The clang of two swords meeting was a shrill scream of unbending will. The sharpened metal pushed and fought against one another with deadly precision. These swords were meant to kill and kill they would.

"Very good," Ulric muttered as I blocked one of his ferocious blows. He stepped back, sweat glistening on his skin and causing small curls of white hair to form around his face. His usually pale skin was flushed a gentle pink across his cheeks from the exertion.

My hands felt numb, and my palms tingled from the force they had sustained during sparring with him. We had graduated to using semi-sharp, metal swords in my combat training. Now every time my sword made contact with his sword, the vibrations in the metal shook the bones in my arms and made my hands feel weak.

Even though it was difficult, I was improving, and I was proud of it. I had never been the strongest, or the fastest, or the best at anything athletic. I had always felt awkward and out of place in physical education classes. Now I was finding new strength and grace with my lessons. I wasn't just physically stronger, but I had new a confidence knowing that I could protect and defend myself.

If I ever ran across seedy men in an alley as I did months ago, then I could and would fight back. I even walk through the palace halls with more confidence. Knowing the danger surrounding me didn't seem quite as scary when I could fight back.

As I stared down at the metal weapon in my hand and the faint reflection across the tarnished metal, I wondered about the attack on the rebel compound. The thought was never far from my mind. We wouldn't hear back on the results for another day or so. A page would ride ahead of the battalion to deliver any news.

I, along with everyone here, already knew what the news was, the rebel compound would have been obliterated and the resistance crushed with it. Even so, I was anxious to know the results.

A small splash of water rained down on my face dampening my hair, and the neck of my shirt startled me into awareness. Ulric stood with an arched brow at me and a container of water in his hand.

"Was that really necessary?" I asked, annoyed.

It always seemed that sword fighting turned into an opportunity for Ulric to annoy me as much as possible. He had a different energy to him when he fought. It was a new skip in his step, an extra spark. His eyes seemed brighter and more excited. He loved the feel of a sword in his hands, and it was one of the few times I could see any emotion in him besides brooding angst. I swear, sometimes he was worse than a teenager. Always in the shadows of rooms, arms crossed, and entirely socially unavailable.

"Never let your mind slip around a sword," he said and held his weapon out in front of him, ready for another round.

Before engaging with him, I knelt down to place a hand against the stone floor of the training room. It was harder to feel the potent magic of Erivale's earth through the floor, but it was still there – a tickling brush against my skin.

Part of my training had been working on harnessing the magical energy in tandem with my sword fighting. Every warrior did this to help with their endurance, speed, and strength. Eventually, I will be able to take in the magical energy directly through my feet, even through the barriers of shoes and floors. Expert sword fighters could also absorb magical energy from the wind and air when there was no earth or plant life nearby – say within the upper floors of a palace.

Focusing on the magic within the earth, I imagined it moved into my palm like a river and the energy flooding my body. I suddenly wasn't so tired, and my muscles felt fresh and ready to fight again.

Standing up, I got into my stance and held my sword out protectively in front of myself. Ulric attacked first with a well-aimed overhead swing that would have left a nice dent in my head, even with the blunted sword. I thrust my own blade to intersect his stopping its path, but he swiftly pushed my blade as he moved out of the line of danger, and soon the tip of his sword was aimed at my chest.

My heart rate was picking up with adrenaline and exertion as I ducked out of the way, and the blade whistled over my left shoulder. I rolled to the side and hopped to my feet, feeling an extra burst of energy as more of my skin contacted the ground and absorbed magic from the earth.

Ulric attacked in quick succession with furious swipes to my sides that I parried easily. He swung his blade down at me with an overhead strike once again, and I thrust my sword to halt its movement leaving a jarring in my hands. Ulric, with his blade tangled with mine, stepped forward and pushed up to open my core to a vulnerable attack.

Using the cross guard of my blade, I pushed upwards, a move difficult due to our height difference, but still effective and smashed the pommel of the sword into his chin. Ulric stumbled back, a new edge to his eyes as blood dripped from a split in his lip.

I couldn't help the smile that came to my face knowing I had actually struck him. It was the first time I had made contact as I was typically too busy on the defense. While pleased with my definite improvement, I could also tell that he wasn't too happy about being clocked in the face. The warrior in him was not content with being bested, and he called my attention to spar again.

The second I was in my ready stance, he charged, and this time his blows were much stronger and harder. I briefly wondered if he had been holding back this entire time, but I hardly had time to think about that amongst the rapid attacks coming from him.

The adrenaline coursed through me stronger as my sense of fight or flight truly kicked in. Before Ulric's blows had always seemed manageable. I had no fear of death or serious injury in our lessons. But now, one proper swipe from his sword, and I would be seriously hurt.

I barely had the wherewithal to continue to block his blows; my sword was moving sloppily with the erratic effort of merely keeping myself alive. My heart felt like it was hammering in my chest, and sweat was beginning to drip down my temples.

I watched with a gut sinking feeling as Ulric reared his arms back and brought them down with all his might. I instinctively closed my eyes, afraid that no matter what I would do, I wouldn't be able to block this blow.

Within the comforting darkness of my own mind, I felt a surge within me, and suddenly, before I could even recognize what was happening, my body was thrusting my blade forward and moving out of the way of the path until our weapons were locked, hilt to hilt.

I opened my eyes to stare directly into his face, and he looked at me, somewhat shocked. Untangling our swords, he continued his volley of attacks, but I found that I surprisingly could manage them much better. It was like there had been a release in my mind; I could sense what his next attacks were going to be: a thrust towards my ribs, an overhead blow, and uppercut. And so it went until we were both breathing heavy and Ulric called a break.

"Get some water," he ordered and propped his blade up against a bench. His water container was sitting next to it.

I turned back to my water container, too out of breath and exhausted to say anything. My hands were shaking from gripping the sword so tightly and fumbled with the top of the container before successfully unscrewing it. The chilled water felt heavenly against my chapped lips and dry mouth.

As I relished the much-needed break, I suddenly felt a strange pressure on my back that I had felt in those last few moments with Ulric. The pressure crept around my neck, and I whirled around, a sudden fear of being chocked surged through me. My body, acting on its own accord, ducked and rolled to the side, and Ulric dove after me.

I writhed underneath the weight of him, the fear of being chocked still freshly stamped on my mind. But it was quickly dissipating, Ulric would never hurt me like that. What was hurting was his elbow in my side as we were tangled together on the mat.

"Get off of me!" I grumbled and pushed at his chest. "What the hell was that?"

He sat back on his knees, and I propped myself up on my elbows to look at him. "Amberleigh, did you sense that I was going to choke you?"

"Wait, you really were trying to choke me?" I scrambled backward a bit, and he lunged forward to place a hand on my knee and hold me in place.

"That is not the point; you are fine."

"Um, yeah, it's kind of the point. You were going to kill me!"

"Not kill you, maybe knock you out."-he rolled his eyes-"I didn't think I would actually hurt you; it was a test."

"What kind of a test requires you to choke someone?"

"One that measures your awareness of danger." At my dubious expression, he continued. "You knew it was coming before it even happened, I could tell something was up at the end of that last sparring match. You knew my attacks before I could even make them. I began to wonder if maybe you could sense danger the way you have such a strong awareness of magic. It looks like I'm right."

"So, you're saying I read your mind?"

"No. You are simply aware of life-threatening or even just hazardous threats against you. Sort of a premonition, but it explains why you had felt unease in the palace even before you knew of the danger you were in."

"I've never felt it before. If I really can sense danger, then why haven't I felt it before?"

"Sometimes magic affinities need something to kickstart them. Clearly, something during our training really brought this power to fruition."

"Yeah, I could tell after I hit you that you were a bit more, violent."

"I guess I did get a little carried away at the end."

"A little?" I scoffed. "You nearly took my head off."

"Well, I didn't, so you're fine."

"You could have killed me!"

"And I didn't."

I groaned in annoyance, "Warn a girl next time you aim to kill."

"Looks like I don't need to." He shrugged, and I sensed pressure to my head, leading me to lift up my arm and push away his oncoming fist, causing it to veer to the left. The momentum brought him forward until he was squashing me again.

"Really? You tried to punch me in the face," I said. I was unamused with his antics.

"Just thought I would test it again." He smirked at me as he pushed himself up to hover over me.

"Why doesn't it warn me when you tackle me?" I gestured to him, pinning me to the ground.

"Because you're not in danger, princess, at least not that kind." He winked, and a fierce blush covered my cheeks.

Ignoring his innuendo, I wedged my left foot up under him and pushed off, knocking him back and allowing myself room to stand up. I grabbed my sword quickly and swung it around, so it was pointed at his chest.

"Are we going to keep practicing or what?"

"Very well, princess, let's keep practicing." He moved with lightning speed from his kneeling position to kick out his leg. He intended to knock me down, but once again, before I could even think, my feet jumped on their own accord, and his leg swung under me. "This is going to be fun." He grinned and flipped himself up to a standing position before casually grabbing his sword and standing in guard.

Our lesson ran longer than usual. Ulric seemed fascinated by my intuition of danger and wanted to test it in every which way. We discovered that it wasn't always foolproof, while I could sense the risk, I wasn't always fast enough or strong enough to truly avoid i. Still, I escaped training with minimal scratches and bruises, which was pretty impressive considering Ulric had really stepped up his game. It was clear to me now that he had been holding back, but with my added advantage of intuition, he seemed to let himself fight to his fullest potential.

Ulric was still a formidable fighter, and while I was able to stay alive, I rarely got an attack in on him. Danger awareness was a defensive strategy, and I much appreciated it, but it still meant I hardly had time to make a proper offensive attack. That would be our future lessons, learning how to take the intuition and use it as a way to attack. Knowing the blows that would come before they even hit their mark meant that I could enact the proper counterattack more quickly and efficiently. Of course, it would take a while to learn the process.

The confidence I had gained since starting my lessons a while ago had grown exponentially during this lesson alone. My danger awareness was one of the best tools I had within a palace that wanted nothing more than to put me in danger.

Author's Note:

In my drafts, I am much farther ahead than what is published here in Wattpad so every time I post I have a lovely opportunity to re-read previous chapters. I had honestly forgotten what I had even written in these parts until I edited and posted them. I forgot how fun this chapter specifically was. Ulric is such an annoying little jerk when it comes to sword fighting lessons and I love it. Their relationship is much more lighthearted in these settings it's fun to see them interact.

Also, its fun to see what Amberleigh is like here and how much she has changed compared to the later chapters I'm working on 👀

Let me know what your guesses are for what is going to happen next in the story, I'm curious if your predictions match up with what I already have written or if I might be taking some of you by surprise.