Chapter 6: Realization and Training(3)

The ringing sound of the slap was gone, but the echo was still bouncing around Helenos’s skull, a high, sharp buzz that completely ruined the expensive silence of the palace.

He stood there, ten years old, touching his cheek, and felt about ten years of sarcastic, web-developer-Dodo commentary just drain right out of him like old dishwater.

He hadn’t been hit since he was maybe four in his old life, falling out of a tree or something dumb.

This felt different. This was like getting hit by a notification saying, "Your entire life strategy has crashed and burned.

" He’d spent years thinking he was playing this chill, low-stakes game of being a cute, lovable dummy, and his sister—Clytemnestra, his personal, all-day bodyguard—had just reminded him that the stakes were actually massive warships and being sold into slavery, not who got the last piece of cake.

What an idiot, he thought, not about Clytemnestra, but totally about himself. I was sitting here trying to hit max score on the ‘Adorability’ metric when the whole damn world was demanding a ‘Danger Rating.’

He watched Clytemnestra stumble away, her shoulders shaking, completely freaked out by what she’d just done. She hadn't been trying to injure him; she was trying to wake him up. That slap wasn't anger; it was pure, unadulterated panic.

And finally, he got the message. It was loud and clear. And, nope, it didn’t come with any system prompt because there was never a system in the first place.

He’d really tried. Yelled for a menu, looked for the tutorial, checked for the stupid health bar.

Nothing.

The quiet, horrifying truth was that he was just Dodo, a guy shoved into a terrifyingly beautiful body named Helenos, in a world that ran on blood and bronze, not code. It wasn't some cheap fantasy game with lazy programmers; this was real life in a nightmare setting.

A place with warrior Queens, weird prophecies, and gods who were gigantic swan-women. A world where he was literally just a super valuable, super breakable thing everyone wanted to own or trade.

The slap had completely shattered his last bit of delusion. His strategy of becoming an irritating, harmless puppy was a total fail. It made him adorable, sure, but also super disposable.

Leda might love him, but she should love the stability of her power more. And when Queen Hippolyte showed up last week with half a fleet and a trade contract, Leda’s hand was twitching furiously, as if to shake hands with her.

“A perfect ornament,” Hippolyte had called him. An ornament. Like a porcelain doll. A gorgeous, high-value doll that, if broken, was only good for the trash heap.

Dodo, the former programmer who used to fix massive, messy websites, walked back to his overly fancy, silk-lined room and stared at himself in the polished bronze mirror. The face staring back—Helenos’s face—was ridiculously pretty. Too pretty. That was the whole problem. It was a giant bullseye painted on his back.

He reached up and gently rubbed the spot on his cheek that still stung.

Right. Time for a full re-architecture. I need to scrap everything.

His old life was all about screens, logic, and predicting user clicks. His life now was about metal, violence, and guessing which Queen was going to betray his mother first. The rules had changed completely, so he had to change his entire approach

He had to learn how a fight and protect himself. Or at least, somebody who knew how to stop a person from running a knife into his ribs.

The idea was hilarious. He was Helenos. He got oiled and manicured every single morning. He was forced to wear elaborate, heavy, floaty linens that would trip up a mountain goat. His experience in fighting was less than zero.

But Dodo, the practical thinker, was back in charge. He looked at the problem like a high-stakes, real-world project with zero budget and impossible requirements. He ran a mental inventory of his situation, ditching all the fantasy ideas.

I’ll have to get skills to stop myself from being snatched or killed right away.

My body is a ten-year-old boy. I have no strength, no energy. I don't know how to punch or stab. I stick out like a sore thumb.

The palace is max security. I'm surrounded by highly-trained guards who are liabilities because they’d tell on me. Clytemnestra watching me all the time is the main roadblock.

I can get money later, but I have absolutely no access to weapons, training gear, or privacy right now.

My first move has to be sneakiness and finding a replacement.

I need a teacher no one in the Queen’s circle ever notices.

I need a place to train that’s low-traffic and stinks bad enough that Clytemnestra won’t hang around.

I need an excuse for being there regularly that appeals to Leda’s fears (superstition is my way in).

He needed a teacher. And it had to be secret.

He remembered the stable hands. The palace kept a small, mostly for-show stable for Leda’s prize horses. The horses were cared for by women—older, silent women who looked tired and smelled of hay and leather. These women didn't wear silk; they wore rough tunics and had hands that were scarred and rough. They were beneath the notice of Leda and Clytemnestra. They were irrelevant.

This is perfect, Dodo thought. Find the person who does the dirty work no one else wants. They probably have skills no one respects.

He waited for a week, observing the tiny, almost invisible cracks in the palace’s security schedule.

Leda had two big meetings a week with the merchant guilds. They lasted exactly two hours and fifteen minutes. Clytemnestra would usually stand guard right outside his door for the first hour, then wander down to the armory to check the supply list, leaving his immediate area.

His chance: 20 minutes, twice a week. That was his entire training program.

He put his plan into action.

“Mother,” Helenos asked Leda one afternoon, pulling his most innocent, huge-eyed face—the one he’d perfected for skipping his horrible geography lessons. “The gods are sending me messages. About the horses. They say I have to feed the horses a special oat from my own hand, or they’ll curse the palace with terrible bad luck.”

Leda, who was as easily spooked as all the Queens, immediately frowned. “The Swan Queen sent you this message?”

“It was definitely a Queen,” Helenos replied, nodding super seriously. “A very angry-sounding one. Said something about ‘proper grain distribution’ being linked to ‘divine favor.’” He was using his inner Dodo-logic to play on Ledalevel anxiety.

Leda, stressed about a coming drought, totally bought it. “Very well. Elara, take the boy to the stables. But stay close. And make absolutely sure he doesn’t get any dirt on his robes.”

The next day, Helenos was walked over to the stables. The air was wonderfully gross. It smelled like earth, sweat, and animal, a really nice change from the suffocating lavender and incense of his bedroom.

A woman was rubbing down a massive, black stallion. She was old, maybe sixty, with a back that looked permanently hunched from years of hard work.

She was missing three fingers on her left hand. She was beautiful in a weathered, sharp way, like a mountain peak.

“This is Lysandra,” Elara, the nervous manager, whispered to Helenos. “She manages the horses. Do your offering quickly, little Lord. Time is short.”

Helenos ignored her. He held out the handful of fancy oats to the stallion, let it chew, and then turned to Lysandra.

Helenos held out the handful of fancy oats to the stallion, let it chew, and then turned to Lysandra.

She ignored him, continuing her work with slow, careful strokes. Her silence was the most honest thing Helenos had heard in years. No fawning, no praising his perfect hair.

“Lysandra,” Helenos whispered, keeping his voice low so Elara, standing faraway, wouldn't overhear. “I need a service. A dangerous service. One prince to one who gets things done.”

Lysandra stopped brushing. Slowly, she looked up. Her eyes were the color of faded slate, deeply lined with sun and work, and they held an ancient, tired sharpness that Helenos instantly recognized.

“I am a stable woman, boy,” Lysandra grunted, her voice dry and rough. “I deal with dirt and hooves. Not favors.”

“And you,” Helenos countered, pointing with a finger that was too soft and white. “You have scars. You have a missing hand. You are not one of the useless men. You are one of the capable women, but you are placed low. I am placed high, but I am just as helpless. My life is a trade agreement.”

Lysandra smarked, a brief, harsh twist of her lips. “The hand was a horse, boy. Not a sword. And I am a worker, which means my life is controlled. Just like yours.”

“You’re right,” Helenos admitted, keeping his voice flat and serious. “My life is a trade agreement. And an asset that can’t defend itself is worthless. Easily traded for a fleet of fifty warships. Queen Hippolyte wanted to buy me last week. You teach me to be a problem, and I will find a way to get you… whatever you want. Money. Influence. Better footing.”

Lysandra stared at the boy. The face was the most famous, most valuable thing in the kingdom. The body was a soft, pale joke wrapped in gold thread. But the eyes—the eyes were cold, calculating, and absolutely terrified. The look was not that of a spoiled prince but of a cornered little animal making a desperate, logical deal.

“You’re too soft,” Lysandra stated flatly, picking up a pitchfork. “You’ll cry when the leather hits you.”

Helenos simply lifted his chin, his eyes locking onto hers. He didn't speak. He just held the cold, controlled desperation he felt inside, letting her see that he was serious business, not a spoiled child. He was offering a life-changing trade for the most dangerous lesson in the palace.

Lysandra held his gaze for a long moment, then her expression shifted from mockery to a cold, grudging respect for his nerve.

“I’ll cry when I’m getting loaded onto Queen Hippolyte’s boat,” Helenos finally said, his voice low and steady. “I’ll cry then. Not now. I'll take the dirt. I'll take the pain. Just tell me what to do, Coach. I have about fourteen minutes left before my babysitter finds an ant and has a nervous breakdown.”

Lysandra finally smiled, not the ugly twist from before, but a thin, almost invisible curve of the lips. It looked like the kind of smile you made right before you pulled a knife.

She set the pitchfork down.

“First lesson is this, little Prince. You have one thing that matters more than your face.”

“My cleverness?” Helenos guessed.

“Your hands,” Lysandra said, grabbing Helenos’s wrist. Her grip was rough and strong. “They’re clean. They’re white. They’re useless. A warrior’s hands have to be tools. Yours are just decorations. Go back to your room. Find a stone. Any stone. And you will not stop rubbing it, squeezing it, and wearing it down until the skin is gone. You do that for two days. Then you come back. I want to see calluses, not oil.”

She let go. The skin on Helenos’s wrist was bright red where her fingers had pressed.

“If you tell anyone,” Lysandra continued, her voice low and completely serious, “your mother will kill me first. Then she’ll get you imprisoned in your room. Don’t be a fool. Be someone who can hurt.”

Helenos nodded, a wave of cold, focusing adrenaline washing over him. This was it.

“Okay,” he said, turning back to Elara, who was waiting from far away. “The horses are blessed. ”

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