Chapter 755: Targeting Weaknesses (Part Two)
For the next several hours, steel rang against steel as Ashlynn attacked again and again. Thane held nothing back, countering viciously with precise deflections and counterstrokes. Each time he slipped past her guard, fresh welts bloomed across her arms and shoulders. Underneath the quilted fabric of her gambeson, purple bruises swelled and throbbed until she drew emerald energy from the fallen trees to seal split skin and mend torn muscle.
By the second hour, blood had dried in her hair from three separate scalp wounds. By the third, her right wrist had been sprained twice when Thane mercilessly knocked her blade from her hands. The breaks Ashlynn needed for healing grew longer and longer as her reserves depleted, until she knelt gasping among the fallen leaves, one hand pressed to ribs that Thane had cracked using the pommel of her own blade after wresting it from her hands.
After four hours, she was utterly spent and struggling just to draw breath. Her hands shook as she leaned heavily on her practice sword, using it as a crutch just to remain upright at the center of the clearing. Sweat and blood had turned her tunic into a sodden, stained mess that clung to her trembling frame, and the chill night air did almost nothing to relieve the feeling of being steamed within her own armor.
Standing at the edge of the clearing, Thane watched her with calculating amber eyes, his own breathing barely smooth and even despite the brutal pace he’d maintained. When Ashlynn looked up at him, hoping to at least see his usual nod of approval at her progress or a gentle word of encouragement, she instead found something different in his expression. A cold, nearly emotionless mask that reminded her so much of Nyrielle in the early days of their relationship that it made her stomach clench with unease.
"You’re making progress, but not nearly fast enough," he finally said. Only this time, when he spoke, his tone held none of the warmth of the guiding older brother or kind tutor he’d always been with her before. Instead, there was a sense of superiority and disapproval that she’d never heard from him before... But she’d heard it plenty of times from Owain and other nobles like him.
"But at the rate you’re going, Owain will die of old age before you’re ready to face him," he said, shaking his head as he began to circle her slowly like a predator evaluating wounded prey. "Tell me, Ashlynn, if this is all you’re capable of, why should Mistress Nyrielle let you chase after your vengeance? If you’re just going to get yourself killed trying, you should give up now instead of persisting in this foolishness."
"After all," Thane said as he loomed over her. "Mistress Nyrielle loves you, and so does the rest of the family you have here. Aren’t you just betraying them by rushing off to fight a battle you can’t win? How can you be so selfish?"
"It’s not! It’s not like that," Ashlynn said, hanging her head in shame under the torrent of barbs that dripped from Thane’s suddenly viperish tongue. "I won’t fail in this. If I have to," she added, glancing up at him with a look that contained pure determination, but none of the fire that Thane was looking for. "If I have to," she repeated. "I’ll use witchcraft against him. Better to reveal myself and throw away the chance to rule the march than die because I held myself back."
"So that’s it, is it then?" Thane said, clicking his tongue in disappointment. "If you can’t defeat him the way you need to, you’ll throw away all your plans and provoke a Crusade that we aren’t ready to defeat. I’m sure that will work out just fine in the end," he sneered. "If that’s all you have in you, it’s no wonder Owain nearly killed you. It wouldn’t have been any harder than slaughtering a lamb."