Chapter 363. Better Three Days of Restraint Than Three Months in a Sling

The following days passed not in a steady stream of time, but in a series of agonizing pulses. For Kaela, every hour felt like a physical weight pressing down on her chest.

Her patience wasn’t just tested; it was being systematically dismantled, ground down by the relentless, excruciating slowness of the world outside her own newfound momentum.

The discovery she had made that terrifying, exhilarating connection between her body and raw force was like a fire that had been lit in her blood, and now she was being forced to smother it with wet blankets.

To stave off the creeping madness of inaction, she poured herself into the training yard. The morning air was often damp and biting, but she didn’t feel it.

Sweat soaked through her training leathers until they clung to her skin like a second, heavier layer of flesh. She drilled the basic forms with a desperate, almost violent intensity.

’Stance, pivot, strike.’

’Stance, pivot, strike.’

She repeated the fundamental combinations over and over, each movement a ritual of controlled frustration. Her mind was screaming for the release of a full-power impact, the bone-deep shudder of a successful connection, but her body was being forced to perform a pantomime of combat.

William watched her with the watchful eyes of a predator guarding a wounded asset. He had adjusted her regimen with surgical precision, deliberately keeping her strikes restrained.

During this waiting period, he refused to let her commit to anything more than fifty percent power. Every time she wound up for a punch that looked like it could split granite, he was there, his voice cutting through her trance like a blade.

"Control it, Kaela... Again..."

"Soften the impact; focus on the form."

Each correction felt like a slap to her pride. Her instincts, those raw, newly awakened animal impulses, were screaming at her to unleash the storm.

’Let me hit something,’ she would think bitterly. ’Let me feel something shatter.’

’Let me feel the resistance of something that can actually push back.’

"This is torture," she announced on the second morning, her voice cracking with irritation.

She held up her hands, flexing her knuckles. They were still tender, the skin pale where it had healed and mottled with fading bruises.

"I feel like I’m wearing shackles..."

"I finally find the one thing that makes sense, the one thing that makes me feel like I’m not just pretending to fight, and now I’m forced to train like some fresh-faced recruit learning basic stance work."

"It’s insulting!"

"Better three days of restraint than three months spent watching your bones knit back together in a sling," William said, his voice calm, almost infuriatingly patient.

He stepped into her space, examining her stance. "If you rupture a tendon now because you’re bored, Grock could build you armor made of dragon scales, and it wouldn’t matter."

"You’d be useless."

"I know, I know," she snapped, wiping sweat from her eyes with the back of her wrist. "But knowing the consequences doesn’t make the itch go away."

"I can feel it, Instructor Wade... The power is right there, coiled up in my shoulders, waiting, and I’m just... standing here."

The pacing became her new default state. Between drills, she would circle the yard like a caged wolf, her boots scuffing against the packed earth.

Her questions to William became more frequent and more desperate, each one carrying a sharper edge of anxiety.

"Has there been word from the messenger?"

"Did the letter reach the academy yet?" she asked at dawn.

"Not yet," William replied.

"Do you think Grock has started? Maybe he’s already at the forge, screaming at the metal?" she asked again three hours later.

"I wouldn’t put it past him."

"Could we have sent a hawk instead? A faster courier? Someone who doesn’t stop for tea and conversation?" By the third day, her questions had become a relentless barrage.

William answered each one with the same measured, amused honesty, though beneath his calm exterior, he recognized the signs of a warrior losing her grip. He knew the danger of a weapon that had been sharpened but was being forbidden from cutting.

He reminded her repeatedly, almost like a mantra, that quality craftsmanship couldn’t be conjured through sheer impatience. Metal had to be heated, folded, and tempered; it required time that no amount of human will could accelerate.

But as he watched her tear through her forms, each movement more explosive than the last despite his restrictions, William knew something she didn’t: the storm wasn’t just coming; it was already here.

And when Grock’s equipment finally arrived, the world wouldn’t be ready for what Kaela would become.

...

On the third day, the oppressive atmosphere of Kaela’s frustration was punctured by an unexpected intrusion.

Ellie and Clara wandered down to the training yard shortly after breakfast, their presence a stark contrast to the grim, repetitive sounds of Kaela’s training.

They had been drawn by curiosity, the kind of curiosity fueled by the wildfire of palace gossip that had been spreading through the servants’ quarters and noble corridors alike. Everyone was whispering about the sudden, volatile shift in Kaela’s demeanor.

"You’re smiling," Ellie said, her voice cutting through the humid morning air like a bell.

She practically bounced toward the edge of the yard, her eyes wide with delighted surprise as she watched Kaela snap through a devastatingly precise combination of strikes. "You’re actually smiling, properly not that hollow porcelain mask you’ve been wearing since the carriage ride."

Kaela finished her sequence with a sharp exhale, sweat dripping from her chin as she turned to face them. The usual exhaustion in her eyes had been replaced by something brighter, something almost dangerous.

"I found it," Kaela announced, her voice ringing with a pride that bordered on reverence.

She paused mid-stance, a genuine, unguarded grin breaking across her face. "Turns out I’ve been holding a sword wrong my entire life!"

"Not wrong by any textbook definition, but wrong for me! Instructor Wade figured it out."

Clara stepped forward, her sharp eyes scanning Kaela from head to toe as if she were a specimen under a microscope. Already, her fingers were twitching toward the leather-bound journal strapped to her hip.

"Your ’thing’?" Clara asked, her brow furrowing with growing, academic fascination. "Define ’thing’ in the context of your tactical application."

"Fists," Kaela said, holding up both hands with theatrical, almost sacred pride.

She flexed them, watching the tendons shift beneath her skin. "Pure, unstructured, terrifyingly powerful fists."

"Instructor Wade says I’m apparently a natural that there’s a raw force in my strike pattern that a blade would only serve to muffle."

The sound of Clara’s quill scratching against parchment was immediate and relentless. She had already flipped to a fresh page, her pen moving with the speed of someone racing against a fleeting revelation.

"This represents a significant evolutionary leap in your combat methodology," Clara muttered, her eyes darting between Kaela’s hands and her notes. "A complete departure from traditional aristocratic fencing."

"I’ll need to document the full transition properly, analyzing the physiological implications."

"What exactly prompted the initial discovery?"

"Was there a specific triggering technique, a moment of kinetic overload, or did it emerge organically through repeated "

"Clara, for the love of whatever gods you study, I punched a target really hard, and it felt right," Kaela interrupted, breaking into a genuine laugh that shook her shoulders. "That’s the whole scientific process."

"Impact, satisfaction, repeat."

"That is a woefully inadequate methodology description, Kaela."

"It lacks rigor, data points, and proper causal analysis," Clara countered without looking up, though there was no real bite to her critique.

She continued scribbling furiously, her lips moving as she muttered something under her breath about needing to create a dedicated Chapter in her journal, something she had already begun mentally cataloging as

"The Aurelius Combat Transition: Phase One."

Ellie, meanwhile, seemed less interested in the mechanics and more captivated by the sheer energy radiating off her friend. She watched Kaela resume her drills, noting how each strike now carried a different kind of intent—less about technique, more about unleashed potential.

"I haven’t seen you so excited about anything since we found out about the whole harem situation," Ellie teased, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

Kaela’s grin faltered for a split second as a memory of past chaos flashed through her mind. "Please, I beg of you..."

"Do not remind me of that reveal," she groaned, though the amusement remained. "I am still recovering from that level of emotional whiplash."

"My brain still hasn’t fully processed the implications."

"You deserved every bit of that emotional whiplash, honestly," Clara said flatly, still buried in her notes, her pen never pausing its frantic dance across the page.

"I really did," Kaela admitted, letting out another laugh that echoed across the yard. "I really, really did."