175 First Training.
The next morning, the training hall of the Scarlet Tower was plunged into a cold gloom, lit only by magical torches that cast dancing shadows on the stone walls. Kael was on his knees in the center of the arena, panting, his body covered in bruises and superficial cuts. His tracksuit was torn in several places, and sweat mixed with blood ran down his face.
Exelia Virell stood before him, impeccable as ever. Her purple cloak rippled slightly, as if moved by a non-existent breeze. Her violet eyes shone with a cruel intensity, and a subtle smile curved her lips.
"Get up, prince," she commanded, her voice as cold as the marble of the tower.
Kael tried to rise, but his legs failed him, and he fell back to the ground with a groan of pain.
"Pathetic!" muttered Exelia, slowly approaching. "You're heir to one of the most powerful kingdoms in this world, and you can't even stand up after a few hours of training."
She held out her hand, and a magic circle ford under Kael, emitting a bluish light that enveloped him. Instantly, the pain in his body subsided, and his strength partially returned.
"Don't think I'm being rciful," she said. "I just want you to hold out a little longer before you pass out."
Kael stood up with difficulty, his eyes fixed on hers. There was anger in his gaze, but also determination.
"Is that all you've got?" he teased, trying to hide the weariness in his voice.
Exelia arched an eyebrow, puzzled. "Brave, Arrogant or Stupid. Maybe both."
She stepped forward and, with an almost imperceptible movent of her hand, launched a blast of energy that hit Kael in the chest, throwing him against the wall. He fell to the floor, coughing, but got up again.
"My Master had inford about your body change. An eleven-year-old boy in the body of a twenty-one-year-old man. I thought the Master was crazy, but as it turns out, she's gone completely mad." Exelia said, drawing her sword, "There's no point in teaching you anything until you learn to control this body." She said.
"Get up!" she ordered as her eyes turned purple and a kind of aura ca out. "Let's fight until you make back down."
Kael staggered to his feet. His body was shaking, not just from exhaustion, but from the crushing pressure of Exelia's aura. It was suffocating. Her sheer presence seed to distort the air, and now, with his sword in hand, the atmosphere was even more inhospitable. The torches flickered, as if they feared the woman at the center of the arena.
He clenched his fists. The provocation had stirred sothing deep within him. His pride, perhaps. His anger, for sure.
"I'll make you back down," he growled through clenched teeth.
Exelia didn't answer. She disappeared.
A second later, Kael was struck by a cut on his thigh. He scread, falling to his knees before he understood what had happened. She had moved faster than his eyes could follow.
"What are you looking at?" she whispered behind him, her voice so close that her breath touched the back of his neck.
Kael turned with a shout and cast a thrust spell. The blast of mana ca out unstable, wild, like a bolt of brute force. She smiled - and didn't move. The magic hit him... and dissolved against an invisible barrier.
"Weak" she said, walking towards him calmly, without even putting her sword away.
Kael scread and charged forward, fists glowing with mana. He attacked like an animal, with no technique, only fury. Exelia dodged as if she were dancing. Each wrong blow was punished with a cut: one on the shoulder, another on the ribs, a scratch on the chin.
"You're all instinct, no discipline. You're in the body of a man, but with the disordered mind of a boy. That's not power, it's just noise." He roared, trying to grab her.
She drove the hilt of her sword into his stomach hard enough to make him spit blood.
"Are you angry? Do you want to shout at ? Do you want to hurt ?" She pushed him with her leg, throwing him backwards onto the floor. "That's great. Hate is a powerful emotion. But look how useless your hatred is."
She knelt beside him and held his face with one gloved hand. The touch was as cold as iron. She forced him to look her in the eye.
"I am the wall against which you will destroy yourself. Day after day. Until there is nothing left but what is necessary. Until the child dies and the warrior is born."
Kael turned his neck and bit her hand hard. Blood dripped from between his teeth.
Exelia didn't move.
"That," she whispered, her eyes narrowing, "is the first dignified gesture you've made since you ca here."
She lifted him by the collar in one movent and threw him into the center of the magical arena. He rolled across the floor, hitting his back hard.
She approached, the heels of her boots sounding like hamrs on stone.
"Get up. Fight."
Kael staggered to his feet. His legs barely supported him, but sothing inside him had ignited. A spark of sothing older. A fire that ca not from pride, nor from anger - but from necessity.
He fired off a string of conjurations. Small spears of ice, shock spells, fields of magical distortion.
Exelia blocked each one with a gesture, or let them collide against her aura. But then, in the middle of the repetition, Kael changed the cadence. One of the spears exploded and generated a cloud of arcane smoke.
"Hiding in your own ss?" she said, moving forward with boredom.
But that's when she felt it. The mana on the ground had been manipulated. He was using the smoke to hide smaller conjuring circles, drawn on the floor with his own blood.
She spun to the side, erecting a barrier, but it was too late.
Kael appeared at the side, his eyes glowing pure blue, and a sphere of gravity ford in his hand. He threw it directly at Exelia.
A low, rumbling noise traveled through the hall. The space around her was compressed for an instant, distorting the light and sound.
She took a step back.
The sphere shattered against the magical armor covering her chest, but caused her to lose her balance - for the first ti.
Silence.
Kael gasped, on his knees again, barely conscious. But there was a victorious smile on his blood-stained lips.
Exelia wiped a strand of scarlet trickling from her nose. She looked at the blood on her glove with a certain delight.
"You... made flinch," she said, with a crooked smile. There was no fury. There was pleasure. She walked over to him, the sound of her footsteps echoing back through the hall.
"That... was interesting. Painful. Creative. Almost beautiful."
She snapped her fingers. The ground around them lit up in arcane lines. The stones moved, forming two columns of concentrated mana. A trap.
Kael tried to get up, but the columns exploded with energy, trapping him in a stasis field.
"But make no mistake," whispered Exelia. "One victory alone is not enough."
She knelt in front of him, her face inches from his. Her eyes burned like purple embers. "Tomorrow, we'll double the training ti. And you'll only eat if you make bleed again."
She stood up and turned away, her cloak dragging across the devastated arena.
"See you tomorrow, prince."
Kael collapsed inside the containnt field, without the strength to speak...
The training hall returned to silence. Only the torches crackled, casting light on the wreckage, the blood, and Kael's immobilized body inside the stasis field. His eyes were half-open, but he could see nothing. His mind oscillated between exhaustion and fever. And yet, in the depths of his soul, sothing was roaring. A primitive instinct that refused to die.
[...]
At the top of the palace, in a room filled with somber luxury and the lingering scent of rare incense, Queen Eleonor Scarlet waited.
The throne room was an imposing structure, its walls adorned with living tapestries - enchanted artifacts showing scenes from past wars, victories, betrayals and executions. The floor was polished onyx, reflecting the purple glow of the magical do that sealed the ceiling like an enchanted night sky.
Sitting on a throne made of ebony thorns and scarlet glass, Eleonor watched an hourglass floating in the air, its magical sand dripping slowly in reverse rotation. Her golden eyes were closed, but she could see beyond ti and distance.
Then, without warning, the space in front of her distorted.
Exelia erged in a swirl of violet smoke. She fell to her knees, her cloak shaken by the turbulence of her own magic, her sword clutched behind her back and her fists clenched. A drop of blood was still trickling from her nose, tracing a line down her cheek before dripping onto the black marble of the floor.
"Your Majesty," she said, her head down. "Today's session is over."
Eleonor opened her eyes. They shone like blades in the magical light.
"Report," she ordered.
Exelia took a deep breath, still on her knees. Her voice, despite its discipline, had a restrained tone - a vibration of sothing she herself didn't want to admit.
"The prince survived the session. He lasted longer than expected. And..." she hesitated, clenching her jaw. "He created a reaction that forced my retreat."
Silence.
"You retreated?" repeated Eleonor, raising an eyebrow.
Exelia looked up, and for the first ti since assuming the position of Queen's First Blade, she seed... disconcerted.
"He made bleed, Your Majesty."
The echoes of her sentence reverberated through the enchanted walls.
Eleonor reclined slightly on her throne. A slow smile - cold and almost maternal - was on her lips.
"How soon?"
Exelia squeezed her eyes shut, as if it were difficult to admit.
"A few seconds. Maybe a minute. He improvised. He manipulated the mana in the environnt. He tricked my perception. And he conjured up a gravitational attack with enough precision to break through my defense."
The Queen put a finger to her chin.
"And you... you've never bled before."
"Never," said Exelia, in a harsh whisper. "Not in combat. Not by anyone."
There was a mont of silence. The thorns of the throne seed to move slowly, as if responding to the Queen's mood.
"So, what do you see in him, Exelia?" asked Eleonor, without looking away. "Is there potential... or just chaos?"
The answer ca quickly, firmly - but still fraught with tension.
"There is power. Raw, primitive, unconscious. But it's there. Like magma under a thin crust. It has no technique, no control... but it has sothing worse: will. And a killer instinct."
"And that scares you?"
"It scares him," she admitted without hesitation. "Because he doesn't know what he is. Or what he's capable of. And that makes him... unpredictable. A mistake now could cost us everything. But if honed..."
She hesitated, as if swallowing her own words before releasing them.
"He could be... a monster on our side. Or a god. It depends on the hand that shapes him."
Eleonor stood up. Her presence spread through the room like an invisible wave, and the tapestries rippled in response.
"Then go on," she commanded. "Shape it. Break it. Until he becos what we need. A throne needs an heir. But this one... needs to be iron and fire."
She descended the steps of the throne and stopped in front of Exelia, lifting her chin with a delicate gesture.
"And rember... if he makes you bleed today, tomorrow he might make you cry. Or kill you."
"Yes, Your Majesty," whispered Exelia, staring into those golden eyes that saw everything... And Exelia disappeared. "A~" Eleonor let out a short sigh... 'Now he won't want to have sex... what the hell, I'm missing that big thick one already...' She said, returning to the throne. "Should I call Elion?... she'll be nervous if she finds out I had sex with him, but she'll be even more nervous if she finds out I advanced on his body in the future."
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