The morning fog hung low over the training yard, clinging to the stones like a shroud. Steel rang against steel, sharp and steady, the rhythm of warriors testing one another's skill. At the center of the ring stood Fiora Valerius, her blade darting like lightning.
She was barely fifteen, but the men she trained with no longer treated her as a child. They knew better. A careless strike against Fiora ended in humiliation — or a bruised rib. She moved with precision, not wasting a single breath or swing, her gray eyes locked on her opponent as if she could see the next attack before it came.
The soldiers called it battle-sight. Her father called it a gift from the gods. Fiora knew it was neither — it was the product of endless hours in the yard, studying enemies until their movements were as predictable as the tide.
War had become her classroom.
By the time she was twelve, Fiora had ridden into three battles at her father's side. She had not yet killed a man — not then — but her plans had led to victories that seemed impossible on paper. In her mind, battle was a game of patterns, and once she saw the pattern, she could break it.
Her reputation began to spread. Soldiers from rival kingdoms whispered about the Ghost General, a commander whose strategies struck without warning and vanished without a trace. They did not know she was the King's daughter — and the King intended to keep it that way.
Her first kill came at sixteen.
The battle against the Red Banner Host was fierce and bloody. The enemy outnumbered them, and the ground was slick with mud and blood. Fiora's flank was threatened by a charging knight in crimson armor, his sword raised high. She met him head-on, her blade slipping between the plates at his neck. His body crumpled before her horse's hooves.
That night, she did not sleep. She sat by the campfire, staring into the flames until her father placed a hand on her shoulder.
"You fought like a warrior," he said.
"I killed a man," she whispered.
"Yes," he replied. "And because of that, a hundred of ours live."
From then on, something in Fiora hardened. She no longer hesitated. War was not a place for mercy; it was survival. Her tactics grew bolder, her victories swifter. Armies twice the size of Alpheria's fell before her, their generals humiliated at being outmaneuvered by an unseen hand.
She became the King's greatest weapon — but also his greatest secret. Whenever treaties were signed or diplomats visited, Fiora was absent, her face unknown to foreign eyes. In the stories told beyond Alpheria's borders, she was not a princess but a ruthless, ageless commander who appeared only when war came.
And war came often.
By her eighteenth year, Fiora had led more campaigns than most seasoned generals. Each battle etched her name deeper into the fear of Alpheria's enemies. Yet, for all her victories, she knew this truth: one day, an enemy would come who did not fear her — one who sought her out, not to destroy Alpheria, but to destroy her.
She was ready for them.