The clang of steel was the soundtrack of her childhood. Every morning, before the sun stretched over the castle walls, Arlenna would slip into the narrow crawlspace behind the training yard, a forgotten slit between stone and shadow where no one ever looked. From there, she watched her brothers spar beneath her father's booming voice.
"Strength is what defines royalty," he would say. "Only the capable inherit."
She memorized every stance, every strike, every correction shouted across the yard. Her hands moved with them, tracing invisible blades in the dark. She learned faster than any of them not because someone taught her, but because no one did.
When she was caught the first time, her father's glare felt colder than any blade.
"Princesses do not wield swords," he told her. "They watch. They endure."
The punishment was harsh kneeling on stone for hours, bruises pressed into her skin but the lesson only drove her deeper into secrecy. From that day forward, she practiced in silence. Her body learned to move without sound, to breathe without giving herself away. The scars on her knees became reminders: pain is not weakness, only proof you're still here.
She watched. She remembered.
And then, she surpassed.
The older she grew, the smaller her world became.
The crawlspace turned into a cell of silence not because she couldn't leave, but because stepping out meant pain.
At first, her punishments were meant to correct her. Then, they became a form of control. Her father's words changed from disappointment to disgust.
"You shame your name with this obsession," he'd say, gripping her by the wrist until her knuckles turned white. "You were born to watch the throne, not stain your hands like a soldier."
But her hands were already stained not with blood, but with bruises, burns, and the faint white scars left by the wooden rods used to "discipline" her. Some marks healed. Others never did.
Her mother watched in silence.
Not out of cruelty but fear. She never once stepped between Arlenna and her father. Never said a word when the servants looked away. That silence was louder than any scream.
She wasn't alone, though.
Her middle brother, Eron, had the kind of kindness that didn't belong in royalty. When no one was looking, he'd sneak into her room late at night, whispering about sword balance, how to shift weight on your back foot, how to use momentum instead of strength.
"Don't force the blade," he told her once, handing her a wooden stick shaped like a training sword. "Feel its movement. It's not a weapon, it's a conversation."
For a few weeks, they practiced in secret quiet laughter echoing through her chamber.
Until they were caught.
The next morning, Eron couldn't stand. His face was swollen, his ribs heavily bandaged. He never looked her in the eyes again after that. The guilt broke her heart more than any wound ever could.
Her eldest brother, Darek, was nothing like him.
Cruelty came easy to him, almost playful. He'd mock her when she walked by the training yard.
"Maybe you should try embroidery instead," he'd say, smirking. "Or polishing our armor. That's more your speed, little sister."
Sometimes he'd throw a wooden sword at her feet just to watch her flinch.
"You wouldn't last one swing," he'd laugh.
She learned to ignore him, to breathe through the humiliation. But deep down, every sneer and laugh carved something sharper inside her, something that refused to die.
By the time she reached sixteen, her body was a map of faded scars and fresh wounds. But her spirit, the thing they tried to break was untamed.
She could copy any technique she saw, move like water through the strikes of men twice her size.
Every scar became a lesson. Every bruise, a step toward freedom.
She still hid her skill.
Still endured.
But the day was coming when she wouldn't hide anymore.
As the years passed, the palace walls began to close in, but Arlenna grew quieter, sharper, harder to see.
She no longer needed to watch her brothers train. She had already memorized every movement, every lazy swing, every flawed stance they thought was perfection. Her body remembered what her eyes no longer needed to see.
The challenge now wasn't learning. It was hiding.
She moved her training grounds constantly one night in the abandoned stables, the next in the servant's courtyard, then the forest just beyond the palace gates. She became a ghost within her own kingdom, leaving no trace but footprints in the dust and the faint whisper of steel through the air.
Her power was growing and so were the punishments.
At first, she used to scream. The sound of it would echo down the corridors, raw and human, until she couldn't even hear herself. The pain used to tear through her voice, through her will.
Then came the stage when she stopped screaming. Her body still trembled, tears still slid silently down her cheeks but she made no sound.
Eventually, even that stopped.
By eighteen, she took every beating in silence. She stood still, unflinching, even as her father's rage grew more violent, a twisted competition to see if he could still make her break. Sometimes she'd wake up with her arms bound in splints, bones crudely set, every movement sending fire through her body. The healers whispered, "She shouldn't be alive," but she always was. Her father's orders were clear: keep her alive, but never let her be whole. Each incomplete healing, each lingering ache, was a lesson in obedience a reminder that her survival was his to control, not hers.
Her father used to try to marry her off, arranging suitors as if she were nothing more than a tool for his ambition. Each time, she sabotaged it quietly hiding evidence, planting doubt, refusing to play the part of a perfect daughter. Anger finally broke through his patience. "If you cannot be useful as a woman," he spat, "then you will be useful for nothing at all." His hands weren't gentle. The scar across her face was meant to mark her uselessness, a cruel declaration that she was no longer fit to please, no longer fit to obey. Now, at twenty, she still bore the scars, a reminder not of shame, but of survival and of the fire she carried despite him.
The silence became her armor.
And her father mistook it for surrender.
One night, when she was nineteen, it finally happened.
He found her training again this time in the royal courtyard, where the moonlight glinted off her blade. She didn't hide. She didn't run.
"Still pretending to be something you're not?" his voice boomed. "Have you not learned your place?"
She said nothing. The sword remained steady in her grip.
When he lunged, it wasn't to teach, it was to punish. His strikes came with the weight of fury and pride.
But this time, she didn't let them land.
Steel met steel.
The sound rang through the courtyard like thunder.
Her father froze mid-swing, eyes wide.
She had blocked him. Cleanly. Effortlessly.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
In that silence, realization dawned she had surpassed him.
He saw it in her stance, in the way she didn't flinch, in the calm stillness that followed.
And for the first time in her life, he looked at her not as a daughter... but as a threat.
His next words came out low, venomous.
"Leave this place. You are no longer my blood."
Arlenna's sword lowered, but her gaze didn't waver.
She turned her back to him without a word, her final act of defiance and walked away.
That night, the palace felt smaller than ever.
But the world beyond those walls felt infinite.
And for the first time, she wasn't running to hide.
She was walking toward freedom.
The gates closed behind her with a sound that felt final like the end of everything she had known.
Arlenna didn't look back. Not because she wasn't tempted, but because she refused to give her father the satisfaction of seeing her hesitate.
Days passed. Weeks, maybe. Time blurred into survival bruises fading, bones aching, and loneliness gnawing quietly at her every night.
Then, one dusk, as the sun bled red across the trees, she heard laughter.
Not cruel laughter, something lighter, freer.
She crept closer, silent as breath, parting branches until she saw them:
Three men surrounding a single woman. The woman had bright, fearless eyes and a half-smile that said she wasn't afraid of any of them.
Arlenna froze. A woman walking alone? Joking with armed men like she didn't have a care in the world? It didn't make sense.
"Careful, boys," the stranger said, voice laced with amusement. "You're standing a little close for men who don't plan on saying sorry."
There was no threat in her tone , there didn't need to be. The air itself seemed to tense, the forest holding its breath. By the time they moved for their weapons, it was already over. Three bodies hit the dirt, disarmed and dazed, trying to understand what just happened.
The woman dusted her hands, glanced around as if she knew she was being watched.
Then she looked right where Arlenna was hiding.
"You've got the look of someone who's survived too much," she said softly.
Arlenna's pulse jumped. She didn't move, didn't speak.
The woman smiled faintly. "Don't worry. I'm not here to take anything from you."
She turned to leave but paused, looking over her shoulder.
"If you ever get tired of surviving alone... come find me."
Then she disappeared into the trees, leaving Arlenna staring after her, unable to understand why those words made her chest ache.
Weeks later, Arlenna found her again. Not by chance she looked for her.
Solace. That was her name. The woman who could laugh in danger's face and still make the air feel lighter.
At first, Arlenna didn't know what to do with her Solace was so different, so unafraid. She joked easily, teased everyone around her, and somehow made Arlenna forget the years of silence and control she'd lived under.
When Solace laughed, Arlenna laughed too awkwardly at first, then without realizing it. For the first time since she was a child, she felt like she could breathe without being watched.
Solace didn't treat her like a warrior or a runaway princess. She treated her like a person who deserved to smile, to be silly, to have moments of peace.
And in return, Arlenna made a silent vow:
Anyone who tries to take that smile away from Solace... will face me first.
It wasn't duty. It wasn't loyalty.
It was love, the kind you find when someone reminds you that you're still human.
The road stretched on for days. Dust clung to their boots, and the sun painted everything in shades of gold.
Solace talked the whole way.
About places she wanted to see. About food she wanted to try. About how, one day, they'd have a ship with a cool name and maybe matching jackets "nothing corny though," she insisted, while describing the corniest names imaginable.
Arlenna didn't say much. She just listened, half-smiling most of the time. But inside, something new was growing warmth. The kind that didn't fade when the sun went down.
When the rooftops of their first town came into view, Solace nearly sprinted ahead.
"Finally! Civilization! Do you think they have fried noodles here? Oh! Or that honey bread thing with the sugar dust "
Her excitement crashed the moment they stepped into the market.
The noise hit like a wave shouting vendors, clanging metal, the rush of people moving too fast and too close. Solace froze mid-step, her breath catching in her throat.
Arlenna noticed instantly. Solace's eyes darted from one sound to another, her shoulders tightening.
Without saying a word, Arlenna stepped close and whispered, "Relax mode."
Solace blinked. Her breathing slowed a little. She nodded, repeating softly to herself, "Relax mode... relax mode..."
Arlenna guided her through the crowd, keeping her close. People stared not just because of their height or their strange energy but because the two of them moved like a single rhythm.
They stopped by a quiet fountain, the noise fading to background hum. Solace took a deep breath.
"Sorry," she said, voice small. "I thought I could handle it. I just... all the sounds hit at once."
Arlenna sat beside her, handing her a cup of water. "You don't have to apologize."
Solace looked at her, eyes flicking like she was searching for something in Arlenna's face disapproval, annoyance, pity. But there was none.
Instead, Arlenna smiled. "That's why we have modes. We'll figure it out."
For a long moment, Solace didn't say anything. Then she grinned weakly. "You're pretty good at this whole 'being a friend' thing."
Arlenna chuckled. "Never had practice."
"Same," Solace said. "Guess we're both training then."
Later that evening, they found themselves at a small street stall where an old woman was selling fried noodles just like Solace had hoped.
The woman laughed as she watched Solace's face light up at the first bite. "You two travelers?" she asked.
Solace nodded, noodles still hanging from her mouth. "Crew," she said proudly after swallowing. "We're a crew."
Arlenna blinked, surprised, then smiled.
The old woman nodded approvingly. "Then you'll do just fine. Crews that eat together last longer than crews that fight together."
Solace pointed at Arlenna with her chopsticks. "See? We're already pros."
Arlenna laughed quietly, but inside, her chest felt warm again.
For the first time in her life, the world didn't feel so big and empty.
It felt alive and it felt possible.
That night, under the stars, Solace lay awake, tracing shapes in the sky with her finger.
"Arlenna?"
"Mm?"
"When we get strong enough... let's make our own crew for real. With a name and everything."
Arlenna smiled from her side of the campfire. "What would we call it?"
Solace thought for a moment, then whispered, "The Deuces Crew."
"Why?"
"Because it's just us," Solace said with a sleepy grin. "Two of us against the world."
Arlenna chuckled softly, closing her eyes. "Then the world should be worried."