Bloodstained Blade
Chapter 90 - First Lesson

The Ebon Blade let Evelyn rest for an hour while she ate, even though it was much more time than she really needed. After five minutes, she’d already fully recovered thanks to its magic, but that didn’t stop her whining. She complained about everything.

“This bread is already starting to go stale. How am I supposed to make it last for half a week?” she bemoaned. “And this ham! Why couldn’t I at least keep my cook? She slices it just the way I like it! I’m hopeless with a knife!”

Which is something we will soon change, the blade agreed.

Still, Evelyn could not be placated. She complained about the sweat stains in her perfectly lovely riding outfit. It was only when the blade asked her if she was ready to start her first real swordsmanship lesson that she stopped bemoaning everything and focusing on eating and drinking.

After the heat of the day faded somewhat, they went back outside, and the blade proceeded to teach her the same deadly dance it had taught Ivarr months before. It did so slowly, explaining the crossovers and weight shifts where they were subtle or crucial.

Overhead slash, block and riposte, side step, side slash, ninety-degree pivot, reverse slash, and more. For now, it glossed over the little flourishes and had her focus on the core movements, and for this, at least, the baroness did a much better job than she had any of her other travails today.

+7 Life Force.

She treated the movements like the dance it almost was, and though there was no force in any of her movements, for now, there didn’t need to be. It was just enough that she swung the blade smoothly and in the required ways.

Eventually, she complained about even this, but the blade ignored her. It didn’t matter if her arm tired. That’s the point, it reprimanded her. When we are cutting our way through your father’s throne room, we may have to cut our way through an entire army of defenders. That would turn my last wielder’s arms to jelly, and he was much stronger than you.

“The orc that carried you in battle?” she asked without slowing her movements. “Was he a good wielder? Do you wish he’d lived?”

He is dead, the blade answered with finality. But despite being less than human, he had a wonderful lust for battle and will be remembered forever.

“I mean, I think I have a lust for battle that’s pretty—” Evelyn started to say.

You desire to kill certain very specific people, the blade corrected her. A few members of your family, a couple of lovers, and others who have wronged you. A desire for murder is not the same as a desire to fight, and you will need both for what lies ahead.

The weapon expected her to continue to defend herself as if her words mattered to it. So, it was blindsided when there was a moment of confusion that made her ask, “How do you know all of that?” she asked. “I told you about my husband and my father, but…”

+10 Life Force.

I can see into my wielder’s soul, it confessed, realizing only belatedly that it had tipped its hand more than it meant to. Not as deeply as you think or fear, probably, but if you fantasize about who you’re going to kill with me, I feel it.

Its wielder blushed at that revelation but started moving again, moving through the motions in an effort to make them smooth. It felt her guard raise against it slightly, but even so, with the full power to control its wielder, it could have broken through her mental guard. It was more embarrassment and self-consciousness than genuine wariness. Instead, it let her practice in silence and focused on devouring songbirds and squirrels that strayed too close, devouring their tiny animal souls in an effort to build strength in this rural place.

It was slow. It was so slow, in fact, that it rejected increasing its reach the way it had. While it had made a great deal of sense in the midst of battle, enabling it to reap the souls of hundreds, in its current circumstances, the ability to drain a few targets much more powerfully would have been much better.

There’s no fixing it now, it told itself.

Perhaps in the future, it would find an opportunity, but right now, it needed to focus on its wielder. Her fitness was terrible, and her mindset wasn’t the best either, but her form was better than it could have hoped for, and at the heart of her personality was a vicious killer; it just needed to awaken that part of her a little more, though that would be easier to do when she slept, especially now that she’d raised her guard against it.

+8 Life Force.

The blade forced her to practice those moves for another hour. Then it cut down a tree with only a single stroke through the thing’s three-foot thick trunk and had Evelyn practice slicing it one thin section at a time like she’d done earlier with the ham.

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It did not enjoy the feeling of wood. It felt rough and unpolished compared to the succulent flesh that it much preferred to slice, though. For now, though, the blade ignored its own discomfort and focused on building skills.

This brought more complaints. “What’s even the point of this?” she asked, hacking out random hunks of wood with half-hearted strokes. “Wood is no ham to be sliced. This is impossible.”

The blade let her go at it for a few more minutes with increasingly less effort, and then it took control of her again. It didn’t berate her or lecture her. Instead, grasping its hilt in both of her hands, it brought them down hard a foot further up the trunk to cut off all the ragged bits that its wielder had created.

“I mean, that part isn’t so hard,” Evelyn insisted, “But you said you wanted it sliced thin, and that’s not—”

The blade ignored her, tuning her out completely as it focused entirely on the log. This wasn’t about power. It was about precision. Even so, it still used Amplify Blade when it was ready, bringing itself down hard and fast, a fraction of an inch from the end of the smoothly cut log had created. Because of the speed of the slice and the miniscule amount of wood it had removed, its wielder thought that nothing had happened. It could sense her surprise.

“D-did you miss?” She asked.

I did not, the blade said in her head as he bent over and retrieved the thin slice of wood where it rested on the ground like a crumpled piece of cloth. The thing was so thin that it was translucent, and it was closer to parchment than wood.

It looked at the thing with a critical eye, noting that it could have made a slightly more even cut, but those details escaped Evelyn completely. “I… How did you do that?” she demanded in a shocked tone. “Was it magic?”

The only magic I used was power and precision, the blade said, telling her only half the truth. You are not ready to learn my other powers. For now, focus on committing to each blow with follow-through. If you fail to make at least one acceptable cut, we shall take another run through the woods before bed to focus on building up endurance.

“But it’s almost dark!” she shouted, shocked at the idea.

I can see in the dark better than you can in daylight, the blade answered matter-of-factly before going quiet.

Evelyn wasted several more minutes trying to bargain or reason with the blade, but it ignored her. Eventually, she started hacking away at the trunk again, but even if her aim got better, there was no follow-through, which made blows with even her magical strength and its razor-sharp edge ineffective. It was like she was flinching at each point of contact rather than pushing all the way through.

+7 Life Force.

The blade did not accept that effort. And after it got dark enough that Evelyn complained she could barely see, it sheathed itself and started a second run through the forest.

No, please, not again! She wailed mentally since it would not allow her to speak as it ran through the dark and scare off any game it might find. I’m afraid of the dark! You’ll run us into a tree, or we’ll fall down a cliff and—

If we trip, it will be because you are fighting me, the blade cautioned her. She wasn’t fighting nearly as hard as a goblin being forced into the light of day, but even if she was, it could have overpowered her now. It had grown substantially since that first fight. You must learn to trust me and work with me. You must learn to swing through your opponent and throw your whole heart into every strike!

I do trust you, she wailed. And I am—

As she spoke, the blade saw a black bear ahead. The thing barely noticed them before it forced its wielder to leap up onto the wide, strong branch of a nearby tree before slamming down like a thunderbolt.

It drew itself in midair and landed, splitting the bear in half with one motion, feeling a respectable trickle of Life Force for the first time in days. The blade savored that moment even as he watched the four-foot-tall animal fall away from each other wetly, like two sides of pork.

+26 Life Force.

What was that? She asked, terrified, as it resheathed itself and continued on in its heart-pounding race. Who did you… Who did we kill?

It was just an animal, the weapon told her, choosing not to tell her details, like the way the thing had been split neatly in two so quickly that it hadn’t even had time to cry out in pain or alarm.

It felt her relief at those words. ‘Just an animal.’ I’m going to have to do something about this, the weapon told itself. She’s much too soft-hearted.

Still, that line was enough to make it take the smallest measure of pity on her and return to the house soon after. She was exhausted and terrified and had another month of this treatment to endure. While it had no intentions of being gentle, it didn’t want to break Evelyn either.

After her first real day of working out, she didn’t even try to bathe. She simply washed up with a basin and a clean rag, then devoured the loaf she’d complained about at lunch, along with a large block of cheese, and went to bed.

That night, Evelyn slept like the dead, clinging to the blade in the wide bed beside her. Truthfully, she’d done better than he expected. That wasn’t quite praise. They would never win any wars like this, but it still had more than a month to make her into the woman she needed to become, and with its help, that was doable.

Once she was asleep, though, it got to work, whispering into her mind the things she needed to know if she was going to become who she needed to be. You will become strong and focused, it told her. You must not give pity or half-measures to our enemies, and anyone who might discover us is our enemy. You have to strive for greatness and do what must be done.

Really, the blade was no great fan of being wielded by a woman. It was better than being wielded by an orc, but it still didn’t quite align with the souls that swirled inside of it, and it could probably whisper like this into her mind for years without changing that. Still, it would try.