Chapter 5: The Knight Game
Three soft knocks at the study door.
Careful, tentative, the kind that asked permission before it announced itself.
Lucian had not even opened his mouth before the door was already nudging inward, and a golden head appeared in the gap.
"Onii-chan--"
Lakyus drew the word out, her pale green eyes full of expectation. She had changed out of her lesson clothes into a light, practical white training outfit, a narrow belt at her waist with a small wooden sword hanging from it.
"Come play with me!"
Lucian looked at the ash in the copper plate. Then he looked at the small figure already halfway through his door. He was quiet for a second.
"I'm busy."
"You're busy every single day." Lakyus walked in and planted herself in front of him with complete confidence. "Cecilia-sensei says even nobles need proper rest and can't spend all their time with books. And also..."
She tilted her head, something sharp and knowing in her expression.
"Also, every time you say you're busy, the book is closed."
Lucian blinked.
When had she started paying attention to that?
"I was thinking."
"Thinking about what?" Lakyus leaned in and looked at the desk. The surface was clean. A few closed books, a quill pen set neatly in its holder. No sign of the burned notes.
She looked back up at him.
He looked at her face, very close to his, those eyes clear as early spring water with nothing murky in them at all.
"Thinking about how to find you a better teacher," he said.
"Cecilia-sensei is wonderful!" Lakyus objected immediately, then grabbed his sleeve. "Come on, come practice swords with me. You promised you'd be my first sparring partner."
Lucian did remember saying that.
It had been a few months ago, the first time Lakyus heard the knight story. She had come running to find him and asked, eyes bright, whether onii-chan would become a knight with her someday.
Lucian had understood immediately. Little girl wanted to play knights. He had said sure, and I'll be your first opponent.
A promise made between six-year-olds. Lakyus had held onto it for months.
He looked down at his sleeve, at the small hand gripping it. Her knuckles were going slightly white, like she thought he might bolt.
"All right," Lucian said, standing up. "Let's go."
Lakyus's eyes went bright all at once.
* * *
The back garden was warm with afternoon sun.
The Aindra family garden was not enormous, but it had been tended with care. Neatly clipped low hedges framed a level stretch of grass, and several roses had climbed the garden wall and were in full bloom along its base. The faint sound of a fountain carried from somewhere further along, and the occasional servant who happened by took a wide arc around the open lawn without being asked.
Lakyus stood in the middle of the grass, both hands on her wooden sword, settled into a starting stance that was surprisingly well-formed for her age.
"Come on!" she called.
Lucian was holding a wooden sword too, the one Lakyus had pressed into his hands on the way out. It was a little longer and heavier than hers, matched to his build.
He held it and looked at her across the grass. She was pulling her most serious expression, cheeks set, clearly trying to project menace.
He almost laughed.
"What are you smiling at?" Lakyus watched him with suspicion.
"Nothing." He pressed his mouth straight. "Come on then."
Lakyus charged.
She was fast. Her footwork was messy but the drive behind it was real. The wooden sword came down with a proper swing, aimed squarely at his shoulder.
Lucian turned aside and let it go past him.
Lakyus stumbled forward two steps before she caught herself, then spun around glaring. "You're not allowed to dodge!"
"You want me to fight without dodging?"
"We're knights!" Lakyus said, as if this settled everything. "Knights face the enemy head-on!"
Lucian looked at her. She had a point, in a way.
"Fine," he said. "No dodging."
She charged again.
This time he raised his sword and took the hit. The two wooden blades met with a solid thump. Lakyus was jolted by the impact and nearly lost her grip, but she gritted her teeth and pushed forward, putting her weight into it.
Lucian felt the force coming through the blade.
More than he had expected, actually. But not by very much.
He turned his wrist, just enough, and redirected her blade to the side. Lakyus's balance went with it. She stumbled forward two steps and then sat down on the grass.
"Oh."
She sat there, blinking at her empty hands. The wooden sword was lying in the grass two steps away with a few blades of grass stuck to it.
Lucian walked over and picked it up. He held it out to her.
"Again?"
Lakyus took the sword, stood up, and brushed the grass off her clothes.
"Again!"
That round she lasted five strikes.
Then seven.
Then four.
Lucian kept his force measured each time, nothing that could hurt her, but never anything she could read as a gift either. Every loss was clean. And every time she went down she came straight back up, eyes getting brighter rather than dimmer, the refusal to quit sharpening with every round.
After one fall she did not get up right away.
She lay on her back in the grass, face turned up to the sky, her chest rising and falling steadily, small beads of sweat across her forehead. The sun fell full on her face and had put some pink in her cheeks.
"Onii-chan is incredible," she said. No disappointment in it at all, only clean admiration.
Lucian sat down beside her.
"You're not bad yourself."
"That's a lie." She turned her head to look at him. "I didn't land a single hit."
"You're six," Lucian said. "Being able to pick up a sword and charge at someone at six is already impressive."
Lakyus blinked, as if she were deciding whether this was genuine or just something older brothers said. Then she rolled over onto her stomach, propped her chin on the back of her hands, and looked up at him.
"Onii-chan, aren't you six too?"
Oops. He had slipped up and forgotten he was a child for a moment.
"That's exactly why Lakyus's magic talent is stronger -- you should really be focusing on magic," Lucian said quickly. "Me, I'm not like that. I'm just not clever enough. Combat skills are really all I have to work with."
That was actually the truth, more or less. He could not check a level display the way he could in the game, but his own estimate put him somewhere between level five and six. And almost certainly all warrior-type classes. The evidence was simple: Cecilia-sensei's faith-based magic, which even six-year-olds were beginning to learn, had produced absolutely nothing when Lucian tried it. In this world, what job class you developed genuinely depended on your natural aptitude. No choosing from a menu.
Lakyus was probably at a similar level, but her aptitude had gone entirely toward faith-based magic classes. Pure melee, she was well behind him.
Lakyus blinked slowly, as if his explanation had redirected her thinking.
"Onii-chan isn't not-clever!" She argued it with full sincerity. "Onii-chan knows everything. Whenever Cecilia-sensei asks a question you answer it first."
"That's from reading." Lucian reached over and picked a blade of grass out of her hair. "Read more books and you'll know things too."
Lakyus tilted her head and considered this, apparently willing to accept it. But then her brow furrowed.
"But I don't want to only be good at magic," she said, and there was a small quiet stubbornness in her voice. "I want to be as good as onii-chan at everything."
Lucian looked at her.
The sun was on her face. The tiny beads of sweat caught the light. Her eyes were completely serious, not a hint of fishing for reassurance in them. She looked like someone stating something she had already decided.
In the back of his mind, the calculation ran automatically. New World humans had a level ceiling, usually difficult to break past thirty. With that kind of limit, specializing was the only way to push the ceiling as high as it could go. Spreading across too many types would shave points off the top.
But against the Bone King, that ceiling was irrelevant either way. If it came down to sheltering under the Bone King's banner, what Lakyus could do was not going to be the deciding factor. So let her pursue what made her happy.
"Because you're my little sister," Lucian said, and paused to find phrasing she would understand. "A sister doesn't need to compete with her brother. Whatever brother knows, brother can teach you later."
Lakyus's eyes brightened a little more.
"Really?"
"Really."