Advanced
Hand-to-Hand Combat – 07:10 – 2nd Quarter, 2394
The
mat smells like old sweat and antiseptic resin. Blood has soaked into
it over the years, scrubbed out poorly, never forgotten. Instructor
Manius Veyron paces the edge of the sparring floor with his hands
clasped behind his back, voice calm, measured, merciless.
“Size advantage,” he
says, mid-lecture, “is a lie you tell yourself when you don’t
wanna learn how to survive.”
He stops. Turns. His dark
eyes rake across the line of cadets standing barefoot on the mat.
“Strength fails. Reach
fails. Speed fails. Pain always comes.” A pause. “The question is
whether you panic when it does.”
Lucille stands third from
the left.
At nineteen, she is leaner
than she was at fifteen, harder in ways that don’t show until she
moves. Her shoulders are corded, her hands scarred. Bruises bloom
along her ribs beneath the fitted combat tunic, old ones, yellowing.
She keeps her posture perfect, chin level, eyes forward. She is still
smaller than everyone else.
Veyron’s gaze finds her
anyway. It always does.
“Advanced hand-to-hand,”
he continues, “assumes your opponent wants you dead. No points. No
mercy. No correction mid-engagement.” His eyes flick briefly to
Cain Aurellius, Seraphine Veyra, then to Dacien Voltur, Caius Verran.
“If you hesitate, you lose something that won’t grow back.”
A thin smile ghosts across
his mouth. “Pairs.”
The line breaks instantly.
They circle like wolves
pretending not to bare their teeth.
Lucille doesn’t choose.
She never has to.
Caius Verran steps into her
space without asking. He is taller by nearly a head, shoulders broad,
knuckles already scarred thick from years of striking bone. He grins
down at her, just enough to be seen.
“Try not to cry this
time,” he murmurs.
Around them, the mat fills
with motion, bodies colliding, breath snapping, the wet sound of skin
on skin. Someone goes down hard to Lucille’s left. Veyron does not
look.
Lucille exhales once. Her
stance shifts.
Veyron’s voice cuts
through the noise. “Begin.”
Caius lunges immediately,
brute confidence behind it, aiming to overwhelm. Lucille pivots
instead of retreating, slips inside his reach where his size becomes
a liability. His forearm clips her shoulder, pain flashes white, but
she does not slow.
She hooks his wrist. Drops
her weight. Drives her knee up into his inner thigh.
He snarls, more surprised
than hurt, and swings wide. She ducks, too slow by a breath, his
elbow grazes her temple, stars bursting behind her eyes, but she
keeps moving, always moving, hands finding joints, pressure points
Manius drilled into her until she dreamed of them.
Someone laughs. Someone
else shouts encouragement that sounds like mockery.
Caius grabs for her collar.
Lucille lets him. She
twists at the last second, using his grip to pull herself closer,
forehead slamming into his nose with a dull, sickening crack. He
staggers. She doesn’t stop. Elbow. Heel. Another knee.
He goes down choking on
blood and breath.
Silence ripples outward in
a small, stunned wave.
Lucille stands over him,
chest heaving, knuckles split, blood, his blood, warm along her
fingers. Her vision swims, but she stays upright.
Veyron finally steps
forward.
“That,” he says calmly,
“is why you never underestimate someone who knows how to bleed.”
His eyes linger on Lucille
a second longer than the rest.
Caius is dragged off the
mat, swearing, face ruined. The other cadets look at her differently
now. Not with respect. With calculation.
Lucille wipes her hands on
her trousers and returns to the line. She does not smile. She already
knows what comes after this class.
Manius Veyron does not stop
speaking when Caius Voltur goes down.
He does not raise his
voice. He does not rush. He does not even look particularly surprised
when the larger boy collapses with a choked gasp, clutching at his
arm where Lucille’s elbow has driven the breath, and something
else, out of him.
“Clear the mat,” Veyron
says calmly, still pacing. “Medic.”
Two orderlies move in.
Caius is dragged back, face pale, eyes unfocused. Blood beads where
skin has split. Someone retches quietly at the edge of the room.
Veyron turns back to the
class as if nothing has happened.
“Pain is a teacher,” he
continues. “But it is not the lesson. The lesson is control.
You do not fight to hurt. You fight to end the threat.”
His gaze cuts to Lucille.
Not accusing. Assessing.
She stands where she is,
chest rising and falling, knuckles already bruising. Smaller than
nearly everyone in the room. Breathing steady anyway.
Cain watches her from
across the mat, jaw tight. He knows that look in her eyes now. He
hates it. He never tells her that.
“Pair up again,” Veyron
says. “New partners.”
The room shifts. Boots
scrape. Bodies reposition.
Seraphine Veyra steps
forward.
She is taller than Lucille
by several inches, broader through the shoulders, dark hair pulled
back tight. One of the few other girls in the combat track, and the
only one who has ever been able to match Lucille strike for strike
without faltering.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
A murmur ripples through
the class.
Cain’s eyes flick between
them. He starts to speak, then stops. There is no point.
Veyron nods once. “Good.
Begin.”
They circle.
At first, it is
even.
Seraphine moves well,
measured steps, tight guard, textbook precision. Lucille mirrors her,
light on her feet, hands open, posture loose in a way that belies how
fast she can close distance.
They trade probes. A wrist
catch. A shoulder check. A low sweep that Lucille hops over by
inches.
Seraphine smirks. “Still
hidin' behind tricks?” she murmurs, just loud enough. “Thought
you’d grown out of that, Domitian.”
Lucille’s jaw tightens.
Seraphine presses, faster
now, forcing Lucille back step by step. Strength matters here. Weight
matters. Seraphine uses it, drives her toward the edge of the mat.
“You know,” Seraphine
continues, breath barely disturbed, “for someone who’s supposed
to be special, you bleed like the rest of us. Smaller, too.”
Lucille’s heel hits the
boundary line.
Something in her snaps, not
loudly. Quietly. Like a cord pulled too tight. She stops retreating.
Seraphine lunges,
confident. Lucille slips inside the strike. Her elbow comes up, not
wild, not desperate, precise. It smashes into Seraphine’s
collarbone, just below the neck. Seraphine gasps, staggered.
Lucille doesn’t give her
space. She hooks Seraphine’s arm, twists, steps through, and drives
her knee into Seraphine’s thigh. Once. Twice. Bone on bone. The
joint buckles.
Seraphine cries out.
Lucille takes her down hard.
The mat slams as
Seraphine hits, air knocked from her lungs. Lucille follows her down,
weight forward, forearm across Seraphine’s throat, not crushing,
not yet, but close enough that Seraphine feels how easily it could
be.
Lucille leans in, eyes
cold. “Don’t mistake size for safety,” she says quietly. “It
never has been.”
For a heartbeat, no one
breathes.
Then Veyron’s voice cuts
through the tension like a blade.
“Enough.”
Lucille releases
immediately, rising to her feet, stepping back without protest.
Seraphine lies there
coughing, eyes wide, not with pain alone, but something closer to
fear.
Cain exhales slowly. His
hands unclench. Pride simmers in his chest.
Veyron steps between them,
looking down at Seraphine, then up at Lucille.
“Good,” he says simply.
“Both of you.”
The word lands heavier than
praise.
“Remember this,” Veyron
adds to the class. “Skill does not announce itself. It ends
things.”
His gaze sweeps the room.
“And anyone who thinks
that mercy is weakness,” he says, eyes lingering on Lucille, “has
not yet learned how dangerous restraint truly is.”
The lesson continues. But
no one forgets how quickly it turned.
The mat resets. Blood is
wiped away with rough towels. Manius Veyron’s voice never rises,
never softens.
“Again,” he says.
“Pairings rotate.”
Cadets move. Boots scuff
stone. Someone groans as Caius is hauled off to the side, a medic
kneeling to bind his arm. The rest are already reforming lines.
Lucille is told to sit out.
She does not argue. She
wipes her hands clean on a cloth that is already stained dark, flexes
her fingers, and lowers herself onto the edge of the mat. Her
knuckles throb in time with her pulse. She welcomes it. Pain means
she is still sharp.
Cain Aurellius steps
forward.
He is paired with Dacien
Voltur this time, taller, broader, smug with it. Dacien rolls his
shoulders, cracks his neck, grins like this is going to be easy.
Manius does not correct
him.
“Begin.”
Dacien lunges.
Cain does not retreat. He
pivots, just enough. Dacien’s grip closes on empty air, and Cain is
already inside his guard. An elbow snaps up into Dacien’s throat,
not full force, controlled to the edge of legality, but it steals his
breath. Cain’s foot hooks behind Dacien’s ankle. A twist of the
hips. A shove.
Dacien hits the mat hard.
Cain follows him down, knee
pinning the chest, forearm pressing across the jaw. He does not
strike again. He does not need to.
Manius raises a hand.
“Yield?”
Dacien slaps the stone,
coughing.
Cain rises immediately,
stepping back, offering a hand that Dacien refuses. Cain does not
react. He simply returns to position, calm as still water.
A ripple moves through the
watching cadets. Not awe. Something uglier.
Lucille watches him
closely. The precision. The restraint. How he never wastes motion.
Cain fights like someone who expects the world to break if he pushes
too hard, and knows exactly how far to go.
She scrubs at her hands
again. The blood has already crusted in the lines of her skin.
The whispers start.
“Of course he wins. He’s
Aurellius.”
“She only looks good next
to him.”
“Bet she cried when Caius
hit her.”
Lucille does not turn her
head.
Another voice, sharper.
“She fights like a feral thing. No form. Just bites and claws.”
Her jaw tightens. She
presses her thumb into her palm until it hurts more than the words.
Cain is already moving
again, paired with another cadet, then another. Each bout ends the
same way, fast, decisive, clean. Manius watches him with open
interest, correcting only the smallest details. A wrist angle. A
stance adjustment.
Lucille memorizes them all.
She feels Seraphine’s
eyes on her from across the mat. Feels the heat of resentment, the
promise of another confrontation later. She ignores it.
She focuses on Cain’s
breathing. On his footwork. On the way he never looks angry when he
fights.
When the class finally
breaks, Manius’ voice cuts through the noise.
“Remember this,” he
says. “Skill earns envy. Envy earns violence. You will learn to
survive both.”
Lucille rises with the
others, hands clean now, heart steady. The whispers follow her off
the mat.
Advanced Hand-to-Hand
Combat – 08:10 The End of Class
The
room empties in pieces. Boots scrape against the stone floor.
Sweat-darkened uniforms brush past one another. Low voices carry
without trying to be quiet, there is no need. The sparring hall
always echoes, and cruelty thrives in echoes.
Lucille sits on the edge of
the mat, shoulders forward, elbows on her knees. Her hands rest in
Cain’s, palms up, skin split and raw beneath drying blood. Cain
kneels in front of her, methodical, focused, wrapping fresh bandages
with practiced care.
“Careful,” she mutters
when he tightens one loop too much.
“Hold still,” Cain
replies softly, not looking up. He loosens it by a fraction anyway.
Cadets file past them.
“Still think she’s
special?”
“Little butcher needs
knives to win.”
“Watch your back if you
spar her. She fights like an animal.”
“Funny how the mutt
always ends up bleeding.”
One laughs. Another snorts.
Someone makes a crude sound meant to imitate a growl.
“Of course he
sticks with her.”
“Prince’s pet.”
“Slumming it, Aurellius?”
“Careful, Cain. She might
bite.”
Cain doesn’t react. He
doesn’t stiffen, doesn’t glance up, doesn’t slow his hands. The
bandage goes on smooth, clean, white over red. He has learned, long
ago, how to let words slide off him like rain on armor.
Lucille has not. Her jaw
tightens. A low sound crawls up from her chest before she can stop
it, more breath than voice. A warning noise. Her fingers curl
instinctively, and Cain catches it, steadying her hands before she
can tear the fresh wrap open.
“Lu,” he murmurs. Just
that. A quiet anchor.
She exhales through her
nose. Forces the sound down. Swallows it.
“They shouldn’t—”
she starts.
Cain finally looks up at
her then, pale eyes steady. “They don’t matter.”
“They do when it’s
you,” she snaps, sharper than she means to. Her eyes flick toward
the door, toward the last cadets disappearing down the corridor. “I
don’t care what they say about me. But you—”
“I can handle it.” A
faint smile ghosts his mouth. Not amused. Certain. “I always have.”
She looks away, embarrassed
by how much it bothers her. Embarrassed that it shows at all.
Cain finishes the last wrap
and ties it off neatly. He doesn’t let go right away.
“You were good today,”
he says.
Lucille huffs. “I almost
lost control.”
“You didn’t.” His
thumbs brush lightly over the bandages, testing the tension. “You
adapted. You waited. You took her balance and ended it clean.”
She glances back at him,
surprised despite herself. “You watched that closely?”
“I always do.”
There’s something in his
voice when he says it, quiet admiration, unguarded. He looks at her
like he did during his own match earlier, when she’d watched him
dismantle another cadet in seconds: calm, precise, devastating. No
wasted motion. No cruelty. Just inevitability.
“I like watching you
fight,” Cain adds, before he can stop himself.
Lucille blinks.
“Like—” He clears his
throat, ears coloring faintly. “Not like that. I mean. You’re…
you’re smart about it. You don’t just hit. You think.”
She stares at him for a
heartbeat longer than necessary, then looks down at her hands again,
suddenly very interested in the bandages.
“Oh,” she says.
“Thanks.” The word comes out smaller than intended.
Cain smiles despite himself
and finally releases her hands. He stands, offering her an arm
without thinking. She takes it, pushing herself up with a wince.
They head for the door
together. Behind them, the sparring hall lies empty and stained, the
air still thick with sweat and resentment. Tomorrow, it will start
again.
