The Falling Kingdoms: The Hidden Coffins

Chapter Eleven: The New Beginning

I stood in the middle of a field, ready for my first lesson of sword fighting. Raymond made me wear a leather glove in my hand for tighter grip over my sword. It felt genuinely weird saying "my sword" because forty eight hours ago, I didn't even have a clue about what I am and what I'm born for.

"Bend your knee," Raymond commanded. "Like this." He bent his knee and leaned forward, pointing his sword towards me. I did the same, aping him trying to focus.

"Now, Princess—"

"Please, call me Aileen." I gritted my teeth in annoyance, telling him for the fifth time this morning.

"I don't like your name. I'll call you Aviana." He replied, a smirk on his face.

"Fine. It's better than Princess." I rolled my eyes and said, shaking my head in disapproval.

"Okay, Aviana, remember to be in this position whenever you're going to start a sword fight. This way, your access to attack the opponent is more than any other position. Your sword directly points at their heart. If you concentrate enough, your first shot will be at their chest and their heart would be ripped right off." He explained as I listened, tightening my grip more at the sword at the mention of killing someone. I couldn't kill someone, could I? I cried once when I accidentally killed a rat. I'd be devastated if I purposely killed a person. How would I do this? Will I be able to do this?

"Aviana, focus!" Raymond's voice rang through my ears and I stood straight, coming out of my train of thoughts and bringing my attention back to him.

For the rest of the afternoon, he taught me the simplest ways to defend myself. He explained that to be a good sword fighter, I first needed to defend myself as much as I could. To my surprise, I was learning faster than I thought. I was good at this thing. Raymond told me I was born to do this, that's why I'm doing so good. That built up my confidence a little. But whenever the thought of killing someone crossed my mind, I winced like a scared child.

It was late afternoon when he finally set me free.

"Your next class will be tomorrow, 05:00 AM." He told me, walking towards the cottage at the end of the field.

"05:00 AM? Why?" I ran to catch up with him as I asked.

"Our body is not too flexible in the morning. To make it flexible for every situation, you need to exercise early morning. And, oh yeah, you'll be learning some self defense without the sword tomorrow." He was breathing heavily while talking and I seemed to notice his chest which was heaving up and down and turning me on.

I scolded myself for it.

"But they said you'd be teaching me sword fighting. Where did karate come from?" I whined, not liking where this is going. First, sacrifice of sleep. Second, karate?

"It's not karate. Just some moves so that you're not useless without the sword," he laughed and reasoned.

"But I'm not at all useless without the sword. I can do magic." I rolled my eyes.

"Aviana," he stopped in his tracks, clutching at my arm and making me face him. Softly, he put both his hands on my shoulders and stared in my eyes. "You don't know who you're fighting against. They are demons, they have the kind of power that you haven't even imagined yet. Trust me, I'm doing this for you."

"Okay," I immediately said, looking far in his gray eyes. Wow. He was beautiful.

"Let's go now," he smiled and took two steps back. "There's a meal waiting for us. I'd like you to meet some people there. It's a new beginning for you, after all."