# Chapter 7: Elara's Oath
The mud in the training yard was frozen hard, corrugated like the ribs of a starving dog.
Elara Vane, nine years old and comprised entirely of elbows, knees, and fierce intention, stood ankle-deep in the frost. She held a wooden practice sword that was too heavy for her. It was a crude thing, whittled from a branch of ash, weighted with lead poured into the handle.
She swung.
The wood cut the air with a dull *whoosh*. It struck the straw dummy—a sad collection of burlap sacks stuffed with last year's rot—with a hollow *thud*.
The dummy didn't fall. It merely shuddered, dropping a few flakes of straw onto the snow, indifferent to her violence.
Elara stumbled. Her boots, inherited from a stable boy two winters ago, slipped on the ice. She flailed, the momentum of the heavy sword dragging her torso around, twisting her spine. She landed on one knee, the impact jarring her teeth.
"Again," she hissed.
She didn't cry. Crying was for babies. Crying was for people who had money to pay others to fight for them.
Up in the nursery window, two stories above, Sylas Vane watched.
He was five. He sat on a pile of cushions to reach the sill, a mug of hot water—tea leaves were for guests—cupped in his small, pale hands. The steam fogged the glass, and he wiped it away with a methodical swipe of his thumb.
To anyone else, it looked like a little brother watching his sister play.
To Sylas, it was a geometry problem.
**[ SUBJECT: ELARA VANE ]**
**[ ACTION: HORIZONTAL SLASH (ATTEMPT 42) ]**
**[ ANALYSIS: SUB-OPTIMAL. ]**
The world overlaid with the Architect's grid. A translucent blue wireframe mapped Elara's posture.
As she stood up, wiping mud from her leggings, red lines erupted from her form. They weren't blood; they were vectors of wasted energy.
*She's initiating from the shoulder,* Sylas noted, taking a sip of the hot water. It tasted of iron and boiled snow. *The fulcrum is wrong. She's trying to muscle the blade with upper body strength she doesn't possess.*
The red lines on the glass showed the trajectory. The sword went wide. Her center of gravity—a glowing yellow dot in her abdomen—swung wildly outside the base of support provided by her feet.
She was fighting gravity, friction, and her own anatomy. And she was losing.
Down in the yard, Elara screamed.
It wasn't a scream of pain. It was a scream of pure, distilled frustration. She gripped the sword with both hands, raised it high—exposing her ribs, her lungs, her heart to any imaginary counter-attack—and brought it down.
*Crack.*
The ash wood struck the dummy's shoulder. The force reverberated back up the stick. Elara dropped the weapon, shaking her hands, her face contorted.
Sylas sighed. The breath fogged the glass again.
**[ OBSERVATION: MANA LEAKAGE DETECTED. ]**
The air around his sister shimmered. It wasn't visible to the naked eye, but the System painted it in jagged violet spikes. Her anger was acting as a catalyst. The massive, dormant power in her blood was trying to answer her frustration, but it had nowhere to go. It was just heat, radiating off her, melting the frost around her boots.
If she didn't learn to cap that bottle, she would burn the cork.
"She's going to hurt herself," a voice said.
Sylas didn't turn. He knew the tread of those boots.
Arthur Vane stood in the doorway of the nursery. He looked older today. The meeting with the tax collector had gone poorly; Sylas knew this because the hallway smelled of cheap brandy, a vice his father only indulged in when the numbers didn't add up.
Arthur walked to the window. He placed a heavy hand on Sylas's shoulder.
"She has spirit," Arthur said, looking down at his daughter. "But spirit doesn't parry a lance."
"She works hard," Sylas said. His voice was soft, the voice of a five-year-old who liked naps.
Arthur chuckled, a dry sound like dead leaves scraping stone. "Hard work is a virtue of the poor, Sylas. The rich buy skill. We... we have to bleed for it."
He watched Elara pick up the sword again.
"I should stop her," Arthur murmured. "Tell her to come inside. It's too cold."
"She won't come," Sylas said.
Arthur looked at him. For a second, the haze of alcohol and exhaustion cleared from the Baron's eyes, replaced by a flicker of curiosity. "No. I suppose she won't."
Arthur squeezed Sylas's shoulder, then let go. "I'll tell Martha to keep the soup warm. Don't stay by the window too long, son. The draft will catch you."
He left.
Sylas turned back to the glass.
Elara was swinging again. Forty-three. Forty-four.
The red lines of failure grew thicker.
***
Night fell like a heavy curtain, turning the gray world to black.
The manor was quiet. The wind had picked up, whistling through the gaps in the slate roof, a mournful song that the Vane family had listened to for three generations.
Sylas lay in his bed. The System was running background tasks—optimizing his digestion to extract maximum nutrients from the thin vegetable broth he'd had for dinner, reinforcing the calcium lattice in his left femur—but his conscious mind was awake.
He heard the floorboards creak.
It was a specific creak. Third board from the door, hallway left. Elara.
She wasn't coming to his room. The footsteps were moving away, towards the stairs.
Sylas threw off the covers. The cold bit at his skin instantly. He slid into his wool slippers and grabbed the blanket, wrapping it tight.
He followed.
He didn't need a light. The System mapped the hallway in wireframe, highlighting obstacles in neon green. He ghosted down the stairs, stepping where the wood was solid, silent as a shadow.
He found her in the gallery.
It was a grand name for a drafty corridor lined with portraits of dead Vanes. Most of the paintings were dark with grime, the faces of ancestors peeling away in flakes of oil paint.
Elara stood at the end of the hall, before the tall, arched window that looked out over the valley.
She was wearing her nightgown, her feet bare on the stone. The moonlight washed over her, turning her skin to marble. She held the wooden sword in one hand, the tip resting on the floor.
She was shivering. Not from cold, but from adrenaline.
Sylas stopped in the shadow of a suit of armor—rusting, empty, missing a gauntlet. He watched.
Elara looked up at the moon. It was full, a harsh white eye staring down at the poverty of the estate.
"I don't care," she whispered.
Her voice was trembling, but it gained strength as she spoke.
"I don't care if we have no gold. I don't care if the other houses laugh."
She lifted the sword. She pointed it at the moon.
"I, Elara Vane, swear it."
She dropped to one knee. It was clumsy—she banged her shin—but she didn't flinch. She bowed her head, the sword held vertical before her face like a holy symbol.
"I will be the shield," she said to the empty air. "I will be the iron wall. No monster will touch him. No debt collector will take him. I will get strong enough to kill them all."
Sylas felt a strange sensation in his chest.
**[ HEART RATE: ELEVATED ]**
**[ DIAGNOSIS: UNKNOWN EMOTIONAL VARIABLE ]**
She wasn't swearing loyalty to a king. She wasn't swearing to a god.
"I swear to you, Potato," she whispered into the dark. "I won't let you be frail. I'll be strong for both of us."
She stayed there for a long time, kneeling on the freezing stone, holding the pose until her arms shook.
Sylas backed away.
He moved silently back up the stairs, his mind racing.
The raw data was clear. Elara had the potential of a tactical nuke, but currently, she was a danger to herself. Her swings were wide. Her stance was open. She relied on anger, and anger made you predictable. If she entered a real fight now, she would be dead in three seconds.
He entered his room.
He went to his desk.
He lit the tallow candle. The flame sputtered, casting long, dancing shadows.
He took a piece of paper. It was scrap, the back of an old bill of sale for grain.
He picked up a piece of charcoal.
He closed his eyes, recalling the image of Elara in the courtyard. The red lines. The flaws.
**[ INITIATE: CORRECTION PROTOCOL ]**
**[ TARGET: STANCE FORM A ]**
He didn't draw a diagram. He didn't draw vectors or force calculations. She was nine. She wouldn't understand biomechanics.
He drew a stick figure.
It was crude. The head was a circle, the body a thick line. It looked like something a five-year-old would draw.
But the geometry was perfect.
He drew the stick figure with its feet wide—wider than Elara's stance. He exaggerated the bend in the knees. He drew the sword not held high, but held close to the body, the elbows tucked in.
He drew a second stick figure next to it, swinging the sword. He drew a line showing the hips turning *before* the arms moved.
**[ CONCEPT SIMPLIFICATION: KINETIC LINKING. ]**
**[ TRANSLATION: USE THE BUTT TO SWING THE SWORD. ]**
He looked at the drawing. It was ugly. It was perfect.
He added a dragon in the corner. A very small, angry dragon that looked like a potato with wings, breathing fire on the stick figure's enemies.
Just to sell the ruse.
Sylas blew the charcoal dust off the paper.
He crept out of the room again.
Elara's door was ajar. She was still downstairs, likely freezing in the gallery, making promises to the moon.
He slipped inside her room. It smelled of lavender and old sweat—the smell of effort. Her bed was messy.
He placed the paper on her pillow.
He smoothed it out.
He walked back to his own room, climbed into bed, and pulled the covers up to his chin.
**[ SYSTEM SLEEP MODE: INITIATED. ]**
He didn't sleep. He waited.
***
Morning arrived with the subtlety of a hammer. The sky was the color of a bruised plum.
Sylas sat at the breakfast table. He was eating oatmeal. Again.
Elara came down late.
She looked tired. There were dark circles under her eyes, violet bruises against pale skin. She wore her training clothes—the tunic stained with yesterday's mud.
She didn't speak. She sat down and stared at her bowl.
"Elara," Lilliana said gently, placing a hand on her daughter's arm. "You need to eat. You're growing."
"I'm not hungry," Elara mumbled.
"Eat," Arthur commanded from the head of the table. He was reading a letter, his brow furrowed. "We can't afford to waste food."
Elara picked up her spoon. She looked defeated. The fire from the night before seemed to have burned down to ash.
Sylas watched her.
*Did she see it?*
She reached into her pocket.
She pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. The back of a grain bill.
She smoothed it out on the table next to her bowl. She stared at it.
"What is that?" Lilliana asked.
"Nothing," Elara said quickly. She covered it with her hand. "Just... a drawing."
She peeked under her fingers. She looked at the stick figure. She looked at the bent knees. She looked at the potato dragon.
A tiny, confused frown creased her forehead.
She looked at Sylas.
Sylas was busy struggling to lift a spoonful of oatmeal to his mouth, putting on a performance of supreme motor incompetence. He dropped the spoon. It clattered.
"Oops," he said.
Elara looked back at the drawing.
She shifted in her chair. Subconsciously, her feet under the table widened. She tucked her elbows in.
She took a bite of oatmeal.
Then another.
She ate quickly, shoveling the food in.
"May I be excused?" she asked, her mouth still half-full.
"Chew, Elara," Lilliana sighed. "Yes. Go."
Elara bolted. She didn't walk; she ran. The door swung shut behind her.
Sylas finished his oatmeal.
"I'm going to the library," he announced.
"Stay warm," his mother said, already turning back to the ledger.
Sylas went to the library. It was on the ground floor, overlooking the courtyard. He climbed onto the high-backed chair near the window.
He waited.
It took three minutes.
Elara marched into the yard. She didn't have the frantic energy of yesterday. She looked puzzled. She held the piece of paper in one hand and the heavy sword in the other.
She stuck the paper onto the wooden post of the fence with a glob of mud.
She stood back. She looked at the paper. She looked at her feet.
She widened her stance.
She looked at the paper again. The stick figure with the tucked elbows.
She pulled her elbows in. She lowered her center of gravity.
**[ SYSTEM ALERT: TARGET POSTURE IMPROVED. STABILITY INCREASED BY 40%. ]**
Sylas leaned forward, his nose almost touching the glass.
Elara closed her eyes. She took a breath. The steam plumed from her mouth.
She didn't try to chop the dummy in half. She twisted her hips.
The movement started in her heels. It traveled up her legs, snapped through her waist, and whipped into her shoulders. The sword wasn't a heavy club anymore; it was the end of a whip.
*Swing.*
The sound was different.
Yesterday, it was a *whoosh*. Today, it was a *hiss*. The sound of air being split efficiently.
*Thwack.*
The sword hit the dummy.
It didn't bounce off. It bit in. The force transferred perfectly. The dummy rocked violently back on its pole, the wood creaking in protest.
Elara froze.
She looked at her hands. She looked at the sword. She hadn't stumbled. She hadn't slipped. The recoil hadn't jarred her bones.
She looked at the drawing on the fence.
She did it again. Stance. Hips. Snap.
*Thwack.*
Harder this time. A spray of frozen straw exploded from the burlap.
A grin broke across her face. It was wild, fierce, and beautiful. She laughed—a sharp, triumphant bark in the cold air.
"Hah!"
She spun around, looking up at the house. She scanned the windows.
Sylas ducked.
He sat on the floor of the library, his heart thumping a slow, steady rhythm.
**[ SUBJECT: ELARA VANE ]**
**[ SKILL ACQUIRED: BASIC SWORDSMANSHIP (FORM 1) ]**
**[ PROFICIENCY: NOVICE -> APPRENTICE ]**
**[ MANA FLOW: STABILIZING. ]**
He listened to the rhythmic *thwack-thwack-thwack* from the yard. It was the sound of a foundation being laid.
He pulled a book off the bottom shelf. *The History of the Aetherion Empire, Vol 4*. It was heavy, dusty, and boring.
He opened it.
He wasn't just building a warrior. He was building a queen. And queens needed a kingdom to rule.
The System hummed in his mind, satisfied.
**[ TASK COMPLETE. ]**
**[ EXP GAINED: 100 ]**
**[ NEW BLUEPRINT UNLOCKED: MANA BREATHING TECHNIQUE (SIMPLIFIED). ]**
Sylas smiled.
Step one: Fix the swing.
Step two: Teach the nuclear reactor how to breathe.
He turned the page.