34. A lesson in combat

The liquor scorched down Ada's throat and settled in her stomach, a deathly infusion of spring blossoms licked by fire. A sweet aftertaste lingered in her mouth as Ada gazed around the room. Solen's short hair seemed to catch the candlelight like kindling, and Raeph's shadows flared around his hunched form in a contorting dance. She pushed the glass bottle down the counter. Whatever the fae liquor was distilled from, it was stronger than the fruits of Little Crestbury.

Solen lay in a sprawled mass of leather, spine sloped against the bartop with her feet tumbling down towards the carved out vines and flower stems. She hummed to herself, fingers weaving through the air as if they could catch her bars of music and rearrange their drifting tunes.

Ada watched her fingers work, eyes travelling down to trace the web of scarring that marred her skin. "Are your arms ok?"

"Mmm," Solen replied. "They've seen worse."

The gashes that had torn through Solen's flesh already appeared to be healing, their edges crusted scarlet, blood clotting together and scabbing over the wound. She was recovering as impossibly fast as Raeph's hand had, skin stitching itself back into sheets like no human's ever could.

But even with the rapid healing, Solen's body carried the marks of years' worth of combat. Scars twisted around both of her arms like wreaths of brambles, coiling into one another with a thorny fury. Fresh layered over the old, a thousand shades of red prickling against her skin like gorse armour.

"Would you teach me how to fight?" Ada suddenly asked her. "Like you offered before. I think I want to learn, if I can."

Solen sprang up, her feet sprouting from the flowers and curling beneath. She was grinning, fingertips edging down to the knives still clinging to her waist. "Anyone can learn to fight, but not everyone should."

"I can't say if I should fight, but I know that I want to defend myself." The ebony dagger Ada had brandished within Wysthaven before had only been a tool; a means by which she could threaten, but had never used. Now, Ada desired a weapon.

Raeph hadn't moved for several seconds, the golden coin safely slipped somewhere between his folds of dark clothing. But Solen continued to grin as she studied Ada. "Stand up."

While Ada stood, Solen unfastened her bandolier, letting the trussed blades clatter onto the bar. She perused their glittering edges, her fingers stopping on a smaller knife fashioned from silken silver. Its hilt was carved from walnut wood, with ripples marking its darkened grains. On one side, a sun had been intricately engraved, and on its opposite lay a moon.

Ada shrugged off her cloak and threw it across a stool as she faced Solen. She rolled her shoulders back, attempting a menacing look despite the blush creeping up her neck. Solen shook her head. "No, turn to your side. You want to make yourself a smaller target."

She held out the silver knife to Ada. "Root the hilt into your hand." She flexed her palm, showing where skin should meet wood. "Now drop it to your waist. You'll want to carry the knife close to your hip, somewhere where you won't need too many actions to draw it and where it will be difficult to knock from your hand. Good, now, bend your free arm in front of you. That's your defence. Only use your knife if necessary, but if someone comes too close, strike your elbow up into their throat."

Ada flinched, but nodded, jerking her arm up past her collar.

"A natural already," said Solen, lounging back onto the bar with a smile. "But I think you need some proper practice with the knife, and for that, you'll need a partner."

She waited for Solen to drop from the bartop, but when the woman made no attempt to move, Ada followed her gaze. She faltered back when she saw Raeph, arms braced against his thighs and watching her lesson with an unnerving scrutiny.

"Come and play with us, Raeph," Solen asked again.

To Ada's horror, he rose from his chair, sidling away from the hearth and towards the bar. He circled around Ada, lithe legs soundless upon the floorboards before he halted mere inches in front of her.

"Feeling brave?" Solen teased.

But Raeph's gaze didn't waver from Ada, his voice a purr that shuddered the air when he said, "Let's see how well you handled my knife."

Ada expected her limbs to stiffen, but instead, she felt a vigour rush through her blood. It sparked hot within her stomach and ran flames down to her fingertips, ready to burn the man who had dared to threaten her so many times before.

"Now, when using a knife, you're working around the ribcage. Think of it as a bone canvas only you can paint red." A giggle flittered across Solen's lips, and Ada tried not to think of all the bones the woman may have stained in her life. "When a person is in front of you, the knife goes up towards the heart."

Ada took a step closer to Raeph, his eyes trained upon her every movement. She lifted a hand, fingers settling in the centre of his ribs as she positioned her knife to their right. She could feel his heartbeat, strong and steadfast, a thrumming pulse that sounded through her own body. It towed Ada in, a rhythm reaching only her, even as she feigned a strike of the dagger up against the fabric of his shirt.

"Nice, but be careful of your blade's position. If it catches the bone too closely, it'll stick and you'll lose it."

Before Solen had finished her suggestion, Raeph had closed his fingers around Ada's hand. She started, his skin a shard of ice against the warmth of her own. But they remained for only an instant, pressing her hand nearer his heart before flickering away. She thrust her knife up once again.

"Perfect, I'd say you're set to be a formidable force on the streets of Wysthaven," Solen chuckled.

Ada seized her hand away from Raeph's chest, stumbling back a step and keeping her eyes averted from the man looming over her. She shifted around him, holding out the knife for Solen to take back, but the woman shook her head. "You have it. It may come in useful, both inside the city and past the wall."

"Are we leaving soon, then?" Ada asked.

"We leave at my judgement. If it took you both a day to retrieve the gold, I'll need to find a moment for us to leave the city in which we can afford to take our time." Raeph's voice had returned to its low rumble, and Ada could feel him prowl up to her back.

She turned, brows dipped into a glower. "Why wait for us to retrieve it for you if it was such a pressing matter? Don't you always have to find a source of gold before leaving the city, anyway?"

A smile laced the corners of Raeph's mouth. "No."

"Then how do you get through the arches?" Ada pressed.

His eyes danced in the firelight. "I don't."

The man's smug tone was beginning to grate against Ada's ears. "You don't trust me, then? Is there another one of my possessions you'd like to steal away before showing me your far more efficient method of getting in and out of the city?"

Raeph's eyes flickered to hers, so quickly that Ada felt the air tremble between them, and for once they did not cast the room in shadows. His dark eyes seemed to reflect a distant light within their depths, a fragile amusement, still an ember amongst coals.

He leant forward, close enough to share her breath. "Rooftops aren't commonly marked on maps, so it would be difficult to show you. Up in the sky, there's better light and fewer witnesses, even if the drop down past the wall is quite a distance. Falling from that height is rough on even a fae body, let alone a human's." Raeph's stare slid down, tracing Ada's uncloaked form. She resisted the urge to clench her arms across her chest as he continued, "Especially not a human who struggled to climb a garden wall."

Ada felt her face flush pink, blood boiling through her veins in a concoction of anger and embarrassment. Raeph had left the bandit's courtyard long before Solen had made Ada scale its wall, but she had never considered that the man may have spied their departure from an upstairs window.

Solen picked up her bottle, taking another sip as she watched the pair of them glare each other down. Whatever liquor still loitered at the edges of Ada's system made her bold, and she didn't restrain the curse that ignited on her tongue and shot toward Raeph.

"We can't all be gifted with such gangly fingers, but I suppose that they'd have to be that long to stroke your colossal ego," Ada added.

Liquor spurted from Solen's mouth as she snorted a laugh, while the light faltered out from Raeph's eyes and his obsidian glare returned. But Ada didn't relinquish her smile, even as his lips curled back to reveal barbed rows of teeth.

A fist hammered on the front door, and before Ada could turn her head, Raeph pounced at her.