Part I - The Stalemate
The rhythm of their new life was one of grinding, frustrating effort.
The first three days of their training plan were a stalemate.
Mornings were a crucible of shared physical torment under Brimor's unblinking gaze. Afternoons, they trained apart—Ingrid's frustrating battle with the minnows at Pond Annoy, Arthur's exhausting spellsword drills with the dwarf.
But it was the third part of the day, when they were left to train each other, that the disconnect was most profound.
Arthur, hesitant and unused to teaching, struggled to convey the fundamentals of combat, while Ingrid's instruction on mana was cold, distant, and clinical.
Brimor and Aeris left them to it, understanding this was a problem they had to solve themselves.
On the night of the third day, the breaking point finally came.
Arthur was on the ground, gasping for air, his chest burning. The pathetic earthen wall before him was now just above his knees—progress, but a mockery of what he was trying to achieve.
"You're doing it wrong," Ingrid's voice cut through the twilight, sharp as a shard of ice. An obvious annoyance bled through the edges of her impassive mask.
"How?" Arthur managed to ask between ragged breaths.
"You're using the chant to do all the work," she explained, her tone clipped. "The words are the activation, not the method. You're telling the door to open, but you're not turning the key."
Arthur stared, his exhausted mind unable to grasp the abstract concept. Seeing his confusion, Ingrid's patience snapped.
With a flick of her wrist, a frost shard hissed into existence and shot directly at his arm.
It covered the distance in the blink of an eye.
Pure instinct took over Arthur's body; he recoiled, the shard zipping past to shatter on the ground behind him. A hot flush of adrenaline and anger washed over him, a stark contrast to their dynamic thus far.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, his voice low and heavy.
Ingrid's expression was unchanged. "When I launched the shard, what did you do?"
"You saw what I did," he shot back, his agitation growing.
"I'm not asking what I saw. I'm asking what you did," she pressed.
"I dodged it," he said, biting back his anger. Outbursts were unbecoming of a prince.
Ingrid walked past him to where the shard had landed. She bent down, picking at the frost-killed grass.
"Imagine that shard wasn't aimed at you," she said, her back to him. "Imagine it was aimed at your sister, standing right behind you. Would you have dodged then?"
"I'm tired of riddles, Ingrid. If you have a point, make it."
She turned her head, and in the fading light, her gaze was different.
For a split second, the impassive mask cracked. She wasn't looking at Arthur, her fellow survivor. She was looking at a Prince of Magellan, the living symbol of the failed monarchy whose incompetence had cost her everything.
The progress they hadn't made, the frustration of the last few days, it all boiled over into a single, venomous drop.
"Such a lack of intelligence," she said, her tone as flat and cold as ever, though the words themselves were laced with a quiet, sorrowful fury. "Perhaps you inherited more from your father than just his hair color."
The words hung in the cold air, and Ingrid's face paled, as if she had burned herself with her own frost.
She saw the flash of noble pride and wounded honor in his eyes, but her regret wasn't for the insult. It was for the loss of control, for the failure as a teacher.
Before he could speak, she cut him off. "Apologies. That was… uncalled for."
She took a breath, retreating back to the safety of logic. "The attack was an analogy. The spell—the chant—is the shard. It's just the activation. It gets your body moving. But if someone you cared for was behind you, you wouldn't just dodge; you would act. You'd deflect the shard, or block it with your own body. You would take control of the outcome. It is the same with magic. The chant starts the process, but you must shape the effect. If you rely on the words alone, you bleed mana without purpose."
The analogy, now stripped of its venom, was brutally clear. He understood.
But the clarity of the lesson was poisoned by the cruelty of its delivery
A bad taste filled his mouth.
He had known she was a refugee, another victim of the chaos, but he had never imagined her quiet disdain was so personal. It was a hatred aimed not at him, but at his very name.
He thought of her saving him from Thorgar's punch, of her help in the fight. Were those acts of camaraderie? Or was she merely protecting a useful asset, a means to her own end?
Was his quiet hope for a comrade… for a friend… just a fool's dream from the start?
Part II: The Duel
By the sixth day Ingrid was able to catch four of the Razor Gill Minnows, but her true lesson began when Aeris handed her a blindfold. "You rely too much on your eyes," the elf stated simply. "Survival in the wild is about sensing the flow of mana in the world around you."
Blindfolded, Ingrid caught nothing and her papercuts multiplied, but she understood the purpose of the lesson and did not complain.
Meanwhile, Arthur's time with Brimor was yielding results.
His affinity for wind made the manipulation spells feel intuitive.
He could now create the wind trampoline that had saved him in the fight with Thorgar and use wind to add vicious speed to his sword strikes.
Most importantly, Ingrid's lesson on control, though harshly delivered, had stuck.
He was learning to use his joints—ankles, knees, elbows—as conduits for small, precise bursts of magic, allowing for stunning mid-air maneuvers.
But the third part of their day, when they were left to train each other, was a stalemate.
The chasm of unspoken words from their confrontation was an oppressive presence. Arthur's instruction on close combat was hesitant, while Ingrid's on mana control was cold and distant. They were failing because they refused to connect.
On the evening of the sixth day, as the rescue party was making its final, weary approach to Oakhaven, the stalemate broke.
Their close combat training was exceptionally aggressive.
Ingrid, armed with a wooden training dagger, lunged and slashed, but Arthur, with his newfound agility, was a ghost.
He parried, sidestepped, and flowed around her attacks without landing a single counter-strike.
Her frustration mounted with every whiff of empty air. Someone she had subconsciously deemed weak was now effortlessly superior in this domain.
"Enough of this," she finally hissed, her breath coming in angry bursts. "How about we fight for real?"
Arthur stepped back, his expression calm. "What do you mean?"
"You use your sword, I use my ice daggers," she challenged, the familiar, reckless fire returning to her eyes. "First one to draw blood wins."
"Aeris isn't here," Arthur replied, his voice steady. The concern was practical, not born of fear.
"Is that how you plan to survive?" Ingrid sneered. "By only fighting when a healer is near?"
The anger Arthur had suppressed since her insult about his father finally surfaced.
He wanted to break this suffocating tension, and perhaps, he thought, steel could say the things she wouldn't. "I accept," he said, his tone carrying a new, princely authority. "On three conditions."
Ingrid paused, surprised. "What are they?"
"First," Arthur said, reaching into his tunic and producing two blunted steel daggers, "no swords. We use these." He tossed one to her, which she caught deftly.
"Second?" she asked, testing the weight of the blade.
"No spells. This is about improving your close-quarters skill, not my magic."
Ingrid's lips thinned, but she nodded. "I was about to suggest it myself. And the third?"
Arthur began to remove his heavy winter jacket, then his shirt, until he was bare-chested in the cold evening air. The grueling training had begun to pay off; his muscles were more toned, his frame leaner and harder. His eyes, no longer hesitant, were filled with a new, startling confidence. "If I win," he said, his gaze locking onto hers, "you tell me why you resent me."
The condition hit her like a physical blow. "Don't think so highly of yourself!" she snarled, and lunged.
Ingrid's attack was a blur of raw fury aimed straight for his eyes.
Arthur deflected it with a sharp ring of steel, using her momentum to twist and trap her arms, pinning her against him.
They were face to face, so close he could see the angry fire dancing in her blue eyes.
"Your attacks say otherwise," he smirked.
Enraged, she drove her knee up, then used the separation to leap into a powerful dropkick that slammed into his chest, sending him stumbling back and breaking his hold.
Arthur recovered his footing as she landed. To any observer, it would have looked like a bull charging a matador. She was all offense, a flurry of aggressive slashes and stabs. He was all defense, a serene dance of parries and evasions.
But Arthur wasn't focused on her blade. He was focused on her face.
For the first time, he saw past the impassive mask to the raw anger and resentment churning beneath.
This was the only place she was being honest with him, and a strange sense of calm settled over him. He didn't understand her hatred, but he was glad he could finally see it.
His serenity only infuriated her more. After a few more exchanges, he saw an opening.
In a fluid motion, he disarmed her, spun her around, and locked her in a hold from behind, her arms pinned, his bare chest pressed against her back.
He could have ended it then, a simple slash across her arm. But he hesitated.
Trapped and powerless, Ingrid's control shattered. Instinct took over.
A sharp, chantless gust of wind magic erupted from her, blasting Arthur off his feet.
He landed hard on his back, the air knocked from his lungs. She was on him in an instant, the dagger's point coming to rest a hair's breadth from his cheek.
Their eyes met. His held a strange, serene mix of sadness and satisfaction. Hers were wild with anger and frustration. A single drop of blood, from a small cut on her own wrist, welled up and fell, landing just below his right eye like a crimson tear.
A slow smile touched Arthur's lips. "I believe," he rasped, "that's my win."
Part III: The Bridge
The fight was over. Ingrid's face was a storm of conflicting emotions.
Displeasure at her defeat, and a deeper shame at her conduct.
She stood up, threw her dagger to the ground, and walked away, slumping down with her back against a solitary tree, staring at the ground as if the answers to her turmoil lay in the deep roots beneath.
A few moments later, the two steel daggers clattered softly onto the grass in front of her.
She looked up. Arthur stood over her, his expression no longer serene or challenging, but open and strangely vulnerable.
"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice quiet, laced with disappointment in herself.
"They're for you," he replied, his gaze steady, not avoiding hers as he used to.
"What?"
"I bought them for you," he clarified.
"Why?" The question was choked, her throat tight with a sadness she didn't understand.
"As thanks," he said simply. "For all your help."
The kindness felt like a rebuke, belittling her own spiteful behavior. "But I… I just tried to kill you."
"Did you?" Arthur's voice was gentle, as if calming a spooked animal. "I thought we were just training."
Ingrid had no response. She picked up one of the daggers, its cool weight a solid reality in her trembling hand. Before she could form a thought, Arthur spoke again, his voice low and serious.
"Hate me."
She looked up, startled and confused. "Why would you want that?" she pleaded.
He sighed, looking up at the first stars pricking the twilight sky.
"I don't know the root of your resentment. I don't know what you've been through. But I know it's connected to me, to my name."
He looked back down at her. "Keep hating me, if it helps. If it gives you fuel, if it keeps you focused on your goal, then use it. But let me help you, as you've helped me." He paused, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Please."
The plea shattered her defenses. She understood.
He had seen the ugly, grieving thing inside her she tried so hard to hide.
He knew she was punishing a son for the sins of his father, using him as a target for a rage that had nowhere else to go.
And instead of anger, he offered… a bridge.
A profound shame washed over her.
She stood, clutching the daggers, her head bowed. She knew how to answer. Her voice, when she spoke, was quiet but steady. "Your mana training is still left for the day."
She turned and started walking back to their usual spot.
Arthur watched her go, a small, genuine smile touching his lips. It was her way of accepting. He followed her, feeling for the first time that they had finally made some real progress.