There was no art or beauty in the main training ground of the Von Haym estate. It was merely a wide expanse of packed earth, surrounded by a sturdy wooden fence, bearing the scars of thousands of hours of harsh training. The air was saturated with the smell of sweat, iron, and dust, and the silence was broken only by the sound of tired breaths and the clang of steel.
At the center of this ground, Kyra Von Haym stood. She stood quietly, her unsharpened training sword hanging from her relaxed hand, her slender body looking deceptively small. Her silver hair, usually worn in an elegant cascade, was now tied back in a tight, practical ponytail. Her eyes, the color of a pre-storm sky, were clear and focused, watching the three men who surrounded her.
They were not ordinary guards. They were elite knights, men who had each spent at least a decade in the family's service and had survived real encounters with monsters from the gates. They were giants of muscle and steel, their movements exuding experience and confidence.
"Are you ready, my lady?" one of them, named Boris, asked in a gruff voice. He was trying to sound polite, but a note of disbelief had crept into his tone. Three against one. It was a ridiculous idea.
Kyra nodded once, a small, decisive gesture. She slowly raised her sword to a ready stance.
The attack began.
The three knights moved together, with a harmony born from long, shared training. It wasn't a random assault but a calculated tactic: two attacking from the front to draw her attention, while the third, the fastest, circled around to strike her from her blind spot.
But Kyra wasn't there.
The moment they lunged, she moved. It wasn't a retreat or a simple dodge, but a swift, diagonal side-step, calculated down to the centimeter. The swords of the two front knights sliced through the air where she had stood a fraction of a second before, nearly colliding with each other. In that moment of confusion, Kyra had already positioned herself at a perfect angle to the third knight who was circling her.
She didn't attack him. Instead, she lightly tapped the blade of her sword against his chest plate, creating a resonant metallic sound. It was a silent declaration: I could have ended it here.
The knights regrouped, and this time, the traces of underestimation had vanished from their eyes. They began their second assault, more cautious and powerful. The training ground turned into a whirlwind of steel. Kyra danced between them, a deadly and calculated dance. She didn't parry their blows with force; that would be suicide against the strength of three men. Instead, she deflected them, using their own momentum against them, guiding their swords away from her path with small, clever movements of her wrist.
For her, the battle was not a struggle of strength, but a mathematical problem. Every attack was a variable, every movement an equation. She saw the patterns of their attacks forming before they even executed them, saw the gaps in their defenses that lasted only for a split second.
She exploited one of those gaps. As Boris raised his sword for a vertical strike, Kyra lunged forward, not to attack him, but to attack the knight beside him. This sudden move forced Boris to change the path of his strike mid-swing to avoid hitting his companion. In that moment of hesitation, Kyra spun around and struck the hilt of her sword hard against Boris's wrist.
The sound of a sword clattering to the packed earth rang out. Now it was two against one.
She completely controlled the rhythm of the fight. She forced them to move where she wanted, put them in awkward positions, and made them expend their energy on wild, angry swings. Finally, in a lightning-fast move, she dodged an attack from one and used her foot to trip the other. As he was losing his balance, she pressed the cold blade of her training sword to his throat.
The last knight froze, beads of sweat pouring from his forehead. He looked at his comrades, one disarmed and the other sprawled on the ground, then at the calm girl who had him completely under her control.
A deep silence fell over the training ground, broken only by the panting of the defeated knights.
"Acceptable performance," Kyra said to herself in a low voice, then withdrew her sword. "But there was a 0.3-second delay in my final move. That needs to be improved."
From the side of the ground, Sir Gregor, the venerable, gray-haired captain of the family guard, watched the scene with a complex expression. He was the one who had overseen her training since she was a child who could barely hold a wooden sword. He had seen her talent grow, but what he saw today was something else.
He approached her as she was dusting off her clothes. "That was... astounding, Lady Kyra. I haven't seen such tactical brilliance in years."
"I could have been faster," Kyra replied, her tone sharp and self-critical. "Hesitation means death in a real battle."
Sir Gregor sighed. "You push yourself harder than any training I could ever devise for you. No one expects you to carry the world on your shoulders."
Kyra turned to face him, and for the first time, a flicker of true emotion appeared in her calm eyes. It was a mixture of anger, frustration, and sorrow. "And who will, Sir Gregor? My brother?" A sarcastic smile formed on her lips. "Someone has to be ready. As long as the rightful heir of the Von Haym family prefers daydreaming and reading poetry to his responsibilities, this burden falls on me. On me alone."
Sir Gregor found no reply. Her words were true.
Kyra left the training ground with a steady pace, her training clothes still covered in dust and sweat. She didn't go to bathe or rest. She had another destination.
She found him exactly where she expected. On a balcony overlooking the quiet gardens, Arthur was lounging on a bamboo sofa, buried in silk cushions. He was dressed in elegant clothes, holding a leather-bound book of poetry, and looked as if he didn't have a care in the world.
She stood before him, her shadow cutting off the sunlight. He didn't look up.
"Enjoy your training?" he asked in a sleepy voice, turning a page. "I heard some noise from here. I hope you didn't exhaust the knights too much. We need them if anything happens."
The flames of anger ignited in Kyra's chest. "When?" she asked sharply. "When will you stop this nonsense and start acting like the heir to this family?"
Finally, Arthur lifted his eyes from the book. His gaze was calm, empty, and adorned with a faint, infuriating smile. "And why should I hurry, dear sister?" he said softly. "You're doing a splendid job for the both of us. Don't you see? You're the brawn, and I'm the beauty. A perfect balance."
"This isn't a joke, Arthur! Gates are opening every day! Other families are training their heirs to lead armies, and you... you are reading poetry!"
Arthur returned his gaze to the book. "Oh, but you must hear this poem. It's about a lone lotus flower floating in a muddy pond, and how its beauty is untouched by the filth surrounding it. It's a truly profound metaphor for maintaining one's..."
She couldn't take it anymore. Kyra turned and left the balcony, her hands clenched so tightly her knuckles turned white. The wall of indifference he had built around himself was more solid than any fortress, and her words bounced off it without leaving a trace. Every time she tried to reach him, he just pulled further away, hiding behind his vacant mask.
She felt defeated, not by the sword, but a deeper, more painful defeat.
On the balcony, Arthur continued to stare at the open page for a few moments after she left. Then, slowly, the faint smile faded from his lips. It vanished, replaced by an expression of hidden, profound sadness, like the fleeting shadow of a cloud passing over the sun.
He closed the book, placing his palm on the leather cover. "Because its beauty," he whispered to himself in the silence of the empty balcony, "depends on the mud staying away from it."