The next morning, Rashan was in the courtyard, stripped to the waist and soaked in sweat, cycling through his sword forms while Adrien stood behind him—whacking him with a thick hardwood rod and shouting like a man possessed.
The blows weren't soft. They landed with bone-deep thuds, raising welts across Rashan's arms, back, legs, even his ribs and abdomen. Adrien didn't hold back. He moved like a man exacting revenge for every mistake Rashan made, and maybe some he hadn't.
"You lose tension in the wrist again, I'll break the damn thing!" Adrien barked, cracking the rod against Rashan's forearm.
Rashan grunted but didn't break form.
The purpose was simple, brutal, and effective—maintain sword precision while under duress, all while casting magic every sixty seconds without fail. No muttering, no stuttering, no hitch in movement. Every swing flowed into the next, clean and tight, even as blood prickled beneath the skin.
He wasn't just casting full Restoration spells, either. Adrien had insisted on a pared-down version of Respite—a whisper of healing, barely more than a pulse of golden warmth woven beneath the surface of his skin. It dulled pain, eased tension, and mended the tiniest of tissue damage, but more importantly, it didn't burn through his magicka reserves.
It was hard work. Not because of the pain, though the pain was real and constant, but because it forced Rashan's mind into two entirely different states at once. His body had to move with the clarity and violence of swordwork—muscle memory, breath control, explosive power. But his mind had to remain calm, fluid, and precise enough to shape Restoration magic without flare or failure. If either half broke rhythm, the whole thing fell apart.
He cast every minute, exactly on the mark, while shifting between three different sword forms he knew to expert level. Adrien had called that "insane." No one mastered even one form at that depth before adulthood. Rashan moved through three like a man possessed.
What he didn't know—couldn't know—was that he was learning a new form every single day.
He lived each day twice.
And every night, while the rest of the world slept, Rashan tore apart his technique and rebuilt it. Again. Again. Again.
He'd asked to be pushed to his limits, and Adrien had obliged. Bruises bloomed like ink beneath his skin. Muscles tore and burned. But Rashan healed. Not instantly, but faster than he should have. He could feel it in his bones—the way soreness never lingered, the way wounds closed quicker than they had any right to.
That was the gift of Indomitable Stamina—not endless energy, but relentless recovery. His appetite had ballooned to match, bordering on obnoxious. If a table wasn't sagging under the weight of food, it wasn't enough. It was the only way his body could keep up with the punishment.
Most people could only manage a session like this once a week. Rashan was doing it every other day.
Adrien had to notice. He wasn't blind.
But he never said a word.
After the morning session, Rashan sat at the long table in the estate's hall, tearing through a meal large enough to feed a family. He didn't speak much—he just ate, one hand shoveling in food while the other flipped through a leather-bound notebook of spell theory notes. By the time he finished the last crust of flatbread and wiped his mouth, Jalil and Cassia were still outside.
Jalil had stayed behind to practice alone, working through the same sword forms Rashan had mastered, though without the bruising rod and magical multitasking. A couple months back, he'd finally been taught about Will and Vitality, and was just now learning what that truly meant—feeling it in his body, chasing it in battle.
Rashan had to admit, he agreed with the Redguard philosophy of withholding the deeper meaning until the base was solid. Kids, given that kind of knowledge too early, couldn't help but fixate on it—chasing shortcuts, fantasizing. Jalil had spent over a year building his foundation without knowing. And now that he did understand?
He was going to be terrifying one day.
Cassia, meanwhile, was working with Adrien on her own studies. Quiet as ever, but focused. She'd taken to magic fast—faster than Rashan expected—and while she hadn't cast anything significant yet, her control and silence in shaping spells was unsettling in a good way. She didn't try to impress. She just listened. Learned. Applied.
Rashan yawned and stretched, joints popping, before pushing himself up. He closed his notebook and headed to his room, changing into fresh workout clothes: loose trousers, a sleeveless shirt, a snug leather vest, and his fitted training armor over top. The vest alone weighed more than it looked, and the armguards and greaves added just enough resistance to matter.
He ran drills fully suited, of course. What good was speed if it vanished under weight?
By the time he returned to the yard, Adrien was already waiting, leaning on his staff like he hadn't spent the entire morning beating a child bloody. They began with sword forms, but the session shifted quickly into sparring—full contact, live pace, no quarter.
Even with one arm, the old battlemage was fast. Really fast. Strong, too. His footwork was relentless, and his strikes carried that uncanny timing only experience could forge.
Back on Earth, a man like Adrien would've been retired and sore by fifty. Here, in this world, men could remain deadly well into their sixties. Maybe they slowed a bit, sure—but the edge didn't dull until their eighties, and even then, it was more about how long they could fight, not how hard.
Rashan had no illusions. If Adrien ever decided to stop teaching and actually fight him, the duel would last maybe a minute.
They were halfway through the second round of sparring when Cassia came sprinting across the courtyard, barefoot, breathing hard, her tunic damp and clinging to her small frame. Her eyes locked onto Rashan's, wide with urgency, and her hands moved before her feet stopped.
Jalil. Trouble. Nobles. Cornered. Beach. Went swimming—cool down. They forced a spar. He was winning. But it's turning. Bad.
Rashan froze mid-step. The air around him shifted. That kind of stillness—the kind that came before something shattered.
He didn't need details.
"Lead me," he said flatly.
Cassia spun on her heel, already in motion. Adrien didn't ask questions. He fell in behind them without a word, staff in hand, eyes sharp.
They cut through the rear gate of the estate and broke into a run, Cassia leading them down the narrow path that twisted behind the vineyards and descended toward the cliffside beach.
Rashan felt his heartbeat slow, not speed up. Rage had a way of sharpening his focus—clarifying the world. His body ran hot, but his mind went cold. The weight of his leather vest, still slick with sweat from earlier drills, pressed against his chest. The salt air was stronger now, tugging at his skin, the cry of gulls distant but hollow.
And then they turned the final bend.
The path opened onto the beach—and he saw everything.
Below, on the flat sand where the tide had pulled back, a group of boys had gathered in a loose ring—some watching, some laughing. In the center, Jalil knelt in the surf, stripped to the waist, arms held out wide by two uniformed guards in noble livery. His back was already lashed raw, streaked red with welts and blood.
The peacock—that smug, perfumed adolescent from the night before—stood tall beside him, winding up another strike with a braided cord, the end stiff with a hardened knot. He laughed as he whipped it down, and Jalil's back arched, muscles twitching—but he didn't scream. He didn't cry. He bit it down, held his head high, jaw locked like iron.
The peacock's two companions—same worthless curs who flanked him last night—stood nearby with their arms crossed, watching like bored spectators at a dog fight.
Two more guards stood watching next to some crate Rashan had out there to store their stuff when they came here.
Rashan stopped at the ridge, the sun behind him, casting a long shadow over the path. He didn't blink. Didn't speak.
His jaw clenched so tight it popped. Something behind his sternum uncoiled and caught flame.
"I'll handle this," he said quietly to Adrien, eyes locked on the boy below. "Don't do anything."
Adrien didn't nod. Didn't speak. But he stayed where he was.
Rashan turned to Cassia and signed quickly, hands like steel:
Two guards near the crates. They're ours. Take them. You can't strike a noble—not yet. Status protects them. But injury is fine. I prefer it. Do not maim. Do not cripple.
Cassia's eyes narrowed. Her smile wasn't sweet.
It was sharp.
She was still small. Still wiry. But in that moment, she looked like something made for the shadows. Something born to slit throats in silence. She didn't hesitate. She peeled off and melted into the edge of the path, flanking wide toward the lower trail where the crates and storage sat.
Rashan stepped forward, boots crunching on the gravel, then sand.
He didn't shout. Didn't warn. There would be no words.
Only broken bones.
Only pain.
That motherfucking peacock was about to get his wings broken.