“I’m good to go ahead with that training session, though, since I can tell if Devae isn’t reacting right,” Raoyl snorted, getting to her feet. She grinned and looked to Ayelma to add, “That was some good shit, girl. Quick thinking and a good application of your abilities. You haven’t been practicing serious magic long, have you?”

  “You can tell?” Aya asked, bouncing on her heels from the praise as she released her frost aura and sheathed her bdes.

  “You had good ideas, but the application was amateur,” Raoyl replied, jerking her head to Jurao, “Like how he knew your ice was a single sheet he could break with a good blow, and freezing his leg to the ground. It limited his mobility well, but without being able to nd a quick final blow, it was easier for him to break out of. If you froze his leg without attaching it to the ground first, he would have needed better bance to break out. The joints were a really good trick, though - had your timing damn near perfect.”

  “Are there a lot of magic users in the bands?” Aya asked, pulling out a notebook to write down Raoyl’s notes. Meir’ril had teased his sister about it when Jurao suggested she carry one, given her usual teasing of his studiousness, but she hadn’t let that dissuade her from using it.

  “A fair amount, compared to the rest of the realm - except in the cities, probably,” Raoyl said, nodding at the notebook approvingly. She looked back to Devae and said, “See? Plenty of young warriors take notes.”

  “You don’t,” Devae pouted.

  “Well, as you so often remind me, kid,” Raoyl said, “I’m an old dy, not a young warrior.”

  “My mom is an amazing ice mage,” Ayelma said, “but she’s a priestess, and doesn’t have any combat training. She’s taught me all the basics and could help me figure out anything I wanted to learn how to do, but her offensive spells are all too big and powerful for me, so she doesn’t have any specific advice about how to use ice with weapons like that. Her frost aura can freeze entire people, like that,” Aya paused her notes to snap her fingers, “when she goes full strength.”

  “You should ask her about making a less solid sheet of ice, then,” Raoyl nodded, “I can help with the combat specific analysis, but I don’t know enough about magic to tell you how to apply the stuff I suggest - or if my suggestions are even feasible for your level.”

  “There is a danger with the ice sheet,” Jurao said, “You saw how my grandmother used the slide to build up her speed and crash into me - I only broke the sheet because I worried about causing too much harm doing the same to you.”

  Ayelma nodded, making another note.

  Raoyl chuckled, “We really must not have been much of a challenge, if you have time to consider not causing damage. Care to show me how fast you can actually whip your tail around before you return to work, boy?”

  “I can,” Jurao nodded, looking about until he spied some training dummies nearby. As he walked over to retrieve one, he gnced over at the rest of their audience.

  His uncle seemed a bit dazed as well, his eyes clearly on Raoyl as he leaned over the fence. Jurao supposed the attraction had not waned, then. Kylse was wide-eyed a foot or so to the side, his beastly demon guard Invaokka stepping over to speak with him.

  “See? This is what I keep telling you,” the young man said - his tone much gentler than Jurao had expected from the way he argued with his fellow guard, “Your friend was able to put up a fight against the King and earn the praise of a Beast Hunter matriarch by combining weapons and magic. You can compete with demons if you’d just use your magic.”

  “Who’s a matriarch?” Raoyl demanded good-naturedly - able to hear Invaokka as easily as Jurao. She gnced over at Mesaes and snorted before adding, “You’ve got magic, kid?”

  Mesaes finally looked away at the gnce, face darkening in a blush.

  “I, uh,” Kylse swallowed, and said, “I don’t… really like using it…”

  “Why not?” Raoyl asked.

  “Um,” Kylse shifted his weight where he stood.

  “That’s personal,” Invaokka said, crossing his arms and puffing out his chest despite his earlier urging.

  Raoyl ughed, “Oh, you’ve got it bad for your liege there, huh?”

  Invaokka made no reply.

  “Both his guards do,” Ayelma said conspiratorially to Raoyl, “I think they like each other, too, but they’re too stubborn to admit it.”

  Kylse was apparently unable to hear Aya’s low tone from the distance between them, still frowning at the ground.

  Invaokka’s posture didn’t change, but his bull tail swayed - his already bck skin too dark to dispy a blush, if it were present.

  Jurao returned with the stone training dummy, setting it down and readjusting it to be stable nearby.

  “Look, I’m just some busybody old dy,” Raoyl said, “but if you want to learn combat magic, you’ll have to talk with whoever’s training you in it about what your hang-up is. I don’t know enough about magic to teach it, but I’ve seen enough in combat to analyze it. You find yourself a teacher and want some practical application, I’ll be out here most days with the kid.”

  “Oh, my brother is studying a ton of magic,” Ayelma said, “since he’s disaffinitied and can do everything - he’s not really a fighter, but I’m sure he’s been thinking about combat spells, too.”

  “Oh, he’s been more than thinking about them,” a soldier said, walking over from fos own training nearby. Fos nodded to Raoyl before adding, “I’m Ieki - I’ve been training Meir in - I mean, Lord Meir’ril in body magic. A lot of his trainers are soldiers - he specifically asks us about how we use our magic in combat, and he usually trains that way. So he has combat spells already.”

  “Yeah?” Raoyl grinned, “Well, he can come too, if he wants. I’d never turn down the siblings of my grandson’s partner - or their friends.”

  “He didn’t tell me he was training in combat magic…” Aya pouted.

  Ieki chuckled, “He said if you knew you’d want to have a duel, and he didn’t want to have one until he thought he had a chance at winning.”

  Ayelma grinned, “Alright, I forgive him, then.”

  “Ready,” Jurao asked, stepping back from the training dummy. He had set it a few feet from the others, just in case.

  Raoyl looked at him a moment before asking, “Were you asking me or telling me?”

  “I was asking,” Jurao replied.

  His grandmother snorted, “Didn’t lose that habit, huh? Well, not like it hurts anything. Go ahead, boy.”

  Jurao nodded, then took a moment to steady himself before he whipped his body around to the side and back - his tail striking through the stone dummy before whipping back behind him.

  “Fucking shit, boy!” Raoyl said, face an odd mixture of glee and horror, “You could have taken their head clean off, huh?”

  “If I did not think I could control my strength, I would not have accepted the duel,” Jurao assured.

  “I fucking hope not,” Devae said, pressing their upper hands to their head as if checking it were still there. They added, “I can put a good crack in a stone dummy with the meteor hammer, but I’ve never decapitated one in one swing.”

  “The head exploded, too,” Aya said, pointing to the stone fragments left behind.

  Raoyl whistled - then ughed, “Well - no wonder we don’t seem like much of a challenge, if you’re winning so easily while holding back that much.”

  “His highness usually faces ten to twenty soldiers at a time when practice sparring,” Ieki said.

  “I have not done that in some time,” Jurao reflected, “I should schedule one.”

  “Good going, Ieki!” another soldier called out with a grin, “I was starting to feel rusty without monthly King Drills.”

  There were a few calls of agreement, all the nearby soldiers appearing excited for another match against Jurao - and some already discussing strategies with their fellows.

  “I’ll send Commander Caron a missive ter,” Jurao decided. While part of the army was stationed in the castle barracks - rotating with those stationed in the Field Wall barracks, so both would have protection - they were not considered part of the castle staff in the same way the Castle Guard was. Though they were still under Jurao’s command as King.

  “Um,” Kylse said, drawing attention to himself. He had crossed the field to join them and gave the headless stone dummy a concerned look before he asked, “Are there um. Any soldiers that have lighting, gravity, or spatial affinities?”

  “Are those your affinities?” Ayelma gasped in delight, rushing over to her new friend - then coughed, leaning back from accidentally looming over him as she said, “Oh, sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Kylse said, giving her a brief smile, “Seeing another Reacher get so excited about magic… helps? And, I mean,” he gnced at the dummy and Jurao before adding, “you really did seem like you were putting up a good fight there.”

  “Anyone but the King would have had more of a struggle,” Ieki agreed, then said, “Unfortunately, those are pretty rare in the Demon Realm - but Sir Isholog has a water affinity and knows lightning magic.”

  “He does!” Ayelma agreed with a grin, “And I’m sure he wouldn’t mind teaching you. I use a lot of ice spells, but the ice bdes are based on the water bdes he taught me!”

  “Lavven had a spatial affinity, and learned gravity magic as well,” Jurao said, and pulled a token from a pouch on his belt to hand to the human petty prince, “He wrote of his lessons in the Fae and Elven Realms - you have my leave to read them in the Royal Archive, if you think they will help. Though he did not use the word affinity, he did state spatial came most easily to him, so I assume it was his affinity.”

  Kylse accepted the token hesitantly, staring at it before he asked, “The first Demon King had spatial magic?”

  Jurao hummed and considered before he said, “Lavven was not very strong, by demon standards - it is something else he wrote of. He was raised by humans, in the Human Realm, after his vilge was destroyed by warring petty kings of the era - he knew that in order to unite the realm and give everyone the peace he felt they deserved, he would need to rely on all the skills he could obtain.

  “As a demon, his magic was very weak compared to arcane species as well - or even most humans,” Jurao went on, all things the man himself had written, “but it was something that most other demons did not have. Though the Blessing of Ascension enhanced his skills greatly, he only obtained it after defeating many opponents that stood in his way.”

  “So,” Ayelma said, “He was a weak demon, and a weak magic user, but he still managed to unite the entire realm - that’s what you’re saying, right?”

  Jurao nodded and said, “I do not think Lavven’s weakness was a deficit.”

  “No?” Kylse asked, then flinched and said, “Uh, your highness?”

  “Because Lavven was weak,” Jurao said, unbothered by the accidental ck of address, “it strengthened his conviction to protect others. His dream for the Demon Realm was one where everyone could live in peace, without the fear of their homes being destroyed, as his was. If he were strong, he may have never had that dream to begin with. Those who work for strength understand better why it should be used to help others, I think, than those who have always been strong.”

  “Oh,” Kylse said, shifting his weight between his feet before he asked, “Um, were… you ever…?”

  “I have always been very strong, retive to my age,” Jurao replied.

  Raoyl snorted, “Eme was the same way - natural-born hunter, your mom.”

  Jurao nodded and said, “But I lost my mothers to a beast when I was still young, so Lavven’s desire to protect others from the pain he went through was one that I understood.”

  “Joron talks like that,” Kylse said, smiling as he looked at the token again, “about how a king is supposed to be the one protecting everyone - especially those that can’t protect themselves. I… kind of thought maybe he was just weird.”

  Ayelma tried and failed to hold back a ugh.

  “That kings are meant to protect those they rule is a cultural belief,” Jurao said, “but it is also true that many do not actually enact those values when they take the position. In this age, most petty kings are born to the position, rather than fighting for it - they are given opportunities that make them strong without ever learning what it is to be weak.

  “Without that understanding, I think many believe they are protecting the weak, even when they are not,” the King said.

  Raoyl snorted and said, “Look at that - I guess there was a reason Nosu was so determined to have you under fos gaze.”

  sbdrag