The day after the execution, things pretty much went back to normal. I woke up, and there was that wretched Vulture woman watching over me like I was a piece of meat just waiting to die, ready to teach me my morning lessons. Her teachings were pretty much the same as they always had been. Lanta signs, Magrith writing, magic script.

After that, I wandered out to the practice field as I usually did. There, instead of the friendly grins and jokes that I normally received from the regular soldiers in my father's retinue, they started to send me angry looks and grumbled as soon as I stepped onto the training ground.

The drill Sargent came over to me and said, "You ain't wanted here. Piss off."

Unsure of what to do, I turned to go, but the captain of the guards was coming up quickly behind me.

"Ranyarn Trout Thistle," he said with a certain amount of anger. "I will forgive you since you are generally a good soldier. You would do well not to forget this; Elm is Harrion Wolverine Oak's son. Let me repeat this so it gets through that thick skull of yours He is our Master, and he is not a kindly and forgiving master. You might have forgotten that after being hit by too many training swords to the head, so let me repeat that once again. Our Master is not a nice person.

"Now had our master heard you disrespected the boy, I would bet you would now be in shackles and be headed off for sale in the slave market in the southern pirate nations. Instead, I will simply make you and your soldiers do 100 push-ups. While the boy counts." During this speech by the Captain of the Guards, I could tell that many of the men and women my father had enlisted as soldiers had been listening in. Many faces had an element of anger directed towards him, but other faces had an element of fear. Some of the guards were just thinking as if they were considering new angles. I was no longer just a poo boy.

"Elm, you are in command here."

I said, "Is this necessary?"

In a voice that didn't carry across the field but seemed like magic to only be between him and myself, the Captain said, "Before yesterday we had been trying to build up your command through admiration and respect of overcoming shared struggles. You would have grown up as one of them.

"That isn't possible anymore. The men and women won't have it. Now you have to show them who's boss. You can still get their respect but it will be with a firm commanding hand and raw talents only."

I signed.

The captain said, "tell them to get into formation."

In my most confident and commanding voice, I told the gathered soldiers-at-arms to "Get into Formation."

"Now tell them to drop and give you one hundred."

"Drop and give me one hundred," I said in a firm tone.

"Count for them."

"1," I said. "2. 3…."

I counted slowly, and the soldiers did push-ups along with my counting. Some of the troops tried to fake it, but the Captain of the guard walked between the lines and anybody who slacked off either got a verbal warning or a kick in the gut.

Finally, I was done, and the captain stood beside me. "Good. Sometimes it is important to let these dogs know who the Alpha is around here."

Then he spoke louder, "Sergeant at Arms, the men are yours. Make sure there is no repetition of today's disrespect. Like I said, I went easy on your men and women. Certain other people won't be as nice."

Then he turned to me and said, "Elm, come with me."

The Captain of the guard led me to a separate area of the practice yard well away from where everyone else trained.

"I guess for the next little while; I will be teaching you. I won't always be your instructor. I spoke with your father this morning, and he said something about hiring someone. He was vaguer than I usually know him to be. And I've known the man for years.

"Now I take that to mean either he knows exactly what he wants to do and just doesn't want to tell me, or he hasn't made up his mind and is faking it.

"What I will do is put you through the basics of the sword drills that all the soldiers here learn. This isn't anything fancy. Just a series of strike, parry, strike moves. But they should prove to be a good foundation for whatever your father wants to do next.

"But before we begin, please, I will need for you to give me ten laps around the barracks."

When I finished the laps, he had me go through a series of stretches and exercises. Then when I was nicely warmed up, he demonstrated some strikes with a wooden practice sword, showed me how to hold the sword properly.

Then the Captain of the Guards, despite his presumably busy schedule, positioned me in front of a straw practice dummy and told me to hit it repeatedly. For hours he stood beside me and corrected my form, or made minor observations about better ways to hold the wooden blade. Sometimes he would stop and demonstrate. Other times he would face off against me, both of us with practice swords in our hands, and show me in slow motion exactly why the few strikes he was teaching that day were so effective, especially in close quarters and formation fighting.

The time went by quicker than it had in years, and I have to admit that I was enjoying myself.

Then my Father's Advisor came to get me.

"Boy," he said "The general feeling in the city is that they can't blame your father, and they hold the girl blameless, so they choose to hold their grudge against you. I would be unwise to venture out among the common people like we have been doing.

"Instead I have been directed to take you to the house library, where you have been ordered to spend your time reading."

He motioned for me to follow.

The manor had a library that I'd never been allowed to enter before. It wasn't a big collection of books by Earth standards. Maybe 5000 tomes, but for someone like me, it was paradise.

My father's Advisor said. "I will make up a reading list, and you will be tested on the knowledge found in those books every three months." Looking around he said, "I am sure that this will keep you occupied for some time. Don't let the woman distract you too much. You are free to remove books from the library, but if you damage one you will be whipped." I was in far too much excitement to listen to him. For a bookworm such as myself, this library was pure paradise. All of the answers to this new world and my new life would suddenly open up.

The advisor left, and I rushed over to the shelves. The first book I came across was a collection of poetry. I would have to get back to that later. I moved a couple of shelves over and found a list of basic monsters found around dungeons. Very interesting, but not today. On another shelf, there was a history of one of the southern kingdoms, a guide on how to speak, and a short dictionary of common words in their language.

I heard polite coughing from behind me.

My mother from this world, thin, overly made up, pretty in a harsh manner, stood behind me. This was the third or fourth time in my life up until now that I'd seen her. "I see that you have been banished down here too." She said.

"Hello Mother," I said.

An ugly look crossed her face, "While it is true that we do share… a bond. I haven't decided if you are worthy of it yet. Call me Lady Margrith Dryad Spiritnettle."

"Yes, Lady Margrith Dryad Spiritnettle. Can I help you?"

"If you could take me out of this wretched place, that would help me. Otherwise, you are just useless to me. Oh, well, be silent while I read. If I have a task or something for you, I will call you over. You may go Elm. Don't forget your place."

With that, my Mother turned away from me in an imperial manner and swept herself over to a lavish reading chair she had set up for herself in the corner of the library. Looking around the library some more eventually I found a book on the history of the empire and another on the history of magic. Not seeing another place to sit, I started to make my way to the exit.

"Elm," my mother said.

"Yes, Lady Margrith Dryad Spiritnettle?"

"Do you love me, Elm?"

I must have blinked and stood there looking shocked because when I didn't answer quickly enough, she yelled "Get out. Get out now. Worthless man."

And that was how the next four years passed. The lessons in the mornings eventually changed from reading and writing to history, politics, geography, and mathematics. Though the Vulture never changed, she did begin to work in tandem with my Father's Steward about choosing which books I read from the library.

My sword lessons with the Captain of the Guards was cut short about a week later when a tiny little man with scars all over his body came to my father's manor and began to teach me to close dagger fighting.

We started with a wooden blade, but very quickly were using dulled steel and then semi sharpened steel. Very often my body by the end of the day was all cut up and covered in bruises.

Then one day the strange man with the dagger was gone, and I was back to practicing swords and exercising with the Captain of the guards. Until one day about a month and a half later another man came into the manor and my lessons with the Captain stopped, and I began to train in this exotic dance that was almost like tai-chi, except that I was focusing on moving my magic around my body almost as much as I was concentrating on my breathing. Then after a year and a half, that man was gone, and for six months, I ran laps and practiced formation fighting and sword fighting with the guards, who had either forgotten or forgiven my transgressions.

Until one day a man showed up, and every morning he would bring a freshly dead body. I don't know where he got them, and I chose not to ask. My lessons with him on some days involved dissecting the human in front of me -- men, women, children, a pregnant woman, a sun elf -- while he pointed out vulnerable areas. This is where the heart is if the blade strikes this nerve right here it is instant death, if you press right here with your thumb you will incapacitate the person, seven pounds of pressure on this joint will break this bone.

Other days involved my getting used to stabbing my sword or knife into a dead body, striking quickly in bright light and low light, in just the right spots to kill or disable.

And there were other teachers. A master swordsman came and showed me a longsword technique. A master archer came, and we spent months shooting arrows at targets. I spent four months learning dirty-fighting and brawling from a bitter old drunk when he was sober and how to cheat at cards and dice when he was drunk. That teacher left one afternoon just before he was chased out of the city by a mob of angry tavernkeepers, prostitutes, and sailors.

The second elf I ever saw (the first, I didn't tell him I'd dissected a year earlier) spent several months teaching me how the nobility dueled. Then he spent several more months teaching me how to cheat and not get caught when I dueled.

The lessons were eclectic and seemed to have no pattern. As soon as I became skilled in something, my teacher would pack up, and a few weeks later the next wandering teacher would show up.

I once asked Captain Neil Wolf Cattail, the Captain of the Guard…

"Is this how normal noble children train," I said one day, meeting his wooden practice sword with my own. A clash of splinters, then we both backed off and began circling each other again.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

A particularly vile woman had just left. I had spent the last two months trying to slip small amounts of a powder that caused flatulence and diarrhea into the food and drink of various members of the household. If anybody saw me slip the powder into the food, she would beat me.

When I wasn't learning how to creatively "spice" food, the woman taught me how to use a garrote and a blow gun.

"I mean," I said to the Guard Captain, "Are there weapons masters wandering the empire, teaching the children of the nobility for a price?"

I launched a quick set of strikes with my wooden sword at him, which he parried, but I managed to push him back.

"No," Neil said. "If a father wants his son or daughter skilled in a weapon, the usual manner is to send them off to a warrior school when they get their name at thirteen. There are schools for commoners, schools for the nobility, and schools for the particularly gifted. Some poor commoners or nobility without resources will join the army and be trained there.

"Before they become thirteen, if they train at all, it is usually done by the head of the household, or their father or mother will do it themselves -- whoever is more skilled with weapons. My Mother, for example, was a blademaster and she taught your father and me together before his naming."

Somehow his wooden blade had me on the defensive now. Flick flick flick, and I was being forced back across the training ground. I could barely keep up.

"Then why all this?" I said.

"Because you can? I don't know. Your brother and sister went through nothing like this when they were your age. They are both living as spoiled dilettants in the capital. Your father told me that your other sister, showed some promise, but she died in a training accident, and they were nowhere near as hard on her as they are on you.

"Who knows with inquisitors. I have lived near one and known one my entire life, and still, don't understand them. Forgive me, it isn't my place to say this, but I have over the last few years taken my measure of you, and I don't think I am overstepping my bounds. Elm, I respect your father, and I follow him, I’ve known him my entire life, and we were close as children, but I neither love him or trust him. I think you know what I mean. I suspect that if you follow in your father’s path, someday I will feel the same way about you."