Chapter 48: Lady Victoria Drigan
The girl did not reply. She took a step forward, then a second. Her face remained hidden under her hood, but Katelyn immediately felt a dangerous presence emanating from her.
Without waiting for a reply she probably would not get, Katelyn attacked.
She delivered a first quick thrust, aiming at her opponent’s right shoulder. The hooded girl dodged with a simple shift of her hips, without even moving her feet. Katelyn followed with a horizontal attack, then a vertical upward strike, but the girl dodged every blow with disconcerting ease. Her movements were fluid and she did not seem to be making any effort.
Katelyn gritted her teeth. She then activated her First Sense of Sword. Immediately, her perception of the fight sharpened. She saw her opponent’s intentions a fraction of a second before they materialized. She doubled her attack speed, her rapier tracing silver arcs in the dark air.
But the hooded girl took a step back, then changed her technique. She closed her eyes for a moment, gathered her Chi, then opened them again. A bluish glow crossed her pupils.
"First Sense of Water: Contemplation of the Sea", she murmured.
Her Chi spread around her, not like a devastating wave, but like a thin invisible layer of water that covered the entire area. In her mind, the corridor transformed into a stretch of calm water. Every movement of her opponent created ripples on the surface of this stretch, and she could read these waves even before the attack was launched. She felt that her Chi resonated in the stone walls, easily giving the exact location of Katelyn, even in total darkness.
It was at that moment that Katelyn understood. "A Chi user from the elemental water family?"
Katelyn received no answer. The hooded girl suddenly changed rhythm.
She stopped dodging and went on the attack. Her movement was so fast that Katelyn was caught off guard.
She quickly jumped backward to get out of range, but the hooded girl jumped toward her, closing the distance in a flash. A gloved hand emerged from the cape, aiming for Katelyn’s throat.
At that precise instant, a cry rang out in the corridor.
"Stop!"
Daemon had just emerged from the room, closely followed by Kristian. He had his arms crossed, his katana still sheathed, but his expression was serious.
Katelyn froze, the tip of her rapier still pointed toward her opponent. The hooded girl stopped short, her hand only a few centimeters from Katelyn’s throat. Then, without a word, she relaxed her stance and took a step back.
"You know her?" Kristian asked as he approached, one hand resting on the guard of his sword.
Daemon nodded. "I know her. She is not an enemy."
The hooded girl lowered her hood. Her long cyan blue hair cascaded over her shoulders like a waterfall of clear water. Her irises were black with a soft face with fine features. She smiled slightly with a mischievous air.
Kristian observed her for a moment, then turned his head toward Daemon with a half-smile: "The heiress of the elemental water house... Victoria Drigan."
"I apologize for the misunderstanding, it has been a long time since I last saw Lady Katelyn..." said Victoria.
Katelyn nodded with a thoughtful air then looked at Daemon in turn: "She’s your ex, right?"
There was an awkward silence. Daemon looked at Victoria with a strange expression. Victoria, for her part, held his gaze without flinching, her smile still on her lips.
Daemon broke the silence first. "You shouldn’t stay here."
Victoria tilted her head slightly to the side, her blue hair sliding over her shoulder. "Thank you for inviting me", she replied with a slight smile, as if Daemon had just offered her a place at their campfire.
The contrast between Daemon’s coldness and Victoria’s ironic softness was rather unsettling. Katelyn sheathed her rapier, but she did not take her eyes off Victoria. Kristian, for his part, seemed rather amused by the situation.
"Well", he said with a shrug, "We’d better go back to the room, Lady Victoria. It’s not safe here."
Victoria nodded, then she walked past Daemon without a word.
***
Five months earlier, at the Winter Domain.
Daemon was in the indoor room, a vast space equipped with training dummies, suspended sandbags, and carefully aligned weapon racks.
He was training relentlessly, without the slightest pause, despite his master’s recommendations. It had been barely a few weeks since he had been seriously wounded in the abdomen during a confrontation with an assassin.
The blade had pierced the flesh and damaged his deep tissues, and even though the wound had apparently healed, Daemon knew the reality was quite different. A wound made by a blade coated with Chi could not close so easily. The Chi impregnated in the flesh continued to erode the tissues from the inside, causing pain. But he did not care.
He fought three other soldiers for training, but without using Chi. He wanted to preserve his reserves so as not to aggravate his injury, and also because he wanted to test his physical limits without the help of his abilities.
The three men were experienced veterans, armed with heavy wooden swords, and they attacked him simultaneously from three different angles. Daemon dodged a first blow by pivoting to the left, then he parried the second with his right forearm.
The third soldier tried to strike him in the back, but Daemon ducked at the last moment, grabbed the man’s wrist, and threw him to the ground with a quick twist. The three soldiers got up and started again, over and over, until they were all out of breath. Daemon, for his part, showed no sign of fatigue.
After a final series of fights, he stopped to do push-ups. He did a hundred, then two hundred. Sweat beaded on his back and ran down his muscular arms. He counted up to three hundred push-ups, then got up with a spring.
He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, then glanced at the three soldiers lying on the ground, panting. "I still have plenty of energy, but I have to go have lunch. So excuse me", he said in a neutral voice before leaving without waiting for their reply.
In the corridor, a servant was waiting for him, a clean towel folded over her arms. As soon as she saw him approach, she bowed slightly and handed him the cloth.
"Thank you", said Daemon as he took the towel. He quickly wiped his face and neck, then headed toward the bathroom at the end of the corridor.