(The Training Yard of Runestone - Spring, 126 AC)
The sound of steel hitting stone was sharp and ugly.
Aeryn Royce-Targaryen was on his knees in the mud. His practice sword, a dulled tourney blade, lay five feet away. His chest heaved, his breath coming in ragged, white plumes in the cold morning air.
Standing over him was Ser Vardis Egen, the Captain of the Bronze Guard. Vardis looked uncomfortable. He held his own sword loosely, refusing to press the advantage against his liege lord.
"My Prince," Vardis said gently, offering a hand. "Perhaps that is enough for today. The mud is slippery."
Aeryn ignored the hand. He looked at his own left arm. The mechanical brace of copper and steel was locked tight, but the flesh beneath it—the scarred, burned ruin left by Vermithor's fire years ago—had spasmed.
"It wasn't the mud," Aeryn said, his voice low and dangerous. "It was the grip. When I tried to raise the shield to block your overhead strike, the nerves in my forearm failed to conduct the signal. My fingers opened. The shield dropped."
He stood up, using his cane to leverage himself. He didn't look angry in the way a normal boy would be angry. He looked like an engineer looking at a broken piston.
"A knights training relies on the shield," Aeryn muttered, analyzing the failure. "The Westerosi style requires two functional quadrants: the sword arm for offense, the shield arm for defense. If one quadrant fails, the system collapses."
"You are a dragonrider, My Lord," Vardis tried to console him. "You do not need to fight in the shield wall. You have the sky."
Aeryn picked up his practice sword with his right hand—his good hand.
"And if I am grounded?" Aeryn asked. "If an assassin comes into my bedroom? Do I call Vermithor to burn the castle down? No."
He threw the sword into the rack with a clatter.
"This style is inefficient for my chassis. I am trying to drive a carriage with three wheels."
Aeryn turned and walked toward the castle.
"Dismissed, Ser Vardis."
...
(The Solar - That Night)
Aeryn sat at his desk. He was not looking at grain reports or spy whispers. He was looking at a letter he had just drafted.
It was addressed to the Sealord of Braavos.
To the Keeper of the Titan,
I require a teacher. Do not send me a soldier. Soldiers are trained to die in lines.
I require a survivor.
Find me the First Sword who lost his hand and lived to kill the man who took it.
Price is irrelevant.
Aeryn sealed the letter with green wax.
He had heard stories of the Water Dancers. They didn't use shields. They didn't wear heavy plate that required broad shoulders to carry. They turned their bodies sideways. They made themselves thin. They fought with a single blade, using speed and balance to compensate for lack of mass.
It was the only logical patch for his hardware.
...
(The Port of Runestone - Three Weeks Later)
The ship that docked was a sleek Braavosi galley with purple sails.
Aeryn waited on the pier. He had prepared a bag of gold. A heavy one.
A man disembarked. He was not what the onlookers expected. He was short, balding, and wore a vest of boiled leather that had seen better days. But the most striking thing about him was his left arm.
It ended at the wrist. A clean, old stump, wrapped in silk.
He walked down the gangplank with a strange, fluid grace, as if he were stepping on water rather than wood.
He stopped before the Prince. He looked at Aeryn's brace. He looked at the cane.
"You are the boy with the broken toy parts," the man said. His Common Tongue was thick with the lilting accent of the Secret City.
"I am the Prince of Runestone," Aeryn corrected.
"A title is just a hat," the man said, unimpressed. "I am Loro Antaryon. Once First Sword. Once owner of two hands." He raised his stump. "Now, I am just Loro."
"I heard you killed three Bravos in an alley after you lost that hand," Aeryn said.
"Four," Loro corrected. "The fourth one ran, but he bled out before he reached the canal."
Aeryn nodded. He signaled to Casper, who stepped forward with a chest.
"Ten thousand gold dragons," Aeryn said. "For six months of your time."
Loro opened the chest. He looked at the gold. He didn't smile.
"This is a lot of metal," Loro said. "You think you can buy skill, boy? You think you pour gold into your head and sword mastery comes out your ears?"
"I am not buying skill," Aeryn said. "I am buying data. I want you to reprogram my muscle memory. I want you to teach me how to function with half a body."
Loro looked at him closely. He saw the cold calculation in the violet eyes. He saw the lack of vanity.
"Very well," Loro said, closing the chest with his foot. "But we do not start with swords. We start with cats."
...
(The East Courtyard - Month 1)
"Catch it."
Aeryn stood in the center of the yard. He was blindfolded.
"Catch what?"
"The cat," Loro yelled from the sidelines.
Something furry and frantic hit Aeryn's chest, scratched him, and scrambled away. Aeryn flailed, trying to grab it. He stumbled over his own cane and fell hard onto the cobblestones.
"Dead," Loro announced cheerfully. "The cat is an assassin. You are a corpse."
"This is ridiculous," Aeryn spat, wiping blood from his cheek. "I need to learn parries. I need to learn thrusts."
"You need to learn where you are!" Loro barked. He walked over and tapped Aeryn's mechanical brace with a wooden stick. Clack. Clack.
"You are heavy on the left," Loro explained. "That metal leg... it anchors you. You fight like a statue. A statue falls when pushed. You must be water. Water flows around the stone."
Loro kicked Aeryn's cane away.
"Stand up. Without the stick."
Aeryn gritted his teeth. He forced his body up. His left leg trembled, the servos in the brace whining slightly.
"Balance," Loro commanded. "Shift your weight to the right. Your right side is the pillar. Your left side is the shadow. Do not lean on the metal. Let the metal hang from you."
For the next four weeks, Aeryn did not touch a blade. He stood on one leg for hours. He walked across thin beams of wood suspended over mud. He learned to trust his good leg so completely that his mechanical one became just a counterweight, a pendulum that helped him swing rather than a dead weight that held him back.
...
(The Tower of the Moon - Month 3)
"Faster."
Aeryn lunged. He held a thin, wooden waster—a stick, really.
Loro stood ten feet away, holding a similar stick in his single hand.
Aeryn thrust. Loro stepped aside. He didn't block. He didn't even raise his weapon. He just... wasn't there anymore.
Thwack.
Loro's stick hit Aeryn's shoulder.
"Dead," Loro said.
"I am faster than before," Aeryn argued, sweating.
"You are fast with your hand," Loro corrected. "But your eyes are slow. You look at my sword. Why? My sword is just a tool. Look at my shoulder. Look at my hip."
Loro took a stance.
"The Westerosi knight looks at the steel because he fears the cut," the Braavosi explained. "The Water Dancer looks at the man because he intends to be the cut."
He pointed to Aeryn's burned left hand, locked in the brace.
"You mourn that hand," Loro said softly. "You treat it like a dead brother you are dragging around. Stop it."
"It is useless," Aeryn said.
"It is armor," Loro snapped. "It is metal and copper and leather. If a blade hits it, do you bleed?"
"No."
"Then it is a shield!" Loro yelled. "Use it! You cannot grip a shield, so you are the shield. Present the metal side. Hide the flesh side."
Aeryn paused. He looked at his brace. He had always tried to protect it, to keep the deformity hidden.
He turned his body. He presented the copper-plated profile of his left arm to Loro. He tucked his chin behind the metal shoulder guard.
"Come," Aeryn said.
Loro smiled. He lunged.
This time, Aeryn didn't try to parry with his sword. He let Loro's stick strike his metal forearm. CLANG. The wood bounced off the copper.
In that split second of impact, while Loro's weapon was checked, Aeryn's right hand lashed out like a viper. The point of his wooden sword stopped an inch from Loro's throat.
Loro lowered his stick.
"Not dead," Loro whispered. "Dangerous."
...
(The Cliffs - Month 6)
It was the final day of the contract.
They stood on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the Narrow Sea. The wind was fierce, enough to knock a lesser man down.
Aeryn held a real sword now. It was a custom blade he had forged himself—lighter than a longsword, slightly curved, perfectly balanced for a one-handed grip.
Loro drew his own blade, a needle-thin rapier of Bravoosian steel.
"Ten thousand gold dragons," Loro said, testing the air with his blade. "Let us see if you got your money's worth."
He attacked.
He didn't hold back. It was a flurry of steel, a blur of motion intended to overwhelm.
Aeryn moved.
He didn't block. He flowed. He pivoted on his right heel, letting the attacks whistle past him by inches. When he couldn't dodge, he raised his mechanical arm, deflecting the strikes with the hardened bronze plates of his brace. Clang. Spark. Clang.
He was fighting in a rhythm that belonged to him alone. Asymmetrical warfare.
Deflect with the metal. Strike with the steel.
Loro feinted high, then went low for the knee. Aeryn saw the hip drop. He anticipated.
Aeryn stepped into the attack. He slammed his bronze shoulder into Loro's chest, using the weight of the brace as a battering ram. Loro stumbled back, breathless.
Before the master could recover, Aeryn's blade was resting on his chest, right over the heart.
The wind howled around them.
Loro looked down at the blade. Then he looked up at the Prince.
"You are not a Water Dancer," Loro said, sheathing his sword.
Aeryn lowered his weapon. "No?"
"No," Loro shook his head. "Water is soft. You... you are something else. You are the rock that breaks the wave."
He extended his single hand.
"The contract is fulfilled."
Aeryn shook it. His grip was iron.
"You will stay for dinner?" Aeryn asked.
"No," Loro said, turning toward the port. "A ship leaves with the tide. My pockets are heavy with gold, and I have a tavern in Braavos that misses me."
He stopped and looked back one last time.
"One piece of advice, Prince of Bronze. Before I go."
"Speak."
"You have learned to fight with your body," Loro said, tapping his temple. "But you still fight with your head. You calculate every step. You do the math of the kill."
"Precision is my strength," Aeryn replied.
"Maybe," Loro shrugged. "But someday, boy, the math will not add up. Someday, you will face a monster that does not care about your numbers. On that day... do not think. Just dance."
Loro Antaryon walked away, disappearing down the cliff path.
Aeryn stood alone on the precipice. He looked at his reflection in the steel of his new sword. He didn't see a cripple. He didn't see a victim of fire.
He saw a weapon. Optimized. Calibrated. Deadly.
He sheathed the sword.
"I don't dance," Aeryn whispered to the sea. "I execute."
He turned back toward Runestone. He had a kingdom to run, and now, he knew exactly how to defend it.