Finding Estovan is never difficult.

  If the man isn’t at my father’s side, that means only one thing: he is busy training. Today, I didn’t find him outside my father’s office, and so I wasn’t surprised at all to find him in the manor’s sparring arena.

  He was still when I found him, sitting cross-legged in front of the raised platform. A rapier lay at his side. When I drew close, I realized he had his eyes closed.

  It felt rude to interrupt a man who was obviously concentrating. I turned to come back later.

  “My Lady.”

  A soft voice, yet it carried on the wind all the same.

  I turned, saw him regarding me.

  “Is something the matter, Lady Esra? I see young Damian isn’t with you.”

  Damian didn’t have much time to hound me lately. He was one of the few people Sere had started interacting with, and that gave me the perfect excuse to have him take care of her. Honestly, I was surprised he actually followed the order. So, he has spent an entire day doing just that.

  I had thought it insane at first, but I was now starting to believe that he’d actually meant the oath he’d sworn to me. This truly was a strange world.

  “I wished to speak with you alone, Estovan.” The two of us were as alone as two people could be in this estate. “I wish to grow stronger.”

  He stared at me. Not in surprise, per se. Puzzlement was the word.

  “Why would My Lady wish for such a thing?”

  “Have you heard about my trip to the city?”

  Just about everyone in the manor had heard by now. I’d caught more than a few maids gossiping about it when they thought I wasn’t paying attention.

  “I did, My Lady.” Estovan’s eyes were searching.

  “In this world, there are two kinds of power, Estovan.” I wasn’t looking at him now, staring instead at the fields beyond us. “Power you are born to, and power you take for yourself. I will grow into the former as I start to rejoin the nobility. I wish to have the latter as well. A power wholly my own.” My gaze fixed on him again.

  Estovan’s expression didn’t change at all. “If it is a command, My Lady, then I will teach you.”

  I had a few of Esra’s memories about the man. In those memories, Estovan was always…aloof. Dismissive. Cold. I saw that man here before me again.

  “It is a command.”

  Estovan nodded, rose. “Very well, I will fetch Anias.”

  Puzzled, I watched as he pulled out a small black box from his coat pocket. He pressed it with one finger. He must have been channeling mana.

  I didn’t have to wait long. Anias must have been close by, because she came not five minutes later. She took me in, raised an eyebrow before turning to Estovan.

  “I do hope you have a reason to call me all the way out here, Estovan.” She sounded exasperated. “If this is about fighting me again, then so help me God-”

  Estovan raised both hands. “Nothing like that. I simply need you to raise something.”

  The air grew thick. Estovan jumped back, crossing a dozen feet in a single leap. His rapier was a blur as it slammed into the ground, slicing right through it. His blade was a blur, and then he raised his blade again, stepping back. He had carved a square into the ground.

  “If you would.”

  “Estovan, don’t tell me this is about that?”

  “The Lady wished to train.”

  They were having a conversation I couldn’t follow. All I could do was wait. Asking them to explain sounded too much like being an annoying child between two adults.

  "She was injured just yesterday." Anias protested.

  "I can tell the wound has mostly healed. It won't be an impediment. Your work, I assume?" Estovan countered smoothly.

  Anias sighed. The air around her grew thicker. I had to step back.

  There was a rumbling.

  The ground began to move. The square Estovan had carved up rose from the ground. It was a dozen feet wide on all sides, glowing with a faint purple light as it rose. My eyes grew wider when Anias finally set it to the side. It was a cube half a story high.

  My curiosity had reached a boiling point. “Estovan, I asked you to train me. Not to start redecorating the grounds.”

  Estovan didn’t even smile. “This is part of your training, My Lady.” He looked at Anias again. “Will it hold?”

  “I did compress it at the end.” Anias sighed. “It will hold.”

  Estovan approached me, pointed. “I want you to move that.”

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  “Excuse me?”

  “If you wish for me to teach you, then you need to move that. It needn’t be very far. If you can move that even an inch, then I will train My Lady.”

  My eyes fell on the cube again. Fell back to Estovan. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this was impossible.

  “My Lady, if you wished to train, you just needed to talk to me. Estovan here is just-”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Anias looked surprised. Estovan still had his blank expression.

  “If this is supposed to be a test, then it must be one you can pass,” I said finally. “I’ll do it.”

  “Very well. Then I will say no more, My Lady.” Anias bowed her head.

  I thought I finally saw something akin to emotion in Estovan’s gaze.

  Estovan and Anias left me there. Anias had plenty of other tasks to attend to. I suspected Estovan just wasn’t very interested in seeing me fail.

  I eyed the giant cube in front of me. To say that I was ill-equipped for this would be a gross understatement. Now that I was alone, it was hard to keep up the brave facade.

  “Alright, Esra, don’t give up right away,” I murmured.

  I reached out to my mana. It answered. It sang within me, filled every inch of my body with power. I took a deep breath, pressed my hands against the cube, dug my feet in, and pushed as hard as I could. My entire body strained from the effort. Every single muscle in my arms and back screamed.

  The cube didn’t move.

  I stepped back and stared at it. I stared at it long enough to catch my breath. Then, I tried pushing it again, just as hard.

  The result didn’t change at all.

  “Well, you have to try the obvious thing first, don’t you?” I gasped, hands on my knees.

  This was clearly not a test about simple mana channeling. No, what this was likely about was mana enforcing, the act of strengthening a certain body part with mana.

  I closed my eyes, concentrated. In principle, it wasn’t all that different from what I’d tried to do with the dragon all those days ago. Mana roared within me, and I needed to mentally will it towards my hands.

  It was an odd sensation, feeling the rest of my body grow weaker as more of my strength went into my arms.

  “Okay, let’s try this again.”

  I heaved. I gritted my teeth. I put everything I had into moving this stupid block. For a few moments, I almost thought I was going to succeed. That was before my body gave out on me.

  Rest. I had to do this fresh. That’s it. I’d tired myself out with the two earlier failed attempts. If I did this fresh, it might change.

  It didn’t.

  An hour passed as I slammed myself into that unrelenting cube again and again and again. It never moved.

  I had told Anias that Estovan wouldn’t give me a test I couldn’t pass. That had been a lie. In fact, that was exactly the kind of test he would give. I’d put on a brave face for both her and myself, but that facade had steadily crumbled.

  “God damn you,” I growled.

  Maybe I could have just asked Anias to train me properly, as she herself had suggested. Even having the thought felt like a part of me was admitting defeat.

  I crumpled to the ground and stared up at the sky. The sun was lower on the horizon now.

  It was because of how he had looked at me, I realized. Estovan might have planted on an impassive face, but his eyes had given him away in the end. He didn’t think I could do this. Hell, he didn’t think I could do anything.

  There was nothing in the world I hated more.

  “Well, alright then.” I took a deep breath, forcing my body to rise. “I’m going to make you look at me properly.”

  My mana channeled into my arms again. I slammed into the cube one more time.

  “You are crueler than I thought, my friend.” Anias’ words had been as pointed as they were disappointed.

  Estovan hadn’t cared. He knew he was right. It was better to kill childish delusions in the cradle, lest one be killed by them in turn.

  He was the First Sword of House Veyne and had followed the young master since before he became the Duke. Lord Adrian had gone on to become an impressive man, and Estovan had had the pleasure of following him in and out of the battlefield. They had even become friends, bridging the gap between a retainer and their Lord.

  Naturally, Estovan had been excited at the prospect of the Veyne lineage continuing. It had been his greatest desire to train the next generation of House Veyne. He had missed the birth, as he’d been on a campaign. He still kicked himself for that.

  The fact that Lady Selene and Lord Adrian’s union had produced a strange-looking girl was of no consequence. The First Sword of the Kingdom was a woman, after all, and strange besides.

  Lady Esra had grown up a quiet child. Never interacting with anyone, always keeping to herself. Estovan had perhaps had five conversations with the young Lady. He had always hoped she would grow out of her shell. She never did. She retreated deeper into it until it all but sealed her from the outside world.

  Lady Selene died. Years passed. Nothing changed.

  Estovan had finally accepted something he didn’t want to: Lady Esra was simply nothing like her father. She was just one in a long line of nobles who would coast on their families' successes. Estovan was sure the Young Lady had her reasons, but those reasons could hold well for any House that wasn’t as proud as Veyne.

  And now that Lady had come before him and asked for training?

  Absurd.

  Estovan was still just a servant. He couldn’t just dismiss the Lady out of hand. So, he had come up with this test.

  A test not designed to be passed at all. It had almost amused him to see her declare the opposite.

  It was good for her. Better for her to try for half an hour and then go back to the manor than to waste his time and hers.

  After a day of guarding the Duke, Estovan wandered back to the sparring arena. It was the best place in the entire manor to meditate. It had been hours since the sun had gone down, and a pleasant breeze brushed his skin.

  The cube was right where he’d left it. It was being held up by Anias’ Gift. Estovan should probably destroy it and fill up the hole as best he could before the Duke saw this. That was the only regret Estovan had, the fact that Duke Adrian would chide him for digging up the grounds again.

  “Hmm?”

  Estovan stepped closer, not because he didn’t see, but because he didn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “It can’t be.” He murmured.

  A lone figure sat hunched over in front of the cube. Its hands pressed against the earth, arms twitching.

  “Lady Esra!”

  He ran to her. Her clothing was in tatters. Her arms were trembling, covered with bruises and scrapes. Quite a few of them were still bleeding.

  Estovan smoothly picked her up in his arms. Those arms kept trembling, pushing against the air. Lady Esra’s eyes were half closed. Clouded.

  She was channeling mana. He could feel it. It wasn’t just reinforcing her muscles. This was something different. Something even he had never seen before. This wasn’t the time to dwell on that.

  “Lady Esra! Lady Esra!” He shouted down at her, true fear in his voice.

  Those eyes blinked and seemed to look at him for the first time.

  “Oh…it’s you, Estovan.” The voice came out in a weak rasp. “I guess- I guess I couldn’t do it after all.”

  Had she been doing this the whole time? Just the absurdity of that made it hard to believe. It had been hours! Forget mana exhaustion, how could someone’s willpower last that long?!

  Her eyes clouded. She was looking past him, at something only she could see.

  “I’m- I’m sorry. I thought I’d started to- to change…mother.” Her voice trailed off. Her eyes closed. She was asleep.

  Estovan had been in two wars. Estovan had fought many of the great men and women of this Kingdom and others. Estovan had once crossed blades with a God and lived to tell the tale.

  Rarely had Estovan ever felt this swell of emotion. It took him a second to realize he was crying.

  “My Lady, I think you have started to change.”

  Estovan took a step forward. Paused.

  He stared down at the cube. No, at the mark left by its moving.

  Half an inch. It’d moved half an inch.

  The First Sword of House Veyne had been a fool.