[POV Liselotte]

  Dawn had not yet fully broken over the horizon when my feet were already striking the stone floor of the King’s private training courtyard. The air was so cold that every breath I took turned into a small cloud of vapor that quickly dissipated. In front of me, William Whirikal was not wearing his pompous royal robes or his crown; instead, he wore reinforced leather armor, worn from years of use, and a practice sword that, in his hands, looked as lethal as the sharpest steel in the kingdom.

  We had barely spent an hour on what he called a “light warm-up,” but my training uniform was already soaked with sweat. William moved with an economy of motion that frustrated me. I unched thrusts enhanced by the physical strength Terra had given me, but he simply deflected them with a minimal twist of his wrist.

  “You’re fighting as if you were facing a snow bear, Lotte,” William said, stopping and lowering his weapon. His breathing was perfectly calm—an insulting contrast to my panting. “Your strength is impressive, worthy of a divine blessing, but your technique is… rustic.”

  I leaned on my knees for a moment, trying to catch my breath. “Your Majesty, when Master Kaelen trained me at the guild years ago, he had a clear objective: prepare me to face beasts, forest monsters, and creatures from demon territory. I wasn’t trained for duels of etiquette.”

  William nodded, his gaze turning severe. “Kaelen is a good tracker and a formidable beast syer, but there is an abysmal difference between fighting a beast and fighting a person… or an intelligent demon. A beast attacks with instinct; it is predictable in its ferocity. A man, on the other hand, attacks with deception. A feint is not just a false movement, Lotte—it’s a conversation you have with your enemy’s fear.”

  He walked toward me and motioned for me to assume my guard again. “You rely too much on brute force. If the enemy is stronger or can nullify your mana, you’re dead. Look at how you block: you put all your strength against the blow. That is a mistake. You must use inertia. If you block like that, your sword will break before his. Instead of cshing, you must slide. And when you evade, don’t jump like a frightened rabbit; move just enough so that his own momentum leaves him exposed.”

  For the next hour, the King gave me advanced lessons I had never heard at the academy. He taught me how to read an opponent’s shoulders, how to predict a thrust by the tension in the ankle, and how to perform feints that disoriented even my own senses. It was a combat style designed to kill humans in the most efficient way possible.

  “Now, watch this,” William said suddenly.

  He stepped about five meters away from a reinforced wooden post used as a target. I didn’t see him gather a rge amount of mana; there was no burst of energy. He simply performed a horizontal ssh in the air. To my surprise, the wooden post split cleanly, even though William’s sword was meters away.

  I was stunned. “What…? How did you increase the range of your strike?”

  William raised his sword. I could see a faint yellowish glow wrapping around the steel. “It’s not projected magic, Lotte. It’s a Mana Bde. I extended my energy so it becomes a physical extension of the bde. It’s sharper than any metal and allows you to strike where the enemy thinks they’re safe.”

  “I didn’t know mana could be maniputed with such precision without using an enchantment or a magic circle,” I murmured, approaching to examine the cut in the wood. It was perfect.

  The King sheathed his weapon and sat on a stone bench, gesturing for me to sit beside him. The atmosphere shifted; the instructor’s aura disappeared, repced by the mencholy of a man who had lived too long.

  “This power didn’t come from a book, Lotte. It came from desperation,” William began, looking at his calloused hands. “Many years ago, when I was just a young and arrogant prince, my father sent me to the Northern Mountains to investigate a sudden fire that was devouring the border forests. I arrived with a group of twelve soldiers—my best men, my friends.”

  He paused, and for a moment, I saw the young prince in his eyes.

  “It wasn’t a natural fire. While we were investigating the remains of a burned vilge, the sky darkened. A Great Dragon appeared—a creature with crimson scales that looked like a fragment of the sun fallen to earth. It attacked us without warning. My soldiers… sacrificed themselves. They formed a human wall, shouting for me to flee, that the kingdom needed its heir. I watched their steel weapons shatter against the dragon’s scales like toothpicks. Nothing could pierce that natural armor.”

  I felt a knot in my stomach. I knew what it was like to lose people in battle, but the scale of a Great Dragon was something even I feared.

  “I ran,” William continued, his voice growing dark. “The dragon followed me, enjoying the hunt. I managed to hide in a narrow cave, a deep crack in the mountain where the beast couldn’t enter. I took refuge in the depths, in a tiny crevice, holding my breath. Ironically, I had hidden in the dragon’s ir. I could smell its scent, see its accumuted treasures. I stayed there for hours, watching how none of my men’s weapons had left even a scratch on it. I was trapped.”

  “What did you do then, Your Majesty?” I asked, absorbed in the story.

  “I could only wait for it to sleep. When the silence grew deep and I heard its heavy breathing, I executed my escape pn. I slipped through the cave, but those creatures’ instincts are terrifying. It woke up immediately. It attacked me with such fury that my sword flew from my hands. In my desperation, I only had a magic light stone in my left hand—a simple object we used to see in the dark.”

  William clenched his fist.

  “I thought it was the end. I ran toward my sword without letting go of the magic stone. The dragon whipped its tail, which would have pulverized my bones, but I reduced the impact by jumping at the st instant to grab my sword. It was a suicidal move. When I turned around, the dragon tried to crush me with its cw. We exchanged attacks in a blur of violence… and suddenly, I saw the dragon’s limb fall. The cw—those impenetrable scales—had been cut like butter.”

  “Just like now…” I whispered.

  “Exactly. I looked at my sword and it was covered in vibrant magic, a blinding yellow glow. The magic stone had disappeared; at the moment of impact, my mana and the stone’s energy fused and flowed through the steel, creating a bde that ignored physical hardness. Fearing the effect would end, I attacked with everything I had. It wasn’t a fight—it was a sughter. I finished the dragon before it could process that its invulnerability was gone.”

  William sighed, the weight of years falling upon him.

  “It took me six years of painful experiments and spectacur failures to replicate that effect using only my own mana, without magic stones. And another four years to perfect it until it became a stable technique that wouldn’t destroy my own weapon. Today, that technique is the most closely guarded secret of House Whirikal.”

  He turned toward me, and his gaze became so intense I felt he could see my soul—Edward’s and Liselotte’s.

  “I have chosen to teach this to you, Lotte. Not only because you are my daughter’s guardian, but because you have what it takes to withstand the pressure of this technique. But before we begin real training with the Mana Bde…” The King stood up, his expression turning deadly serious. “…there is something very serious we need to talk about. Something that concerns your origin and Leah’s future.”

  Silence returned to the courtyard, but this time it was loaded with suspense that made my ice magic vibrate with unease. I knew that the confession I had made to Leah st night would not be the only secret to come to light.

  “I’m listening, Your Majesty,” I said, feeling that the real training was only just beginning.