Time passed differently when every day hurt.
Not in the terrible sense of the first weeks, when Kael had woken up every morning feeling as if a horse had trampled him. But in the way the pain became... familiar. Comforting, even. A constant reminder that he was doing something. Changing something.
Becoming something.
Week Two
Kael completed thirty push-ups before his arms gave out.
They weren't fifty. They weren't even forty. But they were thirty more than he could have done two weeks ago without ever having tried.
"Better," Torin grunted, walking past him.
"Still pathetic, but better."
Kael allowed himself a small smile as he stood up. Coming from Torin,
"still pathetic" was practically a compliment.
In practice combat that day, he managed to block three consecutive strikes before his opponent, a thirteen-year-old boy named Davos with a fresh scar on his cheek, knocked him down.
Three blocks. Fifteen seconds standing.
Progress.
"Not bad, runt," Davos said afterward, offering him a hand up.
"Next time maybe you'll last twenty seconds."
"I'll aim for twenty-five," Kael replied, accepting the hand.
Davos laughed. It was the first time anyone besides Favius had treated him as anything more than the little kid getting in the way on the training yard.
It felt good.
One Month
The five laps around the main yard no longer felt like impending death.
Kael still finished in the last three, still gasped like a fish out of water, but he no longer saw black spots in his vision. He no longer felt like his lungs were going to explode.
They just burned. They burned a lot.
But it was a burn he could manage.
During a sword exercise, Favius paired him with Mika, a quiet fourteen-year-old boy who rarely spoke but moved with a practical efficiency Kael envied.
"First Guard," Mika said in a monotone voice.
"Show me."
Kael slid into position. Feet apart. Weight forward. Sword up at a diagonal angle.
Mika walked around him, assessing.
"Not bad. Your shoulders are still too tense, but the base is solid."
"How do I fix it?"
"Breathe. Tense shoulders come from holding your breath."
Mika demonstrated, his own shoulders visibly dropping as he exhaled.
"Combat is breathing. Forget that and everything else fails."
Kael tried. He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, feeling the tension drain from his shoulders.
"Better," Mika approved. "Now do it a thousand more times until you don't have to think about it."
That day, Kael turned nine.
No one knew except Sareth, who appeared in his room that night with a small book wrapped in plain cloth.
"Happy birthday," he said shyly.
"It's about war strategies. I thought... you know, with the training and all..."
Kael took the book, feeling something warm expand in his chest.
"Thank you, Sareth."
"Was the day okay?"
"Torin called me 'less useless than usual'. So yes, it was okay."
Sareth laughed nervously.
"That's... good, right?"
"Coming from Torin, it's practically a celebration."
Two Months
Kael connected his first clean hit in combat.
It was against an eleven-year-old initiate who had grown too confident, dropping his guard for half a second. Kael's practice sword struck his side with a satisfying thwack that echoed across the yard.
The boy staggered, surprised.
Kael was surprised too.
He was then knocked down three seconds later, but it didn't matter. He had connected a hit. A real one.
"FINALLY!" Torin roared from the other side of the yard.
"The runt has claws!"
Several initiates clapped ironically. Kael got up, smiling despite the fresh bruise blooming on his hip.
Small victories.
During a water break, Davos dropped down next to him, wiping sweat from his forehead.
"You're getting better, runt."
"Kael. My name is Kael."
"I know. But runt is funnier."
Davos nudged him.
"Embrace the nickname. It means people notice you."
"What if I don't want to be noticed as 'runt'?"
"Then become something else."
Davos shrugged.
"But until then, runt works."
Kael considered this.
"What's your nickname?"
"Scarface."
"That's awful."
"I know."
Davos touched his scar with something akin to pride.
"But it's mine."
Third Month
"You're not good yet," Torin said after a spar where Kael had lasted a full minute and a half.
"But you're no longer a complete disaster. Progress."
Coming from Torin, it was like receiving a medal.
Kael had become part of the training yard's rhythm. He was no longer "the little boy who shouldn't be here." He was "Kael" or "runt" courtesy of Davos, or "the stubborn one" courtesy of Mika, who apparently appreciated obstinance.
His muscles no longer screamed every morning. They only whispered complaints he could easily ignore.
His hands had calluses where before there had been blisters.
His body moved with muscle memory he didn't have to consciously think about.
He felt... different.
Not stronger than Rylan. He never would be, probably.
But definitely stronger than the boy he had been three months ago.
Breakfast had developed its own strange routine.
Kael was late more often now, his hair still damp from washing the sweat of morning practice. He slid into his seat with movements that would have been clumsy before but now flowed with practical efficiency.
Elyn noticed him. Not always. But more than before.
That particular morning, her eyes stopped on a new bruise blooming on Kael's jaw, courtesy of Davos and a miscalculated block, and something crossed her face.
"You're training with Torin."
It wasn't a question. It was a neutral observation, like one noticing it had rained or that the bread was cold.
"Yes," Kael replied, because lying was pointless when he had evidence literally marked on his face.
Elyn nodded once and returned to her meal.
That was all. No approval, no disapproval. Just acknowledgment that he existed and was doing something.
It was more than he had received in months.
Kael decided not to overanalyze whether that was good or bad.
Sareth, sitting next to him, whispered:
"Rylan must be reaching Vaeloria now. The journey takes almost three months."
"Do you think he'll like it?"
"Probably."
Sareth poked his breakfast with little appetite.
"It's... everything he was always meant to be. The heir visiting the imperial capital. Meeting the Emperor."
There was something sad in his voice. Not envy, exactly. Just... melancholy.
"You would never want that," Kael quietly observed.
"All that attention, all that pressure."
"No."
Sareth smiled faintly.
"But sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be the kind of person who does want that."
"Exhausting, probably."
"Probably."
Kael looked around the table. Elyn ate with mechanical precision. Sareth pushed food around his plate. And Lyssara's chair...
It was empty.
"Where is Lyssara?" he asked before he could stop himself.
Elyn didn't even look up.
"Private etiquette lessons."
Kael blinked.
'Lyssara. Etiquette. Two things that don't belong together in any universe.'
"Etiquette lessons?" Sareth repeated, sounding as skeptical as Kael felt.
"But she..."
"She needs proper preparation for her eventual marriage," Elyn interrupted in a tone that closed off any discussion.
"A noble lady's education is multifaceted."
Kael exchanged a look with Sareth.
'A lie,' both their eyes said.
But neither of them questioned it aloud. Elyn wasn't the kind of person whose assertions were questioned directly.
Later, as he walked toward the training yard, Kael briefly wondered where Lyssara really was.
Then he decided it wasn't his problem. Everyone had their secrets. He had his training, Sareth had his friendship with Carmen, and Lyssara had... whatever it was.
'Probably something more interesting than etiquette lessons.'
The afternoon training was in full swing when Kael arrived.
The sun had reached its zenith, turning the yard into an oven that baked the sweat onto everyone's skin. The initiates moved through their drills with tired determination, the kind that comes from doing the same thing every day until the body simply accepts suffering as normal.
"Sparring matches!" Torin yelled.
"Pair up. Kael, with Davos. Favius, with Mika. The rest know what to do."
Kael took his practice sword, lighter now, or perhaps his arms were simply stronger, and faced Davos.
The older boy smiled, twirling his own sword with casual familiarity.
"Ready for your daily beating, runt?"
"I prefer to call it 'intensive endurance training'."
"Call it what you want. You'll still end up eating dirt."
"Son of a bitch."
Torin blew the whistle.
Davos attacked first, a side swing that Kael blocked with First Guard. The impact resonated in his arms but he held the position.
"Better!" Davos yelled, attacking again.
Block. Parry. Retreat. Counterattack that Davos easily deflected.
They lasted nearly two minutes before Davos finally found an opening and connected a clean hit to Kael's side. Not strong enough to break anything, but enough to send sharp pain radiating from his ribs.
Kael fell, rolling instinctively, thank you, Torin, and getting up again before Davos could capitalize.
The whistle blew. End of the match.
"Two minutes, four seconds," Torin announced.
"Your best time, Kael."
"Does that mean I'm no longer completely useless?"
"It means you're slightly less useless."
Torin almost smiled. Almost.
"Progress."
During the water break, the group gathered in the shadow of the east wall, all of them panting and soaked in sweat.
Favius dropped down next to Kael, handing him his canteen when Kael's emptied.
"You're improving. Davos really had to work to take you down today."
"I worked a little," Davos admitted, touching his side where Kael had connected one of his counterattacks.
"The runt almost broke a rib."
"Almost doesn't count," Kael replied, drinking water. "You either break the rib or you don't."
General laughter.
Mika, who rarely contributed to conversations, spoke in his usual monotone voice:
"Solid combat philosophy. Binary. I like it."
"Does anyone know when the shell heir is coming back?" Davos suddenly asked, wiping sweat from his forehead.
There was a moment of confused silence.
"The what?" Mika asked.
"The shell heir. You know. Rylan."
Davos made a vague gesture with his hand.
"Elyn treats him like he's made of expensive porcelain. Shell heir."
Kael almost choked on his water. Favius burst out laughing.
"That's... surprisingly accurate," Favius said between laughs.
"Right?" Davos looked pleased with himself.
"I came up with it this morning."
"Rylan," Mika said with a patient voice, as if explaining something to a small child.
"His name is Rylan."
"I know what his name is. But shell heir sounds better. More... descriptive."
Kael found himself smiling despite himself. There was something liberating about the way Davos just said things without a filter.
"Probably in a month," Favius replied, returning to the original question.
"The journeys to Vaeloria take time. Two months there, two months back if the weather is good."
"Have you ever been there?" Kael asked.
"Once. When I was ten."
Favius looked into the distance, remembering.
"It's... overwhelming. Too many people. Too much everything. Buildings so tall you have to crane your neck to see the tops. Streets so crowded you get lost in the mob."
"Did you hate it?"
"No."
Favius shrugged.
"But it made me realize I'll never belong there. Not like Rylan. He was born for it. For the halls of power, the Council meetings, all the imperial pomp."
"I realized that a long time ago too," Kael said softly.
"And that's why you train?" Davos asked, leaning forward with genuine curiosity.
"Because you can't be the heir?"
"I train because I want to be better than my yesterday self."
"That's... surprisingly profound," Mika commented.
"Or surprisingly normal," Kael added.
"Both," Favius concluded.
"Definitely both."
"ENOUGH PHILOSOPHY!"
Torin's voice cut through the yard like a whip.
"If you have breath to talk, you have breath to run! Five laps! NOW!"
Group complaints rose, but everyone got up anyway.
Kael ran next to Favius, his legs pumping with a rhythm he had memorized after months of repetition. For the first time since he started training, he wasn't the last to finish.
He finished in the middle of the group, with Davos and Mika still behind him.
Small victory, but real.
When the training session finally ended and the initiates began to disperse, Favius stayed behind, waiting for Kael to finish putting away his practice sword.
"Belated birthday, by the way," he said casually.
"Nine years old, right?"
Kael looked at him, surprised.
"Two weeks ago. How did you know?"
"I overheard your brother mention it in the library."
"Sareth."
"That one."
Favius nodded.
"Seems like a good person."
"He is. Too good for this family."
Favius gave him a strange look but didn't ask. He had learned in recent months that Kael didn't talk much about his family beyond what was necessary.
"Anyway."
Favius stretched, his joints cracking.
"Same time tomorrow. Try not to die in your sleep. It would be inconvenient to have to train another runt from scratch."
"Your compassion moves me."
"I know. It's a gift."
After training, Kael looked for Lyssara.
Not for any particular reason. Just... curiosity.
She wasn't in the secondary library where Sareth usually studied. She wasn't in her room, Kael checked by casually passing through the west wing and noticing her door was open with the room empty. She wasn't in any of the common dining halls or lounges.
He found Sareth in the main library, bent over a military strategy tome, probably the book he had given him, with Carmen sitting across the table, their heads close as they murmured about something.
Kael approached silently, smiling at the way Sareth nervously straightened up when he noticed him.
"Have you seen Lyssara?" he asked without preamble.
"Not since yesterday," Sareth replied.
"Why?"
"Just curious. Elyn said she had etiquette lessons."
Carmen let out a sound that might have been a choked laugh.
"Lyssara? Etiquette?"
She shook her head.
"She hates etiquette. Last year she argued with the instructor about why noble women should learn fencing instead of embroidery. They almost fired her."
"I know," Kael said.
"That's why it's weird."
"Maybe she just wants to avoid family lunch," Sareth suggested.
"I wouldn't blame her."
"Maybe."
But something in Kael's tone made it clear he didn't believe it.
He left Sareth and Carmen to their studies, and the blush that Sareth still couldn't control when the girl looked directly at him, and returned to his own room.
The secret clearing was empty except for Lyssara, the tree she had marked as a practice target, and the dense silence of the forest that muffled any sound.
"Perfect."
The practice sword was heavier than she had expected when she stole it, 'borrowed it', she mentally corrected herself, from the armory two months ago. But her arms had gotten used to the weight. They still trembled after five minutes of intensive practice, but she no longer accidentally dropped the sword.
Progress.
Lyssara moved through the forms she had memorized by watching Rylan for years. First Guard. Transition to Second Guard. Basic attack that connected with the marked tree, bark flying with each impact.
'Ten times this week,' she counted mentally. 'Twenty last month. A hundred since I started.'
'And I'm still terrible.'
The admission hurt more than any sore muscle.
She missed a movement, almost fell, the sword slipping in her sweaty grip.
"Shit."
She allowed herself to curse here. No one could hear her. No one knew this clearing existed, this secret, this version of her that didn't fit the perfect mold of "Miss Lyssara Drayvar, promising daughter of House Drayvar."
She forced herself to repeat the movement. Once. Twice. Ten times. Until her arms screamed and sweat ran down her back, soaking her simple dress, the one she wore specifically because she could move in it without the restrictions of lace and corsets.
'Mother says noble girls learn politics, embroidery, music,' she thought bitterly as she hit the tree with extra force. 'Tools for advantageous marriages.'
'Rylan learns war because he's the heir.'
'Kael is training now too, apparently. The forgotten son decides he wants to be seen.'
'And I...'
She hit the tree again, bark exploding.
'I train in secret because if mother finds out I prefer swords to dresses, she'll lock me in etiquette lessons until I forget how to hold a weapon.'
She stopped, panting, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.
She looked at her hands: no calluses yet, she washed them obsessively, wore gloves when she could, blisters forming that she carefully hid under those same gloves back at the mansion, muscles aching in ways no one noticed because she had learned long ago not to show weakness.
'I'm better than Kael,' she reminded herself. 'Obviously. He's just a nine-year-old brat.'
Pause. Consideration.
'But I'm beneath Rylan.'
Brutal honesty with herself. One of the few things she allowed herself.
'Far beneath. He has years of advantage, better training, stronger Aether, dedicated instructors.'
'But the gap can be closed. It has to be able to be closed.'
She sat against the marked tree, catching her breath, the sword resting in her lap. Her fingers traced the patterns of the wood worn by months of repeated blows.
'To be Head of House Drayvar, I need to surpass Rylan.'
'Not in politics. I'm already better there. I can manipulate a conversation, read between the lines, plant doubts with innocent questions.'
'But in this. In the sword. In what truly matters in this family of warriors.'
'Because if I'm just the "smart daughter," I'll be married off for alliance. Sold to the highest bidder who strengthens House Drayvar's connections.'
'If I'm the "warrior daughter," I can claim the position.'
She stood up, shaking dirt and dry leaves from her dress. She cleaned the sword with the rag she had brought, stained with sweat and bark, and stored it in the hollow of the nearby tree, carefully covered with branches and moss.
No one would find it. She had checked dozens of times.
She put on clean gloves over her blisters, hiding the evidence. She smoothed her dress, adjusted her hair. With each action, she transformed:
From warrior-in-training to noble daughter returning from "etiquette lessons."
It was a role she had perfected. Posture straight but not rigid. Expression serene but not empty. Measured steps that suggested education but not arrogance.
'Kael trains with Torin,' she thought as she walked back toward the mansion through the woods. 'Openly. With permission. The other initiates probably know him, accept him.'
'I train in secret. Stealing time. Hiding evidence.'
'Which of us is smarter?'
The mansion appeared between the trees, its dark towers silhouetted against the gray evening sky. From here, it looked almost beautiful. Imposing. Powerful.
'One day,' Lyssara knew, 'that mansion will be mine.'
'Not Rylan's. Not Kael's. Not any of the men who assume power belongs to them by birthright.'
'Mine.'
'I just need time,' she reminded herself as she emerged from the woods, transforming her expression into a perfectly neutral mask. 'And patience.'
'And for Rylan to make a mistake.'
She smiled as she crossed the gardens toward the east entrance, passing servants who didn't even look up.
Invisible in her visibility. Another useful trick.
'Eventually, everyone makes mistakes.'
'Even the perfect heirs.'
'Because they've never truly had to fight for anything.'
'And that,' Lyssara thought as she entered the mansion with the perfect posture of a noble lady who had just finished her "etiquette lessons," 'is their greatest weakness.'
'They just don't know it yet.'
'And by the time they realize...'
'It will already be too late.'
She passed Mistress Maren in the main hallway. The older woman nodded respectfully.
"Miss Lyssara. Were your lessons profitable?"
"Very profitable, Mistress Maren," Lyssara replied with the polite smile she had perfected. "The instructor says my progress is... remarkable."
"I am pleased to hear it."
Lyssara continued toward her room, her steps measured, her breathing controlled even though her lungs still burned from the training.
Only when she closed her bedroom door and threw the bolt did she allow herself to collapse against the wood, panting.
Her legs were shaking. Her arms ached. Every muscle protested.
But it was worth it.
'Everything is worth it,' she thought as she forced herself to walk toward her private bath. 'Every strike. Every fall. Every hour stolen in secret.'
'Because one day, when I'm good enough, I will reveal this.'
'And mother won't be able to do anything about it.'
She removed her gloves, revealing the red blisters on her palms. They needed treatment, but it would have to wait until everyone was asleep. She couldn't risk a servant seeing and asking questions.
She looked at herself in the full-length mirror in her room. Dress wrinkled from sweat and movement. Messy hair she would have to fix before dinner. Face flushed from exertion.
But her eyes...
Her eyes shone with a determination that no amount of makeup or elegant dresses could completely hide.
'Because hunger doesn't sleep. It doesn't rest. It doesn't take "no" for an answer.'
'And I,' she promised herself as she began to fix her appearance for dinner, 'am hungrier than anyone else in this damned mansion.'
'Only no one knows it yet.'
'And by the time they realize...'
'It will already be too late.'