Athra scanned the familiar room once over and sat behind his desk to start unpacking the blood samples he had obtained from his siblings. He poured the vial from Diarra first, presuming hers would be the most familiar to manipulate due to them being twins, which he assumed would make zeroing in on key differences between the two easier in hopes of finding what exactly gave her the advantage she once had over him.

The red liquid was poured over the workstation, which had varying arcane carvings of Athra’s own creation. Diarra’s blood filled the first carving, and the reaction was instant. The red-colored liquid turned a shade darker as Athra started to freely manipulate it, making a single drop fly closer to his eyes. Inspecting the droplet, he couldn’t truly discern the differences between his and hers when it came to bloodline. So, at least he knew they were truly related by blood. However, he could feel a certain difference that he could not discern. His curiosity growing, he moved on to the other samples after carefully controlling the blood back into its vial.

After hours of looking for differences, he had no tangible evidence, but he could feel the same thing that he could not quite place his finger on in the other siblings’ samples as well. He was quite sure this intangible difference was what gave even partially other D’loras the advantage they had over other Ira. Now the question was, could he harvest it and perhaps use it to augment his own newly improved blood? It also possibly meant he could, in the future, improve his siblings’ potential as well. If he was going down the road of becoming a heretic of previously unseen proportions, he would need all the help he could garner. Hopefully, Lumina Herself would be more forgiving than what he imagined her clergy would be.

Athra, tired from hours of research and note-taking, laid down on the comfortable bed, and soon he was asleep. The following morning, Athra, for the first time in a century, got out of his quarters to attend a lesson on swordplay. Seeing Athra in the large hall used for dueling classes and sparring practices caused a murmur among his classmates. After all, the result of his duel against Ledros was somewhat of common knowledge now. Within the days he was gone from the academy, more and more people had learned of the duel that took place and checked the records of the two students. While the details of the duel were hidden, the result was public, as it concerned the rankings within the academy. Some students thought maybe the prince had used his status to cheat, perhaps ordering or bribing Ledros to surrender. However unlikely it was, it still seemed infinitely more plausible than ‘the coward prince’ winning a duel against an elite student of the academy.

Soon, a woman walked into the hall, and all the murmurs stopped. Athra surmised, due to the effect she had on his classmates, that she was their lecturer. Soon, when she said, “Everybody find a sparring partner,” he was proven correct. Around Athra, people started forming pairs. After a century of knowing each other, people naturally knew who was close to their skill level and would make good sparring partners. This made Athra stick out like a sore thumb without a partner to spar. He was unbothered by this and grabbed a sparring sword in the likeness of a bastard sword and started to train his basics. His movements were fluid and graceful, reflecting a thorough understanding of at least the basics, much more thorough than most of the other students present. This difference was more apparent to those with more trained eyes, as seeing the difference in the elegance of the most basic swordplay required understanding how hard it was to refine those techniques.

An auburn-haired young man, a classmate of Athra’s, was one such person. Trained by his father, he knew how to spot someone with refinement and pick out decent sparring partners. Wasting no time, he approached Athra. “Would you like to spar, your highness?” he spoke with respect as his impressive frame, filled with well-trained and toned muscles, drew closer.

Athra glanced at the direction of the voice, and upon seeing who it was that wanted to be his sparring partner, he was elevated. After all, he knew how good Tyrian was with a blade thanks to the training he received from Rylorian. “Only a fool would refuse such a high-quality sparring partner,” Athra spoke with a slight smile on his face. He wondered if Tyrian knew of his short session with the master at arms. In his mind, this was a good opportunity to both train himself and maybe give a little payback to Rylorian through his son for the shallow but painful cuts.

The two men took their positions across from each other, drawing the eyes of their fellow students. They were curious to see Athra fight, and seeing his opponent made them all the more excited, as Tyrian was by far the best swordsman in their year in terms of pure swordplay. Now, his spellcraft, on the other hand, was another matter. However, in a spar of swords without any magic involvement, such as this one, that did not matter one bit. The students were just curious as to how fast Athra would lose the duel and how shameful his display would be.

The duel started with both men sizing each other up with non-committal jabs and feints, dancing around one another. Athra could see that without involving spells, this would be a challenge. He was never one with impressive physical prowess like his brother or agility like Diarra. Nonetheless, what he had was an impressively quick mind and efficiency in his movements. Combined, they made him appear to move faster than he actually was.

Tyrian was much like his father when it came to combat. That is if one were to remove all the experience Rylorian had, he was rather agile, but his real strength was his physical prowess. Every time their swords collided, Athra was reminded of the difference between their physiques as he was forced to use his sword to slow the other’s down as he elegantly dodged away. Athra was displeased with his display. He believed even without his spells, he shouldn’t be on the defensive, at least not to this degree. What Athra was failing to realize, due to his pride and the current fight occupying most of his thoughts, was that he had not been training for the last century in terms of swordplay, whereas his opponent had been training every day for the same amount of time.

Athra was starting to feel the fatigue of clashing swords with a physically superior opponent, a feeling he was rather used to in the past, especially whenever he sparred against his brother. He knew the more this fight dragged on, the slimmer his chances of attaining victory would get. With that in mind, he threw caution to the wind and focused all his movements around dodging and attacking instead of deflecting and waiting for a chance. He had abandoned the notion of Tyrian making a mistake as he seemed to be doing better than Athra in terms of fatigue, even though he also was getting tired. Athra was gambling on being able to dodge the incoming attacks and land a hit while doing that, which took even more energy than just deflecting but alas, in his mind, it was the only way to victory.

Seeing Athra’s impressive footwork, Tyrian couldn’t help but smile. He, after all, loved to fight a skilled opponent. He also could tell Athra was getting better, even though very slowly throughout their spar. His initial feints were not as good, nor was his read on Tyrian’s attacks. Athra, true to his nature, was passively absorbing information and adapting at a terrifying pace, much like what had happened at his duel with Rylorian. He could tell that if they dueled like this, Athra would eventually catch up to him, a prospect he was very much looking forward to, as he was similar to Athra in that he learned much better when faced with a stronger opponent when the activity in question was crossing blades.

The other students were mesmerized throughout the duel, some even stopping their own duels to spectate this performance by the two talents. Their trainer, on the other hand, was watching with an intense gaze as she made mental notes of every mistake she could pinpoint to let the respective party know. She also was quite happy that these two were in her class, as it meant when hunting events and dueling tournaments among classes took place, there was a high chance of coming out on top, and that meant securing a bonus.

Soon, the sound of blunted metal hitting flesh was heard throughout the hall as both opponents managed to land hits on each other. Tyrian had managed to connect with Athra’s neck, whereas Athra’s blade was resting on top of his chest, ready to stab him through and pierce his heart. “Tyrian is the victor,” the woman announced as she deemed that, in actual combat, the wound Athra received would result in a severed head, which would lead to instant death, whereas a pierced heart could be healed if one acted fast enough and had the means.

Athra was not pleased with the result, but he could not protest as he could understand where she was coming from. The only one to blame for his loss would be himself. His pride was suffering due to the two losses in two challenges back to back. Although the defeat to Rylorian was not completely unexpected, the one to Tyrian was a surprise to him. Still, he knew that if he was able to use his spells, he would wipe the floor with Tyrian, who, unlike Rylorian, was not yet a decent spellcaster.

“Would you like to be sparring partners from now on?” Athra spoke, as he knew the more they sparred with each other, the more he would learn. By now, he had remembered the fact that he literally had skipped out on a century of swordplay practice. No wonder why he had lost. He now realized what he needed the most was a capable sparring partner within the academy for swordplay, and he was not about to let this opportunity slip away.

“Of course, your highness,” Tyrian responded. The fact that he was pleased could be heard in his voice. He knew, just like Athra, that sparring with the prince would let both of them improve at a faster pace than sparring with other students within their class. It also was never a bad idea to be in the good books of a prince.

This duel, which had taken place out in the open in front of about twenty students, would be yet another thing that chipped away at the title the students had given Athra prior, with many other things that would follow.