces. Now make yourselves useful and get this man out of my sight.”

The guards dropped their spears. Rowan didn’t care what they did next. She just strode past them. She was heading back to the inn.

Seres turned a nearby corner and started running towards her. Lochlan and Liadra were just behind her.

“Rowan,” she called out.

"Seres? What are you doing here?"

She pointed to a ring on her left index finger. It was one of two that they had been given by Queen Elarin to mark them becoming sisters. A Resonant pair.

"My ring woke me up. When I noticed you weren't there, I came running as fast as I could."

Rowan gave her a sad smile. “Thank you."

"What happened to you? What happened to your clothes?”

"I was attacked by someone who wouldn’t take no for an answer. When I defended myself, two guards came and tried to arrest me. To shame me."

Rowan was crying as she recalled what happened, the tears evaporating quickly from the embers of her anger.

Upon hearing what happened, Lochlan handed his cloak to Liadra so that she could drape it over Rowan’s shoulders. Then he left in the direction Rowan had come from in order to investigate the attack. Rowan could tell that he was trying to be considerate. She could also see a fire in his eyes. It was genuine. He wasn’t using his Gift. This was his true self and Rowan was seeing it for the first time. He was furious.

When he left, Rowan asked, “Can we go back to the inn, please? I need a bath.”

*****

Rowan didn't sleep that night. She dared not risk the nightmares. Not after everything that had happened. Instead, she shifted the furniture around in the living room to create a large open space where she danced with Elan Fiir until she could dance no more. Then she poured all the pain and sadness she was feeling into a hollow lament that she sang for everyone who was suffering.