The training yard was closed.
This was not the open sand where squires laughed and gambled on wooden swords. This was the Inner Ward, a sunken pit of packed earth surrounded by high granite walls that uffled the sound of the city. The air here was still, smelling of old iron and discipline.
Kaelen stood in the center, his twin blades resting in his grip. The morning fog had not yet lifted, turning the world gray and close.
Opposite him, Armsmaster Deyric did not hold a weapon. He held a staff of heavy ironwood, resting it on his boot. He had been watching Kaelen run the forms for an hour 'silent, critical, unblinking.
Kaelen finished a sequence 'Cross, Void, Ash-Check, Edge-Strike 'and lowered his blades. His breathing was steady, the rhythm finally living in his feet rather than his head.
"You stopped," Deyric said. His voice was gravel shifting in a stream.
"The form ended," Kaelen replied.
"The fight didn't." Deyric tapped the ironwood against the earth. "You are memorizing stanzas, Prince. Combat is a conversation, not a speech."
Kaelen wiped sweat from his brow with a forearm. He looked at the Armsmaster 'really looked at him. For weeks, Deyric had corrected his grip, his gate, his tempo. He had taught Kaelen to move like water, like smoke. But Deyric himself was a boulder. He was broad, scarred, and moved with the heavy, crushing certainty of a siege engine.
"Master," Kaelen said, the question finally breaking the surface. "You teach me to flow. To weave. To void the center."
"I do."
"But you don't fight like that." Kaelen gestured to the staff. "You are Iron. You hold the line. Why do you know the Water?"
Deyric's face, usually a mask of professional boredom, tightened. He looked down at his own hands, scarred and thick-knuckled.
"Twenty years ago," Deyric said, his voice dropping an octave, "I was at the Siege of Oakhaven. Do you know it?"
"The border war. The tunnels."
"Aye. The tunnels." Deyric shifted his weight. "We ran out of spears on the third day. Shields shattered on the fourth. By the fifth, we were fighting in the dark with broken knives and jagged rocks. There is no 'form' in a tunnel, boy. There is only breath and meat."
He pulled the collar of his tunic down, revealing a jagged, pale scar that ran from his trap to his collarbone 'a wound that should have killed him.
"I survived because I met a man years before that siege," Deyric continued softly. "An Exile from the Eastern Isles. He moved like you are trying to move. He called it Via Gemina 'The Weaving. He taught me the forms."
Deyric looked up, his eyes hard and wet with old memory. "But I never had the Water, Kaelen. I have the mind for it, but my body is stone. I survived Oakhaven by being harder than the rock I was pinned against. But I saw what fluidity could do."
He stepped closer, looming over the prince. "I am teaching you the idea of a style I could never fully hold. I am the Iron trying to sharpen the Wind. Do you understand?"
Kaelen felt the weight of the confession settle on him. This wasn't just training. It was a legacy.
"I understand," Kaelen said.
"Good." Deyric kicked the staff up into his hands with sudden violence. "Then prove it."
....
"Blindfold," Deyric commanded.
Kaelen blinked, sweat dripping into his eyes. "Master?"
"You rely on your eyes," Deyric spat, tossing a strip of heavy black wool at him. "Tunnel vision. You see the blade coming, you measure, you think, you react. Too slow. The Weaving requires incredible sight and instinct. You must feel the intent before the muscle moves."
Kaelen caught the cloth. "And if I can't?"
"Then you will bleed until you can." Deyric pointed the ironwood staff at Kaelen's chest. "Tie it tight."
Kaelen hesitated, then knotted the wool over his eyes. The world vanished. The gray fog was replaced by a suffocating, heavy dark. His balance wavered immediately. The inner ward felt suddenly vast and hostile.
"The rules," Deyric's voice drifted, echoing off the stone walls so Kaelen couldn't pinpoint the source. "I strike. You Void. If you block, you fail. If you get hit, you fail."
Kaelen gripped his falchions, knuckles white. He strained his ears, listening for the scuff of a boot.
Scuff. To the left.
Kaelen spun, raising the Ash blade to parry
CRACK.
The staff slammed into his right ribs, bypassing his guard entirely. The air left Kaelen's lungs in an agonizing whoosh. He staggered, gasping.
"Dead," Deyric said, his voice coming from the right, not the left. "I threw a pebble. You chased a sound. Your eyes are closed, but you're still looking."
"Again," Kaelen wheezed, straightening.
Whoosh.
He felt the air move. He ducked.
CRACK.
The staff swept his legs. Kaelen hit the dirt hard, the breath jarred from him again. He tasted copper.
"Dead," Deyric droned. "You guessed. Hope is not a strategy."
Kaelen scrambled up, anger flashing hot. He reset. He waited.
This time, nothing. The silence stretched. Ten seconds. Twenty. Kaelen's muscles bunched, waiting, anticipating, his mind screaming now, now, now.
Thwack.
The staff jabbed him in the solar plexus. Kaelen doubled over, retching dryly.
"You're thinking," Deyric growled, standing over him. "You're calculating probability. Stop it."
The next hour was not training. It was a dismantling.
Kaelen was knocked down until his tunic was brown with mud. His shin throbbed where the wood had bit deep; his shoulder ached from a downward chop he had been too slow to slip. He was dizzy, disoriented, and humiliated.
He swung wildly at phantom noises, hitting only air, while the staff found him with cruel precision.
Crack. Kidney. Crack. Thigh. Crack. Shoulder.
Kaelen collapsed to his hands and knees, panting, spit hanging from his lip. The darkness behind the blindfold swirled with red sparks of pain.
"Take it off," Deyric said. It sounded like a dismissal. "You aren't ready. The court was right. You have the hands, Prince, but you don't have the sense."
The insult landed harder than the wood. Adequate.
Kaelen grabbed a handful of dirt, squeezing until the grit bit into his palm. He didn't stand. He couldn't. His legs were jelly. But he didn't reach for the knot at the back of his head.
"Again," Kaelen croaked.
"You can barely stand."
"I said… again." Kaelen forced himself up. He swayed, his guard loose, his arms heavy as lead. He was too tired to think. Too tired to predict where the next hit was coming from. He just wanted to stay on his feet.
Deyric didn't speak. He moved.
Kaelen stood in the dark, his chest heaving. He was exhausted. His mind, usually so busy with maps and angles and worries, finally went quiet. It had no energy left to panic.
Be empty, he thought. Not as a command, but as a surrender.
He stopped listening for boots. He stopped trying to visualize the yard. He just felt the air on his skin. The dampness. The temperature.
Pressure.
It wasn't a sound. It was a displacement. Something heavy moving through the space to his right, pushing the air before it like a wave.
Kaelen didn't decide. His body, desperate to avoid more pain, simply poured itself away from the pressure.
Whoosh.
The heavy ironwood staff shore through the space where his head had been. The wind of it stirred his sweaty hair.
It was a clumsy dodge 'he stumbled, catching his balance with a hand on the ground 'but the wood hit nothing.
Deyric grunted 'a small, surprised sound.
Kaelen didn't celebrate. The "Radial Sight" wasn't a picture; it was a feeling of danger. He felt the staff retract, felt the shift in the air as Deyric prepared a thrust.
Low. Left.
Kaelen picked up his left foot 'the Ash foot 'and let the thrust sail harmlessly beneath his sole. As he set his foot down, he stepped in.
He didn't know where Deyric was, not exactly. But he knew where the staff had come from.
He lunged into the dark, snapping his right hand 'the Edge 'forward in a short, vicious arc.
His wooden blade hit something soft.
Thud.
Silence.
Kaelen froze. He waited for the counter-strike. He waited for the crack of wood against his bone.
Nothing. Just the heavy rasp of Deyric's breathing, inches from his face.
"Hold," Deyric said. His voice was thick.
Kaelen stood there, chest heaving, his wooden falchion pressed into something. He reached up with his shaking left hand and yanked the blindfold down.
The gray light hurt his eyes.
He blinked, tears of strain leaking out.
He saw Deyric standing frozen. The ironwood staff was pulled back for a third strike that never came. Kaelen's wooden blade was buried hilt-deep in the folds of Deyric's tunic, the tip pressed firmly into the Armsmaster's gut.
If it had been steel, Deyric would be gutted.
Kaelen's legs gave out. He dropped to one knee, gasping, the adrenaline crash hitting him all at once.
Deyric looked down at the wooden sword against his stomach, then at the bruised, muddy, bleeding prince on the ground.
"I… didn't see it," Kaelen whispered, staring at his own hands. "I just… the air felt heavy."
Deyric slowly lowered the staff. He reached down, gripping Kaelen's shoulder with a hand that felt like a vise. He didn't pull him up; he just held him there, grounding him.
"This is the beginning," Deyric said, his voice devoid of mockery. "It is not magic, boy. It is the terror of the prey sensing the predator. You have to be half-dead to find it the first time."
He looked at Kaelen's bruised ribs.
"You passed," Deyric said gruffly. "Now get up. If you bleed on my sand, you clean it up."
Kaelen managed a weak, bloody grin. He took the Armsmaster's hand and hauled himself to his feet. He hurt everywhere, but the darkness didn't feel so heavy anymore.
Deyric turned and marched back toward the armory, the heavy thud of his boots fading into the stone.
Kaelen remained for a moment, swaying in the gray light. As the adrenaline of the breakthrough receded, the pain returned like a rising tide. His shin screamed where the ironwood had swept him. His ribs throbbed in a dull, sickening rhythm. His hands were raw, the knuckles skinned and weeping serum.
He drew a breath that hitched in his chest, then sheathed the wooden falchions. He walked toward the exit, forcing his legs to obey.
Do not limp, he told himself. Alaric doesn't limp.
He took the servant's stairs to his chambers, avoiding the main corridors. He couldn't be seen like this 'mud-stained, shaking, looking like a brawler dragged from a ditch.
Inside his room, he stripped off the ruined tunic. The mirror was unforgiving.
A dark purple bruise was already blooming across his right ribcage, shaped like a cruel continent. Another welt raised angry red skin on his thigh. He looked less like a prince and more like a piece of meat tenderized for the spit.
He poured water from the ewer into a basin. It was freezing. He splashed it over his face and chest, hissing as the salt from his sweat stung the open scrapes. He scrubbed the mud from his hair, the dirt from his fingernails.
He dressed slowly, wincing as he pulled a fresh linen shirt over his ribs. He chose a tunic of high-collared navy wool to hide the welts on his neck, and fastened his belt tight enough to support his sore core.
He paused at the door, catching his reflection again. The bruises were hidden. The mud was gone. The boy in the mirror looked composed, pale, and "Adequate."
But under the silk, his muscles hummed with a strange, new electricity. He felt the air moving in the room 'the draft from the window, the heat from the hearth. The Radial Sight was fading, burying itself back in his subconscious, but the memory of it remained.
He rolled his shoulders, swallowing a grimace of pain. He fixed his face into the neutral mask of the second son.
He opened the door.
The walk to the dining hall was a gauntlet of discipline. Every step sent a jolt of fire up his shin, but he kept his stride even, his chin high. By the time the heavy oak doors of the inner dining hall loomed before him, Kaelen had buried the pain deep, locking it away where his father and brother could not see it.
The guards opened the doors. The smell of roast fowl and the sound of silver on china drifted out.
Kaelen stepped through, walking not on the floor, but through the air.
...….
The inner dining hall held its own weather 'cool stone, low fire, and a quiet that pressed the silver to shine. King Aldrick sat at the head, Queen Elyndra opposite, the princes to either side. Roast fowl steamed on platters; bread breathed heat into the air.
Kaelen took his seat with extreme care. Every inch of him was screaming. His right shin throbbed in time with his heart; his ribs felt like they were wrapped in barbed wire. He moved slowly, stiffly, hoping the heavy wool of his tunic hid the way his body wanted to fold in on itself.
Alaric carved his portion with the same assurance he carried in the yard 'clean strokes, no hesitation. "The Festival of Blades comes early this year," he said lightly, pride trimmed neat beneath the tone. "Six months at most. The court will expect Veylor to open and close the sand."
"You will," Aldrick said, eyes on the plate. "And you will win."
Alaric inclined his head as if acknowledging a fact of weather. "Marrow sent an envoy at dawn. They'll bring a challenger, of course. Shadows don't learn from sunlight."
Elyndra's gaze slid to Kaelen. She didn't look at his face; she looked at the way he was holding his goblet 'two hands, careful, as if he didn't trust his grip. Her eyes narrowed the smallest fraction.
"The festival is remembrance as much as contest," she said, her voice a softer steel. "The Unknown God watches those who stand, not only those who finish."
Alaric's mouth curved 'not unkind, not yielding. "Still, the songs prefer the last name called."
Kaelen kept his eyes on his cup. He had never stood in the festival ring. Not yet. Six months sounded both near and impossible. He took a sip of water, the movement pulling at his bruised shoulder. He stifled a wince, turning it into a cough.
Aldrick finally looked up, the movement small and complete. "And you, boy," he said, weighing Kaelen with the same glance he gave a field before a campaign. "When the bell names you, you will go out. Veylor blood does not step backward."
Kaelen met his father's eyes. He felt fragile, as if one hard word would shatter his composure. "Yes, Father."
"You are stiff," Aldrick noted, accusing. "The yard treating you poorly?"
"The yard is… honest," Kaelen managed.
Alaric chuckled, breaking a piece of bread. "Honesty leaves bruises. Try not to let them slow you down, brother. A slow prince is just a target."
"Train," Aldrick commanded, closing the subject. "Become what the sand will allow."
The meal ended. Aldrick rose and left without looking back. Alaric gathered his cloak, confidence settling around his shoulders like a second garment.
"Six months," Alaric said to Kaelen, clapping him on the shoulder.
Kaelen's vision went white for a second as the hand landed on his bruised collarbone. He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted iron, forcing himself not to recoil.
"Try not to let mine be the only name they remember," Alaric said, whistling a tune as he strode out.
Elyndra waited until the arch swallowed him. She stood, walking around the table to Kaelen's side. She didn't touch him 'she sensed, perhaps, that he couldn't bear it.
"You are walking like an old man," she murmured.
"I fell," Kaelen lied.
"Repeatedly, it seems." She sighed, resignation warring with pride. "Go to the chapel. Sit. If you go back to the yard today, you will break something that won't knit back together."
Kaelen nodded, grateful for the permission to stop moving. "Yes, Mother."
…..
The hall's quiet followed Kaelen into the corridor like a weight worn on the shoulders. He should have turned for the armory, but his body rebelled at the thought of another impact. Instead, his steps angled toward the inner courts where the stone held cooler air.
A bell rolled once from the east 'one note stretched thin.
The chapel waited where echoes went to listen.
Kaelen hovered just inside the threshold. There were no statues here 'only the circle cut by a cross in the floor and a single candle holding its small argument against the dark. Banners of the Five hung high above the bare altar.
He limped to the front bench and sat, letting his head fall into his hands. The pain washed over him, hot and throbbing. He felt weak. One session with a blindfold and he was crippled. How was he supposed to be a warrior?
"Kael."
He didn't startle; he didn't have the energy. He looked up to see Elyndra standing by the altar, lighting a second taper.
"I told you to sit," she said gently. "I didn't tell you to despair."
"There is a difference?" Kaelen asked, his voice rough.
"A vast one." She moved to sit beside him, careful to leave space. "Pain is instruction, Kaelen. It tells you where your limits are. It does not tell you to stop; it tells you to rest."
"Alaric never rests."
"Alaric has never had to rebuild himself from the ground up," she countered. "You are building a different kind of house."
She reached into her sleeve and produced a small tin. "Comfrey and arnica. Apply it tonight. And tomorrow. Do not train tomorrow."
Kaelen frowned. "Father said '"
"Your father sees the horizon," she interrupted. "I see the boy limping toward it. Give the bruises two days to yellow. The sand will be there. The lesson will keep. If you train broken, you learn broken habits."
She placed the tin in his hand. Her fingers were cool.
"What do I do for two days?"
"Think," she said. "Pray. Replay the fight in your mind until you understand why you fell. The body heals slow, Kaelen. The mind heals fast. Let the mind work while the body knits."
She stood, brushing her skirts. "And ask the Unknown God to make your restraint a tool, not an excuse."
"Yes, Mother."
She kissed his forehead, a light pressure. "Rest. That is a command from your Queen."
Kaelen watched her go. He looked down at the tin in his hand. He closed his eyes and let the silence of the chapel settle the noise in his blood.
Rest, he thought. Then return.
….
The next two days were a blur of liniment, stiffness, and frustration. Kaelen spent them in the library and the gallery, pacing as much as his legs would allow, replaying the darkness of the inner ward over and over. He visualized the whoosh of the staff. He visualized the void.
By the evening of the second day, the purple bruises on his ribs had turned a sickly yellow-green. The limp was gone, replaced by a deep, manageable ache.
He couldn't wait any longer.
Twilight laid long blades of light across the training posts. The last squires had gone; the sand kept their boot-prints like a memory it hadn't finished with.
Kaelen walked into the yard. He felt different. Tighter. Wary.
He crossed to the rack. The longsword waited, heavy with its old argument. He ignored it. He took the two shorter practice blades 'plain, balanced near the guard.
He moved to the center post. He didn't explode into motion. He stood still.
He closed his eyes for a second, remembering the blindfold. He felt the wind. He felt the heat of the torches. He opened his eyes, but he kept his focus soft, taking in the whole yard rather than staring at the wood in front of him.
"Slow," he whispered.
He began the form. The Weaving.
He moved with agonizing slowness at first, respecting the ache in his ribs. Step, void, cut. Step, void, cut.
He imagined the ironwood staff. He imagined the pain.
He stepped into the imaginary swing, dipping his shoulder. His ribs twinged, a sharp reminder, but he pushed through it, spinning to the flank.
Right hand Edge. Left hand Ash.
He sped up. Just a fraction.
The rhythm flickered 'there, then gone.
Again.
The yard took his breath and gave back a beat. Right lied; left collected. Reverse it. He wasn't fighting the post anymore. He was fighting the space around it. He was moving efficiently to save his bruised body from unnecessary strain.
This was the secret, he realized. The style required fluidity because fluidity didn't hurt. Impact hurt. Resistance hurt. Flowing was painless.
He moved faster. The pain in his body became a guide 'if a movement hurt his ribs, it was too rigid. If it was smooth, it was painless. The injury was teaching him the form better than Deyric could.
Sweat fell from his jaw. The rhythm held through three sequences. Four.
The bell from the eastern tower sent a single note across the city. Kaelen let it count his pulse.
He finished the sequence and dropped to a knee to breathe. The sand was warm. He rose, shook feeling back into his hands, and spun the blades once.
"Not one cut," he said to the empty yard, owning the words this time. "Two. Always two."
…
Above the yard, the gallery arches caught the last light of day. Kaelen did not know he was watched.
King Aldrick stood there, a lone figure against the dying sun. No crown, no guard.
He leaned upon the stone rail as the boy below moved.
Aldrick noticed the stiffness in the boy's side 'the way Kaelen protected his right ribs. The boy was hurt. Badly. Most squires would be in the infirmary.
But Kaelen was here.
And he was moving differently.
The King watched the footwork. He saw Kaelen dip into a Void, protecting his injured side by vanishing from the line of attack before it could land. The injury had forced him to stop blocking and start slipping.
The Eastern Flow.
Aldrick's eyes narrowed. He remembered Oakhaven. He remembered the desperation of men who couldn't afford to be hit. Kaelen was fighting like them now. Not out of desperation, but out of necessity.
The boy wasn't fighting like a soldier. He was fighting like a Survivor.
Kaelen struck again, blades biting into the post. His breath tore from him, his body near collapse, but still he pressed forward.
Aldrick's hand flexed unconsciously at his side. The nobles' word 'Adequate 'echoed in his memory.
Fools, Aldrick thought, the ghost of a smile touching his iron face. They see a boy playing with knives. I see a wolf chewing its leg out of a trap.
The King turned at last, silent as he had come. He did not speak 'praise now would spoil the steel still in the fire. But in the quiet of his stride lingered a thought unvoiced:
This one bleeds to stand. Perhaps... perhaps he will be the one left standing.
Below, Kaelen fought until the torches sputtered low. Alone, but not unseen.