“I can’t,” he said at one point, perhaps an hour in, perhaps a lifetime. Time had grown untrustworthy. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t catch his breath. Currently she had restarted him on push-ups, and he lay on his stomach, heaving, the grass tickling his nose and lips. Stasia continued with her own set, counting up to twenty before acknowledging his failure.

“Not yet you can, but you will,” she said, and then winked. “Hopefully.”

At last she took pity on him and called a break for lunch. Cyrus collapsed onto his back and lay there, debating if the effort to walk to the mansion was worth the food. It was, but only just, and only after he gave himself ten minutes to recover. He covered his face with an arm, hiding from the sunlight.

In at least one thing, though, Stasia had lied, and the constant reminder of it burned at his pride like fire. She did not do everything he did as was promised.

She did more.

After eating a simple lunch, a collection of greens, cheese, and freshly caught salmon he assumed bought from some nearby market, it was time for his sword training with Thorda. Part of him dreaded it, for merely walking set off a dozen flares throughout his sore body, but the idea of swordplay gave him a burst of energy. Clashing steel against steel sounded much more exciting than the torture Stasia had subjected him to.

Yet the only steel in sight was that at Thorda’s nearby forge as the two of them met in a small, cleared-out circle on the eastern side of the mansion. Thorda had replaced the robes he wore around the house for one almost akin to a dress in its thin gray fabric, tied tightly with a white sash around his waist. His sandals he swapped for black leather boots overtop trousers made of similar gray fabric. His long hair he tied behind his head with a string. The change, while seemingly minor, gave the older man an even more severe appearance.

“Have you had any training with a sword?” Thorda asked. Cyrus nodded. When he was twelve, the paladin Rayan Vayisa had been assigned as his instructor. The man was as patient as he was skillful, and Cyrus had always looked forward to their weekly sessions.

“About two years’ worth,” he said. “But not any since…”

He need not say it. The Usurper King certainly bore no need to teach Cyrus how to defend himself with a blade.

“Good. You should be familiar with the weight, and have some basics, but nothing deeply ingrained enough that it will interfere with my own instruction.”

Thorda talked as he retrieved three wooden poles he’d brought with him and set on the stool from his forge. The longer one was for him, the two shorter ones for Cyrus.