Ragged breathing. Sweat dripping from her chin onto the grass below.
The training grounds were empty except for Claire. The moonlight was cold and clear, which suited her.
She swung her sword. Vertical. Horizontal. Thrust. Three basic movements, repeated without variation, until her arms ached and her hands bled.
She knew what people thought when they watched her practice fundamentals. That she was behind. That she should have moved on to something more advanced by now. But she remembered what her brother had told her once, standing in the courtyard with the afternoon light behind him, smiling in that quiet way of his.
'If the foundation is solid, you can hold more. If the foundation is weak, nothing built on top of it will last. Surely you already understand what the difference means, Claire.'
She remembered his face. The gentleness of it. She remembered the small wooden sword she had been holding at the time.
The memory brought two things at once. Something like longing, and something else beneath it, quieter and harder to name.
She finished with a thrust, held the pose for a breath, then straightened and let her arms fall.
She looked at her hands. Calloused and cracked, with old scars layered beneath newer ones that had opened again tonight. She stared at them for a moment.
"Is it not unsightly? A girl with hands like a servant's."
The voice was arrogant and immediately familiar. Claire did not look up. She had heard variations of this her entire life and had long since stopped finding them interesting.
"Rude, but then she is a servant's daughter at heart. Same manners as her mother."
A fact, technically. Claire had been born from a moment of carelessness by the head of her family, drunk and irresponsible, with a servant woman who had since died under circumstances that were never quite explained.
She had grown up in the mansion as a stain no one was quite willing to remove and no one was willing to acknowledge.
Her father, the head of the family, regarded her as a mistake. Her half-siblings treated her accordingly. The insults had been so consistent for so long that they had simply stopped landing.
"The rumor that you train through the night was apparently true. Are you aiming for the position of heir?"
"Did you come all the way here just to talk, Brother? Rion Winterfail."
"You dare say my name so plainly now."
"Why would I hesitate to say the name of someone who clings to his mother's back?"
"Insolent—!" One of the men standing beside Rion stepped forward, but Rion raised his right hand without looking at him. The man stopped.
"It seems you need some additional instruction from me."
"I appreciate the offer, but I have already learned more than anything you could teach."
"You are refusing my instruction?"
"Declining is more accurate. I simply do not need it."
"You—!" The man moved again. Rion's hand went up again. The man went still.
"Very well. If you no longer need your elder brother's guidance, I find myself curious what you have learned instead. Shall we duel?"
"I will go in your place, my lord."
"Who asked you?"
"But my lord—" A pause. "Understood."
"What do you say, Claire? A healthy bout between siblings."
Claire drove the tip of her sword into the ground and took a slow breath, wiping the sweat from her face. When she had steadied herself, she answered.
"Fine. Who will judge?"
"I will." A woman's voice, stepping forward from the shadows at the edge of the grounds.
Rena.
She moved to a position near Claire without invitation and without particular hurry, as though she had simply been waiting for the right moment to enter.
Without ceremony, Claire and Rion took their stances. Both of them carried the Winterfail name, but there were limits to what non-pure blood could access from the family's techniques. They both understood this, and neither acknowledged it aloud.
"Before we begin, the rules."
First, if either sword broke or either fighter could no longer move, that person lost.
Second, no attacks intended to kill. Basic techniques only. Aura weapons were forbidden.
Third, any detected cheating meant immediate disqualification.
"I will be using my Insight All throughout. If anyone cheats, I will know immediately. Fight cleanly." Rena added a slight edge to the last sentence that was aimed at Rion, though he did not seem to notice.
Both sides agreed.
"BEGIN!"
"Let me show you why you still need what I taught you!" Rion launched himself forward in a straight line.
The approach was simple to read. Claire sidestepped without urgency.
'Too predictable.'
"Have you no shame, attacking first?"
She countered with a horizontal slash. Rion's footing was poor, forcing him to block rather than dodge, and the impact sent him stumbling back.
"It seems I was right. I do not need your instruction."
They reset their stances.
"Do not celebrate yet." Rion came forward again, faster, and their wooden blades met with enough force to send a tremor up both their arms.
Claire read the pressure. Both of Rion's hands were high, leaving his lower body open. She did not waste the moment. She drove the pommel of her sword into the space below his ribs and felt him fold around it, coughing, staggering back.
He was still standing. Barely.
"Not bad!" He came again, this time varying his angles, slashing from below, then reversing into a straight thrust.
Claire turned her blade sideways to deflect the upward strike, then rotated her body just enough to let the thrust slide past her. Rion pushed through the momentum into a rightward horizontal cut. She caught it at its midpoint, blade to blade, and held.
"Is it not a little cruel to refuse to take my strikes with your body?"
"That is called technique."
Rion stepped back and dropped his stance entirely.
"Your late-night training has produced results. Those scarred hands were not wasted. But it will not be enough!"
He came straight again. Claire had already seen this pattern twice. She rotated aside and, as he passed her, brought her knee up sharply.
"Frost Veil Kick."
The technique was exactly what it sounded like. No winding up, no telegraphing. Knee raised low, released fast, aimed at the midsection. She had aimed for his stomach deliberately, calibrating the force to hurt without causing real damage.
She followed it immediately with a strike to his back. Rion hit the ground hard. Dust scattered outward from the impact.
He was gasping, trying to drag air back into a stomach that had been emptied by the kick. It took him a moment.
"You cheated! Kick techniques are not allowed!"
"Show me where it says that. The rule was no killing intent and no aura weapons. This is a basic technique. You could not read it, and you have been charging in a straight line repeatedly. Did your father not teach you anything?"
"You little—!" The man beside Rion lunged forward. Rena smiled at him.
He stopped moving.
"Can you continue, Rion?"
Rion pushed himself upright, still breathing hard. His expression had gone past irritation into something uglier.
"Do not underestimate me! You are nothing but a servant's child! How dare you look down on me, a pure blood!"
Claire said nothing. She had wanted him angry. Angry people made mistakes.
"Come then. Less talking." She settled her weight onto one foot, raised her free hand, and crooked one finger toward him.
It worked exactly as intended. Rion charged without thinking, palm forward.
"Compress and pierce! Ice Spear!"
A spear of ice formed above him and shot toward Claire. She was already moving, pushing off the ground and into the air, clearing it cleanly.
While she was still airborne, Rion closed the distance and swung.
The strike landed. Claire hit the ground hard, dust rising around her. When it settled, she was standing again, a few new cuts on her, expression unchanged.
Rion did not pause. He was past the point of strategy now.
"I will show you the difference between us!"
A large magic circle appeared behind him, pale blue and pulsing, jagged spears of ice forming along its edge. Not basic technique anymore. Claire recognized the casting level immediately.
She answered with her own. A circle formed beneath her feet. Ice bullets, small and numerous, began to orbit her in a slow ring.
"Stop! This is not basic technique anymore!" Rena moved to intervene. One of Rion's men stepped in front of her.
"Do not. If you interrupt now, the feedback could injure all three of them."
"That casting level is between third and fourth class!"
"Ice Missile!"
The small sharp shards of ice launched from Rion's circle like crossbow bolts, fast and relentless.
"Cold Orbit."
Claire released her own volley. The two waves met in the space between them. Some projectiles shattered against each other. Others got through. Both of them took hits and neither stopped.
The collision of ice and cold air produced a dense, rolling fog that spread quickly across the training ground, swallowing both of them.
"Are they alright?!" Rena's voice came out sharper than she had intended, her eyes searching the white.
"My Insight All cannot penetrate this much mana-saturated cold. I cannot see them."
The fog held for several seconds. Then it began to thin.
Three silhouettes appeared inside the clearing white. Two were Claire and Rion.
The third was someone who had not been there before.
* * *