Month One: Settling In
Leon's new life in the capital began with a schedule that would have killed his past self.
Dawn training with the Royal Guard. Sword lessons with Master Corvin, the court's weapons trainer - a grizzled veteran who'd apparently trained three generations of knights and had no patience for weakness.
Afternoon sessions reviewing magical theory with the court mages.
Evening audiences with nobles who wanted the High Archmage's counsel on everything from crop yields to marriage prospects.
It was exhausting. It was overwhelming. It was nothing like the quiet fraud he'd maintained in Pelenna.
But it was also... not entirely terrible.
Master Corvin was the opposite of the Sword Saint in every way. Where she was patient and unreadable, he was loud and expressive. Where she offered clinical corrections, he shouted insults that somehow felt encouraging.
"You hold a sword like a merchant holds an abacus!" he bellowed during Leon's first lesson. "All brain, no body! We'll fix that!"
Leon discovered that learning swordplay was somehow easier than learning to ride a horse. Maybe because swords didn't have opinions.
Maybe because the movements made logical sense - leverage, momentum, angles of attack that followed physics.
Or maybe he just had a better teacher for his learning style.
"Good!" Corvin said after Leon successfully parried a training strike. "You think too much, but at least you're thinking about the right things. Again!"
By the third month, Leon looked at himself in the mirror and barely recognized the person staring back.
Three months of dawn runs, weapons training, and physical drills had transformed his body in ways that seemed impossible. His intern physique - soft from too much sitting, too much convenience food, too little exercise - was gone. In its place was muscle definition that belonged on a fitness magazine cover.
He could see his abs. Actual, visible abs. Leon had never had abs in his life.
I wish I could meet a fitness trainer, Leon thought, prodding his surprisingly firm stomach. Just to confirm he hadn't developed some kind of medieval super-metabolism or something.
But no - it was just the result of training six days a week, eating the castle's protein-heavy diet, and not having access to the modern conveniences that made sedentary life so easy. His body had adapted to the demands placed on it because that's what bodies did when you actually used them.
The sword training was showing results too. Leon could now complete a full practice bout without Corvin stopping to correct his form every three seconds. Could execute basic combinations without thinking through each move. Could - occasionally - land a proper hit on the trainees at the combat grounds.
"You're still too slow!" Corvin shouted. "But you're getting less embarrassingly slow! Progress!"
By the sixth month, he had achieved competence.
Finn and Jace had recovered from their injuries and joined the Royal Guard officially. They also joined Leon's morning training sessions, which led to sparring matches that Leon approached with trepidation.
They were soldiers. Trained warriors who'd survived actual combat. He was an engineer who'd been learning for six months.
Leon won the first match. And the second. By the third, Finn was looking at him with undisguised awe.
"High Archmage, how are you - I mean, I've been training since I was twelve, and you just-"
"Jace still has broken ribs," Leon interrupted, grasping for any explanation that wasn't "I'm apparently good at learning physical skills when properly motivated."
"I'm mostly healed!" Jace protested. "And you beat Finn straight up!"
Leon had no response to that. Yes, he'd beaten Finn. But Finn was nineteen, still developing his skills, and Leon had the advantage of intensive daily training with a master instructor who'd forgotten more about swordplay than most soldiers ever learned.
Still felt good though. Small victories.
His magic, however, remained stubbornly absent.
Leon had continued his private experiments. Every evening, alone in his chambers, he tried to sense or activate the energy he'd absorbed. Tried to cast even the simplest spell. Tried to do anything that would indicate he had magical capability beyond being an apparently absorption void.
Nothing. Not even a spark.
The irony wasn't lost on him: his abs were developing faster than his archmage magic.
Nine months passed.
The capital had accepted Leon as exactly what he was claimed to be: a powerful archmage whose methods were too advanced for common understanding.
When he couldn't demonstrate magic, people assumed he was conserving power. When he asked basic questions about magical theory, they interpreted it as testing their knowledge. When he spent hours studying formation designs, they praised his dedication to his craft.
The fraud had become self-sustaining. The lie so established that truth would be harder to believe than fiction.
Leon attended court functions. Advised on magical defenses. Designed improvements to the city's protective formations. Did actual, useful work that he was genuinely qualified for - engineering disguised as magic, but effective nonetheless.
He also sparred with the Royal Guard regularly. His skill had progressed to the point where he could hold his own against most of the guards, though the captain still beat him handily. Master Corvin declared him "adequate for a mage who thinks too much," which Leon had learned was high praise.
The Sword Saint remained at the capital too, staying close to the king as she always did. Leon saw her occasionally - passing in corridors, standing watch during court sessions, sometimes training alone in the early morning hours.
She never acknowledged their previous training arrangement. Never referenced the two months of lessons. It was as if that entire period had been a professional transaction now completed and filed away.
Leon told himself he wasn't disappointed by this. Told himself it made sense - she'd taught him a practical skill, the skill had been learned, the arrangement was concluded.
Definitely not disappointed.
His twelfth month since arriving came.
A year in the capital. A year and some since the first clear at the gate.
He stood on his chamber balcony, looking out at the city that had become familiar. The streets he could navigate. The routines he'd established. The life he'd built from fraud and competence in equal measure.
His body was unrecognizable compared to a year ago. Muscled, capable, moving with a confidence he'd never had in his original world. He could fight with a sword. Ride a horse. Command rooms full of nobles. Design magical formations that actually saved lives.
But he still couldn't cast a single spell.
The power inside him - if that's what it was - remained dormant.
Leon had tried everything. Meditation. Visualization. Different mental techniques. Studying every text on magic he could access. Consulting with mages - carefully, always carefully, never revealing his actual ignorance.
Nothing worked.
He was the High Archmage who couldn't cast magic. The Knight who'd learned swordplay in a year. The Fraud who'd become genuinely useful despite lying about everything fundamental to his identity.
Leon looked at his reflection in the window glass. Saw the muscle, the scars from training injuries, the face that was both familiar and strange.
What am I? he wondered. Not for the first time. Not for the last.
The question had no answer. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But the city below didn't care about his existential crisis. The kingdom didn't care that its High Archmage was a fraud. The people he'd helped with his engineering-disguised-as-magic didn't care that he couldn't cast traditional spells.
Results mattered. Competence mattered. The rest was just... noise.
Leon turned from the window and headed for bed. Tomorrow would bring more training, more responsibilities, more opportunities to be useful despite having no idea what he actually was.
A year in the capital. A year of growth and fraud and genuine achievement all tangled together.
It had to count for something.