Standing up outside the temporary shelter, Idelle stood and stretched. A satisfying pop came from her joints, and she rolled her shoulders and let out a contented exhalation. She felt great. Better than she had in weeks, though the sense of fog that had been hanging over her mind had come on so gradually that she hadn’t even noticed until it disappeared. 

Experimentally, she transferred her weight from one foot to the other and then dropped into a pistol squat. The motion felt easy, casual even. Like her body was lighter than it had been. She found herself grinning, despite herself. So she hadn’t been imagining the improvements from the time in the forest. An annoyed voice sounded from one of her fellow hunters, still inside the lean-to.

“Stop showing off and get out of the way.”

“Sorry!” She quickly schooled her face and trotted off in the direction of the wagon holding their food. But not without sneaking a quick glance at the wagon that still held the corpses of the beasts they’d killed.

The trip back to the city went by quickly for her, as she tried to get a sense of the changes to her body despite her mind wandering. She didn’t think she looked different, though she had lost most of her scrawny appearance already during the weeks since she’d found Mirabel and Aldo. The change seemed subtler than that, like everything around her was moving slightly slower and everything she touched was just a hair lighter and more delicate. 

She wasn’t even sure she would have noticed the difference, had she not already suspected the effect and been looking for it. She thought back to the almost intrusive thought she’d had while feeding on the elk. That she needed to hunt on her own, and feed immediately instead of from older corpses. 

She shivered slightly. Well, that was maybe just a theory. But it felt right to her. Maybe she had some instinct for this? She certainly had instincts telling her to feed in the first place… Was this just natural, somehow?

The thought made her uncomfortable. She was just a normal human. She certainly felt like one, at least. And for all that she didn’t remember the specifics of her life, she knew how to speak normal languages, could read and write, recognized the things she saw; she knew a little geography even. Those weren’t things some kind of monster would know or do.

This must be some kind of magic then. One that Cecilia didn’t know about. It wasn’t like the princess was infallible, she reminded herself. She’d just need to figure out how it worked. Maybe that could give her some clue as to who or what had made her like this. 

A flicker of motion pulled her out of her thoughts, and her head turned to see a distant bird take flight out of the trees with a beat of black wings. She watched it for a moment, as it curled in lazy circles in and out of the trees. She could see its head making little darting motions from side to side; as if looking for something.

She was getting distracted again. There was an important question she’d been tiptoeing around. If she really could get stronger by feeding on beasts, shouldn’t she try and do it?

On one hand, there wasn’t any direct reason she could think of not to. It still felt a little gross, intellectually at least — but she’d be pretty stupid to turn down a free path to being useful and able to easily defend herself because it was a little gross. Even if she didn’t want to stay with Cecilia and her forces for some reason, it was hard to imagine that being a capable hunter wouldn’t be amazingly useful. Not even getting into the benefits of being stronger in everyday life.

On the other side of things, though, she didn’t see any easy way to feed right now. The excuse of idle curiosity about beast corpses was dead and gone, she couldn’t see any easy way to talk her way into being alone with a bunch of freshly killed magic beasts regularly. And there was no way she was going to admit what she wanted them for. Not when she’d never heard so much of a rumor of anyone similar to her.

Could she hunt on her own? She thought about it. She’d need an excuse to leave and re-enter Wyrlet, at the very least. And likely she’d want some of the alchemic lures Cateline had used. She had no idea if they were expensive or not, even assuming she could find a way to make more money. 

Yeah. It wasn’t completely out of the question, but she had no idea how she’d practically manage that either. She’d just let it be for now. There was still so much she didn’t understand, anyway. No need to rush things.

A few minutes later tall walls came into sight in the distance. The group let out a ragged cheer at the sight, shaking her out of her head. Idelle’s lips curved into a smile. Yeah, no matter the future, this trip had been nothing but a success. She’d just have to keep that up from here.

Tomorrow she’d ask Ivar about body enhancement magic and his advanced class. For now, she was going to go take a bath. 

…

The sound of wood smacking into flesh cracked through the air, and Idelle yelped. The advanced class, as it turned out, involved a lot more sparring (and consequently receiving stinging blows) than the more general class did. Thankfully, they used baton swords of a far softer and more flexible wood than the normal double weight training swords, but the twenty or so other students in the class did NOT hold back when sparring. 

She stepped to the side, keeping her eyes fixed on her partner. This time, she recognized his feint for what it was and her sword slapped it aside before flashing out at his shoulder. He was ready, however, and was already taking a step back by the time it arrived, forcing her to pull back before he could retaliate.

She stared him down. She suspected that Ivar had put her with one of the more skilled students in an attempt to test her mettle, or something similar. But either way, he seemed to always be one step ahead of her no matter how fast she moved. No matter, she was getting the hang of it.

Another swing, low into her side. She deflected it as she stepped back, but there was a follow-up this time, and the sword flicked around her blade; hard slats of wood slamming into her wrist. She hissed out air through clenched teeth.

When she’d asked Ivar about joining the class he’d given her a long look over before accepting. She wasn’t sure what he’d been evaluating her for, but it was starting to feel more and more likely that he wasn’t sure if she had the temperament to take this much punishment. The joke was on him, though. She’d been through worse. And he’d said he’d show her the basics of body enhancement afterward if she felt herself a good fit for the class.

Another wooden crack rang out and she knocked her partner’s sword aside with brute force before flicking it up just in time to graze his shoulder before he could step back. She grinned, but he shook his head.

“You need to hit harder than that. That would barely scratch someone if these were real swords.”

Her grin faded slightly and she nodded. It was a fair point, they were training for a purpose, not playing a game to score points. Ugh. Better keep at it.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t quite fast enough to land a proper hit on him before Ivar called a break to the spars. After that, they switched over to practicing drills, but this time in pairs. They started off with defending and deflecting simple sword techniques but quickly moved on to other weapons, especially those designed to simulate the teeth and claws of magic beasts. 

Here she felt much better. Say what you will about magic, but it was hard to imagine it would let a beast survive a full-power chop into the side of its head. She just had to make sure she didn’t get bitten in the process.

Still, the drills were enormously helpful. It was one thing to think in theory about sidestepping and driving your blade into the mouth of a charging beast, it was quite another to have a hundred-and-ninety-centimeter woman run full speed at you with a great mock boar’s head. While screaming. Ivar encouraged them to scream to “keep the tension up”. 

The first time she tried that particular drill, she didn’t move aside fast enough and the woman clipped her shoulder and knocked her bodily into the grass. She managed to roll (well enough, at least) when landing that she avoided having the wind knocked out of her, but it stung her pride regardless. She took the exercise quite seriously, after that.

Finally, a few more bruises later, the main lesson wrapped up and Ivar beckoned her over. She stepped over, nervous despite herself. She wasn’t sure if it was fear of the man or her own insecurities about her body and magic.

“So, you want to learn blood magic from me? Body enhancement?”

She nodded. His cold eyes gave her one last appraising look, then he nodded.

“Very well.”