Chapter 11

Five months have passed now.

Arya had already gotten used to the flow of things. She had adjusted to life as a princess now.

A normal day consisted of her waking up at 7 in the morning, getting dressed, eating breakfast and being at the training court by 7:30 for Mr.Elijah and Miss.Catalina's combat lessons until 11:30 am. Lord Elijah would usually teach her swordsmanship while Catalina worked with her in close range combat.

Arya really enjoyed these lessons and she worked really hard to improve and get better each time they dueled-Something Elijah and Catalina both took notice of and praised her for.

Arya would wash up before she ate lunch; That took her about 10 minutes.

After lunch that lasted until almost one in the afternoon, it was lessons with Lord Pax on academic subjects ranging from mathematics to reading to history for three hours. Arya found those lessons highly interesting and fascinating and teacher and student often engaged in intellectual discussions and conversations. Baron Pax taught her royal politics and the way how to deal with the complex and intertwined web of alliances, politics and customs of upper crust society- things Arya picked up easily and quickly but still had room for improvements and progress. Arya found them interesting but a bit of a bore and strange; She didn't know why royals just couldn't be friends with someone and not make it all about "gains and benefits" nor did she fully understand how nobles could kill someone over one insult or bad joke.

The last class of the day was Lady Catalina's etiquette and manners . This was something new as Arya never had them before. They had only started a week ago and both Baron Pax and Elijah were convinced that his highness was planning for Arya's official debut soon. 

 Arya didn't really like it as she did with her other lessons but she still found them interesting. Catalina taught her everything there was to living as a princess: Equiitte, social customs, taboos, etc.

Everything from how to host a party to ballroom dancing to how to curtsey. Arya learned it all with the same amount of determination and passion as she did for her other lessons.

But Arya never really liked etiquette or dancing the way she liked sword fighting, close range combat, using her powers or academics. She still learned them but only enough to get by and pass Catalina's standards-which weren't too high but they weren't low either.

After half an hour of ballroom dancing, learning how to eat properly and how to curtsy, lessons officially ended for the day and Arya had the rest of the day to herself until it was time for dinner.

Arya would then fill up her free time with reading. Ever since Baron Pax taught her how to read and write, Arya had been reading every book she could get her hands on from the books in the Viridis Mansion library.

Arya could go through three or four books before it was time to eat. 

Arya had also taken up singing and drawing, discovering that she had a talent in both. Arya was an amazing singer to begin with and she improved over the five months she had been staying at the mansion, she had the voice of an angel now. 

Myna would start crying because of how beautiful she sounded.

Drawing took a little bit more time to be able to see improvement but Myna was a patient and good teacher. She was the one who inspired Arya to try learning to draw after Arya saw one of her pictures-a still life of a bowl of fruit-and Arya really wanted to learn how to draw like that.

Arya's picture of a field of flowers was looking wonderful right now.

She would eat dinner with Lord Elijah, Lady Catalina and Baron Pax while she learned more about her teachers while having dinner and their relationship grew closer and closer.

Then it was time for bed.

…..

It was early in the morning and swords clashed and rang out across the training court as Arya and Elijah sparred each other. Catalina waited patiently for her turn.

Blades crossed, blows were either blocked or parried, attacks were traded.

Arya stabbed, slashed and jabbed at Crow with her twin swords, but Elijah either dodged or blocked every stab, jab or slash with his wooden swords. Teacher and student were locked in a battle of agility, strength, power and speed and they seemed to be on par with each other;the sounds of blades clashing, fighting and battle filled the courtyard. 

Arya decided to pick up the pace and her attacks grew more and more faster as she stabbed, slashed and dealt blows in an unpredictable manner. Her eyes darted everywhere as she caught all the attacks her teacher was throwing at her, blocking them or dodging them quickly before launching a counterattack. Elijah would then increase the speed and aggressiveness of his attacks, slashes, jabs, feints, rotating his sword over his head to land a downward strike, or moving his left sword up to cover his left side whenever Arya launched an attack on his left side.

Blades hissed and sliced through the air as the two continued to spar and duel. Arya ducked a slash and then pushed up with her legs to counter with an upwards swing of her sword that Elijah quickly blocked.

He reminded her how to slash and swing her sword in a way that would trick the opponent into lowering their guards. He reminded her to be quick and ruthless in battle and that hesitation would mean death or serious injury in real battle. He reminded her to block and parry a blow by using the blade of a sword whenever she could.

Elijah was a really good teacher and Arya was a fast learner. Same went for Catalina.

Empathize on fast. Arya was learning faster than Elijah, Catalina or Batron Pax could teach her and she was rapidly absorbing the things Elijah was teaching her and then applying them in a real battle or spar.

Elijah wasn't going to admit it out loud but he was starting to think that this girl was a prodigy just like him.

In fact, her talent and ability was so monstrous that it terrified him as to how powerful this girl could be in the future. She definitely had the talent and skills to become a swordmaster: The highest ranking title that could ever be given to a sword user. The swordmaster title signified the power and strength the person had. It declared their expertise and unrivaled talent in swordsmanship to the whole world. 

Only thirty people had ever been given the swordmaster title through the Aadijay kingdom's 550 year history. 

His own teacher and himself were the only two swordmasters in the kingdom currently.

There could be a third swordmaster by the time Elijah was finished training Arya though.

Arya crossed her swords in order to guard herself from Elijah bringing down both swords on her own with a loud clang erupting when she blocked the blow. She struggled for a bit as Elijah was putting all his strength and power in this power but she slowly resolved her and pushed back with enough strength and force to push Elijah a few feet away from her.

Elijah panted and swiped the sweat away from his brow. They must have been sparring and training for at least three hours now and the sun was shining bright and hot on them.

Arya lifted up her left hand and used her powers to pick up a towel from the bench to wipe off the sweat from her face along with a flask of water. The towel and flask were surrounded by a dark green light and floated over into her waiting hands.

She wore a white cotton short, black pants with a pair of brown leather boots-The outfit very similar to the one she wore when she first started training. Her short brown hair was wild and messy from all the sparring and fighting she did. Her hands were bandaged up to her wrists.

Elijah noticed her using her powers and gave her an approving smile. He took a big gulp of water from his own flask before he addressed Arya.

"Good girl, Adelaide. Nice work you got there. After a 15 minute break, how does a spar with Catalina sound?"

Arya took a swig of water.

"It sounds good to me."

"Atta girl."

….

Catalina and Arya positioned themselves so that they faced each other.

Ready to fight each other.

Arya went first with a straight punch that Catalina easily dodged before she launched a right hook that grazed Arya's cheek and missed her by a few centimeters if Arya's fast reflexes didn't save her in him.

The two women continued to trade punches and kicks. They seemed to be equally matched for each other with both of them standing on equal grounds.

Catalina would throw a right hook, then a left hook then a side kick.

Arya dodged her blows and counterattacked with a back kick that Catalina caught straight in her stomach.

Catalina reeled under the painful kick but Arya didn't relent, continuing to rain down punches and blows, forcing Catalina onto the defense.

Finally, Catalina surrendered.

"It's your win, little princess."

"Thanks, but are you okay?"

Arya had meant to control her strength but she misjudged and might have used too much in the end.

Catalina smiled.

"I wouldn't have been the top 10 most powerful students in my class if a kick in the guts was all it took to defeat me. Believe me, little princess, I suffered much worse than a kick to the guts during my training years at the academy."

Elijah nodded.

"Me too. A little pain isn't going to kill us so go as hardcore as you want, Arya. That was amazing by the way."

Arya shocked her head.

"But I still hurt you."

Catalina placed a hand on Arya's shoulder.

"No. What you did was exactly what I wanted you to do. You need to be ruthless and finish off your opponent because an opponent who can still move and fight is an opponent who can still kill you, understood?"

"Yes, Catty."

"Good girl."

….

Baron Pax's lessons were canceled for the day as Baron Pax was at home celebrating his wife's birthday so Arya had a lot of free time today.

Myna was struggling to carry in heavy crates crammed full of all the ingredients she needed to make today's dinner. Huge wooden boxes of carrots, potatoes, onions and large bags of rice. 

Arya noticed her struggling and decided to help her out a bit.

She focused all her energy towards lifting up the large crates and she was able to lift up 4 or 5 crates at a time using her telekinesis. 

Myna watched as huge crates weighing up to 100 pounds were lifted up by Arya as easily as she could pick up a pillow. Arya made it look effortless with how she used her powers to lift up those crates using only her mind to lift up multiple crates at once and move them from the storage pantry to the kitchen.

"Thanks, your highness, you really didn't need to."

"No problem, Myna! Say, I realized that I don't know much about you compared to Mr.Elijah or Catty or Mr.Pax."

Myna turned oddly quiet at this and Arya realized her mistake.

"That's so insensitive of me. I'm so sorry! You don't need to tell me about yourself if you don't want to!!"

Arya ran out of the kitchen before Myna could reply.

…

Lunch time arrived. A meal of roasted potatoes and carrots with tender lamb and chicken served with white rice. One of Arya's favorite meals.

Arya had a nagging question on her mind. She knew that she was a princess since her father was a king even if she had been born out of wedlock. She wondered if her uncle was the only other family that she had or if she had any other relatives. She thought about it all the time now as the months passed by.

"Do I have any brothers or sisters?"

Elijah shook his head.

"As far as we can tell, you're the only child that the late King had unless there's another one of his descendants still out there that we don't know of yet. But your uncle has eight children, 4 boys and 4 girls. You have eight cousins, my princess."

Arya poked at her food before putting some into her mouth. She processed that piece of information in her head. Eight children seemed like a lot to her.

"What are they like? My cousins."

Arya would like to get to know her "siblings" better if she is now part of the royal family. She always dreamed of having a warm, loving family to call her own when she was scraping her fingers off for bits of food on the streets or trying to avoid getting attacked by the cutthroat thieves and criminals that roamed the streets at night looking for easy prey like her.

Maybe this was it. She could finally have a family to call her own now once her uncle decides she could be introduced to the world as a member of the royal family. Yes, they might be a little cold towards her and feel awkward around her but they're surely warm up to her over time. 

Awkward silence followed her question. Myna chose this moment to refresh herself with ice cold water from a gold goblet. Elijah hastily shoved food into his mouth in a way that was a complete disregard to proper table manners and eating etiquette for nobles. Catalina had a sudden usual interest in the floral tablecloth, admiring the way how the red roses were so delicately embroidered onto the white cloth.

Arya rolled her eyes. Who were they trying to fool? It was completely obvious that they were trying to dodge the question.

Arya decided to ask Myna. Myna had told her that she had spent 10 years working in the royal palace before she came to work for her as her personal maid.

Myna was finishing up her meal and she seemed to have been paying close attention to the conversation because she came clean to Arya about what her royal cousins were like.

"They're not exactly close to each other. They're always at each other's throats and fighting with each other. They may share blood but they might as well be complete strangers living under one roof. Their mothers are even worse-complete bitches-well, not all of them, but most of them-that are greedy, power-hungry and scheming women from noble families eager to have more power and influence in the royal palace."

Arya's first thought was that Myna shouldn't really be saying all this. She was a servant and servants weren't supposed to speak badly of their masters. But then again, Arya knew Myna wasn't the type of person who liked to beat around the bush or sugar coat things at this point. She would give you a straightforward and honest answer even if it was a bad one.

Arya frowned. Mothers? Did her uncle remarry after Queen Estelle-her aunt-died? Just how many times did he remarry? Did the king have more children with other women?

"Did my uncle remarry?"

Elijah and Catalina were finally paying attention now.

"NO!!"

All three of them replied at once to Arya's question. Arya nearly had a heart attack from the way they were all screaming at the top of their lungs.

"Okay, I get it!! Then…"

"Your highness, you have to understand this about royalty. The king has one wife, the queen, understand?"

"Yes, Mr. Elijah, that's kinda obvious."

"But he also has concubines, women who are also part of the royal family but they are not officially married to the king but they're lesser ranked than a queen is. The king had kids with his queen along with his concubines that resulted in your eight cousins."

The response to this was something akin to a nuclear bomb explosion.

"Basically, they're side chicks."

Arya was not prepared for the reactions from what she believed to be a harmless comment.

Catalina's jaw dropped and the piece of food in her mouth fell out and onto the plate. Elijah started to laugh, tossing his head back and he had tears in his eyes. Myna looked to be in a state of catatonic shock.

Arya looked around the room, her head was moving left and right as she took in the room.

"What? They are side chicks if they sleep with the king when he already has a wife-"

Elijah was laughing harder now, slapping his hand down on the table so hard that Arya thought he might accidentally break it.

Catalina held up a hand to stop Arya and her face was bright red.

"Sweet girl, please don't say that in public-especially not in front of those women. That's not something a royal prince or princess should be saying or know. Where in the world did you learn that vulgar language? "

Vulgar? What did that mean? Arya didn't think she said anything wrong but judging by the reactions she got when she said that, it probably was something bad.

"A book. I saw a book lying around and I picked it up. It had a picture of a girl and 4 boys on it and the words, "Her Many Lovers: The Romance of an Abandoned Lady. I read the first few chapters. It was really good. I didn't know we had books like that in the mansion!!"

Catalina's face was entirely red now. Catalina cursed her carelessness for leaving her romance novels around a little kid who was learning to read. While some of her romance novels were lovely-dovely, kid-appropriate, others were not for little kids. And it just so happened that Arya picked up one of the not kid-friendly ones!! It was a good thing that Arya didn't get too far in the story where things got really heated, a small mercy.

Arya was making fast progress in all her lessons and she was reading every book she could in the mansion she could find. They were all so proud of her fast progress. She was slowly growing and maturing into a little princess now but she would never be a "perfect princess" like the other princesses, all prim and proper with all the liveliness and personality of a rock. She had life and a kind of spirit in her that was bright and beautiful. She brightened up all their lives and she really was a treasure of a girl.

Said girl was also a bit childish. It was a charming and lovely but disastrous trait as today's incident showed. Catalina thanked her lucky stars that she didn't say that in a public setting or in front of those women. Who knows how they would have reacted to such an insult? Those women didn't take their honor being insulted like that lightly and Arya might suffer from their wrath. 

Catalina made a mental note to start monitoring Arya's reading material now. She didn't need another disaster like this to happen again. Catalina went back to eating.

 Arya excused herself, having eaten her fill now, and Elijah and Myna followed after her. 

Arya headed over to the training court but she didn't really feel like training. She decided to head over to the gardens inside.

A bright pink rose was in full bloom and Arya reached out for it, fingers brushing up against the velvety petals, careful to avoid its prickly thorns. Arya loved roses

Elijah saw that his master had an interest in the roses. He also saw that she was unhappy.

A quick swipe of his sword removed a perfect looking rose from the rose bush. He then set fire to the rose, but carefully making sure he only targeted the thorns so they burned off.

He handed it to Arya and a smile flashed across her face.

"Thanks, Mr.Elijah.". Arya sniffed the rose, taking delight in the rich perfume it produced.

"Are you alright, my princess?"

Arya thought about it for a moment.

"Yes, Thanks for worrying about me, you two. I just wanted to give Catty some privacy and I just wanted to go on a walk today after I ate a good meal. I'm thinking about my cousins."

Myna and Elijah turned to look at each other. 

Arya's eyes traveled back to the rose in her hand. She started to levitate it and the pink flower started to twirl and spin around and around in circles in the air. Arya felt more comfortable using her power now and she felt it was a part of her now just like an arm or leg was.

"Is there any love or happiness in the royal family? Or is it all about "power and strength"?"

Arya ripped the rose off its stem with only her mind and she let the stem drop to the ground while keeping the rose afloat in the air.

Elijah pondered that question.

Was there any love among the royal children and in that family? He thought about Concubine Oddessa and her only son. She loved her son very much and she had taken an active role in his life rather than just relying on a nanny to care for him like so many of the other concubines and she still was very involved in his life. He thought of the king's love for the oldest son and for all his children. He thought of Queen Estelle's love for her husband and son before she tragically passed away. 

"Yes, there is some love."

Arya turned around and smiled at him. 

"Thank you, Mr.Elijah. I think I want to go on a stroll now. Can you and Myna please come with me?"

…..

A royal prince was training in his private training room. Prince Theon was busy channeling his powers of controlling and manipulating metal. He first created shards of metal from thin air and manipulated them, stretching them out to be thin and sharp like a toothpick and in a matter of seconds, he had almost a dozen of these crude metal toothpicks- like objects floating around him now. With a flock of his wrist, all 12 of these giant iron toothpicks went flying towards the wooden dummy that quickly dodged and avoided most of the iron weapons, zig-zagging through them and charging right at the prince.

The prince didn't seem fazed and seemed to be almost excited. He made a giant iron spear appear from nowhere from the ground and it speared the dummy right through the heart. More iron spikes erupted from the ground and continued to precise through the body of the dummy until the dummy looked like a wooden pincushion.

Theon smiled.

"New skill testing was a success."

He was very excited and happy. He ended up losing control of himself and caused some swords to explode and combust. Shards of iron and steel of what remained of 6 perfectly, brand new swords were scattered everywhere.

Theon winced and cringed.

Not again. His mom was going to flip when she saw that he destroyed another set of good swords again just because he couldn't control himself.

Maybe he should bring her some roses from the rose gardens to calm her down before he went to tell her that she needed to buy him new swords when it had only been two weeks since he got the new set of swords.

….

Focus.Focus.Focus.

Princess Marissa relaxed and focused on leeching the water out of the air, forcing the vaporous water in the air around her to transform back into its liquid form. Drops of water splashed onto the cold metal floor of her private training room until the water she had been able to draw out of the air was almost up to ankles. 

A flash of movement caught her eyes and she saw three arrows fired in her direction from the right.

Marissa quickly manipulated the water to form a shield around her body with the water.

The three arrows got in the water shield and hung suspended in midair, caught in a watery trap.

Marissa ducked an ax aiming for her head and the ax instead emblemed itself in the stone wall behind her. She shoulder-rolled and then hurled a powerful burst of water that sent the dummy ax-user crashing into a wall. 

Marissa got up and tossed her braid over her shoulders and admired her handy work on those training dummies.

But it wasn't over yet.

A training dummy charged at Marissa and she quickly blasted it with a jet of water that set the dummy flying and crashing into a wall so hard the wall started to crack.

More training dummies were coming at her now and she summoned all her strength and three huge geysers of water erupted from the ground like watery volcanoes. The poor dummies were blasted up into the air by the powerful eruptions of water that the princess created.

Marissa smiled.

This was a good warm up.

….

 Prince Assyrian was speeding around his training room, swords, knives, axes, arrows and all sorts of weapons were thrown in this direction by his wooden sparring opponents. He ducked, dodge, and maneuvered his way around these deadly weapons and sent bolts of lightning from his hands to literally shock his opponents. The dummies shook and convulsed as if they were having a seizure before they collapsed onto the ground, unmoving and still.

But the fight wasn't over yet. More wooden dummies appeared from nowhere and charged at him at once, some from the right, some from the left, some from behind. Assyrian smirked and pushed off from the ground with both feet, launching himself about 10 feet into the air, high above the training dummies. He summoned and created all the lightning he could, flickering, glowing and powerful blue lightning, squeezing it into a tight ball about the size of a watermelon above his head. Then Assyrian unleashed hell on the wooden dummies by having the ball of lightning "explode"-He sent bolts of lightning raining down on the wooden dummies, causing the wooden dummies to get fried to a crisp and some even turned into ashes. Some of the dummies tried to escape their fate, dodging the bolts, but Assyrain seemed prepared for this and he manipulated and controlled the bolts that were raining down to change their trajectory so they would land a direct hit on the moving dummy.

He finally came back down to earth after sending bolts of lightning raining down on the dummies.

His hands were spitting out small sparks of lightning and seemed to be emitting a bright blue glow.

Assyrian whistled as he admired the damage he inflicted on the dummies.

But his mother still wouldn't be happy with just this amount. He had to do better in order to please her. 

….

Prince Demetrius was able to maintain his invisibility for 2 minutes this time.

He improved by one minute and 30 seconds.

His instructor was very happy about the progress he made and he let him know.

Demetrius could only nod his head in thanks as he felt more winded and tired than ever now.

Maintaining his invisibility took a toll on him and his stamina was rock bottom compared to his other half-siblings. That was the problem: His poor stamina caused him to not be able to maintain his invisibility for long periods of time.

His training instructor had him run laps around the training room in order to build up his stamina but Demetrius didn't see the whole point of trying to improve when he didn't stand a chance against the rest of his half-siblings when it came down to the royal succession game they were all players in. Invisibility was a low-level power and it couldn't hold a candle compared to super strength, super speed, lightning powers and so many more powerful abilities out there.

Being invisible was of no defense against highly trained ability users who didn't need to be able to see you in order to take you out. One small cough, a rustling of clothing, a flash of movement, a shadow in the corner of the eye-that was all that was needed to be able to take you out.

He showed progress and improvement but Demetrius was no idiot. He was still much weaker compared to his half-siblings with Azalea maybe being more weaker than he was as her ability allowed her to create moving "puppets" that obeyed her every command and would fight for her. That girl seriously lacked any real combat ability or skills, Demetrius though, as he wiped the sweat from his brow.

If it weren't for her, he would have been considered the weakest royal kid in the family.

Oh, maybe the flower power girl!! The first princess and his oldest sister had a rather silly ability to make flowers and plants grow and bloom but how could flowers and trees kill someone? What combative role could they play other than to be shields?

He sighed. He, Azalea and sister Frey.

They were on the weaker side of the power scale.

…..

Lysandra made the air cold and freezing around her as a thin layer of ice started to spread along the floor and walls of the training room.

A dozen or so training dummies made entirely from steel came rushing at her and Lysandra held her right hand in front of her in the direction of the charging dummies.

The air in front of her chilled and ice started to form, hardening and sharpening into thin, sharp and pointy spears.

Her ice spears were formed and created in a matter of seconds and with a flick of her wrist, she sent them hurling towards the on-coming dummies.

Normally, when ice meets metal, metal wins, but Lysandra seemed to have manipulated the ice to be stronger and tougher than steel, to be as hard as diamonds because the ice spears stabbed right through their steel bodies, right through their chests where their hearts would be if they were human.

Some of the training dummies dodged and avoided the ice spears but Lysandra was prepared for that.

She blasted beams of ice at the dummies who zig-zagged and dodged the blasts of ice thrown at them.

Ice covered the ground, the walls, blocks and patches of ice were scattered everywhere around the room.

Finally, Lysandra managed to hit two of the dummies. Ice quickly covered up their body and soon, the dummies were frozen in place, swallowed up by ice and turned into a metal dummy icicle.

There were still three more dummies left to deal with.

Lysandra stomped her feet and spikes of ice surrounded her in a tight circle.

All three dummies were finished off when the ice spikes speared right through them.

Lysandra decided to end her training here for today and left the training room she turned into an icy wasteland.

…..

The royal children trained separately and do not interact with each other often. Family oftentimes meant very little for royals and nobles like in the face of power and strength.

They were each eyeing the throne like a pack of hungry wolves.

With the Crown Prince out of commission, the throne was without an heir. And there were plenty of spare heirs to choose from that wanted the throne.

The king's illness seemed to be getting much, much worse now.

It was probably no exaggeration to say that the king could literally drop dead at any moment these days if you were to check out his condition.

The king looked thin and malnourished, wasted and shriveled up, looking more skelton than human right now as he laid almost lifeless and dead in his bed. You could see the bones in his body poking so visabley from his skin.

His eyes bulged out of their sockets and his skin took on a sickly, yellowish color that resembles old parchment paper. 

He coughed up blood and bits of his lungs.

His body was wracked with pain and the king was totally dependent on painkillers to ease the pain.

The poor health of the king was kept secret with only certain trusted people-Baron Pax, Lady Catalina and Lord Elijah-knowing his condition.

The royal doctor was a middle-aged, balding man with thinning and graying dark brown with a round belly and beady brown eyes. He finished examining the king and shook his head.

"Your highness….I hate to be the bearer of bad news….but it seems like your terminal illness has advanced more rapidly and aggressively than expected. I'm afraid nothing short of a miracle can save you now. I believe you only have a few months to live now."

The king seemed to accept his doctor's bad news with a shocking amount of calmness and acceptance for a man told he only had a few more months to live.

The doctor thought the king was in shock so he tried to comfort the king.

"Your highness, with proper treatment-"

The king weakly lifted up a hand to silence him. Just the mere effort of raising his arm seemed to be too much for the king since his arm shooked badly and he dropped it only after a few seconds.

"Stop, Brutus. Enough of all this. You did your best and I have accepted my fate that my time is running out. If I die, I'll die with dignity and grace. But I don't want to die with regrets. I need to finish up my duties as a king first."

Brutus had tears in his eyes and knew that he wasn't going to be sleeping well for years to come.

Prephas some good news might cheer up his king.

"Your highness…about the crown prince….I bring you some good news."

The king turned his attention towards the doctor.

"The Crown Prince has finally awoken from his coma."