I’d been dreading the afternoon training with Alexis. The dread had slowly crept up on me as I considered Alexis’ [Swordmanship]. At first, I ignored the incongruity. She had a second rank hunting Skill, but wasn’t a hunter and lacked a combat Skill like [Archery] or [Spear Throwing]. She had her odd mana based stamina and healing regeneration Skill, but no weapon skill to match it. Despite that oddness, she had [Monsterous Strength] a Skill usually reserved for those who have struggled for years at manual labor to get the [Strength] Skill and then often years more to earn the upgrade.

I had been so busy drooling over the possibilities of Skill combinations that I failed to consider the oddity of what she already had. I could become obsessive and focused, but this had been staring me in my face.

All through morning practice, the oddity of it continued to bother me. I spent less time training the men, and more time just pointing out small errors and their focus issues. Ironic, considering my lack of focus. Whenever someone would get that far away look while sitting in the box, it was clear they were trying to resist the cold. Despite the jeering group, I would spend time asking questions about the men’s lives while they practiced in the cold box. The Sergeant had taken to working the men through extra sword practice, something I was in complete agreement with, while I helped whoever was in the box at the time. The forced competition was useful at the beginning to get the men focused on winning, but now it wasn’t necessary. The few who had already gained their Skill was enough of an incentive for the others.

While we gathered for lunch in the main hall, without the Baron or Alexis I noted, I was busy musing about the Baroness' Skills.

Most Skill Trainers agreed, there were three parts to a Skill: Will or mindset, the equipment, and competency. To earn a [Blacksmithing] Skill, you need a hammer, an anvil, a bit of metal and flame, and the ability to bash it into the shape you wanted. Combine that with the elusive will to be a smith, to move and shape metal, the want of smithing, and you could have [Blacksmithing].

Take away the equipment, and it was possible but unlikely that someone could develop the Skill. If they developed a Skill at all, it would be a rare variant Skill. Which were usually more potent, but came with odd restrictions or requirements and were as rare as getting a cockatrice from a chicken’s egg.

Beyond that, you needed to be able to perform the Skill with more than a basic level of competency. Most could develop that with a little luck or training. I had failed with competency when it came to [Throwing]. I had knives. I practically grew up with them, given who my parents were. I wanted the Skill and practiced for weeks trying to earn it. But it was one of the first Skills I had to admit to myself that I would never obtain. No matter what I did, how often my parents worked with me, I just lacked the knack at it. The best I could hope for was to get something I threw to land in the rough area.

Three parts: Equipment, will, competency.

I failed at the third in [Throwing], and until I could upgrade my equipment, it was likely I would never be able to gain [White Smithing], but Snowy seemed to have all three. Her will was like iron. It was the only way she could have upgraded the tier of [Arcanum of the Blood]. The Skill was based on her pure will to shove her mana into her body as stamina and healing. Yes, she had to breathe in a specific pattern and focus in the right way, but it was still her will against her mana. If that wasn’t willpower, I didn’t know what was. So then was it her weapon? It couldn’t be that, while it was harder to earn the Skill while using training equipment, it wasn’t that much harder. A training sword was still a sword. Usually, it was the difference between training and doing something for real that was the issue in that case, rather than the tool itself.

Which left training, and this is why I dreaded our next session.

Idly, I finished my soup and moved toward the private training yard. An elite knight in full plate armor and a giant sword joined me as I walked through the halls. The plate was a familiar looking armor matched to a great sword that dwarfed the Baroness' training long sword. I recognized the weapon. It was the same one that Snowy had laid over her knees as we rode to the Baron on our first meeting. A sword I had noticed and then ignored since it was ornate, gaudy, and over large. I took it for a ceremonial sword that was mostly there to match her armor and make ‘the guard’ look dangerous, rather than as a real weapon.

But now that I looked closer, I could see the lines of glyphs and runes that ran down the blade. Whoever had produced that weapon knew what they were doing. Runecrafting was not an easy profession, and they were slowly being swallowed up by the Mage guild to ‘protect’ their ‘untrained’ and ‘unskilled’ use of magic. It was easy to guess why it was a dying profession. Those who practiced it had to have loads of money, which meant working for the nobles, and it required a crafting Skill in combination with [Rune Crafting] for the item to be enchanted. Enchantment also required basic magical training. Training that the Mage’s guild was no longer offering within the Kingdom without expensive soul binding contracts.

The King would not let this continue for much longer, but the Mage’s guild has held something over the Royal line for at least the last two generations, so we would see how things went. At least, that was the rumor. There was only so much of a stranglehold the Mages could have on magic before those who needed it would rebel.

Shaking away the thoughts, I drifted back and followed the ‘elite knight’ who was directing me through the halls. If Snowy - and I need to stop thinking of her with that name - Alexis was hiding as an elite knight, then the assassination attempts must be even worse than I thought and still ongoing. That or Mason was still culling the nobility and looking for traitors.

When we reached the training hall, Alexis removed her helm, shaking her hair out, and then smiled at me as she began stripping off some of her protective gear.

“Alexis, I need to talk to you, and I’m not sure this is going to be pleasant,” I said.

At this moment, I wished I was better at talking with people my age. With friends. I could pretend to be sociable, I could use [Acting] to pretend to be comfortable, but it wouldn’t be me being relaxed and friendly. It would be me pretending to be comfortable, which wasn’t the same thing at all.

Alexis stopped removing her plate at my words and crossed her arms, then stared at me, the movement ruined by the bulky armor covering her body.

Running my hand over my head, I turned away from Alexis and started to pace, trying to sort my words in my head. It would be nice if I could figure out how to be a bit less blunt, but I doubted I would magically discover the right words in the next few minutes.

“So, you should have [Swordmanship]. I can’t imagine how you don’t have it. I’ve fought against you,” I said, looking up to see how Alexis was taking my fumbling attempts at explaining my thinking without upsetting her.

But the stone-faced look said I was not doing well.

Still, I continued. Beyond it being my job, I also wanted to help Snowy, and I had a suspicion of why she hadn’t gained [Swordmanship].

“So, it might be that your trainer wasn’t what he should have been…” I started before Alexis dropped her pose and interrupted me.

“I was trained privately by Mealukunaia himself!” Alexis said while frowning at me. The look said she expected me to know the name, but I had never heard the name before, and my face said it.

“Ashen-Arm-of-the-Mountain,” Snowy said as if it should say it all, which it did.

“Ashen-Arm-of-the-Mountain’ was a known warrior involved in the deadliest of the conflicts with the Kingdom and was instrumental in the discussions of the last treaty. He had been known as ‘Grey Arm’ before that, simply because that was the only thing anyone knew about him. He was eye-catching with his one arm painted grey and wielding an oversized sword. He stood out, even among the different gear and weapons of the Northmen.

Nodding, I glanced at Snowy’s sword and struggled to work through the issues with what I knew of her life versus the expensive sword and expert training. It didn’t add up.

“Did he give you that sword?” I asked, the non-sequitur distracting Snowy for a moment.

Smiling at her weapon, she swung it around in a pattern, the flourish eye-catching - a match to the sword. At first, I had assumed that the blade was a gift from her father, something to show his favor and make her more exotic or dangerous looking. Her strength, combined with the oversized weapon, would be both dangerous and showy. That was just the kind of thing to stun the nobles and possibly help her fit within the aristocracy, or at least stand above them. But now, I worried that I was wrong about the nature of the blade.

“This was a gift from the tribe. I honestly think it was the last attempt by Blood-of-the-Mountain-Cat to try and woo my mother. He petitioned Ashen-Arm-of-the-Mountain to train me and presented the weapon to me. My continual failure to learn [Swordmanship] even with private training by an expert, was what finally turned the tribe against my mother. I…” I could hear the pain in Snowy’s voice as she stuttered for a moment, “I couldn’t keep harming her standing in the tribe. She is the tribe’s Shaman, and she loves her work,” Alexis said then looked away as her hand casually bounced the massive blade.

Alexis’s explanation cemented my fears. It would be easy to test my concerns, but I was afraid of how she would react. Still, if I was right, Alexis would soon have a new Skill. How she decided to handle the betrayal by her chief and trainer was up to Snowy.

“Alexis, would you show me the stance you use for close-in fighting with a shield? You alone against a single enemy.” I asked, again distracting Snowy from her thoughts.

I could tell that my seemingly random questions were annoying Snowy, but I hesitated to explain my thinking because I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news. Especially since all I had were fears and suspicion and not evidence. Yet.

With an exasperated huff, Snowy removed more of her armor. Her full plate had a shield that would go with it, but it wasn’t in the training hall. Once she had removed her chest plate, vambraces, and arm guards, she strapped on the training shield. She looked a bit odd to be wearing her war plate armor from the waist down and padding and a training shield to go with her oversized sword, but the real tragedy was what she did next.

Tucking her shield in close, Snowy held the blade along the bottom of the protection, sword point forward. This stance was a position a warrior would use in a shield wall. It was useful to protect against arrows from above and with a short sword to stab from below. Her stance was one option for the situation I described, but it was not the best choice. Even with a group, it would be better for her to hold her longer blade over the shield instead. The shield would take some of the balance and weight of the weapon when not stabbing. Even then, a more aggressive hand and a half stance, her shield acting as a secondary concern or just dropped as a distraction, would have been better.

If she had been trained in such a way for years on end, it was no wonder she gained the [Strength] Skill and then [Monsterous Strength]. She had been doing the wrong thing and powering through for years. It must have been harder than almost anything in my training. The problematic movements, the awkward stances unsuitable for the situations, was how she earned her Skills. She was likely never supposed to last in her training.

She was supposed to fail.

Her trainer had intentionally crippled Snowy. She was given training that, while technically correct, was still ultimately wrong. It was like teaching a carpenter how to use their tools but telling them the wrong tools to use for any part of the job. A knife to saw the wood, the ax for delicate trimming, a smoothing plane for sizing the raw lumber, and they would never learn [Carpentry].

I wasn’t able to hide my upset, and Snowy could see that something she had done was wrong but didn’t know what. I was livid but trying to hide it. Beyond the idea of someone intentionally crippling another’s training, something anathema to me and my life’s calling, my friend must have been tormented for years to earn [Monsterous Strength]. The chief’s pride, and later likely fear as she continued her training and had earned her Skills, had led to this.

Frowning, I stared at Snowy’s sword, trying to fit the last piece of the puzzle.

“When did he give you the sword?” I asked, my voice rough and angry though I tried to make it neutral.

Still holding her stance, Snowy watched me and tried to understand what had upset me.

“Years ago. It was likely the last attempt to help me gain [Swordmanship]. The chief was trying to stop the tribe from pushing for banishment. Blood-of-the-Mountain-Cat knew my mother would never accept him if he banished me. I failed to learn the Skill. He then claimed my stamina Skill was part of the Shaman’s path, and I was to banished for trying to steal my mother’s power,” Snowy said, her voice emotionless.

I stared at Snowy, seeing if she honestly believed that load of shit, and it seemed she did. She tried to hide the hurt, but I could see it behind her mask of pain.

Nodding to the sword still held rock solid in an awkward and challenging stance, I asked the question that would answer for me how great the betrayal was.

“What does the magic in the sword do?” I asked.

Snowy blinked for a moment, the new direction of my conversation pulling her from her memories and the pain.

“It works for me only. When I hold the sword, it is balanced perfectly for me,” Snowy said, her voice showing her pride.

Slowly, I reached out and grabbed the tip of the blade and tried to move it. At first, Snowy held the weapon steady, confused as to what I was doing, but she quickly realized that I was trying to get a feel for the blade while she held it and let it drift with my gentle pushes.

The runes changed the heft and balance of the weapon. My examination over the next five minutes showed that while Snowy held the sword, the balance was worse than a hatchet. Most of the weight was toward the tip, but only on one side, leaving a distinct preference for its swing. Worse, when she rotated the blade, the burden remained on the backside against the strain of her wrist. The pommel was nearly weightless, and the pivot of the weapon was so far forward that Snowy was more likely to learn [Axemanship] than [Swordmanship].

She hadn’t just been crippled in training. They tried to cripple her in equipment and will as well. The chief had done everything to convince the poor woman that she was a failure and make it so she would never learn to fight with Skill. Despite all their efforts, she had still gained multiple combat Skills.

Looking at the growing concern on the Baroness' face, I only had one question. How would I tell her?