Chapter 37: What the Sword Demands
The days at the estate fell into rhythm, steady as a war drum, relentless as time itself.
And within that rhythm, two silhouettes, Vaelira and Lucien, moved against the grain of comfort, carving their spirits against stone and steel.
The sun hadn’t yet climbed the hills when the sound of grunts and strained breaths echoed through the dew-soaked grass of the training yard.
Lucien’s feet slapped against the dirt, boots soaked with morning moisture.
Each step jolted through his still-healing muscles, but he ran.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Beside him, Vaelira moved with the grace of someone born to war.
Her hair, usually neat, was tied in a tight braid, strands clinging to her face with sweat.
They didn’t speak.
They didn’t need to.
Their panting, footfalls, and the sharp thwack of wooden practice swords cutting through the air spoke for them.
Push-ups, squats, wall sits, plank holds, Lucien cursed every rep, every pulse of burn in his arms and legs.
Vaelira barked commands between her own sets, as relentless with herself as she was with him.
Their wooden swords clashed, not with finesse, but with raw, repeated brutality.
Swing.
Reset.
Swing.
Reset.
Over and over until their shoulders ached and their knuckles split.
Lucien collapsed onto the ground, breath gone, face smeared with dirt and pride.
Vaelira offered him a hand.
“Get up,” she said.
“The only thing worse than weakness… is staying weak.”
By midday, the battlefield shifted, from blades to bureaucracy, from sweat to sorting.
Lucien and Vaelira stood over crates of apples, clipboards in hand, issuing orders.
With their example tiers now standardized, the estate workers had joined the process, moving with precision and efficiency.
Still, supervision required vigilance.
“That’s Tier B. Not A,” Lucien corrected, pointing at a slightly bruised but still vibrant apple.
“Color consistency, remember?”
Vaelira, perched like a hawk on a crate, eyes sharp as ever, snapped at another worker,
“Watch the stem integrity! Just because it’s red doesn’t make it high-grade.”
They drank water in gulps between barked corrections.
Sometimes they paused to argue over minor apple traits, gloss, weight, even the vibe, before settling on shared criteria.
Exhausting?
Yes.
Necessary?
Absolutely.
Terrin passed by occasionally, throwing them a thumbs-up with a cheeky grin that made Lucien fantasize about throwing him into a crate himself.
By evening, the sun dipped low, casting the entire operation in gold.
Dozens of neatly packed crates bore the fruits of their labor, quite literally.
And when the stars emerged, and the estate began to quiet, two separate fires burned on opposite ends of the manor.
***
In the western yard, under the moonlight and the stern gaze of Sir Richardson, Vaelira stood before a thick training dummy.
Her hands gripped her blade like a prayer she hadn’t learned the words for yet.
“Again,” Richardson said, arms crossed.
Vaelira exhaled and moved.
The True Slash, a technique of impossible clarity, a singularity of intention and execution.
Her blade cut the air, almost right.
Almost.
But not quite.
“Again.”
She tried.
And failed.
And tried again.
Sweat soaked her training tunic, muscles trembling, jaw clenched so tight it ached.
Her strikes were beautiful.
They were powerful.
But they weren’t true.
Still, she did not stop.
Across the manor, in the quiet of the east wing study, Lucien sat surrounded by a wall of books, scrolls, and half-spent candles.
“A Practical Guide to Mana Infusion and Control, Chapter Four: Emotional Feedback Loops.”
He read, lips murmuring lines as his fingers traced glowing diagrams.
Scribbled notes filled loose parchment sheets beside him, formulas, mana theories, arithmetic notations, experimental modifications to classical runes.
His gaze drifted to the paper crane sitting on the desk, unmoving.
“What are you?”
He whispered to it.
“What am I?”
His hands, stained with ink and minor singe marks from spell attempts, hovered over the papers he used to test infusion.
He channeled mana, slowly, deliberately, only for the energy to lurch, twist, and react with strange feedback.
Unpredictable.
Unstable.
Yet potent.
Celeste’s words echoed in his mind:
“There have been others, Lucien. This isn’t unheard of. What matters is whether you find a way to shape it before it shapes you.”
So he tried.
Again and again.
If he couldn’t control it, he’d learn to work with it.
If it bucked like a wild beast, he’d tame it with knowledge and stubborn will.
He would not be left behind.
And as the estate slept.
The apples rested in their crates.
The staff snored.
But two souls, one under the sky, one under candlelight, pushed themselves further still.
Because the world would not wait.
And neither could they.
***
The blade carved through the air once again, but the angle was off, too low, too wide.
The impact rang out sharp and wrong as Vaelira’s sword struck the reinforced training dummy at a slant, the wood splintering as the force of the strike redirected sideways.
A shockwave of displaced mana followed, kicking up dirt and slicing through the wind with a high-pitched whistle.
She stumbled back.
Not from recoil, but from imbalance, her momentum threatening to drop her to one knee.
Before she could try again, a quiet voice cut through the aftermath.
“Vaelira,” Sir Richardson said, calm but firm.
“Stop.”
She froze, chest heaving, arm trembling from fatigue.
Her blade hung limply in her grip, a thread away from slipping out.
Her breath caught as she looked toward him, expecting rebuke.
Expecting criticism.
But when her eyes met his, there was neither disappointment nor anger.
Only concern.
Sir Richardson walked forward, slow, measured.
His boots left crisp imprints in the disturbed dust as he approached, the old coat slung over his shoulder catching the soft breeze.
“You’ve done enough for tonight,” he said gently.
“Lower your sword.”
Vaelira hesitated.
For a heartbeat, her fingers gripped the hilt tighter, defiance, shame, pride all flaring up in her chest like old flames, but something in his voice, something old and warm and patient, disarmed her.
Slowly, reluctantly, she lowered the blade.
It didn’t clatter to the ground, but it sank, just as she had.
Her shoulders followed.
The exhaustion she had kept at bay surged forward, overtaking her resolve like a wave pulling back from the shore.
Sir Richardson stood beside her now, his voice low.
“You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep this up,” he said.
“The True Slash is not something to be brute-forced.”
“I wasn’t trying to...” she started, but stopped herself, brow furrowed.
“…Then what was I doing wrong?”
Richardson looked toward the dummy, the rough training yard, the dents in the stone where her previous attempts had missed their mark entirely.
Then he looked at her.
“Of all the mana-infused techniques out there,” he said, “the True Slash demands something that can’t be measured in strength, speed, or even magical power. It needs something deeper.”
Vaelira’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“Intention,” he said simply.
She blinked.
“Intention?”
He chuckled, not unkindly.
“Magic, my dear girl, is not arithmetic. In mathematics, one plus one will always equal two. It is a constant. Rigid. Reliable.”
He looked down at his hand and then extended it, palm up, fingers splayed, as though conjuring a memory.
“But in magic,” he continued, “when two people cast the same spell… say, a fireball… it won’t always be the same.”
She frowned.
“But spell formulae-”
“Ah, yes, the formulas,” Richardson interrupted, nodding.
“The theory. The incantation. The circle, the glyphs, the intent vectors. We can strive to approximate an optimal result. Most do. But magic… is still a creature of will. A fireball cast from wrath will behave differently than one cast from fear. Or one cast to protect.”
Vaelira’s gaze dropped to her sword.
“The True Slash,” Richardson said, his voice softer now, “demands the full measure of your self. It is not a swing empowered by mana, it is a truth, your truth, given form. If you hesitate, if you lie to yourself… the technique fails. Or worse, it turns on you.”
She stared at the ground, at the scuffed dirt and the shimmer of spent mana in the air, fading like smoke.
“…But I want to do it,” she murmured.
“I am trying.”
“I know,” he said.
“Then why doesn’t it work?”
Richardson didn’t answer right away.
He walked past her, placing a hand on the training dummy, fingers brushing the new scar her latest attempt had carved into it.
“When I used it… that day,” he said, “I was desperate. Angry. Terrified, even. But in that moment, I did something I hadn’t done in years.”
Vaelira looked up at him.
“I told myself the truth,” he said.
“I admitted it. What I felt. What I wanted. What I feared. I stopped pretending. And the blade… followed.”
He turned back to her.
“It was a gamble. A dangerous one. But it worked.”
She clenched her fists at her sides.
Her knuckles turned white.
“What if… I can’t?”
She asked, barely above a whisper.
“What if I can’t be that honest?”
Richardson studied her.
“You’re not weak, Vaelira,” he said.
“You’re guarded.”
Her breath hitched.
That word, guarded, felt too close to the truth.
Too precise.
She hated how it landed.
“You carry your sword like a shield,” he said.
“Not to strike first, but to keep people away. You hide behind confidence. Pride. Discipline. But this technique doesn’t care about appearances. It demands your heart, plain and unarmored.”
She turned her face away, not in defiance, but in defense.
“I don’t even know what’s in there anymore,” she said, voice trembling in the cold air.
“Then it’s time you start looking,” Richardson said gently.
“And when you’re ready… not perfect, not unafraid, just ready… it’ll answer.”
A pause.
“Your sword doesn’t need perfection. It needs the truth.”
The silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken thoughts.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then, slowly, almost reluctantly, Vaelira looked up.
Her eyes shimmered with the barest trace of something raw.
She wiped at it before it could fall.
“…You sound quite fatherly.”
Richardson smiled faintly.
“Then I must be doing something right.”
She let out a soft, broken laugh.
***
The night air was cool against her skin as Vaelira stepped away from the training grounds, the faint echo of clashing steel and mana-splintered strikes still ringing in her ears.
Her hand brushed against the hilt at her hip, fingers twitching with muscle memory.
Every swing, every misfire, every breath had bled frustration, and yet it was his words that lingered most.
“Your sword doesn’t need perfection. It needs the truth.”
But what truth?
Her truth?
She walked through the winding halls of the manor, boots tapping softly against the stone, each footstep pulling her further from the weight of the sword and deeper into the gravity of thought.
Richardson’s words had struck something deep, deeper than she was ready to admit.
"You carry your sword like a shield."
Was that what she’d been doing all this time?
Hiding behind discipline, precision, performance?
Had she mistaken control for strength?
If the True Slash demanded she lay herself bare, then what was she even supposed to lay down?
She clenched her jaw, breath catching in her chest.
“The blade will follow the heart. But only if the heart knows what it wants.”
But what if hers didn’t?
The corridor narrowed as she approached the library.
Golden candlelight spilled faintly through the small crack in the door, casting flickering shadows across the floor.
She paused, standing before it, her hand hovering inches from the handle.
Part of her wanted to turn back, to not deal with any more riddles tonight.
But another part of her, the part that still remembered the warmth in Richardson’s eyes, the steady truth in his voice, pushed her forward.
‘Later,’ she told herself.
‘I’ll unravel it later.’
She pushed the door open.
And stopped.
The air within the library was alive.
Hundreds, no, thousands, of delicate, glowing paper cranes floated midair like tiny spirits.
They drifted in graceful spirals, rustled softly with the breath of movement, their pale wings catching the flicker of candlelight.
Some hovered in still orbits above open tomes and scrolls.
Others perched like sentinels along the shelves, silent and watchful.
And there, at the eye of the storm, sat Lucien.
A soft amber glow from a single candle lit his face, casting half of it in gentle shadow.
His hair was a mess, pushed back by one hand while the other scribbled furiously onto a notebook.
Books surrounded him like walls, titles on mana channeling, magical theory, aetheric flux patterns, and scattered between them were empty cups of cold tea, wrinkled pages, and scribbled calculations.
He looked up.
And smiled.
“Hey,” he said, his voice hoarse but warm.
“You’re just in time. I was starting to think I’d gone completely insane in here.”
Vaelira blinked, momentarily stunned by the surreal beauty of the sight before her.
The floating cranes danced lazily in the air between them, as if suspended in a quiet dream.
The flicker of candlelight softened everything, the chaos, the fatigue, even the sharp angles of Lucien’s normally sardonic features.
For just a moment, just one breath’s length of time, something fluttered in her chest.
A heartbeat out of rhythm.
A pause.
“…You’ve made quite the mess,” she finally said, stepping inside.
Lucien gave a half-laugh.
“Yeah, well, I was testing a theory on low-level autonomous mana imprinting. I may have overdone it with the replication rune.”
He gestured at the nearest paper crane, which obligingly dipped in a polite bow before fluttering away.
Vaelira watched it go, then turned her gaze back to him.
“You should be resting,” she said, arms crossed, but the words lacked bite.
They sounded more like concern than command.
Lucien grinned.
“So should you, Lady War Machine.”
She rolled her eyes, but the corners of her lips twitched upward.
He gestured to the seat beside him, and she hesitated only a moment before crossing the room, weaving between floating cranes and scattered ink stains to sit down.
She could still feel the ache in her muscles from earlier training, the weight of her own thoughts pressing behind her eyes.
And yet…
Sitting here, next to him, beneath the warm golden light and the quiet rustle of enchanted origami, felt oddly… peaceful.
She didn’t realize she’d gone quiet until he looked at her again.
“Tough day?”
He asked.
She looked down, her hands resting in her lap.
“…Just a complicated one.”
He nodded slowly, not pressing.
The moment between them wasn’t awkward.
It was just… full.
Full of questions neither was quite ready to ask, and emotions both were still learning to name.
Vaelira glanced sideways at him again.
‘Truth given form…’
And for a moment, her mind toyed with a dangerous, vulnerable thought: if she had to strike with her heart… then what if her heart was already beginning to betray her?
The flicker in her chest returned.
The flutter.
The danger.
She looked away.
“Do you have a moment to talk?”
She asked suddenly, voice soft.
Lucien looked at her for a long moment.
“Yeah,” he said, just as softly.
Another silence.
And in it, the cranes floated gently above them, as if trying to carry the weight of unspoken truths neither of them were ready to say aloud.
Yet.
***
