Chapter 143: A Quiet Day (Part 1).

"It's so strange to see her like this. I still can't believe it…" my father murmured from somewhere off to the side.

"My Lord, I will say that this is the least of what I have seen. Your daughter will be a remarkable woman someday," Estovan answered him.

I would not have heard the two of them at all if my hearing hadn't been turned up this high. And my hearing would not have been turned up at all had I not needed it, along with every other sense I had, for this duel. In front of me stood one of House Veyne's guards. The man's name was Syle, I think. He was unremarkable as far as our guards went, save for one misfortune. The poor man had been the only one available when I'd gone looking for someone new to spar half an hour ago.

Naturally, I could have sparred with Estovan or Anias instead. But by now, they knew me far too well, and I knew them just as well in turn. They had both seen every trick I had a dozen times over. Nobody in the tournament would know me at all, and I would not know them either. Better, then, to practice against strangers while I still could. Damian was back with his father. Violet was not here yet. And Sere's Gift only really taught me how to fight Sere. So here I was, fighting one of House Veyne's many guards.

The very first thing I had done this morning, before breakfast and before anything else, was send off my letter to Duke Solair. Cordelia's request wrapped in enough courtesies to make even Anias proud. Now there was nothing left to do about it but wait for an answer. Hence, all of this.

The man watched me without blinking. I saw the sweat running down his brow as his brown eyes locked on me. He was afraid, I think. Or maybe it was the adrenaline. It was hard to say.

He charged forward. I knew he would a half-second before he did. The mana had all suddenly compressed in his legs. He crossed the twenty paces between us in two strides, his wooden sword arcing through the air. I raised mine in time, but only because of that half-second. Wood met wood. The man was strong. His muscles bulged under his armor. That was his Gift, something that gave him enhanced strength. But oddly, just for his arms. Whatever God had been deciding his power had been quite the miser.

I skidded back across the dirt and dashed forward before he could recover. My own sword struck out toward his upper side. He was already turning. With these eyes, I could see him starting to turn, moving his blade in the way. I tried to turn the swing into a feint, but my eyes saw faster than my hands could move or my brain could think. Wood met wood again. And again. And again.

I went in for three quick strikes. Two slashes, followed by a thrust. The man blocked the first two, but the thrust caught him in the stomach. It made him flinch, but only flinch. I had not had time to compress the mana. Then his own blade was falling on me. He had the height advantage, naturally. And he was damned fast. Blows came. I saw them all coming long before they did, but blocking them was the difficult part.

I managed, but only barely. Only because of my Gift. He still slowly forced me back, until my back was to the edge of the arena. "Why are you using one hand?" he growled under his breath.

I had been using only one hand for some time, reinforcing my grip with enough mana that the sword wouldn't simply be torn out of it. It seemed the man had taken it for an insult. His brows knit when I didn't answer. I took a step back, but there was nowhere to go. I just barely kept myself from falling off the edge. The man raised his wooden sword high in the air. All the muscles of his arm bulged as the sword came down.

I turned, and threw out my left. The hand I had kept behind my back this whole time. It was glowing with the mana I had been compressing for the last fifteen seconds. My hand met the wooden blade, and the blade snapped as if it were made of paper. His eyes widened as I hit him in the chest. He launched through the air, and flew halfway across the arena. He landed, skidded through the dirt, and came to a stop just barely within the bounds of the ring. I… might have overdone that.

I threw my own wooden sword aside and rushed toward the man. He was groaning when I reached him, clutching at his chest. "I'm sorry," I said, leaning toward him. "We'll get you to a healer." There should have been one close by. And they should have been coming over already. Ah.

"Do you yield?" I asked him.

"W-what?" The man let out a croak and coughed. "Yes, yes… I yield," he said.

I nodded and waved a hand to the side, even as I helped the man up. "Sorry about that," I said awkwardly. The man was a good bit taller than me, and while mana might have made his weight manageable, he still weighed quite a bit.

"It's fine, My Lady," he rasped. "Might bloody deserve that for losing me temper anyway."

That was enough time for a healer to reach us. A greying woman in Veyne black and blue whose hands glowed as she brought them up to the soldier. I left him in her care as I made my way over to the side.

My father was clapping. Actually, he had been clapping for some time. It made me blush. Next to him, Sere was clapping too, her notepad left on her knees. "That was most impressive, My Lady," Estovan said. "I dare say he had no idea at all what you planned until it was too late."

Sere beamed and held up a thumbs up in my direction. I smiled at her, and she went back to her drawing. I couldn't see what it was from where I stood.

"It's not so impressive as that," I sighed, and began working at the buckles of my practice armor. It was light, hardened leather and wood over padding. The first pauldron came free, and hit the ground with a small thud. "I had to trick him because I couldn't beat him in a fair fight. If it was just sword against sword, I would lose. Besides, it wasn't exactly much of a trick. Someone else would not have committed themself so much just because they got a little angry."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I had been at this for some time. Syle was the third guard I had fought today. The sun had slid well past its peak while I hadn't been looking. My arms ached from a hard day's training, and I was hungry. I had skipped lunch entirely. The first of the qualifiers were only days away, but there was a limit to how much a girl could cram into her body in a single afternoon. Yes, this was more than enough training for one day.

"It's because your instincts are wrong," my father said, one hand on his walking stick. I looked up at him and waited. "You commit too much of yourself to every swing too. As if you think nobody can block one of your strikes. It seems to me that you recognize this, but your body hasn't learned it yet. That leaves your stance neither here nor there."

I smiled as I pulled the last of the armor free. He was exactly right, as it happened. And he had recognized it from seeing just one short spar. Even Estovan had taken a little while. "Well, people can't really block Vaelin," I said. "And I don't have much of a stance of my own, if I'm being honest. It's all been Vaelin's instincts when he's in my hand. Without him…" I shrugged. Without him, it was all half-remembered and quarter-learned instincts against people who had been fighting for years upon years.

From somewhere in the back of my mind came…preening. At least, that was the closest word I had for it. It seemed Vaelin had heard everything I had said and was quite proud of it. Well, I can't use you for this tournament. So it's not exactly helpful right now, Vaelin!

The preening continued. And then Vaelin spoke. Not my fault.

I blinked. That had been downright sassy. I didn't know Vaelin could be sassy, though he had certainly been far more expressive lately.

My father and Estovan were both staring at me. "Err- sorry, I was talking to…"

"The blade?" my father asked softly.

I nodded. Something crossed his face, there and gone so fast I might as well have imagined it. When he spoke, his voice was steady. "And how much do you converse with this…Vaelin?"

An odd question. And come to think of it, barely anyone had actually asked me that before. People knew Heroes had a bond with their Godblades, but not many of them knew just how deep it really ran. "Well, Vaelin isn't exactly the talkative kind," I said. "Though, I guess he is talking more lately. I just wish he talked to me about something that mattered."

"You call him he?" My father's brow furrowed.

I shrugged. "I have to call him something, and he feels like a he, at least." This wasn't the first time someone had asked this. Cordelia had asked the same thing. She'd accepted the answer easily enough. I got the impression my father wasn't accepting it nearly as easily. Why that was, I could not say.

He slowly nodded. "Well, in any case." My father looked me over. He looked me over for a long time. "Perhaps it's time to teach you the sword style of House Veyne. It's a little out of fashion these days, but I think it holds up well enough."

I stared at him. "We have a sword style?" That sounded both extremely interesting, and the kind of thing I should know already. I looked from him to Estovan, who had the grace to cough and look away.

"Don't look at Estovan so. Or Anias, when you see her," my father said quickly. "They were told not to tell you, not until I thought you were ready. Just like…" He paused and looked at Sere, who was still drawing, before looking back at me. "Other things."

There was only one thing he could mean. Anias had told me who she was. Or had told me a little bit of it, at any rate. But only after my father had given her the permission to. It seemed this wasn't that far off.

"I see…" I said eventually. I didn't know why my father was saying this now, but I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. A sword style, combined with my Gift's Tenet, sounded like the exact type of thing I would need to get a leg up in the King's Tournament without Vae-

"But it's unlikely you will be able to use it for the tournament," my father said, as if he had just read my mind. And perhaps he had at that. "The style is… dangerous. Using it without the required training would be," my father paused, "worse than not knowing it at all."

"Dangerous how?" I asked.

My father was quiet for a moment. "You will understand when you see it," he said.

That was not an answer at all. From the look on his face, he knew it perfectly well. Well, I was curious before, but now I was even more curious. I had read through half of our library, and there had never been any mention of any of this. Needing to practice it for so long was a slight damper on my enthusiasm, but that could wait. "So, what is this style called, anyway?"

I knew enough about this world to know that people could not resist having fancy names for this kind of thing. For instance, there was an entire place in the Kingdom devoted to teaching something called the 'Red Dragon's Fang', a sword style that apparently needed no Gift at all. So, naturally, I assumed that we would have something similar.

"The Five Cuts," my father said.

Vaelin stirred at the name, just for a moment. Then he became silent in the next. I nodded slowly. Well… the name certainly sounded like one House Veyne would come up with, I would give it that.

"When I am feeling better, I will teach you," my father said. He gestured at his walking stick.

I nodded. It could wait well enough. Sere rose from where she sat in the grass and walked over to me. She held her notepad out for me to see. She had been drawing, as I had guessed. She had been drawing… me, in my bout, such that it had been. She drew me, as she always did, with a comically massive head. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but she was drawing my head bigger and bigger lately. I chose to interpret that as her being funny, and not as commentary. She'd drawn the guard as a hulking beast with two heads.

I looked from the drawing back over to the guard. I think I was okay with only having a very big head now. "It's wonderful, Sere," I said, and ruffled her hair. Sere grinned up at me, then walked over to Estovan before pointing at the ring.

"Ah, if my Lady is done with her own practice?" he asked, looking at me.

"Yep, I'm done," I said.

Sere was already darting into the ring to claim the practice sword I had abandoned there.

"Don't forget the armor!" I called out after her.

"My Lady. My Lord." Estovan gave us a deep bow, and then he strode over to join her, leaving my father and me alone.

We watched Estovan force practice armor onto her in silence. They took their corners of the ring, and began.

My father coughed. I turned and rushed to his side. My eyes went to his hand first, then to the corner of his mouth. There was no purple blood there. There was nothing there at all, and still it took me a second to breathe. "Should I get you some water?" I asked him. "Anias shouldn't b-" Why was I thinking about water? The healer was right there.

He waved me off, and I helped him sit down on the grass. "I'm fine," he said, the wooden stick across his lap. He sounded well enough now, though I had to resist the urge to demand someone bring him water anyway.

We watched as Sere winked out of existence right in front of us. A few seconds later, Estovan was blocking a strike aimed at his back. Sere was gone before he could turn, no doubt to attack him from somewhere else. A cool wind blew from somewhere to the east, and we just sat there, as father and daughter.

"I would like to speak to you," my father eventually said. "Or rather, I think you want to talk to me, don't you?"

I blinked and looked up at him. He was looking down at me, and his eyes were kind. As it so happened… I did need to talk to him about a lot of things, especially after what I had learned last night. "How did you know that?" I asked.

He smiled. "I'm your father, Esra," he said. And he said it simply, as if that was that.

Perhaps it was.